“This is Armistice Day–and I suppose a holiday at home. The first peace-time Armistice day in a long time. Here it is another day–another mark on the calendar.” [p. 192, 11/11/1945] Tom Dodd spent the holiday working in an effort to “hasten these proceedings along” rather than sitting out in the cold watching two service teams play football. [p.192] The middle weeks of November saw regular clashes between General Donovan and Robert Jackson regarding the best way to present and try the case–Donovan preferring to emphasize witnesses and Jackson documents. Dodd felt caught in the middle. He liked both men and understood

Portion of a letter, November 11, 1945

their individual perspectives while trying to stay out of the fray. As the week wound down, he reflected, “Really Grace, the evolution of my participation has been a most amazing thing to me. I suppose I have had as much to do with this case as anyone here when one considers that I have questioned and talked with the defendants and witnesses, was a member of the four-man Board of Review supervising the preparation for the trial, am a member of the trial staff, and now a member of the senior trial staff. Well maybe there is a pattern to it all–there must be some purpose.” [pp. 193-194, 11/13/1945] The real beginning of the trial loomed and the purpose had yet to be determined.

Portion of a letter, November 13, 1945

–Owen Doremus and Betsy Pittman

[Owen Doremus, a junior at Edwin O. Smith High School, is supporting this blog series with research and writing as part of an independent study.]

The majority of the letters from Tom Dodd to his wife Grace have been published and can be found in Letters from Nuremberg, My father’s narrative of a quest for justice. Senator Christopher J. Dodd with Lary Bloom. New York: Crown Publishing, 2007.

Images available in Thomas J. Dodd Papers.