Senator Robert Taft, a hairsplitter to his enemies, a Blackstone to his friends, exploded a bomb under his fellow Americans. Before a somewhat startled conference of assorted intellects at Kenyon College last week (see EDUCATION), he denounced the Nürnberg trials:
"They violate that fundamental principle of American law that a man cannot be tried under an ex post facto statute. The hanging of eleven men convicted at Nürnberg will be a blot on the American record that we shall long regret."
Taft, in effect, could see no basic difference between international and civil law. He indicated that little was gained...