MEMORANDUM TO MR. JUSTICE JACKSON

Subject: Report on the Drafting Subcommittee meeting on the morning of Friday, July 20, 1945.

1. This morning the Drafting Subcommittee got over the whole redraft of the agreement and of the charter and adjourned sine die(1) to await the further developments in meetings of the heads of delegations on article 6 and article 15 of the charter.

2. As I told you in my report of yesterday, the worst difficulty yesterday arose from the complete refusal of Professor Trainin to budge on the question of empowering the Tribunal to appoint special masters or examiners. I told you orally of the debate on that point.

3. The other sticking point which developed with great sharpness today was in connection with our effort to redraft article 22. Barnes, Clyde, and I had redrafted it, in accordance with our understanding of what happened at the plenary session, to read as follows:

"The administrative seat and secretariat of the Tribunal shall be at Berlin. The first trial before the Tribunal shall be held at Nuremberg and any subsequent trial shall be held at such place as the Tribunal shall decide."

4. Professor Trainin would not agree to that. We tried "headquarters", "Central Office", and various other formulae for the site at Berlin, but to no avail. He insisted on amending article 22 of the agreement so as to make it read that "There shall be established in Berlin an International Military Tribunal", etcetera. It became quite obvious in the discussion that he had it in mind that the Tribunal would be "permanently located" in Berlin, that its "archives" would be there, that preparations for trials would take place there, and, apparently, that the prisoners would be there.

Respectfully,

SIDNEY S. ALDERMAN

(1) A legal term meaning "Without day, without assigning a day for a further meeting or hearing". (Footnote added by the Avalon Project).Back