Weighing Evils

THE DECADE spanning World War II and its aftermath was one of this country's greatest glories and its greatest shames. Americans mobilized first to protect the free world, and then to reconstruct it. But U.S. leaders also actively waged oppression at home--interning thousands of Japanese-American families--and tacitly accepted it abroad--largely ignoring Nazi atrocities and pardoning some of the perpetrators afterwards.

Few figures embody this era's stars and smudges more than John J. McCloy. According to Dunwalke Associate Professor of History Alan J. Brinkley, in a recent article in Harper s, he helped run the War Department during the fighting, formulating crucial legislation "regulating labor, conscription, recruitment, promotion, and procurement, ...and he was closely involved as well with some of the most sensitive diplomatic decisions of the war." From 1949 to 1952, McCloy served as American High Commissioner to Germany, completing the sensitive task of rebuilding the country while securing its position in the Western Alliance.

But while he was assisting the American war effort, he also helped oversee the Japanese internment, he complied with American policy to refuse to bomb the Auschwitz concentration camp and he argued against easing immigration quotas for Jews. When overseeing the restoration of West Germany, he commuted the sentences of several Nazi war criminals, including the notorious Alfred Krupp, who ran his armaments factory with slave labor.

It was the goodwill McCloy fostered between the United States and West Germany that recently inspired Volkswagen to fund a German-American exchange scholarship at the Kennedy School of Government in his name. But it was his hand in the more questionable practices of the period that has provoked Jewish and Asian-American student groups at Harvard to protest the honor and demand a change of name--a stance the Undergraduate Council lately endorsed.

While their protest raises important points, its demands are unreasonable.

The students first confuse the rational practice of condemning certain war-time policies with the extreme one of blacklisting those who them. It is historical biologist that has created the that the was wrong, that should have that the Nazi sentence should not have been command, but at the time hysteria in wartime and fear of afterwards led to a general agreement in the opposite..

It is furthermore unclear to what extent McCloy influenced these policies. As assistant secretary of War, he oversaw the internment program, but no historical evidence credits him with the idea. And Brinkley, in his Harper's article, credits McCloy for whatever shred of humanness the program may have had. The refusal to bomb Auschwitz was again in the hands of higher military personnel, and Roosevelt and Churchill themselves. An American review board initiated the commutation of Nazi sentences; McCloy mainly followed its instructions.

And one cannot ignore that two fervent watchdogs of Jewish causes--Martin Peretz of The New Republic and Lucy Dawidowicz, author of a book on the bombing of Auschwitz--have said in separate interviews with The Crimson that they do not see McCloy as a clear villain.

In response to these arguments, the protest letter from Hillel states that "McCloy served as more than a mere spokesman for the decisions of the Roosevelt administrations. His recommendations and suggested policies carried great weight, and it clearly-fell within his power to protest those policies he felt were improper." Such logic may be true, but if it is used to determine what historical figure merits honor, then few would pass. It would certainly disqualify Roosevelt and Churchill, and Earl Warren, who shaped the internment in California. The founding fathers, who could have banned slavery but instead helped strengthen it, would also fail.

In a complex world where the pursuit of good sometimes means the temporary acceptance of evil, and where the definitions of both shift drastically over time, it is impossible to impose such standards of perfection in dispensing honors. Instead, one must in each case compare an individual's accomplishments with his failings, and determine which side dominates. We agree with the consensus of several historians that McCloy deserves more honor than calumny.

It is furthermore unclear to what extent McCloy influenced these policies. As assistant secretary of War, he oversaw the internment program, but no historical evidence credits him with the idea. And Brinkley, in his Harper's article, credits McCloy for whatever shred of humanness the program may have had. The refusal to bomb Auschwitz was again in the hands of higher military personnel, and Roosevelt and Churchill themselves. An American review board initiated the commutation of Nazi sentences; McCloy mainly followed its instructions.

And one cannot ignore that two fervent watchdogs of Jewish causes--Martin Peretz of The New Republic and Lucy Dawidowicz, author of a book on the bombing of Auschwitz--have said in separate interviews with The Crimson that they do not see McCloy as a clear villain.

In response to these arguments, the protest letter from Hillel states that "McCloy served as more than a mere spokesman for the decisions of the Roosevelt administrations. His recommendations and suggested policies carried great weight, and it clearly-fell within his power to protest those policies he felt were improper." Such logic may be true, but if it is used to determine what historical figure merits honor, then few would pass. It would certainly disqualify Roosevelt and Churchill, and Earl Warren, who shaped the internment in California. The founding fathers, who could have banned slavery but instead helped strengthen it, would also fail.

In a complex world where the pursuit of good sometimes means the temporary acceptance of evil, and where the definitions of both shift drastically over time, it is impossible to impose such standards of perfection in dispensing honors. Instead, one must in each case compare an individual's accomplishments with his failings, and determine which side dominates. We agree with the consensus of several historians that McCloy deserves more honor than calumny.