Volume 16, Number 10 · June 3, 1971
Criminal Behavior
By Richard Wasserstrom
Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy
by Telford Taylor
Quadrangle, 224 pp., $1.95 (paper)
Since last year many people have been taking more seriously the claim that the precedents of the Nuremberg trials are somehow relevant to what the United States has done and is doing in Vietnam. The shift in thought and attitude is striking. Only a few years ago Dr. Howard Levy was regarded by many people as something of a lunatic for insisting that his defense against the charge of refusing to obey orders was based on Nuremberg. Even today many—perhaps even most—critics of the war reject as misguided the suggestion that the senior military and civilian leaders of the United States are war criminals within the terms and conditions of Nuremberg. But they no longer regard the accusation as absurd or deranged. The relevance of the Nuremberg trials to Vietnam is now at least an open question.
Review, 4120 words
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