## ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Professor of Law at Columbia University, Telford Taylor derives his observations in NUREMBERG AND VIETNAM: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY from his experience as chief counsel for the prosecution, with the rank of brigadier general, at the Nuremberg war-crimes trials. He also served in various official capacities during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.

A quarter-century ago at Nuremberg, the defeated leaders of Nazi Germany were convicted of war crimes by an international tribunal. Speaking for the United States, Robert H. Jackson condemned not only Germany's aggression but also aggression by any other nations, "including those which sit here now in judgment."

Now the wheel may have spun full circle. Fingers of accusation are pointed at America herself and, worse yet, many of the pointing fingers are our own. A disturbing historic parallel is said to exist between Nuremberg and Vietnam.

In his thoughtful new book, Telford Taylor probes the exact nature of this parallel. Drawing on his profound knowledge of international law and his experience as chief U.S. prosecutor at the original Nuremberg trials, General Taylor confronts every reader with such urgent questions as these:

* Can we apply the legal principles established at Nuremberg to America's involvement in Vietnam?

* Is there justice in the charge that American leaders are as guilty of launching a war of aggression in Vietnam as Hitler was when he invaded Poland?

* Is it right to compare what Americans are charged with doing at Son My (My Lai) with what the Germans did at Lidice?

* Are we capable of judging American actions by the same standards we helped to set for the Germans twenty-five years ago? If we did apply these standards, what would our judgment be?

To discuss these questions, General Taylor ranges across the entire history of the "laws of war," showing the antecedents of the Nuremberg trials and why, for the most part, the judgments there were within the scope of international law. And he offers provocative insights into the meaning of the Son My killings as a war crime under the Nuremberg principles, and into the actual level of responsibility for war crimes.

A New York Times Book published
by Quadrangle Books/Chicago

5 Aggressive
War, Vietnam
and the Courts

AT THE TIME of the Nuremberg trials," wrote the late Thurman Arnold, eminent writer, judge and staunch defender of President Johnson's Vietnam policies, "those who write the think columns in our press, such as Walter Lippmann, and independent organizations of intellectuals . . . and liberal professors on our campuses, acclaimed the principle of the outlawing of aggressive war as a great step forward in international law. Today they are bending every effort to prevent the enforcement of the principle that Nuremberg announced to the world. . . . They are encouraging Hanoi to believe that if it will only hang on the United States will abandon its attempt to enforce the Nuremberg principle in Asia." Official voices take up the same theme. "The indelible lesson . . . is that the time to stop aggres-