MY TRIAL AS A WAR CRIMINAL
by Leo Szilard
Another FPS — First Published Story — although first published some lime back (1949, in The University of Chicago law Review) — and once again, by a writer already more than well established in other fields (although very little of his work had been published outside Top Classified circles for some years). *
Dr. Szilard was born In Budapest in 1898. After teaching In England for several years, he came here, to Columbia University, in 1939. Three years later, he went out to the University of Chicago, where, with Dr. Fermi, he developed the first uranium-graphite reactor.
I was just about to lock the door of my hotel room and go to bed when there was a knock on the door and there stood a Russian officer and a young Russian civilian. I had expected something of this sort ever since the President signed the terms of unconditional surrender and the Russians landed a token occupation force in New York. The officer handed me something that looked like a warrant and said that I was under arrest as a war criminal on the basis of my activities during the Second World War in connection with the atomic bomb. There was a car waiting outside and they told me that they were going to take me to the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. Apparently, they were rounding up all the scientists who had ever worked in the field of atomic energy.
Once we were in the car the young man introduced himself and told me that he was a physicist as well as a member of the Moscow Chapter of the Communist Party. I had never heard his name before and I was never able to remember it thereafter. He was obviously very eager to talk. He told me that he and the other Russian scientists were all exceedingly sorry that the strain of the virus which had been used had killed such a disproportionately large number of children. It was very fortunate, he said, that the first attack was limited to New Jersey and that the early cessation of hostilities made attacks of larger scope unnecessary. According to plan — so he said — stocks of this virus were merely held in reserve for an emergency. Another virus differing by five further mutational steps had been in the stage of pilot plant production, and it was this improved virus which was meant to be used in case of war. It would not affect children at all and would kill predominantly men between twenty and forty. Owing to the premature outbreak of the war, however, the Russian government found itself forced to use the stocks which it had on hand.
He said that all the scientists arrested would be given a chance to go to Russia, in which case they need not stand trial as war criminals; but that if I should elect to stand for trial he personally hoped that I would be exonerated and that afterward I would be willing to collaborate with the Russians here in the United States.
He said that the Russians were very anxious to get the support of people other than the American Communists for a stable political regime in the United States which would collaborate with them. Since they now had the support of the Communists anyway, he explained, they would rather bestow their favors on those whose co-operation was not yet assured. “We shall, of course, lean on the Communists for the next few months,” he said, “but, in the long run, dissatisfied elements who are used to conspiracy would not be relied on by us. It is difficult to work with fellows who have no sense of humor,” he added as an afterthought.
He told me that no scientist would be forced to go to Russia and that no one who was innocent need go there for fear of having to stand trial as a war criminal, because, he said, Russia would do everything in her power to make the trials fair and impartial. ‘The outcome of a bona fide trial,” he added somewhat illogically, “is, of course, always something of a tossup.”
He told me that he expected that Russia would, within a fortnight, change her position on the question of world government; that she would come out in favor of it, in principle, and that she would press for immediate strengthening of the United Nations. The tribunal which was being assembled to try war criminals would not be Russian-dominated, he said, but would, rather, be composed of representatives of all nations which were not at war with Russia.
I was surprised to hear him say that he expected Great Britain to delegate the Lord Chief Justice to sit on the tribunal, and, frankly, I did not believe him then, though of course this was technically not impossible, since the coalition Cabinet had declared Britain’s neutrality twenty-four hours before the outbreak of the war. His prediction was confirmed, however, the following morning when the newspapers reported the speech of the British Prime Minister, who had said that Great Britain, having participated in the Nuremberg trials, could not now refuse her participation without being guilty of displaying a double standard of morality. The information which I received from this young man proved to be most valuable to me, because it gave me time to make up my mind as to what line I would want to follow.
As far as going to Russia was concerned, my mind was made up. After having been raised in Hungary, I had lived in Germany and in England before I settled in the United States, and that is as much migration as is good for any man. Moreover, when you are above fifty you are no longer as quick at learning languages. How many years would it take me to get a sufficient command of Russian to be able to turn a phrase and to be slightly malicious without being outright offensive? No, I did not want to go to Russia.
Even less did I want to be put in the position of having favors bestowed upon me by the Russians or of having to refuse point-blank some position of importance which they might wish to offer to me. I did not want to incur the favor of the Russians, but I did not want to antagonize them, either. After devoting some thought to this dilemma, I decided that the best way for me to keep out of trouble was to stick to the truth and thereby to arouse the suspicion of the Russians.
I did not have to wait long for an opportunity to implement this plan of action. The next morning at Brookhaven I was interrogated by a Russian official. In the beginning his attitude was rather benevolent Almost the first question he asked me was why I had not worked in the field of atomic energy prior to the Third World War. When I truthfully said that I had five good and valid reasons and named them one by one, he took them down in shorthand, but the longer I talked the more incredulous he looked. It was obvious that he felt himself unable to believe what I was saying to him. Realizing that my method worked, I answered all his questions as truthfully as I possibly could and then signed the transcript at the end of the interview.
I was called back for further interrogation in the afternoon; this time it was an older Russian scientist, who was known to me by name, but whom I had not previously met. He told me that he had asked to see me because he had read the transcript which I had signed in the morning. He said that the Russian scientists had followed with great interest the articles I had written before the war, and he quoted to me passages from articles entitled “Calling for a Crusade” and “Letter to Stalin” which I had published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947. This pleased me very much. He went on to say, however, that these articles showed an almost incredible degree of naïveté and were models of un-Marxian writing. He acknowledged that they were free from any anti-Russian bias and told me that the Russian scientists had formed the opinion that I had not been working in the field of atomic energy before the Third World War because I had not wanted to make bombs that would be dropped on Russia. He said that he regretted that I had not given this as my reason, that he wanted to give me an opportunity to revise the answers which I had given, and that he was prepared to tear up my signed statement then and there, though by doing so he would be sticking his neck out, since he would be acting against regulations.