Book contents
4 - Cover-Up
from Part I - Enemies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2023
Summary
The US Supreme Court had the power to overturn FDR’s internment order, but two main factors prevented it. Justice Felix Frankfurter worked hard to persuade his colleagues to keep the policy in place. Simultaneously, Frankfurter’s close friend, Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy, the most prominent official advocating internment, engaged in a cover-up. He collaborated with officials inside the War Department to suppress information and falsify records crucial to the Hirabayashi case. If the Court had known that the evidence of Japanese-American sabotage had been doctored, the Court might have struck the President’s order down. Chapter 4 unpacks the cover-up and shows how a small group of officials actively undermined the majority’s will.
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- This Is Not Who We AreAmerica’s Struggle Between Vengeance and Virtue, pp. 65 - 74Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023