I'm John Dashwood, Professor Gary Bass. His new book is Judgment at Tokyo, World War II on trial and the making of modern Asia.

We come to an international war crimes tribunal.

The Class A suspects are chosen on the basis of different measurements of what was an aggressive war, action of

aggressive war, what signed on to aggressive war. And this aggressive war is in addition to

committing conventional war crimes and in addition to committing crimes against humanity. Class

A, they come up with a list of 28.

Two are fall ill or mentally ill and are not there.

So they're in this vast courtroom, which is the former imperial,

military headquarters, the Army headquarters.

And the stage is set with Kleege lights. There are photographs you can understand how vastly the canvas is, but the choosing of the judges is all determinative. And Professor, I've made a list of these judges. Some are chosen very wisely and very carefully by their countries, and some are half-hearted.

And that is the case, as I learned from you, for the choice by Harry Truman.

Not only for the judge, but for the chief prosecutor.

Was Harry Truman briefed well on the needs of this trial?

Did he understand choosing cronies was not wisdom? briefed well on the needs of this trial?

Did he understand choosing cronies was not wisdom?

Brumann comes to this crucial decision of who you're, you know, it's one thing to create an institution.

It's another thing to figure out who's actually going to run the thing.

And Truman, as you say, has a kind of crony,

like Missouri machine politician approach to it. So he picks a kind of undistinguished guy from the Justice Department, a buddy of his called Joseph Keenan, who is temperamentally, very badly

suited to the job, who is blustery, kind of

incompetent, noticeably less smart than a lot of the judges.

There's a very, very erudite Chinese judge, a very erudite, Indian judge. And Keenan is just outclassed by them. The British judge

...