A MERCY CALL AT THE WHITE HOUSE
Loomer, Bernard M.
A Mercy Call at The White House ON June 16, 1953, two other Protestant clergymen, Rev. Bruce Dahlberg of Brooklyn, and Rev. Daniel Ridout of Baltimore, Rabbi Abraham Cronbach of Cincinnati and I...
...The soldiers raised havoc in some of the French villages...
...The soldiers step on the mines and get blown to bits...
...The President replied that he would subscribe to that expression...
...He said that he was aware of the considerations presented but that he had other factors to take into account...
...There was raping and stealing and pillaging and molesting...
...The President linked their activities with the course of the Korean war...
...It got so bad that one day the mayor of one of the villages came to me and said that he was forced to advise his people to arm themselves with knives, pitchforks, and any other weapons they could get their hands on in order to protect themselves from our soldiers...
...his speech more rapid and his words more clipped...
...Well, Doctor, replied the President, I don't for a minute define Communism as a religion or a faith as you do...
...He went on to say that he was aware of the points we had been urging on him...
...Didn't our Lord say: Render unto Caesar the things that are Ceasar's, and unto God the things that are God's...
...After a brief exchange of pleasantries, dealing mostly with golf and fishing, we quickly settled down to the business at hand...
...An acquaintance of mine, on hearing about this story, told a mutual friend that as a member of Gen...
...Ill Mr...
...And for two years, continued the President (and at these words the President's eyes narrowed, his voice roughened, and his mouth tightened), these people have been trying to find a loophole to escape, and (and here the President's voice and expression relaxed) they haven't found one yet...
...They would never have been given this kind of treatment in Russia...
...The rabbi then added that the prayers of the people would support the President as he sought divine guidance in making his decision...
...Let me, the President said, give you an illustration: II After we had landed on the beaches of Normandy, the Fifth battalion ran wild for a time, said the President...
...The only thing that Communists are interested in is the improvement of material conditions...
...At this point I suggested to the President that possibly by means of execution he could not control committed Communists in the same way he could control soldiers under his command...
...I grant that it is a fanaticism, but not a faith...
...I argued, in the first place, that execution of the Rosenbergs would result in their becoming martyrs for the cause of Communism...
...Furthermore, said the President, they have been given the benefit of every legal consideration...
...Eisenhower's headquarters he recalled this incident quite vividly and that the General should remember clearly that the execution had no deterrent effect on the raping...
...The two soldiers were executed...
...America's problem then was to choose that symbol which would best represent to Americans and to the peoples of other nations the kind of society Americans wanted to preserve...
...his voice became more firm...
...Ridout said that he wanted to recall to the President's mind Portia's speech . . He did not get to finish his statement because the President leaned far forward on his desk and said that since he had come in contact with this case he had gotten out his Shakespeare and had been reading The Merchant of Venice...
...The President had granted this audience in response to a telegram requesting an opportunity to present the case for clemency on behalf of more than 2300 clergymen who had supported an earlier petition to the President...
...Rabbi Cronbach said that the President alone would finally have to make the decision...
...I must do what I think is best for one hundred sixty million people in this country...
...During the- telling of this story, the President sat more and more erect in his chair...
...As a matter of fact, added the President, I don't mind telling you gentlemen that I resent being reminded of my Christian obligations...
...We value personnel more highly than material...
...At this juncture and for the first time in our discussion, the President referred to the Rosenbergs...
...Then after the field has been cleared, they send the trucks and tanks through...
...Let me give you another illustration: If I'm in charge of a company of men, said the President, pointing outside to the W^hite House lawn, and we have a truck with us, and if we're subjected to heavy artillery fire, you know that I'm going to do my best to save the men even if it means losing the truck...
...I suggested consequently that the decision to execute the Rosenbergs was the wrong or ineffective way to combat Communism...
...He indicated that these other factors included the principle of the deterrent effects of execution...
...It would testify to America's inability to withstand tension and pressure...
...I suggested that the symbol of execution would not indicate America's strength but rather her weakness: our fears, anxieties, hysteria, and defensiveness...
...He said he wanted to assure us he considered himself as religious as anyone in the room...
...These people, said the President flatly, did what they did for money...
...The purpose of our call was to present a plea for clemency for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, whose execution for espionage was scheduled for July...
...What follows is a report of our discussion...
...I was not interrupted at any point...
...But they are not concerned about the immortal soul of the individual...
...The Russians just march an army right through the mined battlefield...
...The President, rocking back and forth on his swivel chair, listened with apparent intentness to my statement, which probably took about seven minutes...
...I indicated that we favored a commutation of their sentence to life imprisonment, or something less...
...Who knows, he asked, how many hundreds and thousands of deaths and casualties they are responsible for...
...A martyr's death is the most meaningful way to die, from the point of view either of the martyr or the cause he represents...
...I concluded by stating that both practical political wisdom and spiritual wisdom converged in this case in favor of clemency...
...You may not realize, replied the President, that if I were to commute their sentence to one of life imprisonment, under federal law they would be eligible for parole in fifteen years...
...Their case has been reviewed several times by the Supreme Court...
...By Bernard M. Loomer I had and still have grave doubts with respect to the evidence presented at the trial...
...The President then asked what our proposal was...
...One month there were sixty of these incidents...
...I assembled the officers and men in tight military formation...
...So I called together the civic officials and the priests of the countryside...
...Shortly after this, the President went on, two soldiers were indicted, tried, and convicted...
...Daniel Ridout of Baltimore, Rabbi Abraham Cronbach of Cincinnati and I were granted an interview with President Eisenhower...
...Since the group had agreed I was to be spokesman, I opened the discussion...
...The Russians think more of material than they do of people...
...his facial expression became more tense and rigid...
...Before that, he served on the University of Chicago faculty as assistant professor of ethics and associate professor of the philosophy of religions...
...And, gentlemen, continued the President, the next month there was only one occurrence and that was a relatively minor offense...
...I have omitted quotation marks, in accordance with White House tradition, but in most instances the account is close to verbatim...
...I decided to have them publicly executed...
...It would be the act of a politically and spiritually immature people...
...The histories of Judaism and Christianity are relevant cases in point...
...I indicated, in the second place, that this case was a symbolic occasion transcending in meaning and importance the Rosenbergs themselves...
...We rose to our feet, shook hands with the President, and thanked him for granting us an audience...
...The President agreed...
...At the conclusion of my remarks, the President ceased his rocking and leaned forward on his desk...
...They don't deserve our sympathy...
...I decided to make an example of them...
...They don't do what we do when we send out men with instruments to locate the mines and render them harmless...
...We were ushered out of the office into the large reception hall where we were immediately surrounded by a swarm of eager reporters waiting to know what the President was going to do...
...The President greeted us warmly, his fine, open, and justly famous grin much in evidence...
...I offered two considerations in favor of clemency, based on the assumption that the Rosenbergs were guilty as charged (a proposition about which BERNARD M. LOOMER is Dean of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, a post he has held since 1945...
...Don't they call it a material dialectic or something like that...
...But how do you think the Russians clear a battlefield that is mined...
...I urged the consideration that the act of forgiveness would be a stronger symbol of our strength and resources precisely at a time of great crisis like this...
...It got so bad that something had to be done...
...It got to be pretty bad...
...The Communists may actually have preferred to have the Rosenbergs executed...
Vol. 17 • September 1953 • No. 9
