LETTER TO COURTLANDT CANBY FROM A. W. DULLES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01009A000700970054-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 1, 2013
• Sequence Number: 54
• Publication Date: September 12, 1947
• Content Type: LETTER

Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/11/04: CIA-RDP80M01009A000700970054-8
SULLIVAN & CROMWELL
FILE COPY
CLIENT
MATTER
Courtsanat Canby,
Saturday Review of Literature,
25 West 45th Street,
New York 19, N.Y.
MR
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41
PLEASE NOTE AND
RETURN
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mem
SEE ME
PASS ON
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September 120 1947.
Dear Mr. Canby:
I mentioned to you over the telephone my astonish-
ment at what Franklin Ford had to say in his review of the
Gisevius book in the "Saturday Review" of August 9, 1847.
? These days there is far too much loose character
defamation and to my mind the review falls in this category.
The views which anyone may have as to the literary
or historical value of a book are largely a matter of personal
judgment and here reasonable men might easily differ. I find it,
however, -sbmeithat shocking that this reviewer, to whom the
official recofd of the Nurnberg trial is readily available,
should have taken a quotation from some distant and obscure
newspaper in Baden as evidence of testimony given at the
trial. The reviewer admits it is difficult to reconcile
his quotation with the statements of Mr. Justice Jackson, but
without any apparent attempt to check its accuracy, he pro-
ceeds, largely on the basis of this newspaper fabrication,
to blacken a man's reputation.
I don't know how historians view this, but I
would compare it, as a lawyer, to the procedure of an advocate
who turned to the "Toonerville Trumpet" rather than to the
official reports as evidence of what the Supreme Court might
have decided.
As of possible interest to you I enclose an excerpt
from the official transcript of the Nurnberg Tribunal - cross-
examination of Hans Bernd Gisevius by Mr. JusticeJackson -
which undoubtedly is the passage of the testimony which
the Baden paper purports to misquote. You can judge yourself
how justified-your reviewer's conclusions may have been.
I am not writing this for publication and do not
wish at this time to request that it be published, particularly
as I do not know what action, if any, Gisevius may wish to take.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/11/04: CIA-RDP80M01009A000700970054-8
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/11/04: CIA-RDP80M01009A000700970054-8
'LS
Courtlandt Canby, Esq. -2-
I am writing it to.you, however, so that it will be on record
in your files since it is obvious that I would not have written
the kind of foreword which I wrote for the Gisevius book if
on the basis of almost five years' acquaintance with the
man, I had any reason to believe there was the slightest
inkling of truth to the charge made in this review that
"whatever the outcome of World War III Mr. Gisevius would
have been on hand to congratulate the victors".
Faithfully yours,
A. W. Dulles
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/11/04 : CIA-RDP80M01009A000700970054-8