In time of war - Pierce O'Donnell

A forgotten episode of World War II, the Supreme Court case it sparked, and the precedent it set for the Bush Administration's Secret Military Tribunals in Guantanamo Bay. Author reputation: Pierce O'Donnell has been selected by the National Law Journal as one of the "100 Most Influential Lawyers in America." He has attended the Guantanamo, Hamdi, and Padilla hearings and will be a "go to" authority in 2005 when the Guantanamo Bay military trials of the first group of six persons and the Hamdi and Padilla public trials take place. Contemporary relevance: last chapter devoted to discussing Supreme Court's decisions in Guantanamo and Hamdi/Padilla cases; these cases use the Supreme Court case about the German terrorists (ex parte Quirin) as a precendent for the Imprisonment of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters at the Guantanamo Naval base in Cuba 60 years later. The amazing story of eight German terrorists dropped off by two submarines on the shores of Long Island and Florida in 1944. Their mission was to blow up major railroad hubs, aluminum plants, and, if they had time, Macy's.;As we move toward trials challenging the legitimacy of the Bush administration's use of detentions in Guantanamo and elsewhere, Roosevelt's response to the captured Germans - military tribunals, a secret trial, and hasty executions -- offers a cautionary tale of the danger of unchecked executive power in a time of crisis. The best kind of historical non-fiction: a rollicking narrative driven by the personality of the central character: the brilliant trial attorney Kenneth Royall, designated to represent the Germans, who took on the President of the United States and the Supreme Court.