Kenneth Claiborne Royall

Kenneth Claiborne Royall

Kenneth Claiborne Royall (born July 24, 1894 in Goldsboro, North Carolina , † May 25, 1971 in Durham , North Carolina) was a United States Army general and the last person who held the office of Secretary of War . This office was abolished in 1947. Royall was the first Secretary of the Army (a successor) between 1947 and 1949.

Career

Kenneth Claiborne Royall his doctorate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard Law School before the First World War served. He then practiced as a lawyer and was elected for the Democrats in the North Carolina Senate . With the beginning of the Second World War he became a colonel in the US Army.

According to a 2006 newspaper column by Jack Betts : “When eight Nazis landed in Long Island in 1942 with the aim of serious assault , they were soon captured and put to an orderly trial in a secret military tribunal. President Roosevelt appointed Royall to protect them, but this was no president's folly. He wished that the Nazis should be executed, the sooner the better. Royall's orders were to stay away from civil courts. Royall wrote to Roosevelt that he did not think the president had authority to convene a secret court for his clients and asked the president if he would not change his orders. Roosevelt refused - whereupon Royall appealed to the US District Court because secret tribunals were unconstitutional. "

The court dismissed that objection and Royall and other lawyers tried the United States Supreme Court in his office . In July 1942, the Supreme Court issued a brief denunciation of Royall's arguments and supported the President's right to appoint a secret tribunal. However, in the civil court, Royall succeeded in upholding the constitutionality of the tribunals, despite the President's preference. The Supreme Court issued a full statement in October stating that "rule of law safeguards for the protection of anyone charged with the attack are being disregarded." By then, six of Royall's clients were dead. They were tried and executed by a short-term tribunal in August 1942, days after the Supreme Court judgment was published. Two were sent to prison. Royall later said he believed that his defense of the Nazis was the most important job he did in a long and lofty career. He was promoted to brigadier general. President Truman appointed him Minister of War in 1947. He later became Secretary of the Army. In December 1949, Royall became a partner in the well-known New York law firm Dwight, Harris, Koegel and Caskey and became its director in 1958. This firm was later renamed Rogers & Wells , then Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells after its merger with the UK law firm Clifford Chance . Royall died in Durham in 1971 .

His son, Kenneth C. Royall, Jr. served in the House of Representatives from 1967 to 1972 and then served in the North Carolina Senate from 1973 to 1992 .

Web links

• Charlotte Observer: Royall was also willing to stand for rule of law
• Official Army biography and portrait
• History News Network article on Nazi saboteur case
• Kenneth Claiborne Royall in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)
• Newspaper article about Kenneth Claiborne Royall in the press kit 20th Century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .