Francis Beverley Biddle (May 9, 1886 – October 4, 1968) was an American lawyer and judge who was the United States Attorney General during World War II.
Born~Died May 19, 1886 ~ Oct 4, 1968Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 3:56 PM
This page is based on “Francis Biddle” from English Wikipedia, (r1368609529) CC BY-SA 4.0 used under the license. The original authors are listed in its page history.
In the 1930s, Biddle was appointed to a number of important governmental roles. In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated him to become Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. On February 9, 1939, Roosevelt nominated Biddle to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, to a seat vacated by Joseph Buffington. The United States Senate confirmed Biddle on February 28, 1939, and he received his commission on March 4, 1939. He served only one year in the role before resigning on January 22, 1940, to become the United States Solicitor General.1 This also turned out to be a short-lived position when Roosevelt nominated him to the position of Attorney General of the United States in 1941. During this time he also served as chief counsel to the Special Congressional Committee to Investigate the Tennessee Valley Authority from 1938 to 1939.
In 1942, Biddle became involved in a case in which a military tribunal appointed by Roosevelt tried eight captured Nazi agents for espionage and for planning sabotage in the United States as part of the German Operation Pastorius. Lieutenant ColonelKenneth Royall challenged Roosevelt's decision to prosecute the Germans in military tribunals by citing Ex parte Milligan (1866), a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not establish military tribunals to try civilians in areas that civilian courts were functioning, even during wartime. Biddle responded that the Germans were not entitled to have access to civilian courts because of their status as unlawful combatants. The US Supreme Court upheld that decision in Ex parte Quirin (1942) by ruling that the military commission that was set up to try the Germans was lawful. On August 3, 1942, all eight were found guilty and sentenced to death. Five days later, six of the eight were executed in the electric chair on the third floor of the District of Columbia jail. The other two were given prison terms since they had willingly turned their comrades over to the FBI. In 1948, both men were released from prison and returned to Germany.8
In 1943, after the internment had already taken place, he asked Roosevelt for the camps to be closed: "The present practice of keeping loyal American citizens in concentration camps for longer than is necessary is dangerous and repugnant to the principles of our government."11 Roosevelt resisted, however, and the camps would not be closed for another year. In a postwar memoir, Biddle wrote that "American citizens of Japanese origin were not even handled like aliens of the other enemy nationalities—Germans and Italians—on a selective basis, but as untouchables, a group who could not be trusted and had to be shut up only because they were of Japanese descent."12
At President Harry S. Truman's request, Biddle resigned after Roosevelt's death. Shortly afterward, Truman appointed Biddle as a judge at the Nuremberg trials. Tom C. Clark, Biddle's successor, told the story that Biddle was the first government official whose resignation Truman sought and that it was quite a difficult task. Biddle was amused by Truman's stammering, but after it was over, he threw his arm around the President and said, "See, Harry, now that wasn't so hard."
In 1950, he was named as chairman of the Americans for Democratic Action, a position that he held for three years.1 One decade later, he wrote two volumes of memoirs: A Casual Past in 1961 and In Brief Authority in 1962. His final position came as chairman of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Commission from which he resigned in 1965.
Biddle's writing skills had long been in evidence prior to the release of his memoirs. In 1927, he wrote a novel about Philadelphia society, The Llanfear Pattern. In 1942, he wrote of his close association with Oliver Wendell Holmes 30 years earlier with a biography of the jurist, Mr. Justice Holmes, which was adapted into a 1946 Broadway play and a 1950 film entitled The Magnificent Yankee. Democratic Thinking and the War was published in 1944. His 1949 book, The World's Best Hope, looked at the role of the United States in the post-war era. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963.18
In popular culture
Biddle was portrayed by Len Cariou in the 2000 miniseries Nuremberg. Biddle was also the subject of the 2004 play Trying by Joanna McClelland Glass, who had served as Biddle's personal secretary from 1967 to 1968.1920
Further reading
Fisher, Adrian S. "Francis Biddle." Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 9 (1974): 423+ .
Helfman, Tara. "Francis Biddle and the Nuremberg Legacy: Waking the human conscience." The Journal Jurisprudence 15 (2012): 353+. online
Pahl, Thomas L. "The Dilemma of a Civil Libertarian: Francis Biddle and the Smith Act." Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science 34.2 (1967): 161–164. pnline
"Erschießen oder erhängen?" [Shoot them or hang them?]. Der Spiegel (in German). Vol. 15/1998. April 6, 1998. Retrieved February 23, 2019. Am Ende begnadigte Roosevelt Dasch zu 30 Jahren, Burger zu lebenslanger Haft. Nachfolger Harry S. Truman ließ beide 1948 nach Deutschland abschieben. [In the end Roosevelt commuted Dasch's sentence to 30 years imprisonment and Burger's to life-long imprisonment. His successor Harry S. Truman had both of them deported to Germany.] ↩
Neiwert, David (2005). Strawberry Days. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 124. ISBN 978-1403967923. ↩
Neiwert, David (2005). Strawberry Days. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 195. ISBN 978-1403967923. ↩
Weglyn, Michi Nishiura (1976). Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps. New York: William Morrow & Company. p. 68. ISBN 978-0688079963. ↩
Blackmon, Doublas A. (2008). Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Anchor Books. pp. 377–379. ISBN 9780385722704. ↩
In the 1930s, Biddle was appointed to a number of important governmental roles. In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated him to become Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. On February 9, 1939, Roosevelt nominated Biddle to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, to a seat vacated by Joseph Buffington. The United States Senate confirmed Biddle on February 28, 1939, and he received his commission on March 4, 1939. He served only one year in the role before resigning on January 22, 1940, to become the United States Solicitor General.1 This also turned out to be a short-lived position when Roosevelt nominated him to the position of Attorney General of the United States in 1941. During this time he also served as chief counsel to the Special Congressional Committee to Investigate the Tennessee Valley Authority from 1938 to 1939.
In 1942, Biddle became involved in a case in which a military tribunal appointed by Roosevelt tried eight captured Nazi agents for espionage and for planning sabotage in the United States as part of the German Operation Pastorius. Lieutenant ColonelKenneth Royall challenged Roosevelt's decision to prosecute the Germans in military tribunals by citing Ex parte Milligan (1866), a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not establish military tribunals to try civilians in areas that civilian courts were functioning, even during wartime. Biddle responded that the Germans were not entitled to have access to civilian courts because of their status as unlawful combatants. The US Supreme Court upheld that decision in Ex parte Quirin (1942) by ruling that the military commission that was set up to try the Germans was lawful. On August 3, 1942, all eight were found guilty and sentenced to death. Five days later, six of the eight were executed in the electric chair on the third floor of the District of Columbia jail. The other two were given prison terms since they had willingly turned their comrades over to the FBI. In 1948, both men were released from prison and returned to Germany.8
In 1943, after the internment had already taken place, he asked Roosevelt for the camps to be closed: "The present practice of keeping loyal American citizens in concentration camps for longer than is necessary is dangerous and repugnant to the principles of our government."11 Roosevelt resisted, however, and the camps would not be closed for another year. In a postwar memoir, Biddle wrote that "American citizens of Japanese origin were not even handled like aliens of the other enemy nationalities—Germans and Italians—on a selective basis, but as untouchables, a group who could not be trusted and had to be shut up only because they were of Japanese descent."12
At President Harry S. Truman's request, Biddle resigned after Roosevelt's death. Shortly afterward, Truman appointed Biddle as a judge at the Nuremberg trials. Tom C. Clark, Biddle's successor, told the story that Biddle was the first government official whose resignation Truman sought and that it was quite a difficult task. Biddle was amused by Truman's stammering, but after it was over, he threw his arm around the President and said, "See, Harry, now that wasn't so hard."
In 1950, he was named as chairman of the Americans for Democratic Action, a position that he held for three years.1 One decade later, he wrote two volumes of memoirs: A Casual Past in 1961 and In Brief Authority in 1962. His final position came as chairman of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Commission from which he resigned in 1965.
Biddle's writing skills had long been in evidence prior to the release of his memoirs. In 1927, he wrote a novel about Philadelphia society, The Llanfear Pattern. In 1942, he wrote of his close association with Oliver Wendell Holmes 30 years earlier with a biography of the jurist, Mr. Justice Holmes, which was adapted into a 1946 Broadway play and a 1950 film entitled The Magnificent Yankee. Democratic Thinking and the War was published in 1944. His 1949 book, The World's Best Hope, looked at the role of the United States in the post-war era. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963.18
In popular culture
Biddle was portrayed by Len Cariou in the 2000 miniseries Nuremberg. Biddle was also the subject of the 2004 play Trying by Joanna McClelland Glass, who had served as Biddle's personal secretary from 1967 to 1968.1920
Further reading
Fisher, Adrian S. "Francis Biddle." Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 9 (1974): 423+ .
Helfman, Tara. "Francis Biddle and the Nuremberg Legacy: Waking the human conscience." The Journal Jurisprudence 15 (2012): 353+. online
Pahl, Thomas L. "The Dilemma of a Civil Libertarian: Francis Biddle and the Smith Act." Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science 34.2 (1967): 161–164. pnline
"Erschießen oder erhängen?" [Shoot them or hang them?]. Der Spiegel (in German). Vol. 15/1998. April 6, 1998. Retrieved February 23, 2019. Am Ende begnadigte Roosevelt Dasch zu 30 Jahren, Burger zu lebenslanger Haft. Nachfolger Harry S. Truman ließ beide 1948 nach Deutschland abschieben. [In the end Roosevelt commuted Dasch's sentence to 30 years imprisonment and Burger's to life-long imprisonment. His successor Harry S. Truman had both of them deported to Germany.] ↩
Neiwert, David (2005). Strawberry Days. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 124. ISBN 978-1403967923. ↩
Neiwert, David (2005). Strawberry Days. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 195. ISBN 978-1403967923. ↩
Weglyn, Michi Nishiura (1976). Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps. New York: William Morrow & Company. p. 68. ISBN 978-0688079963. ↩
Blackmon, Doublas A. (2008). Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Anchor Books. pp. 377–379. ISBN 9780385722704. ↩