Densho Digital Archive
gayle k. yamada Collection
Title: John "Jack" Herzig Interview
Narrator: John "Jack" Herzig
Interviewer: gayle k. yamada
Location: Washington, D.C.
Date: November 11, 2000
Densho ID: denshovh-hjohn-01-0004

JH: Yeah, the most shocking part of our findings were that our own Justice Department, in pleading the Korematsu, Yasui, and Hirabayashi cases, deliberately withheld information from the Supreme Court knowing that they were doing that. And that was done at the direction of the then Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy. So that information just really was the key to so many of the developments that were taking place. The opposite side used to say, "Well, the Supreme Court reviewed the action and they said it was constitutional." Well, that could not be said anymore, and we demonstrated that again when the three coram nobis cases on the West Coast, that of Fred Korematsu, Min Yasui, and Gordon Hirabayashi, were all found in favor of reversing the Supreme Court decisions. And Aiko and I -- mostly Aiko -- was key to finding this information that was very clear that the government deliberately misled the Supreme Court in these cases. So we were very happy to find that; very happy to be able to support the coram nobis cases.