James H. Rowe, Jr.

Wartime assistant attorney general, Washington lawyer and presidential advisor. As the second-in-command at the Justice Department, James H. Rowe, Jr. (1909–84) was one of the most outspoken opponents of the mass removal and incarceration policy as it developed. Close to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from having been one of his administrative assistants before the war, he regretted never speaking directly to the President about the decision. A lawyer in private practice after the war, he remained an influential—but largely behind the scenes—figure in Democratic Party politics through the 1960s and was particularly close to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Rowe was born in Butte, Montana on June 1, 1909 and was a graduate of Harvard (1931) and Harvard Law School (1934), becoming a secretary to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes upon graduation. Starting in 1935, he became an attorney for a string of federal agencies, culminating with a post at the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1937. Early in 1938, he became as assistant to Jimmy Roosevelt, the President's secretary, then became one of three administrative assistants to the President a year later when Jimmy left. Not even thirty years old when he started, he handled political appointments and Congressional relations, worked with regulatory agencies, and summarized reports for the President; "… the President once described my duties as that of a bird dog, which was to do, in effect, whatever he told me to do…," he told a later oral history interviewer. ^[1] In November 1941, he left the White House to become an assistant to the newly appointed Attorney General Francis Biddle . ^[2]

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Rowe was thrust into the middle of the debate between the War Department and army on the one hand and the Justice Department on the other over the fate of Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast. In early January, he was dispatched to San Francisco to work with General John L. DeWitt , head of the Western Defense Command , who at that time favored designating limited areas around militarily sensitive area from which everyone could be excluded, even as he expressed his distrust of Nisei . By the end of January, however, Rowe and Justice Department colleague Edward Ennis became alarmed by DeWitt's movement towards favoring a mass expulsion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast, and drafted a statement opposing the removal of Japanese American citizens to be issued jointly by the War and Justice Departments, an idea presented at a February 1 meeting in Biddle's office. At that meeting, Rowe clashed with Karl Bendetsen , an army lawyer, whom he saw as having influenced DeWitt's evolution in thinking about the removal of citizens, and who as a very young and ambitious lawyer with opposing political views, was in many ways Rowe's counterpart on the other side. Things went downhill from there. No agreement was reached at the February 1 meeting, and over the course of the next two weeks, the army/War Department faction outflanked the Justice Department in obtaining the President's approval for the expulsion of Japanese American citizens as well as Biddle's acceptance. At a February 17 meeting, Rowe and Ennis learned that what would become Executive Order 9066 was a done deal. "I was so mad that I could not speak at all myself and the meeting soon broke up." ^[3] Rowe was ironically tasked with preparing Executive Order 9066 for the President to sign. ^[4]

Rowe left the Justice Department to join the U.S. Navy in 1943. Still in his early 30s, he ended up serving two years as a combat intelligence officer in the Pacific and won eight battle stars, two presidential citations, and the Navy Commendation Ribbon. After the war, he became an advisor to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945, where he was reunited with Biddle, then entered private practice with partner Thomas Corcoran. He was active in Democratic Party electoral politics, advising the presidential campaigns of Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, and managing Hubert Humphrey's in 1960. He was particularly close to Lyndon B. Johnson, and was described by pundit Michael Janeway as "an LBJ friend who would tell Johnson what he didn’t want to hear." ^[5]

In later years, he was among the public officials involved with the decision to expel Japanese Americans who regarded that decision to be a mistake. In a 1971 interview, he regretted not directly lobbying the President, given his access from his years as an administrative assistant. "I'd asked to see him... I could have made sure the President really had the facts on both sides so he could make a well-rounded decision. He didn't get that chance and that was the fault of the Justice Department, and, more particularly, my fault," he said. ^[6] He also testified before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians , advocating a governmental apology.

He died on June 17, 1984.