Brief Biographies of Major Players

Baldwin, Roger (1884-1981)
    Founder and director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Did not vigorously defend the rights of Japanese Americans during World War II. It is thought that his ties to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other government officials made him reluctant to oppose their policies. Would not support the draft resisters in their protest against being drafted out of the camps. Also did not support Wayne Collins in his efforts to regain citizenship for renunciants.

Barnett, Arthur (1907-2003)
    Quaker lawyer in Seattle who represented Gordon Hirabayashi in 1942 when Hirabayashi challenged the internment order and defied curfew.

Bendetsen, Karl (1907-1989)
    Called himself the chief architect of the internment program on the West Coast during WW II but later insisted that he was only following orders. He was appointed to his position by General John DeWitt, Commander of the West Coast Defense Command. From Washington State, Bendetsen was a Stanford-trained lawyer. He described his role in this way: he “conceived method, formulated details and directed evacuation of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from military areas.” He never publicly expressed regrets about the incarceration.

Besig, Ernest (1904-1998)
    Head of the Northern California ACLU in 1942, Besig looked for a test case to challenge the government’s forced incarceration of Japanese Americans. He found Fred Korematsu in jail for not reporting to the authorities when the roundup of Japanese Americans took place. The case was fought in the Supreme Court, which ruled in 1944 that the government was justified in what it did mainly on the grounds of military necessity. Besig visited Tule Lake Segregation Center and investigated the situation of the prisoners being held in the stockade.

Biddle, Francis Beverley (1886-1968)
    U.S. Attorney General at the outbreak of WW II. Biddle had his misgivings about Executive Order 9066, which allowed for the selective round up and incarceration of Japanese Americans, but did not protest when the program was put in place. He later wrote in his memoirs that he regretted his acquiescence and considered the whole program ill advised.

Collins, Wayne M. (1900-1974)
    A civil rights lawyer and ACLU stalwart, Collins worked on many internment related cases and “…did more to correct a Democracy’s mistake than any other one person” (Michi Weglyn, Years of Infamy). He represented Fred Korematsu in the case challenging the evacuation and internment orders. He also worked to restore citizenship to the 6000 renunciants and helped Peruvian Japanese who had been kidnapped and held by the U.S. government in camps. He also represented Iva Toguri D’Aquino in the “Tokyo Rose” case.

DeWitt, General John L. (1890-1964)
    Head of the Western Defense Command, he was the military official in charge of the evacuation and internment of Japanese Americans. DeWitt’s use of loaded phrases such as “A Jap is a Jap” indicated his lack of sympathy for the Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast.

Endo, Mitsuye (1920- )
    Mitsuye Endo’s decision to be a test case involving habeas corpus before American courts led to the unanimous Supreme Court decision which ruled on Dec. 18, 1944, that she could no longer be held in a concentration camp, thus opening the camps for a return of the inmates to their West Coast homes.

Fahy, Charles (1892-1979)
    Solicitor General of the U.S. at the time that the Korematsu case was argued before the Supreme Court in 1944. He argued successfully that military necessity was the reason Japanese Americans, including Fred Korematsu, were taken away from the West Coast and held in camps for the duration.

Gullion, Alan (1880-1946)
    Provost Marshal General Gullion was the Army’s chief law enforcement officer. He argued forcefully and successfully for the evacuation and internment of Japanese Americans at the start of WW II. He recruited Karl Bendetsen to his staff, and Bendetsen carried out Gullion’s plans.

Hirabayashi, Gordon (1918- )
    As a student at the University of Washington in 1941, Hirabayashi decided to challenge the government exclusion order and went to the local FBI office with a protest statement. His case went to the Supreme Court in 1943, which declared that he was guilty of violating curfew orders. This verdict was vacated in 1983 when the case was reopened.

Hoover, J. Edgar (1895-1972)
    Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Hoover conducted pre-WW II intelligence operations of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast and in Hawaii. On December 7, 1941, after Pearl Harbor was attacked, the FBI rounded up 1,291 Japanese Americans who were on an “A” list of possibly dangerous individuals. Hoover maintained that his organization had firm control of possible subversion and saw no need to intern the entire population of Japanese Americans.

Korematsu, Fred (1919- )
    Korematsu’s name became famous when his case challenging the wartime internment of Japanese Americans came before the Supreme Court in 1944. The Court supported the government’s actions in imprisoning a whole population of Americans solely on the basis of their ethnic background. Korematsu’s case was vacated in 1983 in California courts, an unprecedented event in the judicial history of the United States.

Masaoka, Mike Masaru (1915-1991)
    Executive secretary of the JACL during the war years, Masaoka was the most influential person in the organization, acting as a lobbyist for the JACL in Washington D.C. during and after the war. A controversial figure, he still remains a revered figure for some, though his super patriot stance was not admired by others within the Japanese American community.

McCloy, John J. (1895-1989)
    McCloy was assistant secretary of war under Secretary of War Henry Stimson during WW II. An influential Wall Street lawyer, he was instrumental in forming policies that resulted in the Internment and the running of the camps. Throughout his long and active life he held firm to his belief that the incarceration of Japanese Americans was the right thing to do under the circumstances.

Myer, Dillon (1891-1982)
    Myer took over the job of running the War Relocation Authority, the agency created to run the concentration camps, from Milton Eisenhower, who had held that post for the first 3 months in 1942. Coming from the agriculture department, Myer was a bureaucrat who did this government job by the rules. He was commended by the JACL in 1946 for being a decent and humane administrator, but his record with dissidents and protesters shows that he was intolerant of dissenters. Opposed redress for Japanese Americans.

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945)
    31st president of the United States, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which put into motion the policy to round up and incarcerate all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. According to the records, he never displayed much concern about the fate of these 120,000 persons during the war, and it is believed that the decision to allow them to return to the West Coast was delayed beyond the presidential election in 1944 to forestall any political repercussions.

Stimson, Henry (1867-1950)
    Secretary of War during WW II. His support of the incarceration was decisive in persuading Pres. Roosevelt to go ahead with the policy. 73 years old at the time, he was greatly respected for his government service and his connections.

Warren, Earl (1891-1974)
    Warren played a crucial role in support of Internment while running for attorney general of California at the start of WW II. He said in 1942 “It seems to me that it is quite significant that in this great state of ours we have had no fifth column activities and no sabotage reported. It looks very much to me as though it is a studied effort not to have any until the zero hour arrives.” He later expressed regrets about his role in the incarceration.

Yasui, Minoru (1916-1986)
    In Yasui vs. United States, Yasui was one of four Japanese Americans who challenged the incarceration of Japanese Americans. On June 21, 1943, Yasui was convicted by the Supreme Court of violating curfew orders issued by the government in 1942 requiring all persons of Japanese ancestry to be indoors between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. Yasui served nine months in prison. Yasui’s case was reopened in the 1980s along with the Hirabayashi and Korematsu cases (the coram nobis cases) and all were vacated.