Exactly 70 years ago, the United States grappled with a humanitarian dilemma. On Aug. 9, 1944, A. Leon Kubowitzki of the World Jewish Congress wrote to Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, quoting a Czech official's opinion that the "destruction of gas chambers and crematoria in Oswiecim [Auschwitz] by bombing would have a certain effect now." On Aug. 14, McCloy rejected the request, noting that it would require "the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations elsewhere," a defensible argument. But then McCloy added that such bombing "might provoke even more vindictive action by the Germans." That is, bombing an extermination camp might make the operators of the crematoria really cross.
Read the rest of George Will's column here.
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