THE PRESIDENT: In the event of your not being able to get any satisfactory explanation, the Tribunal will take notice of Dr. Nelte’s objection, or criticism rather, of the document.
It is pointed out to me, too, the fact that the two earlier documents to which you are referring are documents addressed by the Ambassador of France to M. Abetz, the Ambassador of Germany; and it may be, therefore, that there is a similar correspondence in reference to Document Number F-668 (Exhibit Number RF-361) here in the same file, which is the file of which the French Government presumably has copies, or might have copies.
M. DUBOST: It is possible, but that is only a hypothesis which I do not want to formulate before the Tribunal. I prefer to produce the documents.
THE PRESIDENT: I quite follow; you cannot deal with it for the moment. As to the other matter which is raised by Dr. Exner, the Tribunal considers that Document Number 532-PS, which has been submitted under Exhibit Number RF-368, should be struck out of the Record in so far as it is in the Record. If the United States and the French Prosecutors wish the document to be put in evidence at a future date, they may apply to do so. Similarly the defendant’s counsel, Dr. Exner, for instance, if he wishes to make any use of the document, of course he is at liberty to do so.
In reference to the other matters which Dr. Exner raised, it is the wish of the Tribunal to assist defendants’ counsel in any way possible in their work; and they are, therefore, most anxious that the rules which they have laid down as to documents should be strictly complied with, and they think that copies of the original documents certainly should contain anything the original documents themselves contain.
This particular document, Number 532-PS, as a copy, I think I am right in saying, does not contain the marginal note in the script which the original contains. At any rate it is important that copies should contain everything which is on the originals.
Then there is another matter to which I wish to refer. I have already said that it is very important that documents, when they are put in evidence, should not only be numbered as exhibits, but that the exhibit number should be stated at the time; and also even more important, or as important, that the certificate certifying where the document comes from should also be produced for the Tribunal. Every document put in by the United States bore upon it a certificate stating where it had been found or what was its origin, and it is important that that practice should be adopted in every case.
The only other thing I want to say is that it would be very convenient, both to defendants’ counsel and to the Tribunal too, that they should be informed at least the night before of the program which counsel proposes to adopt for the following day. It is true, as was said, that perhaps that has not been absolutely regularly carried out by the Prosecutor on all occasions; but it has been done on quite a number of occasions within my recollection, and it is at any rate the most convenient practice, which the Tribunal desires should be carried out; and they would be glad to know above all what you, M. Dubost, propose to address yourself to tomorrow; and the Tribunal would be very grateful to know how long the French Prosecutors anticipate their case will take. They would like you, before you finish or at the conclusion of your address this afternoon, to indicate to the Tribunal and to the defendants’ counsel, what the program for tomorrow is to be.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If Your Honor please, I wonder if I could say one word in regard to the position as to documents, because I had an opportunity during recess of consulting with my friend Mr. Dodd, and also with my friend M. Dubost. All PS documents form a series of captured documents, whose origin and the process taken subsequent to the article, were verified on 22 November by an affidavit by Major Coogan, which was put in by my friend Colonel Storey. It is the submission of the Prosecution, which, of course, it is delighted to elaborate any time convenient to the Tribunal, that all such documents being captured and verified in that way are admissible. I stress the word admissible, but the weight which the Tribunal will attach to any respective documents is, of course, a matter at which the Tribunal would arrive from the contents of the document and the circumstances under which it came into being. That, I fear, is the only reason I ventured to intervene at the moment, that there might be some confusion between the general verification of the document as a captured document, which is done by Major Coogan’s affidavit, and the individual certificate of translation, that is, of the correctness of the translation of the different documents, which appeared at the end of each individual American document. The fact is that my friend, Mr. Dodd, and I were very anxious that that matter should be before the Tribunal, and we should be only too delighted to give to the Tribunal any further information which it desires.
THE PRESIDENT: Does that affidavit of Major Coogan apply to all the other series of documents put in by the United States?