Welcome Remarks for Last Mission to Tokyo: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raiders and Their Final Fight
October 21, 2020
Greetings from the National Archives. I’m David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to this virtual book talk on Last Mission to Tokyo: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raiders and Their Final Fight, with author Michel Paradis and Jack Goldsmith.
Before we hear from our special guests, I want to tell you about two upcoming online programs that you can view on the National Archives YouTube channel.
On Thursday, October 22, at 1 p.m., we will present a panel discussion on the “100th Anniversary of Women Winning the Vote: Reflections on the 2020 Centennial.” Panelists will include former Senator from Maryland Barbara Mikulski; Kay Coles James, president of the Heritage Foundation; Colleen Shogan, senior vice president of the White House Historical Association; and Susan Combs, former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior. This program is presented in partnership with the Women's Suffrage Centennial Commission and the 2020 Women's Vote Centennial Initiative.
And on Wednesday, October 28, at noon, data scientist Andrew Whitby will speak on his recent book, The Sum of the People: How the Census has Shaped Nations, from the Ancient World to the Modern Age.
I hope you will join us for these programs.
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In 1942, five months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle led 80 young men on a seemingly impossible mission across the Pacific to strike the mainland of Japan. In Last Mission to Tokyo, scholar and lawyer Michel Paradis recounts the dramatic aftermath of the Doolittle mission, which involved two lost crews captured, tried, and tortured at the hands of the Japanese; the dramatic rescue of the survivors in the last weeks of the war; and the international manhunt and the war crimes trial that followed.
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Michel Paradis is a leading scholar and lawyer of international law and human rights. He has won high-profile cases in courts around the globe and worked for over a decade with the U.S. Department of Defense, Military Commissions Defense Organization, where he led many of the landmark court cases to arise out of Guantanamo Bay. He is also a Lecturer at Columbia Law School, where he teaches on the military, the constitution, and the law of war. He has appeared on or written for NPR, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
Joining Michel Paradis is Jack Goldsmith, the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and co-founder of Lawfare. He teaches and writes about national security law, Presidential power, cybersecurity, international law, internet law, foreign relations law, and conflict of laws.
Now let’s hear from Michel Paradis and Jack Goldsmith. Thank you for joining us today.