September 2, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Destroyers for Bases Agreement. Under the terms of the Agreement, the United States gave the British 50 obsolete destroyers in exchange for 99-year leases to territory in Newfoundland and the Caribbean. The territories would be used as United States air and naval bases. Substantial legal obstacles complicated the deal. Attorney General Robert H. Jackson and his colleagues spent much of the summer of 1940 trying to resolve some of these issues. Jackson's Acquisition of Naval and Air Bases in Exchange for Over-Age Destroyers was presented on August 27, 1940.
The London Agreement, signed August 8, 1945, established an International Military Tribunal for the trial of Nazi war criminals. The Charter of the IMT (Nuremberg Charter) was annexed to the London Agreement, and explained the constitution, jurisdiction and functions of the Nuremberg Trial.
Teachers change lives. Mary R. Willard was Robert Jackson's high school English teacher, an important mentor and friend, and an inspirational force in his life.
Cass Sunstein, writing for Bloomberg View, June 1, 2015, stated, "If we had to preserve just one Supreme Court opinion to show some other civilization what American constitutional law is all about, I'd pick Jackson's prose poem in the Barnette Case."
