21 Facts About Francis Biddle

Francis Beverley Biddle was an American lawyer and judge who was the United States Attorney General during World War II.

Francis Biddle served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg Trials as well as a United States circuit judge of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Francis Biddle was one of four sons of Frances Brown and Algernon Sydney Biddle, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School of the Biddle family.

Francis Biddle was a great-great-grandson of Edmund Randolph the seventh Governor of Virginia, the second United States Secretary of State, and the first United States Attorney General, and a half second cousin four times removed of James Madison, the fourth president of the United States.

Francis Biddle graduated from Groton School, where he participated in boxing.

Francis Biddle earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1909 from Harvard College and a Bachelor of Laws in 1911 from Harvard Law School.

Francis Biddle spent the next 27 years by practicing law in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Francis Biddle was a special assistant to the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1922 to 1926.

Francis Biddle served only one year in the role before resigning on January 22,1940, to become the United States Solicitor General.

Francis Biddle prosecuted several prominent left-wing individuals and organizations under the Smith Act.

In 1942, Francis Biddle became involved in a case in which a military tribunal appointed by Roosevelt tried eight captured Nazi agents for espionage and for planning sabotage in the United States as part of the German Operation Pastorius.

Francis Biddle responded that the Germans were not entitled to have access to civilian courts because of their status as unlawful combatants.

Francis Biddle was the only high-ranking official in the Roosevelt administration who opposed the wartime internment of Japanese Americans from the start.

Tom C Clark, Biddle's successor, told the story that Biddle was the first government official whose resignation Truman sought and that it was quite a difficult task.

However, after the Republican Party refused to act on the nomination, Francis Biddle asked Truman to withdraw his name.

Francis Biddle died on October 4,1968, of a heart attack at his summer home in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, at the age of 82.

Francis Biddle was interred at the St Thomas' Church Cemetery in Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania.

Francis Biddle's writing skills had long been in evidence prior to the release of his memoirs.

Francis Biddle was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963.

Francis Biddle was portrayed by Len Cariou in the 2000 miniseries Nuremberg.

Francis Biddle was the subject of the 2004 play Trying by Joanna McClelland Glass, who had served as Francis Biddle's personal secretary from 1967 to 1968.