22 – Boston
It was rare for the Attorney General herself to visit the Boston office of the United States Attorney. If the Queen wanted to speak with one of these subordinates, the usual procedure was a royal summons to Washington. This time, however, the Queen wanted to address the entire prosecutorial staff of the U. S. Attorney’s office in Boston.
“This decision comes direct from the President,” she told the assembled attorneys. “I won’t say I played no role in the decision, but it was apparent to me that the President’s mind was made up before he asked for my advice. Some of you are not going to be pleased by this decision, but I am sure you will each do your jobs. Or if you feel you can’t do your job, you will resign. There are no other options, no other choices. There will be no free passes on this one.”
Everybody knew what the A.G. was talking about. The Jewish issue. What was going to be done about the thousands of refugees in open “hiding” in communities around Boston. Equally important, what was going to be done about the murdered Coast Guardsmen? Obviously criminal liability went beyond the few individuals who fired the rocket propelled grenades. The timing of the escape was too perfect. It required organization and the cooperation of hundreds of people, plus the thousands on the two ships.
This was a classic conspiracy, a conspiracy to commit several crimes, ranging from illegal entry into the United States all the way to first-degree murder. Under the criminal conspiracy laws, every member of a conspiracy is equally liable for all acts committed in furtherance of the conspiracy, whether or not each individual was present for each act, or even aware of the act. These conspiracy laws were used to prosecute organized crime, insurance fraud schemes, thousands of different criminal enterprises. Criminal conspiracy law was well established, and among the broadest-ranging weapons in prosecutors’ arsenals. Best of all from the government’s viewpoint, criminal conspiracy prosecutions opened up evidence that would otherwise not be admissible at trials of individuals. Every action by any one member of a conspiracy was admissible against every other member of the conspiracy. A single informant could bring down a massive organization.
The problem with applying these criminal conspiracy laws to the present situation was that the reach was too broad. This conspiracy could involve the dozen suspected Israeli soldiers on the ships, thirty or so organizers of the escape, the four thousand Jewish refugees who’d fled the two ships, and the thousands of Boston area Jews who manned the boats, sheltered, supported or even provided money for these refugees. No criminal conspiracy prosecution in the nation’s history had involved that many people.
And what would those thousands of people be charged with? The ultimate act in furtherance of the conspiracy was the murder of ten Coast Guardsmen. Would the government charge as many as 10,000 people - 10,000 Jewish people - with conspiracy to commit murder? Especially murder of a federal officer, a federal crime that carried the death penalty?
Attorney General McQueeney, whose employees would make the arrests, supervise the detentions, and prosecute the cases, knew that she had neither the staff nor the facilities to carry off such a mass round up and prosecution. It couldn’t be done, not if the rest of the work of the Justice Department was going to continue. She’d told that to President Quaid. Unfortunately, as she told her staff, by the time she was called into the process the decision was made. Her only choices were about execution of the plan.
That wasn’t her only choice, she knew. She could say no, refuse to do something that felt wrong, that most likely was wrong. She could resign. But resigning didn’t mean the arrests would not happen, just that somebody else would do them. McQueeney wasn’t ready to resign just yet, but she knew her remaining time as Attorney General of the United States was short.