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Executive Order 10393 ⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight Constitutional Neutral (+0.02) 📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority

Executive Order 10393—Establishment of the Clemency and Parole Board for War Criminals

Harry S Truman

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Thursday, September 4, 1952

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2 min read (488 words)

Executive Brief • At a Glance

⏱️ 2 min read (488 words) • ● In Effect

🎯 Primary Mandate

There is hereby established a Clemency and Parole Board for War Criminals (hereinafter referred to as the Board).

View all 4 directives ↓

⚖️ Constitutional Footing

⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight

Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence

📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority

Framers' constitutional debate ↓

🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors

Armed Forces & Military Establishments Sovereign State Governments & Localities Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants Private Citizens & Property Owners

Inspect unabridged text ↓

Plain-English Translation & Framers' Constitutional Analysis

Early Statesman synthesis distilling legal jargon into practical meaning, statutory anchors, and structural constitutional impacts.

Signed by President Harry S Truman on September 4, 1952, this order concerns Establishment of the Clemency and Parole Board for War Criminals. There is hereby established a Clemency and Parole Board for War Criminals (hereinafter referred to as the Board). The Board shall consist of three members, appointed by the President, one of whom shall be designated from the Department of State, one from the Department of Defense, and one from the Department of Justice.

Constitutional Assessment: Scrutinized through Article II, Section 2, this action exercises the President's constitutional role as Commander in Chief. Early Framers recognized broad executive discretion in commanding military forces during conflict, provided it remains bounded by congressional declarations and respects civilian domestic courts.

Key Directives & Operative Actions

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There is hereby established a Clemency and Parole Board for War Criminals (hereinafter referred to as the Board).

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The Board shall consist of three members, appointed by the President, one of whom shall be designated from the Department of State, one from the Department of Defense, and one from the Department of Justice.

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Each member shall designate an officer or employee of his department as an alternate member of the Board, who while participating as a member of the Board shall have the same status and functions as the member designating him. 2.

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The Board shall make the necessary investigation in, and advise the President with respect to, those cases in which a decision of the Government of the United States is required on recommendation by the Government of Japan for clemency, reduction of sentence, or parole, with respect to sentences imposed on Japanese war criminals by tribunals established by the Government of the United States or by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.

Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted

🏛️ Armed Forces & Military Establishments 🏛️ Sovereign State Governments & Localities 🏛️ Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants 🏛️ Private Citizens & Property Owners

Policy Areas & Topics

🏷️ National Security & Defense

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The Framers' Constitutional Council

1787 Prism

Evaluating this order against the constitutional debates of 1787 and the limits of Article II executive power.

⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight)

"When the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority."

— Justice Robert H. Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence

James Madison

Separation of Powers & Legislative Primacy

"Power is of an encroaching nature, and it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it." — Federalist No. 48 (1788)

Madison would view this order with watchful scrutiny. Operating in the 'Zone of Twilight' where Congress is silent, each such directive establishes an administrative precedent that steadily expands the executive perimeter at the expense of legislative primacy.

Madisonian Stance: Vigilant / Cautionary

Alexander Hamilton

The Energetic Executive & Unified Command

"The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength must be under the direction of the single hand of the Executive." — Federalist No. 74 (1788)

Hamilton would forcefully champion executive discretion here. For foreign entanglements, commerce defense, and national security, deliberative assemblies are too slow and faction-ridden. A unified, energetic Executive exercising swift command is precisely what the Philadelphia Convention intended for national preservation.

Hamiltonian Stance: Strong Prerogative Support

George Mason

Bill of Rights, Due Process & 10th Amendment

"The president will be surrounded by flatterers and sycophants... and the great powers of the executive will gradually absorb the liberties of the people." — Cato IV (Anti-Federalist, 1787)

The Anti-Federalist prism advises continuous democratic vigilance. Even routine administrative directives aggregate centralized federal power away from town halls and state assemblies toward a distant executive apparatus.

Anti-Federalist Stance: Eternal Vigilance Required

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Five Measurable "Constitutional Friction" Dimensions

An objective audit measuring potential separation-of-powers tension against the United States Constitution and established Supreme Court doctrine.

⚖️ Discretionary Twilight Zone

45 / 100 friction index

Dimension 1 • Art. I, §1 & §8

Legislative Encroachment & Purse

Moderate Friction

Administers commerce or fiscal programs requiring ongoing statutory delegation and legislative oversight.

Benchmark: Power of the purse, taxes/tariffs, and rule of law reserved to Congress.

Dimension 2 • Art. II, §1 & §3

Executive Scope & Faithfulness

Low Friction

Exercises standard supervisory executive authority to faithfully execute existing statutes.

Benchmark: Faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress vs. unilateral decree.

Dimension 3 • 10th Amendment

Federalism & State Sovereignty

High Friction

Creates friction with the Tenth Amendment by conditioning state grants, mandating local compliance, or preempting state police powers.

Benchmark: Police powers and un-delegated responsibilities reserved to the States.

Dimension 4 • 5th & 14th Amendments

Due Process & Individual Rights

Low Friction

Focuses on internal governmental operations with no direct impairment of private rights or property.

Benchmark: Protection of private property, contracts, liberty, and procedural justice.

Dimension 5 • Separation of Powers

Youngstown Jacksonian Tier

Moderate Friction

The order relies on inherent Article II executive discretion, civil service management, or foreign diplomacy where Congress has neither expressly approved nor prohibited action.

Benchmark: Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence

⚖️ Audit Synthesis

This order operates within Justice Jackson’s Zone of Twilight, resting upon concurrent presidential authority or congressional silence.

Weighted composite: Art. I (25%), Art. II (25%), Federalism (15%), Due Process (15%), Youngstown (20%).

ℹ️

How to read these dimensions: Executive power expands whenever an administration acts without explicit statutory authorization from Congress (Article I), touches upon police powers historically reserved to the states (Tenth Amendment), or limits private rights and property without judicial process. A low friction score indicates strict concordance with enacted law; a high friction score highlights orders testing the limits of presidential discretion.

Total Words

488

2,898 characters

Estimated Read Time

2 min

@ 200 words / min

Flesch-Kincaid

College Level

Language Tone Score

+0.02

Constitutional Neutral

How is this scored?

Text size:

Official Archival Text

View Source Document

By the virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the Statutes, and as President of the United States and as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, it is ordered as follows: 1. There is hereby established a Clemency and Parole Board for War Criminals (hereinafter referred to as the Board). The Board shall consist of three members, appointed by the President, one of whom shall be designated from the Department of State, one from the Department of Defense, and one from the Department of Justice. Each member shall designate an officer or employee of his department as an alternate member of the Board, who while participating as a member of the Board shall have the same status and functions as the member designating him. 2. The Board shall make the necessary investigation in, and advise the President with respect to, those cases in which a decision of the Government of the United States is required on recommendation by the Government of Japan for clemency, reduction of sentence, or parole, with respect to sentences imposed on Japanese war criminals by tribunals established by the Government of the United States or by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. In making its investigations, the Board may examine witnesses and take testimony to the extent deemed necessary or advisable. 3. The Board shall determine its own procedure and shall act by majority vote. The member designated from the Department of State, or his alternate, shall serve as Chairman. The Board may prescribe rules and regulations deemed necessary or desirable for the purposes of this order. 4. Consonant with law, including section 214 of the Act of May3, 1945, 59 Stat. 134 (31 U.S.C. 691), each member and alternate member of the Board shall receive from the apartment from which he is designated his compensation as an officer or employee of that department but shall receive no additional compensation by reason of service as a member or alternate member of the Board, and the Department of State shall furnish the Board necessary accommodation and facilities. So much of the other expenditures of the Board (including such travel expenses of, and other expense allowances for, members and alternate members of the Board as the President shall hereafter fix) as may be within the limits of an allotment to be made by the President from the appropriation entitled "Emergency Fund for the President-National Defense" in Title I of the 1953 (Public Law 455, 82nd Congress, approved July 5, 1952), shall be paid from the said allotment. Payments from such allotment shall be made without regard to provisions of (a) section 3681 of the Revised Statues (31 U.S.C. 672), (b) section 9 of the Act of March 4, 1909, 35 Stat. 1027 (31 U.S.C. 673), and (c) such other laws as the President may hereafter specify. HARRY S. TRUMAN

THE WHITE HOUSE, #signature

September 4, 1952

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Referenced By Later Executive Orders (2)

Subsequent presidents who cited, amended, continued, or revoked this directive in later orders.

References Executive Order 10747—Designating the Secretary of State To Act for the United States in Certain Matters Pertaining to Japanese War Criminals

Dwight D. Eisenhower • 1957-12-31

Amends Executive Order 10613—Amendment of Executive Order No. 10393 of September 4, 1952, Establishing the Clemency and Parole Board for War Criminals

Dwight D. Eisenhower • 1955-05-16

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Scholarly & Legal Citations

Exec. Order No. 10,393 (Sept. 4, 1952), https://executiveordersarchive.org/orders/app-executive-order-10393-establishment-the-clemency-and-parole-board-for-war-criminals.