Interviewer: And good morning. - Morning. Interviewer: We are very grateful to you for participating in the Witness to Guantanamo project. We invite you to speak of your experiences and involvement in Guantanamo Bay issues. We are hoping to provide you with an opportunity to tell your story in your own words. We are creating an archive of stories, so people in America and around the world will have a better understanding of what happened. Future generations wants to know what happened in Guantanamo, by telling you a story you're contributing to history. We appreciate your willingness to be with us today. And if you would like to take a break at any time please let us know. And if you do say something you'd like us to remove, if you'd let us know, we can remove any time. And we'd like to begin by asking your name and your hometown, your date of birth and age, and then we'll go further into background. - I'm Ron Meister, I live in Westchester County in New York. I'm 69 years old, and I practice law at the law firm of Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman in New York City. Interviewer: And could you give us your birth day please? - The actual date? Interviewer: Yeah. - March 19. - Of what year? - 1947. Interviewer: Okay, and can you tell us a bit about your education and background before you came to this firm just so... - I'm a graduate of public high school on Long Island. I went to Yale College as an undergraduate in the law school. After a law school, I was an officer and the Judge Advocate General's Corps in the United States navy on active duty for four years. After which I came back to New York and have been in private practice ever since. Interviewer: And with anything interesting, particularly when you work in the navy that as a judge advocate that might help inform what we're talking about today? - Well, I was fortunate enough to be able to do criminal work in the navy, mostly criminal defense work and then for a year and a half as a military judge. So I got to see how the system worked. I got to see the kinds of people who got involved in the military justice system. I got to see the kind of people who prosecuted offenses in the military justice system, and learned about the mindset of the people who were doing various jobs in the military, which I think has helped me in representing clients and doing other military justice work ever since. Interviewer: Well, before we talk about the navy nurse, can you tell us a little bit about briefly some of the other military cases you handled? Just so we have a little depth. - When I was in the service, I represented hundreds of sailors, occasionally officers. The most common offenses were what in the civilian world would be misdemeanor offenses, unauthorized absence, disobedience of orders, disobedience of order is obviously not as civilian crime, disrespect, petty larcenies, assaults. On occasional more serious case, I represented a defendant who was charged with sabotage and those were the general run of cases. There were drug cases as well. There was a charge of a prison riot. So a gamut of cases under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Interviewer: And as a judge, did you oversee those same kinds of-- - Same kinds of cases. I was a special court martial judge, and that meant that our court at that time had jurisdiction to impose sentences up to six months of imprisonment. Interviewer: And when you went into private practice did you begin by representing naval officers or naval personnel? - I haven't done, that's never been the principle portion of my private practice, but along the way I've been involved in some substantial military justice cases. I worked with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU and the New York City Bar Association in a challenge to the military death penalty. The constitutionality of the military death penalty was put an issue after the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision called Furman against Georgia which changed the rules for procedures in military cases. And these groups challenged the militaries procedures under the standards that the Supreme Court had enumerated in Furman. And ultimately prevailed and the military death penalty as it was then structured was found to be unconstitutional. So I had that case, I have represented some service members on long-term complex unauthorized absence cases that represented a sailor who was a petty officer actually who was charged with an unauthorized absence of 13 years. And during his time away made a great success of himself. I went to a professional school, became a practicing medical professional and all that time had hanging over him the prospect that if he were picked up on a traffic stop for a broken taillight, someone would run a check and find that he had a military detainer on him. And because he was not a US citizen he was at risk of deportation. He was from Vietnam. And we were able to return him successfully to the navy and get him a discharge under honorable conditions. Interviewer: How long ago was that? - That must been eight to 10 years ago. Interviewer: So how do people find you? How do they know that you'd be good at representing people into-- - On military cases? - Yeah. - I don't always know the answer to that. I'm active in an organization called the National Institute of Military Justice, which has a website and it has some presence generally. So people who poke around on the internet can find that organization. They can find its officers. I have over the years, developed some contacts in the military who will refer matters to me. And often enough people will just say, I found your name on the internet. I looked for a military lawyer. I saw that your name came up. I'm in New York, I want someone in New York, will you do this for me? Interviewer: Do you do them pro bono, or do you get paid for them, or both? - Some of each. Obviously the death penalty case was a pro bono case. The unauthorized absence case was not. This recent case that I've been involved in on behalf of a navy nurses, is a pro bono case. I do a fair number of discharge upgrade cases. People who got less than an ideal discharge and who find that for employment reasons, for psychological reasons, for reasons of correcting the record, they want their discharge upgraded. I represent them in those proceedings. Those are generally traditional fee paying cases. Interviewer: Do you do those in other than navy places? - All branches to the service, yes. Interviewer: So could you give us some background into how the navy nurse found you and some background on his story, so that people who don't know the story can learn it. - I was approached by a retired army general who had been in touch with the navy nurse and who had been involved in issues of professional ethics and how that interacts with military orders. And I believe he made some inquiries which came to-- - He is? - Mutual acquaintance, this general. - Okay. - Who made some inquiries to people who are acquaintances of mine. And they suggested this might be something I would do. I had done Guantanamo work in the past. I've been to Guantanamo and I wrote briefs in several of the Supreme Court cases that dealt with rights of detainees. So it's possible that my name was known from those as well. Those by the way are other pro bono matters that I have done in the military, not for clients, but as amicus friend at the court briefs. Interviewer: Maybe we should go into that before we go back to the nurse, just so we get that. If you could just tell us what exactly you were involved in Guantanamo issues and why you went to Guantanamo. - I went to Guantanamo under the auspices of the National Institute of Military Justice to observe commission hearings. The government has allowed NGOs to send representatives to observe on the theory that while publicity is a desirable thing no private citizen can just get on a plane and fly to Guantanamo and say, let me into the courtroom. So they developed this procedure that allows various NGOs to go. And the National Institute of Military Justice, NIMJ, has a strong record of sending observers. It's a program that I coordinate to observe these commissions. And I figured if I was gonna be sending people down there, I ought to go myself and see what it was like. It's a very strange out of body experience to go down there. Interviewer: Why? - Because Guantanamo is such a strange place. I've said it's a place that has all the charm of a military base with a maximum security prison superimposed on the top of it. And it is not like any place I've ever been. I've been on a lot of military bases. It's obviously very, very heavy security. It's very hot. They're the most impressive iguanas you've ever seen in your life. We are ferried around by keepers and the representatives of the various groups have to travel together, make up your mind, where do you wanna go for dinner? What do you wanna do in the evening? The entertainment possibilities are not extensive. And in fact, the single most impressive piece of advocacy I did while I was down there, was the night that all of the other observers wanted to watch a Michael Jackson movie. And I couldn't bear the thought of sitting outside in a 100 degree heat under the mosquitoes and watching Michael Jackson. So I persuaded our handler to allow me to go back to the tent. Interviewer: What year is this? - This is again, probably about six to eight years ago. Interviewer: And when you said you were on an amicus piece, in what cases were you involved? - The first case that went to the Supreme Court on the rights of detainees, specifically in that case their rights to avail themselves of some law because the government chose Guantanamo as a location largely on the mistaken impression as it turned out that it was a black hole for law that no law applied, no international law, no domestic laws, certainly not Cuban law. And the first case that tested that, that it got to the Supreme Court it's a case called Rasul against Bush or Rasul Al-Odah, I believe there were two named plaintiffs in the case. And I participated in the preparation of a brief on behalf of NIMJ in support of the proposition that law applied. There were two subsequent rounds of litigation in the Supreme Court. The second I believe the name plaintiff was Boumediene. And the third was, it is Hamdan. I may have the cases reversed, Hamdan may have been-- - One maybe came first. - The second. And those cases tested the applicability of statutes that had been passed to govern the law. Once it had been decided that there was law, Congress gave some attention, some of it laudable, some of it regrettable to what that law would be and how the commissions would be run. And two of those cases, again, went to the Supreme Court, Hamdan and Boumediene. And we wrote briefs in those cases as well. Interviewer: Did you get any pushback in the early days when you took on their brief for Rasul? - I personally did not, my firm was extremely supportive. My firm was very generous with allowing me to do this. And we have a tradition at Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman that allows people to do this work. We have colleague of mine has done some very, a lot of the death penalty work. And we got into this at a time when the initial resistance that some law firms met to representing terrorists, or accused terrorists, or detainees who weren't even accused of being terrorists. We, I think entered the field after that. And after it was regarded as acceptable for law firms to be doing this work, you may know that at the very beginning, I believe the National Council of Defense Lawyers debated whether or not they should participate, whether they should supply lawyers, whether the system was so corrupt that they didn't wanted no part of it. And I believe they ultimately decided that they would participate. And some of the bigger firms who very commendably got involved had some client resistance to it. I've never found that here. Interviewer: Okay. Okay, well then with that understanding of background, let's go back to how you were contacted by the general on behalf of the nurse. - Called me and said, "We have an issue that has arisen "over force-feeding of detainees. "And there is a nurse who "declined to participate in the force-feeding "and has been subjected to a world of trouble "by the Guantanamo authorities, "has been kicked off the island "and is facing potential criminal charges. "Is this something you would assist him?" Interviewer: Could you give us a little bit, even though people might understand of what that means in terms of refusing to force feed? Just so-- - Yes. There have over the years in Guantanamo been varying numbers of detainees, first of all, detainees is a term that I dislike. It does describe people who are held at Guantanamo, but it's sort of carries with it the context of people who were stuck in line at the Motor Vehicle Bureau, or otherwise held up at a toll booth or something. These are prisoners, and many of them are not charged with crimes. Some of them are deemed too dangerous to release. Some of them are cleared for release, but the government has found no place to send them, no place they would take them. And as a way of protesting because there's very limited opportunity for these detainee prisoners to protest the conditions when some of them have been there for a decade without charges, they can't pick it, they can't petition to their Congressmen. So some of them have adopted, they have decided to go on more or less a hunger strike. And I say more or less because there appears to be some instances where detainees had some food supplies in their cells. There is very little evidence that they were trying to kill themselves, but they would skip meals. And the authorities of Guantanamo eventually adopted a protocol, which was largely of their own making, although somewhat informed by other prison authorities that if you missed a certain number of meals or if you fell below a certain percentage of what someone deemed your ideal body weight then you could be force-fed. The standards themselves are not without controversy. Someone wrote into brief that if the standards of ideal body weight were actually applied in real life, then James Madison and Mahatma Gandhi and Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have to be force-fed. The decision that the military made was I suspect out of fear that someone might die. That would be a bad thing, not only for the detaining and the detainees family, but for the authorities. And also that it would stimulate more protests. And the term asymmetrical warfare was used to describe this. It's really, I find a very unpleasant term. It refers to people who have none of the weapons that you have doing something else to fight back. And the asymmetry comes from the fact that you have all the weapons and they have none of them. Well, so there were periods where there were more hunger strikers and there were periods when there were fewer hunger strikers. And the reactions of the authorities have differed over time. One of the difficulties and the administration at Guantanamo is that the people who run things shuttle in and out like military people everywhere. You were assigned for a period of time and you do your job, try to do your job and then you're transferred somewhere else. So the rules have been somewhat inconsistent. These force-feeding protocols were eventually developed. The mechanisms of the force-feeding have become harsher over time, so that the force feedings are done with the use of what are called five-point restraint chairs which have the detainee prisoners strapped down, immobilized and fed through a nasal gastric tube. And there have been some more or less protests by lawyers for the detainees as to the actual methods, is the tube too big? Are the detainee caused to bleed or suffer other medical injury? There are also what are called forcible cell extractions in which with a degree of force, the detainees are removed from their cells for the force-feeding. Now, one of the detainees, a man by the name of Diab, brought a lawsuit in the United States district court in the District of Columbia which he was able to do only because of the results of the Supreme Court decision in Rasul, in which he sued to stop force-feeding. The case was before Judge Gladys Kessler in the district court. Judge Kessler first ruled that she had no power to rule on this issue. The case was appealed to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals which reversed her on that issue and said, yes, you do. Judge Kessler wrote some opinions in which she criticized harshly the force-feeding as causing discomfort and being painful and being very unpleasant. During the course of that litigation, in his testimony, Mr. Diab disclosed that there was a nurse who refused to do it, to do the force-feeding. Didn't know the nurse's name, he wouldn't know the nurse's name because any identification tags of the troops are obscured. He gave a physical description of the nurse. And once it became a subject of public knowledge that there was a nurse who turned out to be the nurse that I had represented over these years, I believe that the authorities felt they had to do something about it. And that's when he was sent back to his prior duty station and it was recommended that he be prosecuted. Interviewer: For what crime? - I believe the recommendation was for dereliction of duty. Interviewer: So before we go into what that means, just as an understanding, so you're saying until it became public, the military left him alone allowed him not to force-feed, allowed him not to participate-- - I believe that is the case, he was principally assigned other duties. Let me mention a couple of things that may be of interest. The prisoners that were being forced-fed under this program at least, were not the high risk detainees who were before the military commissions, not the 9/11 detainees, not any of the USS Cole defendants. These were, I believe mostly or maybe entirely prisoners who had been cleared for release and not charged with any crimes. There was a period of time when the authorities recognized health professionals' objections to force-feeding. So under one of the commandance of the base at Guantanamo, the practice was that physicians were asked before they were transferred to Guantanamo whether they would participate in force-feeding. And if they said, no, they weren't transferred there. There was also, I believe at a somewhat different time, a practice that nurses who were already at Guantanamo who expressed objections to force-feeding were excused from doing it and were assigned other duties. Those policies appear to have been changed to the extent there were policies at all and things weren't decided ad hoc. So either because of a change in policy, or because of the publicity attended to Diab's testimony, or something else, my client was sent back to his regular prior duty station and it was recommended that he be charged criminally. Interviewer: Do you know what year that occurred when he was removed from his position (indistinct)? - I believe, it must have been two years ago. Interviewer: And that would be 2014. - I believe so, that's right. Interviewer: And do you know how long he had refused before this became public? - It's a short period of time. - A week, a month? - Certainly, no more than a month and probably a matter of a week or two. Interviewer: And from your experience at that time frame he was probably the only one who had refused. - We don't know of anyone else who refused, before or since, but we wouldn't know since. Interviewer: All right, and even before you wouldn't know unless that person went in public, right? Or would you-- - I think that's right. Although I have no reason to believe from anything my client told me that anyone else had refused. Interviewer: And did he know when he went down to Guantanamo that he would be given that position, that role? - I think, I don't know if he was aware that it would be required, but he indeed actually participated in some force-feeding when he was first there. And it was only when he saw what it involved and when he had time to reflect upon it and time to reflect upon the nursing ethics that he had been taught at the nursing school to which the navy had sent him to learn how to be a nurse that he felt he could not do it. I should explain-- - Yeah. - A bit about him. This is an officer who was originally enlisted member in the United States navy, served in submarines for a decade. I should tell you from my own personal experience that the navy generally takes only the cream of the crop and assigns them to submarines. Submarines and aircraft carriers generally get the top-notch people to serve on them for obvious reasons, because of the importance of the mission. After he was in the navy for a decade, navy felt on the basis of his superior record that he was officer material and they sent him to nursing school. He studied in nursing school and he studied how to be a nurse. He studied nursing ethics. He graduated from nursing school. He got his commission as an ensign in the navy as an officer. And he began being a navy nurse which he did for another seven or so years before he volunteered to go to Guantanamo. So when all of this difficulty arose, he was a veteran of 18 years active duty. Interviewer: So he was in his 40s? - Probably, maybe a little less than that. I think he was pretty young when he went in. Now what's the significance of 18 years? Significance of 18 years is that 18 years is close to 20 years, the time you can retire. Navy pensions, military pensions do not vest in any way until retirement at 20 years, or retirement under some other circumstances like a disability retirement. So if he were to be forced out of the navy with 18 years or 19 years or 19 1/2 years not only would his veteran's benefits be at stake, everybody who serves under honorable conditions regardless of length has veterans benefits, but his entire pension accumulated over all those years would be gone. So this is a matter of considerable professional and financial consequence for him. Interviewer: He obviously was aware of that when he made his decision. - Must have been. Interviewer: Could you explain to us what nursing ethics are as he's taught in the military or maybe-- - Well, as they affect this case, the principle that is most important is that the nurses obligation is to the patient. And the patient's consent where the patient is in a condition to consent is paramount and the obligation to do no harm, which is an obligation of all health professionals applies to him. So that as it affects this issue, questions relating to consent, the patient's wishes, and the reason for the procedure are all of great significance. So where the force-feeding, it matters whether the force feeding is for a health reason, for a disciplinary reason, for deterrence reason, it helps whether the patient, and you can see how this analysis changes the instant that you start referring to a prisoner as a patient, once the patient's desires and need for force-feeding become an issue, that's something that the nurse needs to know. Otherwise you could have no automobile mechanic doing this job. And there is unanimity among professional nursing and medical organizations and a huge consensus of international law that force-feeding is either never permissible, or is permissible only under conditions that were not present here. So the World Health Organization issued what's called its Declaration of Malta. The World Health Organization is an international organization of over a 100 national health organizations including the American Medical Association. And they concluded that force-feeding is never acceptable. The American Nurses Association has made eminently clear that force-feeding under circumstances such as this is improper. American Medical Association has come to that conclusion. Physicians for Human Rights, which is an advocacy group has firmly taken that position. And very notably, after these events took place involving our nurse, the United States Department of Defense Health Board which is an advisory body to advise the DOD on health practices has issued a report after studying the issue and studying this very case that procedures must be developed to allow objecting professionals to opt out. So there really is no fuzziness about the ethical issues in this case. Now, how does that interact with the standard requirement of a bang orders? This is not a simple question. And there are obviously the authorities at Guantanamo under a great deal of pressure to do an impossibly difficult job who take issue with people say, I'm not gonna do what you're telling me 'cause the military is based on it, has to be based on people giving orders and other people obeying those orders. What gives you, Mr. Nurse, the right to decide that this is contrary to professional ethics? I made the decisions and I tell you what to do. And it takes a tremendous amount of courage to say, no, I don't think that's right. Remember you sent me to nursing school. I learned these things. You wanted me to learn these things. You didn't send me to nursing school and say forget everything that they teach you in the ethics classes. So I feel that these rules apply under all circumstances in peace and more, in the military and in civilian life. I can't do it. Now, one of the things that has been a theme here is that my client who has never gone public with his identity has never made an effort to encourage others to do what he did to do anything but decide what they think is right. Hasn't been in touch with other health professionals in Guantanamo. Is as loyal to the navy that has served for now over 19 years, as he can be. Is as patriotic as he can be and is not a crusader. And whether or not that has affected the navy's ultimate decisions in his case, it's something that I would very much like to know but don't know. Interviewer: Well, let's go through the process and understand what did happen to him in their local place. - Yes. - So when the military removed him from the position and the next step was they then sent him off the basis that would happen-- - Yes. And he was followed by a disciplinary report in which the commandant at Guantanamo recommended criminal charges against him. Now to give you a full picture there were other charges that accompany this, which were unrelated to the force-feeding. Now, I have learned over a career of fighting within the military and outside the military that it is extremely common to tack on what in the technical term would be called chickenshit charges to the real matter and issue. So the charges that were set up against him, or recommended to be brought against him included using profanity, allowing a detainee to have honey in his cell, which was a very common practice and some other charges of a similar degree of seriousness. The most ridiculous of which of course, was that he swore at an enlistment. I do not think there would be many naval officers left, if all of those who swore an enlistment we're discharged or prosecuted. And then this package of charges was sent to the commanding officer at his new duty station which was also his old duty station in New England. - It's also-- - His old duty station in New England. - Okay. - He had gone from New England to Guantanamo, was send back. And the commanding officer at his base in New England was faced with the question of what to do. And the initial decision was to take him to a procedure which is under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is technically called nonjudicial punishment. It's kind of a funny term, which in the navy is also known as Captain's Mast, dating to the good old days of Captain Bligh when he would have the sailors up at the mast onboard the bounty and order them keel hauled. And in the army sometimes called Office Hours. And one of the rights that an accused, the defendant has under the UCMJ, the Uniform Code of Military Justice is to refuse Captain's Mast which puts the commanding officer to the choice of bringing the charges to a court martial, which is judicial punishment, just as mast is nonjudicial punishment, could still send you to a period of confinement, which is technically called correctional custody instead of confinement, but it's not much of a difference up to 30 days, and more significantly puts your whole career at risk. So, our officer refused Captain's Mast. They command in New England, had this decision to make, do I take this to a criminal court or do I let it go? It was at that point that I became involved in the case. I went to New England and met with the commanding officer. I met with the commanding officer's legal advisor. I got the feeling that they took their responsibilities very seriously, but they were also a bit wary of having a civilian lawyer show up and talk to them about what they should do. I met with them. They informed me at that meeting that they had decided not to refer the charges to a court martial, whether the fear of Ron Meister coming to new to Newport was the deciding factor, I seriously doubt, I think they've made a decision wholly apart from any involvement that I had. In any event that was the good news. The bad news was they were initiating a procedure to discharge him from the navy, which after, at that point, 18, 18 1/2 years was a very serious matter. So we moved to step two of this hydro headed monster that's coming out to eat him, first, being criminal charges, second being possible dismissal from the service. That is a formal procedure that has rules, that has the opportunity to respond. That gets us what the formal charges are, what the basis is for this what's it's called the show cause proceeding, you have to show cause that you should remain in the service. And we did put together a defense. And the defense included not only the nurse's own statement, but-- - Statement saying? - Why he did what he did and why he felt it was improper. And why in light of his entire commendable naval career he should not be forced out. Now, we, by this time had been in contact with the ANA, American Nurses Association, the AMA, Physicians for Human Rights, all of whom were very supportive and wrote their own letters which we included in the package, which also included to the extent there is an international legal consensus, Declaration of Malta and other writings, because this matter has been the focus of some professional attention in professional journals like the New England Journal of Medicine and elsewhere. we included these in the package. We also had some letters of support from people he had served with in the navy. And we were facing, in hearing you have the opportunity to have a formal hearing. About this time, the American Nurses Association, which was in the course of what they called its year of ethics conferred upon this nurse it's Year of Ethics award. And because we had never disclosed his identity, he did not attend the national conference of the ANA at which the award was presented. It was presented to me, that is I accepted on his behalf. I went down there and it was in Washington and they had a little ceremony and quite nice fairly heavy metal award trophy, which I hope he'll be able to show with pride to his children and his grandchildren. And we were able to include that fact in our package. The navy decided that it wasn't necessary to go to a hearing. And on the basis of the written submissions, they were just continuing the show clause proceeding allowing to let him to remain in. Well, we thought good, now he's got his 19 years in. This is behind him and go back to work. And I say, go back to work because during this interim period, his security clearance had been suspended. Why? Because, but as a result, he had no access to the computers that were an essential part of his work. So he couldn't even look at patient records and he was reduced to doing such menial tasks as calling up sailors and saying, come in for your physical. So now the show cause proceeding is terminated and his own commanding officer in New England, the one who at first was very cautious meeting with me and deciding what to do, sent an extremely supportive letter to the people who decide about the security clearance and said, "You've now dismissed all the charges against him. "You're not trying to get rid of him. "He's a valuable member of my operation. "Everything he's done in the navy "before he went to Guantanamo was of the highest caliber. "Give him back a security clearance, give me back my nurse." And I'm talking to my client and say, well, now you'll get that and you can go back to work. One of the impressive things about this whole procedure is he never lost sight of what his professional goals and responsibilities were. And he said to me, one time, "All of this has made me even prouder to be a nurse." So lo and behold, the response to the commanding officer's request to restore his security clearance is a note from the Department of Defense, not the Department of Navy, Department of Defense, we're gonna revoke his security clearance permanently. Not only are we not gonna restore it we're gonna revoke it permanently. Now, what does the revocation of security clearance mean to naval officer? It means the end of your career. You need a security clearance to do your job. So this is a head number three in the Hydra that comes to assault us. And this too has this procedural rules. And this two gives us an opportunity to make a written submission. And then the Department of Defense needs to decide are we taking this to a hearing in which case all the evidence would put on the record, we'll have witnesses, we'll have testimony. And we put together a package for the Department of Defense, similar to the package that we put together for the navy with regard to the show cause proceeding. Only this time, we have two endorsements on our response, our response like everything else goes through the chain of command. And as it goes through the chain of command, it goes through our local commanding officer, it goes through the navy medical people and then up to the Department of Defense security clearance people. And along the way, each of those people has the opportunity to write an endorsement which is, do I agree with this? Do I disagree with this? Do I have anything to add? His commanding officer, as I said, the one who was wary when he first came back from Guantanamo, writes us a nice endorsement saying, "I agree with him "that he should have his clearance restored. "I've read through the investigation. "I read through the witness statements. "I have no reason to believe he's disloyal. "I have every reason to believe he's a good naval officer "and a good nurse, give him back his clearance." Then it goes up to the sergeant general of the navy. And the sergeant general of the navy writes endorsement that makes the commanding officers endorsement look like mashed potatoes. Says, "This is a loyal officer. "His loss would be a loss to navy medicine, "give him back his clearance." So we feel with the nurses on commanding officer and the head medical officer in the navy, supporting his position that we are in as positive a posture as we can when the people in Washington, the Department of Defense make the decision whether to take them to a hearing. And as it transpired, that's what happened. They said, "You don't have to come to a hearing. "We're dismissing this proceeding, "but we warn you you do anything else bad, "we're gonna get you." So at this moment, he has 19 years five months in the navy, he's back doing his job in New England. He has put in his papers for retirement and we are hoping that the Hydra doesn't have a fourth head. Interviewer: So his security clearance is no longer suspended, he has returned. - Correct. Interviewer: And do you know why the Department of Defense got involved? - The Department of Defense assumed the responsibility of all of the services on security clearance matters. The navy used to have its own clearance procedure and at least has regard to adjudicating clearances, I think also has to issue in clearances. The umbrella organization that made the decisions was called DoN CAF, Department of the Navy Consolidated Adjudications Facility. DoN CAF, and I believe the equivalent entities in the other branches of service were all consolidated under the Department of Defense and have become DoD CAF, the Department of Defense Consolidated Adjudications Facility. So they were the people who would do this. It was no longer I think, a navy decision on the security clearance. Interviewer: And going back, had you not challenged the temporary security clearance the Department of Defense wouldn't have been involved, you could have just continued doing phone calls until his time was up. - I don't know if they would have taken any other action, that's correct, it would have been an absurd circumstance to take this trained nurse that you sent to nursing school whose skills had never been in doubt and make him a telephone dispatcher for another year. Someone may have felt that this is intolerable if he doesn't have his clearance for a certain period of time, he's got to go. Interviewer: And why do you think the chief medical officer of the navy got involved? Did you speak to him or did-- - I did not. He got involved because he was in the chain of command and it was on his plate to write an endorsement. Why he felt what he did, I like to think that the package of materials we put together was persuasive. I like to think that the fact that the nurse had gained the confidence or regained the confidence of his commanding officer was persuasive. I like to think that the groundswell of support of professional organizations, that presumably means something to the sergeant general, the AMA, the ANA, the World Medical Association, the International Committee of the Red Cross, means something to the sergeant general. And I like to think that he realized that this was the right thing to do. And she was. Interviewer: Were you surprised by the end result? - I can't say I was surprised or not surprised. Always we're very helpful. There's a degree of irrationality in the military. There's a degree of adherence to customer procedures and orders, and it's not always possible to forecast what would happen. A lot of people have a lot at stake in this issue and who knows whose influence is gonna prevail and whose views are gonna prevail. And we're just delighted that in this case after almost two years of anguish, the decision was the right one. Interviewer: Did he have a naval attorney as well or a JAG-- - No. No, if he had gone to the formal hearing on his clearance he would have been entitled to an appointed counsel. I conferred with various active duty JAG officers along the way. And I had intended if we were going to a hearing to obtain the support of an active duty JAG officer, but no, we did this without their help. Interviewer: Can we go back, I know you said it, but it's important to me just to understand exactly what flipped in him? And you said he did participate but initially and then all of a sudden he decided no more. - It's a matter that I'm not sure he's ever fully articulated to me. He saw I'm sure the harshness of the procedure. He saw that there was not the slightest attempt to obtain consent. He recalled that his training showed him that this was wrong. It's like so many things we do in life. We take an easy path. Someone says you do it. Someone that you're trained to obey says you do it and you do it. Partner in a law firm comes to an associate and says, oh when you go to court, I don't think you can talk about this, or just take this money we got in cash and find a place for it. And then the associates is, what am I gonna do? I'm not suggesting this is in my personal experience-- - No, I get, yeah. - But, you're trained to follow those instructions. And when your job visit peril, there is a very powerful force on you to do it. And then you go home and you sleep and you think and you try to more calmly evaluate what you're doing. And he got to that point and he said he can't do it. - And do you think he has any regrets about this whole process? - I don't really wanna answer that question for him. - Okay. - I think that his statement that has made him prouder to be a nurse is a powerful indication that he is convinced he did the right thing. And he's had and has been sustained by the support of some wonderful people at wonderful organizations. It's been an education for me to see how organizations like Physicians for Human Rights and American Nurses Association, operate and how they stick to their principles. And that was something that in the dark times was very helpful to him. Interviewer: Were they solicited by you or by others, or did they hear about it from the media? - I don't recall. I think that some of the folks who were initially aware of the case may have put me in touch with Physicians for Human Rights, which in turn contacted the other organizations. Certainly the World Medical Association and it's sticklers to Malta and its establishment of these principles regarding force-feeding was long before, had nothing to do with our case. But, it was an effort that involved more than me. Interviewer: I have a couple more questions that I'm not sure we have much more unless you wanna have, but I don't know the procedure very well. I know a little bit about military procedures, but why would someone and why did he in particular refuse a Captain's Mast? What's the thinking behind that? - A conviction of Captain's Mast could lead to directly to that show cause proceeding. So in a proceeding where you have fewer rights, you don't have the right to counsel. Although sometimes counsel can attend. It's much less formal. It's your own commanding officer who's doing it. It's not a theory list, an impartial panel of officers. So it's much easier for the command to say, I think that the stakes are not so high. Yes, I find you guilty of this and you're demoted. You lose some pay, but then the real consequences they use that to try to get you out. So you want the adjudication to be in a proceeding that is more formal where you have more rights, where you're gonna have a lawyer speaking up on your behalf. So you're willing to bear the risk that the consequences would be more severe if you lose in return for a better chance of a favorable outcome. Interviewer: And he made this decision on his own, you weren't present for that? - I wasn't involved in that decision. And I suspect he did have some advice, but not for me. Now, I would have given him the same advice. - You were. - Yeah. Interviewer: Even though that would insult his commanding officer, right? 'Cause you're kind of saying to the commanding officer, I don't trust you. - Well, but it's so commonly known that you have a right to refuse Mast that I don't think that that's a factor unless you have a particularly sensitive commanding officer. Interviewer: And just so the public would know, why has he not wanted to reveal himself? His name, his identity. - Well, as I said before, he's not a crusader. You know the saying that Dreyfus himself would probably not have been a dry facade. He's a very loyal naval officer. He's not interested in stirring up trouble. He's not interested in telling other people what they have to do. And there was also a factor here, I think that as a matter of defense strategy. We didn't want to make him a focal point of opposition, a thorn in the side of his own command or the people at Guantanamo, but that's not why he did it. He didn't do it so much to establish a principle list to do what he felt was right as a nurse. Also let's face it, active duty military people are not generally in the position of holding press conferences. So I mean, you will see it, Bob Bergdahl's lawyer has made public statements and Captain Medina and Lieutenant Kelly's lawyers, if you remember back that far certainly were in the public eye. F. Lee Bailey was certainly in the public eye. (coughing) Pardon me. So I didn't see how this would would work because he would be deluged with requests for statements, for press meetings. And it would distract from his job. Although if his job was only calling people on the telephone, I don't know how much effect that distraction would have, but it would be, I think, it would have been a terrible intrusion on the whole process. Interviewer: Did others reach out to him, or do you think others were influenced by him that he knew about, we haven't heard, if there's anything you haven't heard? - Other health professionals? Not that I'm aware of. Obviously many, many journalists have reached for him and we have turned them away and I have spoken with them on occasion. But he's had many people who want to interview him and want to write about him. And he and I and consultation have decided that that would not be a good idea for him. Interviewer: And I know you've kinda said this before, but just before we finish, why do you think others haven't done what he's done standing up? - I can only speculate. First of all, I don't know as a fact that no one else has done what he's done. I don't know if there's been any return to the former policy of excusing nurses or pre-screening physicians, but it's not hard to imagine why this is a difficult decision for anyone. And I think the very fact that he's been subjected to two years of anguish over this is a strong deterrent to anyone else. Whether the nurses there are looking to see what the results are and acting accordingly, don't want to jeopardize their own careers. Just wanna get their time in and leave. I can only speculate. Interviewer: Do doctors also participate, is what you said doctors can refuse to, that is actually participating in these? - They supervise the force-feeding. I believe they signed the orders that nurses are supposed to carry out. I don't think there are physicians present when the actual force-feeding is done. I could be wrong, but I don't think-- Interviewer: You have never observed forced-feeding? - I have not. Interviewer: Will you thoughts, looking back over these two years something that you might've observed, or the way you now think about the navy, or anything that came to mind over these two years that might be interesting for history? - I think that there are a couple of things here that are interesting. First is the development of a consensus over the rights of prisoners generally has changed so dramatically from the days that you alluded to before where even if a lawyer were to think of supporting a detainee, a person that Donald Rumsfeld wrongfully referred to as the worst of the worst, would be a terrible thing. How can you help terrorists, to a recognition that lawyers have through history provided a defense for people to vindicate whatever rights they have, or in this case, even to establish what rights they have to a point where certainly the president of the United States says admittedly, seven years ago, this is an abomination. This place has to be closed down. That's been interesting and it's helpful for people to take a longer view of history. And I'll give you an example, in Rasul, the first Supreme Court case, (coughs) excuse me, we wrote an amicus brief. There were quite a few amicus briefs, virtually all of them on behalf of the detainees. One of those amicus briefs was submitted by a man named Fred Korematsu. Fred Korematsu is the plaintiff in a case called Korematsu against the United States, which the Supreme Court decided during World War II and held that, or immediately after, I'm not certain, held that everything that was done to detain Japanese citizens in United States was proper, and such liberals as you go black on the Supreme Court to the end of his life felt that Korematsu was rightly decided. Fred Korematsu with the help of a Hofstra University law professor named Eric Freedman wrote a brief, which said, you got this wrong in World War I and the Palmer Raids after World War I and the Red Scare. You got this wrong in World War II when you imprisoned loyal Japanese Americans. You got this wrong after the Korean War in the year of McCarthy. Get it right this time. And in a way, the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul and then its follow up decisions in Hamdan and Boumediene, were a bit of a surprise because the war on terror was still very active and Supreme Court tends not to do so well under actual wartime conditions. Although when the war is over and the risk and the paranoia is reduced, they may do a little better. And yet they did this in the middle of it. So I think that's a matter of great interest. I thought the mobilization of professional organizations including such a profoundly conservative organization, the American Medical Association, in support of the nurse here was very interesting as a matter of social and political history. So those are some of the lessons that I've found useful. Interviewer: I think I'm done, except this is something that I didn't ask you that you would be think of, you might wanna share with the audience for history so that maybe there's another part in asking you. - Just that, I think that there are lawyers who sometimes don't always enjoy the most favorable reputation, who do good work and who do work when it's unpopular and take seriously their obligations to represent clients and to improve the system of justice. And that's something that we can be proud of. And I must say again, I'm extremely grateful to this firm for allowing me to spend the amount of time that I did on this case without fee. And that makes me very proud and grateful. - For sure. Did you have any hesitation in taking that case? Did you, when you face warfare? - Not, philosophically, I had some hesitation about the amount of effort that would be involved and whether I was up to the job. And once I saw what was required, once I met the client, once I saw what support there was, once I saw that I was on the right side of history, it became a lot easier to do. Interviewer: Well, Johnny, did you have a question? Johnny: Nope, That's it. Interviewer: Well, we need 20 seconds of room tone where we just sit here quietly, Johnny has to capture the room tone and then we can turn off the mick. - Sure. - Okay. Johnny: We get (indistinct). Very good. - That was good.