MEDIA COVERAGE OF ON AMERICAN SOIL

The letter came in a beautiful frame and, some thought, 65 years too late.

But that didn’t matter to Howard Noyd, now 94 and a lifetime away from that trial. Those men. And the judiciary defeat that shamed some into silence about the time they spent serving their country.

Noyd was a 29-year-old Army captain when he was made the assistant defense counsel for 43 African-American soldiers accused in the 1944 lynching death of Italian POW Guglielmo Olivotto at Seattle’s Fort Lawton.

He and Capt. William Beeks had only 10 days to prepare for what would be the largest court-martial in Army history.

They were up against Col. Leon Jaworski, who ultimately got 28 of the soldiers convicted and dishonorably discharged.

It took 61 years and the publication of Jack Hamann’s 2005 book, “On American Soil,” to uncover documents that Jaworski withheld, for they pointed to a different suspect and proved that the accused soldiers were denied due process.

In response to the book, the Army deemed that Jaworski committed “egregious error” in withholding those records.

Last year, the Army issued honorable discharges to the soldiers and issued back pay and benefits to the soldiers or their survivors.

But Noyd’s doomed efforts were never officially acknowledged until last Friday, when his family and friends gathered in a Bellevue condominium for his turn, his moment of closure.

It came when W.A. “Bud” Shatzer, the assistant director of the Army Board of Review, presented Noyd with an official thank-you for the fight he waged for those soldiers against a man hellbent on winning.

“I am honored and thank you so much,” said Noyd, steadying himself against a table in the front of the room. “It has served my conscience very much so.”

Like his clients, Noyd carried the undeserved defeat — and sees clearly how it happened.

“We knew documents were available, but we could not procure them because the prosecution prevented us from doing so,” he said. “It wasn’t a fair trial.”

And yet, Noyd believes the trial helped move the country to a better place. In 1948, President Truman desegregated the armed forces: “This case had an influence,” Noyd said.

The letter expressed thanks. But should it have been an apology for the culture that allowed Jaworski to thwart justice?

I suspect the same lack of accountability in last week’s controversy over the CIA’s interrogation program. A Senate report revealed that then-national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice gave early approval for waterboarding.

Shouldn’t the blame for what happened at Fort Lawton reach as high? I asked Noyd.

“I’d rather not talk about this today,” he said.

Kevin Washington is a member of the Tabor 100, a nonprofit association of African-American business people that helped honor the Fort Lawton soldiers last summer. He understood why Noyd wanting nothing more than the letter in the frame from Shatzer.

“It’s been a long time, and it’s really hard to gather that much steam around going back through all the people who stepped aside from their responsibility,” Washington said. “I think we should [focus] on the families and ... Mr. Noyd.”

Hamann agreed: “The letter was what Howard Noyd needed and wanted.”

No matter when it came.

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Nicole Brodeur’s column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

Leslie Hamann, Super Sleuth.