Of Note: From a Cow in a Chapel to the Berlin Blockade: Introducing Ambassador Philip C. Jessup

How does livestock relate to a diplomat and international judge? This was an unexpected question I asked myself while processing Part IV of the Philip C. Jessup Papers, now open to researchers. Jessup was a leading authority on international law, representative to the United Nations, ambassador-at-large under President Harry S. Truman, and judge on the International Court of Justice. With such accomplishments, I was intrigued by a spread of documents regarding cows in a scrapbook from his time at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. They record the story of perhaps his first achievement in the field of law and diplomacy – saving his fellow students from the consequences of a school prank.

On November 1, 1915, the classes of 1918 and 1919 put a cow and several bales of hay in the college chapel. They were accused of the “willful sacrilege and intentional desecration of the college chapel” and faced possible expulsion. The students, though, had predicted this outcome and signed an agreement before relocating the farm animal: “We shall be threatened with the expulsion for activity in the above-mentioned matter, but voluntarily sharing with him or them, the penalty imposed.”

With their academic careers hanging in the balance, the students relied on Jessup to refute the accusation. He did not disappoint and, using language reminiscent of an official legal document, argued that the charges were unwarranted:

“Resolved: The members of [the classes of 1918 and 1919] hereby disavow any intention or the idea of sacrilege, inasmuch as they do not commonly regard the chapel as a house of worship because of its use for exercises other than religious.”

Whether it was a result of his argument or other undocumented factors, the students were not expelled, and the cow returned to its pasture unharmed.

This case of the cows displays Jessup’s early interest in judicial matters, but other experiences deeply impacted his eventual career path. His father, Henry W. Jessup, was an eminent estate lawyer in New York, offering Philip a window into that branch of law. During high school and college, Philip acted in theatrical productions, through which he gained the relational skills required for a career on the world stage. World War I, though, was the main catalyst for his lifetime commitment to international law and diplomacy.

On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson declared war with Germany, and Jessup took a hiatus from his studies the following year to serve as a machine gunner in France and Belgium. After witnessing the catastrophic effects of war on a global scale, he was determined to pursue the “international field.” Upon resuming his studies at Hamilton, Jessup received direction from many preeminent figures in the field, most notably Secretary of State Elihu Root and international judge John Bassett Moore. He studied with Moore at Columbia Law School, transferred and received his law degree from Yale University in 1924, and began teaching international law at Columbia University the following year.

Jessup’s diplomatic career began in earnest when President Harry Truman appointed him representative to the United Nations Security Council in 1948. The Soviet Union had cut off all land and river access to Allied-controlled West Berlin, resulting in one of the earliest crises of the Cold War – the Berlin Blockade. Negotiations were gridlocked until Soviet delegate Yakov Malik approached Jessup at a meeting of the Security Council in February 1949, opening the door to months of talks. The Blockade was lifted on May 12 and Jessup received international acclaim for his vital role in ending the crisis. He continued serving as both a representative to the United Nations and ambassador-at-large under Truman. An authoritative figure on international law and celebrated diplomat, Jessup was elected to the International Court of Justice in 1961.

After his tenure ended in 1970, Jessup remained active within academic circles as a teacher and scholar, while also lending his expertise to smaller matters: In 1982, he served on a panel of judges for a pumpkin carving contest in Norfolk, Connecticut.

While judicial matters of cows and pumpkins may be of a more trivial nature than navigating international crises, these stories are nevertheless worth telling. For they are reminders that Jessup, like all those who go down in history, also made his mark through activities to which many of us can relate—school pranks (although perhaps not so extreme) and fall festivities. Researchers are invited to explore these and other stories in the Philip C. Jessup Papers, now expanded to include Part IV.

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“For a career on the world stage…” Childhood scrapbook, circa 1900-1914, Box R IV:5-6, restricted pending conservation; Hamilton College scrapbook, 1915, Box IV:OV 3, Philip C. Jessup Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

“International field…” “The Reminiscences of Philip C. Jessup,” Oral History Office Columbia University, 1959, 28-33, Box IV:38, Philip C. Jessup Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

“The following year…” “Oscar Schachter, “Philip Jessup’s Life and Ideas,” The American Journal of International Law 80, no. 4 (1986): 879-880.

“Pumpkin carving contest…” “Pumpkin Carving at Norfolk Library,” The Lakeville Journal, October 7, 1982.