all pre-trial and trial materials, puts Stepinac's guilt in question. At the same time Tomasevich notes that Stepinac's failure to publicly condemn the Ustaše's genocidal measures against Serbs and the Orthodox Church, "cannot be defended from the standpoint of humanity, justice and common decency". On the other hand, John Fine states that the trial "was well publicized both at home and abroad by extremely biased figures on both sides, was carried out with the proper legal procedures; there was no torture and a great deal of evidence was brought before the judges, a considerable amount of which was devastating and accurate, and clearly demonstrated the archbishop's collaboration with the Ustaše regime." The Yugoslav Communist trial against Stepinac's is seen by some as a part of coordinated effort by the Eastern Europe communist regimes to severe Catholic Church in their countries from Rome, and was near contemporaneous with the Communist trials against the Cardinals Josyf Slipyj of Ukraine, Jozsef Mindszenty of Hungary, Josef Beran of Czechoslovakia, and Stefan Wyszynski of Poland. Reactions In the escalating Cold War atmosphere, and with the Vatican putting forward worldwide publicity, the trial was depicted in the West as a typical communist "show trial", in which the testimony was all false. The trial was immediately condemned by the Holy See. All Catholics who had taken part in the court proceedings, including most of the jury members, were excommunicated by Pope Pius XII who referred to the process as the "saddest trial" (tristissimo processo). In the United States, one of Stepinac's biggest supporters was the Archbishop of Boston, Richard Cushing, who delivered several sermons in support of him. U.S. Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson on 11 October 1946 bemoaned the conditions in Yugoslavia and stated his regret of the trial. The National Conference of Christians and Jews at the Bronx Round Table adopted a unanimous resolution on 13 October condemning the trial: This great churchman has been charged with being a collaborator with the Nazis. We Jews deny that. We know from his record since 1934, that he was a true friend of the Jews ... This man, now the victim of a sham trial, all during the Nazi regime spoke out openly, unafraid, against the dreadful Nuremberg Laws, and his opposition to the Nazi terrorism was never relaxed. In Britain, on 23 October 1946, Richard Stokes MP declared in the House of Commons that, [T]he