Henry Valpey Atherton (May 6, 1911 – July 31, 1967), was an American lawyer, and part of the prosecution counsel at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946.
[5][6] Atherton worked for Federal Judge Hugh Dean McLellan who had been nominated by President Herbert Hoover on January 18, 1932, to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated by Judge James Madison Morton Jr. McLellan was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 3, 1932.
[7] He served as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trial[8] under Justice Robert H. Jackson between September 30 and October 1, 1946.
[12] At the end of World War II, Atherton returned to law firm of Herrick, Smith, Donald, Farley and Ketchum, and worked as an associate, until his untimely death in 1967.
He was president of the Young People's Religious League; treasurer of the Unitarian Service Pension Society, and a member of the board of the Star Island Corporation.