What did it all
mean? Was the Chicago
Eight Trial merely, as one commentator suggested, "a
monumental non-event"? Was it, as others argue, an
important battle for the hearts and minds of the
American people? Or is it best seen as a symbol of
the conflicts of values that characterized the late
sixties? These are some of the questions that
surround one of the most unusual courtroom spectacles in
American history, the 1969-70 trial of eight radicals
accused of conspiring to incite a riot at the 1968
Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Culturally and politically, 1968 was one of the most
turbulent years America has ever seen. As the
Vietnam war became the longest war in U. S. history,
American casualties passed the 30,000 mark. When
the Viet Cong mounted their Tet offensive, anti-war
protests grew larger and louder on college
campuses. At Columbia, students seized the
office of the President and held three persons hostage
to protest the school's ties to the defense
Department. Two Jesuit priests, Phil and Daniel
Berrigan, burned hundreds of draft records at a
Selective Service center in Maryland. Following the
April assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis,
riots erupted in 125 cities leaving 46 dead.
After Senator Eugene McCarthy challenged incumbent
President Lyndon Johnson over his support of the war,
Johnson withdrew from the race. Senator Robert Kennedy
entered the race after Johnson's withdrawl, only to be
shot and killed on the night in June that he won the
California primary. "Hair," a controversial new
musical about draftees and flower children, introduced
frontal nudity to large audiences. Feminists
picketed the Miss America pageant, black students
demanded Black Studies programs, and Eldridge Cleaver
published "Soul on Ice."
The Protests
Also in 1968, two groups met to discuss using the
upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago to
highlight their opposition to the Vietnam War and
establishment values. Although there was some loose
coordination between the two groups, they had
different leadership, different agendas, and favored
different forms of protest and demonstrations. The
more politically focused of the two groups was the
National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam
(MOBE). The group more focused on promoting an
uninhibited lifestyle was the Youth International
Party (YIPPIES). In addition to these two
groups, organizations such as the Black Panther Party
and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference also
planned to have representatives in Chicago to press
their complaints concerning racism in American
policies and politics.
Rennie Davis, the national
coordinator for MOBE at the time of the Convention,
first announced his intentions to come to the
Democratic National Convention at a meeting of a group
called "The Resistance" in November, 1967, at Judd
Hall at the University of Chicago. Davis told
the group that he "wanted the world to know that there
are thousands of young people in this country who do
not want to see a rigged convention rubber-stamp
another four years of Lyndon Johnson's war."
Three months later the newly-formed MOBE held a
planning meeting in Chicago to debate four alternative
strategies for the upcoming Democratic Convention: a
mass disruption strategy, a strategy of uniting behind
a peace candidate such as Senator Eugene McCarthy, a
"stay home" strategy, and a strategy of bringing as
many anti-war people as possible to Chicago for
demonstrations and teach-ins. The group of about
forty, including attendees Davis and Tom Hayden, generally
supported the fourth strategy. In March of 1968,
MOBE sponsored another meeting, this one at Lake
Villa, a YMCA Camp near Chicago, to discuss plans for
August. About 200 persons, including Chicago
Seven defendants David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom
Hayden, Abbie Hoffman,
and Jerry Rubin, attended
the meeting. A twenty-one page document,
authored by Hayden and Davis, was distributed at the
meeting. The document recommended non-violence.
Meanwhile, another group was making its own plans for
Chicago. The "YIPPIES" were born, and plans for
a "Festival of Life" in Chicago first discussed, in
December 1967. Plans for the Festival of Life,
as they were developed by Yippie founders Abbie
Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, called for a "festival of
youth, music, and theater." In January, the
Yippies released an initial call to come to Chicago,
called "A STATEMENT FROM YIP":
"Join us in Chicago in August for
an international festival of youth, music, and
theater. Rise up and abandon the creeping
meatball! Come all you rebels, youth
spirits, rock minstrels, truth-seekers,
peacock-freaks, poets, barricade-jumpers, dancers,
lovers and artists!
"It is
summer. It is the last week in August, and
the NATIONAL DEATH PARTY meets to bless Lyndon
Johnson. We
are there! There are 50,000 of
us dancing in the streets, throbbing with
amplifiers and harmony. We are making love
in the
parks. We are reading,
singing, laughing, printing newspapers, groping,
and making a mock convention, and celebrating the
birth of FREE AMERICA in our own
time.
"Everything will
be free. Bring blankets, tents, draft-cards,
body-paint, Mr. Leary's Cow, food to share, music,
eager skin,
and happiness. The threats of
LBJ, Mayor Daley, and J. Edgar Freako will not
stop us. We are coming! We are coming
from
all over the world!
"The life of the
American spirit is being torn asunder by the
forces of violence, decay, and the napalm-cancer
fiend. We
demand the Politics of
Ecstasy! We are the delicate spores of the
new fierceness that will change America. We
will create our
own reality, we are Free
America! And we will not accept the false
theater of the Death Convention.
"We will be in
Chicago. Begin preparations now!
Chicago is yours! Do it!"
Hoffman and Rubin continued, over the next several
months leading up to the Convention, to propose ever
more wild plans for the Festival of Life. Rubin
announced plans to nominate a pig, Pigasus
the Immortal, for President. Hoffman
talked about a demonstration of public fornication,
calling it a "fuck-in." A Yippie Program,
distributed in August of 1968, urged Festival
attendees to bring "sleeping bags, extra food,
blankets, bottles of fireflies, cold cream, lots of
handkerchiefs and canteens to deal with pig spray,
love beads, electric toothbrushes, see-through
blouses, manifestos, magazines, and tenacity."
The program promised poetry readings, mass meditation,
"political arousal speeches," fly casting exhibitions,
rock music, and "a dawn ass-washing ceremony."
There were also activities mentioned in the program
that were somewhat problematic for the alleged
conspirators' trial defense:
"Psychedelic long-haired
mutant-jissomed peace leftists will consort with
known dope fiends, spilling out onto the sidewalks
in pornape disarray each afternoon....Two-hundred
thirty rebel cocksmen under secret vows are on a
24-hour alert to get the pants of the daughters and
wifes and kept women of the convention delegates."
At trial, Hoffman suggested that the proposal of
outlandish events in the Yippie program and in
speeches by Yippie leaders was simply a way of having
"fun." He said that no one was expected to take the
events seriously [link
to Hoffman testimony].
Chicago officials, led by Mayor
Richard Daley, saw the Democratic National
Convention as a grand opportunity to promote their
city to the world. They resolved not to have
anti-war demonstrators spoil their plans.
Pre-Convention sparring between the City and protest
groups concerned the request of the Yippies to allow
demonstrators to sleep in city parks. City
Administrator Stahl indicated on August 5, 1968 that
the request for permission to sleep in the parks would
be denied and that an 11 P.M. curfew would be
enforced. On August 23, officials ordered city
police to post signs in parks announcing the curfew.
As the Convention opening approached, Daley put the
city's 12,000 police officers on twelve-hour shifts.
In addition, 7.500 Army troops and 6,000
national guardsmen, requested by Daley to aid in
keeping order, arrived in Chicago.
In late August, mostly student-age anti-war and
counter-culture activists began arriving in Chicago.
Several thousand would eventually participate in the
Convention week protests (a number far below the
100,000-person estimate that some organizers had
predicted). Several days before the convention,
demonstration leaders began holding classes in Lincoln
Park on karate, snake dancing, and other means of
self-defense. Preparations were woefully
inadequate for the level of police violence that
demonstrators would face. On Friday, August 23,
MOBE learned that a federal district judge had denied
their request for an injunction that would have forced
the city to allow use of the parks after 11 P. M.
The next day radical leaders held a contentious
meeting to discuss whether demonstrators should abide
by the city's curfew. Among those favoring
compliance with the curfew was Jerry Rubin; among
those urging violation of the curfew was Abbie
Hoffman. The first significant confrontations
between demonstrators and protesters occurred
that night. Some people were tear-gassed. A more
serious confrontation with police was avoided
when poet Allen Ginsberg led demonstrators out of
Lincoln Park "Om-ing" (chanting "Ommmmmm").
Sunday, August 25 was to be the much heralded
"Festival of Life" featuring rock music and Yippie
revelry. Only the band MC5 showed up, but even
they were reluctant to perform. They feared that
police would destroy their sound system. The
young people who gathered in the park on Sunday
evening handed out flowers, smoked pot, made out, and
listened to poetry. About 10:30, a police
officer with a bullhorn walked through the park
saying, "The park is closing. If you stay in the
park, you'll be arrested." Some young people,
most of them local "greasers" rather than out-of-town
protesters, threw objects at a police car.
At 11 P. M., police charged into the people still in
the park, teargassing them and hitting them with billy
clubs. The clearing of the park continued for
hours. Some kids ran around smashing car windows
and vandalizing buildings.
Police cracked more heads and fired more tear-gas
grenades again the next night. They attacked
about 3,000 demonstrators gathered in the southeastern
corner of Lincoln Park shortly after the 11 P. M.
curfew. Testifying later about that night, Robert Pierson, an
undercover officer working as Hoffman's bodyguard,
said that the Yippie leader announced, "We're going to
hold the park. We're going to fuck up the pigs
and the Convention." Shortly after midnight, Tom
Hayden became the first of the alleged conspirators to
be arrested. An officer spotted Hayden letting
the air out of the tires of a police car. A half hour
later, Rennie Davis (according to a prosecution
undercover witness) stood at the barricades in Lincoln
Park with a megaphone shouting at people to "fight the
pigs."
August 27 was another wild day in Chicago. It
began with a sunrise service of chants, prayers, and
meditation in Lincoln Park, led by Allen
Ginsberg. Bobby
Seale arrived in Chicago and addressed a crowd
of about 2,000 in Lincoln Park. His speech,
advocating a violent response to police, was
later made the basis for charging him with a violation
of the 1968 Anti-Riot Act. Abbie Hoffman,
furious with MOBE for its continued advocacy of
non-violence, allegedly met with the Blackstone
Rangers to persuade them to come to the park with
weapons that night. In the Chicago Coliseum, about
4,000 persons gathered to hear David Dellinger, folk
singer Phil Ochs, novelist
William Burroughs and a variety of other peace
movement celebrities. Shortly after 11 P. M.,
the nightly routine of clubbing and tear-gassing
repeated in the park. Some enraged demonstrators
smashed windows and streetlights.
Convention week violence peaked on Wednesday, August
28. The day began with Abbie Hoffman being
arrested while having breakfast and charged with
public indecency for having written the word "Fuck" on
his forehead. (Hoffman said he did so to
discourage the press from photographing him.) In the
afternoon, Dellinger, Seale, Davis, and Hayden
addressed 10,000 to 15,000 demonstrators at the
bandshell in Grant Park, opposite the Convention's
headquarters hotel, the Conrad Hilton. Tom Hayden
allegedly told the audience: "Make sure that if blood
is going to flow, let it flow all over the city.
If we're going to be disrupted and violated, let the
whole stinking city be disrupted. I'll see you
in the streets!" Around 3 P.M., some people in the
crowd lowered an American flag from a flagpole and
attempted to raise a red flag in its place. When
the police moved in to retrieve the American flag,
Jerry Rubin yelled "Kill the pigs! Kill the
cops!" In another incident, Rennie Davis was
clubbed into unconsciousness, taken to a hospital,
then covered with a sheet and moved from room to room
in a successful effort to foil police who planned to
arrest Davis during a search of the hospital. That
evening, in the Chicago Amphitheatre, Democrats
nominated Hubert Humphrey as their candidate for
President. Police stopped a nighttime march of about
1,500 people to the Amphitheatre. They attacked
demonstrators with tear gas and clubs at numerous
street intersections in the area.
The clubbing and the tear-gassing finally let up on
Thursday, but protest activities continued.
Senator Eugene McCarthy and comedian Dick Gregory were
among those who addressed a crowd in Grant Park.
Police undercover officer Irwin
Bock met in the park with John Froines and Lee Weiner. Froines
allegedly said that the demonstrators needed more
ammunition to use against police. Weiner
reportedly then suggested Molotov cocktails, adding
that a good tactic might be to pick a target in the
Loop and bomb it. Weiner told Bock and others to
get the bottles, sand, rags, and gasoline necessary to
make the Molotov cocktails.
The Trial
Until enactment of the 1968 Civil Rights Act, rioting
and incitement to riot was a strictly local law
enforcement issue. Congress, however, felt
compelled to respond to the ever-increasing numbers of
anti-war protests around the country. The new
law made it a federal crime to cross state lines with
the intent to incite a riot. Even after passage
of the law, Attorney General Ramsey Clark and
the Justice Department were reluctant to enforce the
new provisions. Clark viewed what had happened
in Chicago as primarily a police riot. The
Attorney General expressed more interest in
prosecuting police officers for brutality than in
prosecuting demonstrators for rioting.
The Justice Department's lack of interest in
prosecuting protest leaders outraged Chicago Mayor
Richard Daley. Daley convinced a close friend and
federal judge, William Campbell, to summon a grand
jury to consider possible violations of the anti-riot
law. On March 20, 1969, the jury returned indictments against eight
demonstrators, balanced exactly by indictments against
eight police officers. The eight indicted
demonstrators included Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin,
David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John
Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale. By the
time the grand jury returned its indictments, the
Nixon Administration had begun. The new attorney
general, John Mitchell, exhibited none of his
predecessor's reluctance about prosecuting
demonstrators. Mitchell gave the green light to
prosecute.
On September 24, 1969, thirteen months after the
riots that shocked America, the trial of the so-called
"Chicago Eight" began in the oak-panelled,
twenty-third-floor courtroom of Judge
Julius Hoffman. The 300 members of the panel of
potential jurors were overwhelmingly white,
middle-class and middle-aged. They reminded
author and trial observer J. Anthony Lukas of
"the Rolling Meadows Bowling League lost on their way
to the lanes." Defense attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass
submitted to Judge Hoffman a list of fifty-four
proposed questions for potential jurors. They
believed that the questions might aid them in their
use of juror challenges by revealing cultural
biases. Among the questions the defense
attorneys wanted to ask jurors were: "Do you know who
Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix are?", "Would you let
your son or daughter marry a Yippie?", and "If your
children are female, do they wear brassieres all the
time?" Judge Hoffman rejected all but one of the
proposed questions, asking the jurors only "Are you,
or do you have any close friends or relatives who are
employed by any law enforcement agencies?" (Later, the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals would cite the
judge's refusal to allow inquiry into the potential
cultural biases of jurors as a ground for reversing
all convictions.) Three hours after voir
dire began, a jury of two white men and ten women, two
black and eight white, was seated. It was
clearly not a good jury for the defense. (After
the trial, one female juror commented that the
defendants "should be convicted for their appearance,
their language and their lifestyle." Edward
Kratzke, the jury foreman, also was angered by the
defendants' courtroom behavior: "These defendants
wouldn't even stand up when the judge walked in; when
there is no more respect we might as well give up the
United States." A third juror expressed the view
that the demonstrators "should have been shot down by
the police.")
The defense and prosecution tables stood in dramatic
contrast. At the defense table, defendants
relaxed in blue jeans and sweatshirts, often with
their feet up on chairs or the table itself.
Hoffman and Rubin favored attire that included
headbands, buttons, beads, and colorful shirts.
The defendants passed trial hours munching jelly
beans, cracking jokes, offering editorial comments,
making faces, reading newspapers, and sleeping.
The area around the defense table was littered with
clothing, candy wrappers, and even (on one day) a
package of marijuana. The prosecution table,
behind which sat silver-haired District
Attorney
Thomas Foran and his young assistantRichard Schultz in their
business suits, was, on the other hand, a picture of
neatness and efficiency. The prosecution table
was clear of all but carefully arranged notes, a file
of index cards, and a pencil.
There was division in the defense ranks concerning
trial strategy. Some of the defendants, such as
Tom Hayden, wanted to play the trial straight: to
concentrate on winning jurors by diligently pursuing
weaknesses in the prosecution's case and by observing
a degree of courtroom decorum. Others, such as
Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, saw the trial as an
opportunity to appeal to young people around the
country. [Link to interview with
Hoffman about trial.] They wanted to
turn the trial into entertaining theater that would
receive maximum attention in the press. To that
end, the Yippies would spice up the days of the trial
by, for example, wearing judicial robes, bringing into
the courtroom a birthday cake, blowing kisses to the
jury, baring their chests, or placing the flag of the
National Liberation Front on the defense table.
In his trial account The Barnyard Epithet an
Other Obscenities, J. Anthony Lukas divides the
Chicago Conspiracy Trial into five "phases." The
first period, which Lukas calls "The Jelly Bean
Phase," lasted from September 24 to October 13.
It was a relatively uneventful stage, in which the
defendants took a "gently mocking" stance toward the
trial. The second period, the "Gags and Shackles
Phase," lasted from October 14 to November 5.
This phase by the defendants seeking to emphasize
political issues in the trial, perhaps because they
were concerned that the trial was being seen by their
sympathizers as a mere joke. Also during this
phase, Black Panther defendant Bobby Seale
continuously, and in increasingly angry tones,
insisted upon his right either to represent himself or
to have the trial continued until his own counsel of
choice, Charles Garry (who was hospitalized for gall
bladder surgery), could represent him. Seale
hurled frequent and bitter attacks at Judge Hoffman,
calling him a "fascist dog," a "pig," and a "racist,"
among other things. On October 29, the outraged
judge ordered Seale bound and gagged. Finally,
on November 5, Hoffman severed Seale from the case and
sentenced him to four years in prison for
contempt. The Chicago Eight suddenly became the
Chicago Seven. Phase three, lasting from
November 6 to December 10, was called by Lukas
"Government's Day in Court." It was a relatively
calm period with only nine contempts, as the
defendants saw in a surprisingly weak prosecution case
the opportunity for at least a hung jury if they could
"cool it" and avoid turning the jury against
them. Phase four, from December 11 to January 22
was the "Sing Along with Phil and Judy Phase."
This was the phase in which the defense presented its
witnesses, a virtual "who's who" of the American left
from the guru of the drug culture Timothy Leary to radical poet
Allen Ginsberg to folk
singers Phil Ochs, Arlo
Guthrie, "Country Joe" McDonald, Pete Seeger and
Judy Collins. The
final phase of the trial, from January 23 to February
7, Lukas called the "Barnyard Epithet Phase." It
was a two-week period marked by increasingly bitter
outbursts by the defendants and their attorneys, and
by almost irrational overreactions by Judge
Hoffman. Forty-eight contempts came in this
shortest of the five trial phases.
The heart of the government's case was presented
through the testimony of three undercover agents who
had infiltrated radical ranks,Irwin
Bock, William Frappolly,
and Robert Pierson.
Pierson landed a job as Rubin's "bodyguard," while
Bock and Frappolly maneuvered their way into
leadership positions in "Vets for Peace" and the S. D.
S. (Students for a Democratic society). The
undercover witnesses described plots to disrupt
traffic, takeover hotels, "sabotage" restrooms, and
other "hit-and-run guerilla tactics." The
government's case was aided substantially by
Judge Hoffman who consistently ruled in favor of the
prosecution on evidentiary disputes. For
example, Hoffman allowed the government to introduce
speeches of the defendants made well before their
arrival in Chicago when they tended to support the
government's case, but ruled that the defense could
not introduce (because they were "self-serving")
pre-Convention documents that suggested peaceable
intentions. Throughout the presentation of the
government's case, Thomas Foran played the straight
man, while his younger associate, Richard
Shultz, expressed outrage at defense behavior
and--whenever the opportunity arose--went for the
jugular. J. Anthony Lukas marveled that "Shultz could
have made the first robin of spring sound like a plot
by the Audobon Society."
The defense through its witnesses tried to portray
the defendants as committed idealists who reacted
spontaneously to escalating police violence. It
suggested that what the prosecution saw as dangerous
plots, such as an alleged Yippie conspiracy to place
LSD in the Chicago water supply, were only play.
The defense also attempted, without much success
because of Judge Hoffman's rulings excluding such
testimony, to make the Viet Nam War an issue in the
trial. The defense countered the prosecution's
attempt to prove a conspiracy with evidence that the
alleged conspirators never met as a group--and would
have agreed upon little if they had. Defense
witness Norman Mailer
probably made the point best when he said,
"Left-wingers are incapable of conspiracy because
they're all egomaniacs." Abbie Hoffman made the
same point more colorfully when he said, "Conspiracy?
Hell, we couldn't agree on lunch."
The jury had scarcely begun its deliberations in the
Chicago Conspiracy Trial when Judge Hoffman began
sentencing each of the defendants and the two defense
attorneys, William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass, to
lengthy prison terms on 159 specifications for criminal contempt.
The specifications ranged from minor acts of
disrespect (such as not standing for the judge) to
playful acts (such as baring rib cages or blowing
kisses to the jury) to insulting or questioning the
integrity of the court ("liar," "hypocrite," and
"fascist dog"). William Kunstler, who seemingly
became a radicalized brother of his clients over the
course of the trial, was sentenced by Hoffman to four
years and thirteen days in jail. One
specification for Kunstler concerned an incident on
February 3 when he said "I am going to turn back to my
seat with the realization that everything I have
learned throughout my life has come to naught, that
there is no meaning in this court, there is no law in
this court." The Seventh Circuit Court of
Appeals later reversed all contempt convictions,
ruling that contempt convictions resulting in more
than six months in prison require jury trials.
The jury initially split, with eight jurors voting to
convict defendants on both the conspiracy and intent
to incite riot charges and four jurors voting to
acquit on all charges. Foreman Edward
Kratzke handed a hung-jury message to the marshal to
take to Judge Hoffman. The judge's response:
"Keep deliberating!" Juror Kay Richards finally
brokered a compromise between the two jury
factions. In the end, jurors acquitted all
defendants on the conspiracy charge, while finding the
five defendants charged with having an intent to
incite a riot while crossing state lines guilty.
The jury acquitted Froines and Weiner of the charge of
teaching and demonstrating the use of an incendiary
device.
On February 20, 1970, Judge Hoffman sentenced the
five members of the Chicago Seven found guilty by the
jury. Each defendant made a statement before
sentence was imposed. David Dellinger told
Hoffman that he was "a man who had too much power over
too many people for too many years," but that he
admired his "spunk." Rennie Davis announced that
when he got out of prison he intended to "move next
door to [prosecutor] Tom Foran, and bring his sons and
daughter into the revolution." Tom Hayden
offered the opinion that "we would hardly have been
notorious characters if they left us alone on the
streets of Chicago," but instead "we became the
architects, the masterminds, and the geniuses of a
conspiracy to overthrow the government-- we were
invented." Abbie Hoffman recommended that the
judge try LSD: "I know a good dealer in Florida [where
the judge was soon to head for a vacation]; I could
fix you up." Jerry Rubin offered the judge a
copy of his new book Do It! with an
inscription inside: "Julius, you radicalized more
young people than we ever could. You're the
country's top Yippie." After listening to each
defendant give his statement, Judge Hoffman sentenced
each defendant to five years' imprisonment plus a
$5,000 fine.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed all
convictions on November 21, 1972. The appellate court
based its decision on the refusal to allow inquiry
into the cultural biases of potential jurors during
voir dire as well as Judge Hoffman's "deprecatory and
often antagonistic attitude toward the defense."
The court also noted that it was determined after
appellate argument that the F. B. I, with the
knowledge and complicity of Judge Hoffman and
prosecutors, had bugged the offices of the Chicago
defense attorneys. The Court of Appeals panel
said that it had "little doubt but that the wrongdoing
of F. B. I. agents would have required reversal of the
convictions on the substantive charges."
All seven Chicago police officers charged with
violating the civil rights of demonstrators were
acquitted. Charges against an eighth officer
were dismissed. Richard Shultz explained the
verdicts by observing, "The people who sit on juries
in this city are just not ready to convict a Chicago
policeman."
There is no simple "yes" or "no" answer to the
question of whether the Chicago defendants intended to
incite a riot in Chicago in 1968. Abbie Hoffman
said, "I don't know whether I'm innocent or I'm
guilty." The reason for the confusion--as Norman
Mailer pointed out--was that the alleged conspirators
"understood that you didn't have to attack the
fortress anymore." All they had to do was
"surround it, make faces at the people inside and let
them have nervous breakdowns and destroy themselves."