Top row, left to right: Rennie Davis, David Dellinger,
John Froines and Tom Hayden. Bottom row, left to right:
Lee Weiner, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.
February 19, 1970: A verdict is reached in the trial of "The Chicago Seven." There is a small amount of surprise.
The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago. With President Lyndon Johnson not running for re-election so he could concentrate on negotiating an end to the Vietnam War, and thus far failing; Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who had been reaching people across the spectrum, on all issues, having been assassinated; and with Senator Eugene McCarthy, essentially conducting a single-issue campaign, that issue being the war, only running half-heartedly thereafter, there was no real challenge to LBJ's preferred candidate: His Vice President, Hubert Humphrey.
And people who wanted the war over were furious. They they ignored Humphrey's sterling 25-year liberal record as Mayor of Minneapolis, Senator from Minnesota, and Vice President, and tagged him, completely unfairly, as "the pro-war candidate." Thousands of people demonstrated in Chicago's Grant Park, which the main hotel for Convention Delegates, the Conrad Hilton Hotel (now the Hilton Chicago), overlooked.
And, egged on by agitators Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin -- who were more interested in making trouble than in making peace -- the demonstrators challenged the Chicago Police. The Police charged, and there was a riot. It became known as "the New Battle of the Midway" and "the Melee on Michigan Avenue." The cops wore short-sleeved blue shirts (understandable due to the heat) and blue helmets (understandable due to the need for protection). They swung their nightsticks freely, and even poked demonstrators in the stomach.
Borrowing a line from Bob Dylan's song "When the Ship Comes In," demonstrators chanted, "The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!" And TV cameras were, indeed, getting the whole picture: The police were seen as the aggressors -- although half of the viewing audience thought them justified.
Had Humphrey won anyway, that probably would have been the end of it. But Richard Nixon, who had been Vice President under Dwight D. Eisenhower, won, on a campaign of ending the war abroad and "law and order" at home, against both black criminals and white "New Left" agitators. He had the U.S. Department of Justice, under his Attorney General -- and, previously, his campaign manager -- John Mitchell investigate the demonstrations. On March 20, 1969, they, quite literally, made a federal case out of it: 8 men were indicted for conspiracy, crossing State lines with intent to incite a riot, and other charges:
* Abbot "Abbie" Hoffman, 32, a Bostonian and the leader of the Youth International Party, or YIP, or "Yippies."
* Jerry Rubin, 30, from Cincinnati, co-founder of the Yippies with Hoffman. He once described "People who say, 'Fuck' on TV" as "our kind of people. As I said, he and Hoffman were more interested in publicity than in results.
* Tom Hayden, 29, from Detroit, one of the original leaders of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the main author of their 1962 manifesto, The Port Huron Statement. He had been a civil rights, anti-poverty and antiwar activist.
* Rennard "Rennie" Davis, 28, from the Virginia side of the Washington area, who worked with Hayden in SDS.
* David Dellinger, 53, another Bostonian. Easily the oldest of the group, and the only one who was "Old Left" rather than "New Left." He was pro-Republic in the Spanish Civil War, but his side lost. "After Spain," he said, "World War II was simple. I wasn't even tempted to pick up a gun to fight for General Motors, U.S. Steel, or the Chase Manhattan Bank, even if Hitler was running the other side." He was a genuine pacifist, founding the magazine Liberation with fellow pacifists Dorothy Day and A.J. Muste (who coined the saying, "There is no way to peace: Peace is the way"), and later wrote a memoir titled From Yale to Jail.
* John Froines, 29, from Oakland. A chemist, one of his charges was making incendiary devices, even though none were used in the Convention protests.
* Lee Weiner, 29, from Chicago, the only one from anywhere near it. At the time, he was a doctoral student and an anti-poverty activist.
There was an 8th defendant: Bobby Seale, 32, from Liberty, Texas, but spent his teenage years in Berkeley, California, where he would co-found the Black Panther Party with Huey P. Newton. He was only in Chicago during Convention week because he had accepted an invitation for a public speaking appearance for which fellow Black Power advocate Eldridge Cleaver had to drop out. He had no role in the demonstrations.
The presiding Judge in this case was Julius Hoffman, 73, from Chicago, and no relation to Abbie, who said the Judge was giving all Hoffmans a bad name. He also told the Judge, "You are a shande far dee Goyim," Yiddish for "a disgrace (to the Jewish community) in front of the Gentiles." Abbie also told him, "You would have served Hitler better," and, "Your idea of justice is the only obscenity in the room." Rubin and Davis each told him, on separate occasions, "This court is bullshit." Seale was even more disruptive, and the Judge ordered him bound and gagged, something he didn't order for any of the white defendants, not even the smartass Abbie.
The main defense attorneys were William Kunstler, a 49-year-old New Yorker; and Leonard Weinglass, 35, from Belleville, on the New York side of New Jersey. Kunstler, who proudly called himself a "radical lawyer," had previously represented the Black Panthers and the draft evaders known as the Catonsville Nine, and would later represent Doors singer Jim Morrison in his obscenity trial (and played himself in Oliver Stone's film about the band), the Weather Underground terrorists, and the Attica Prison rioters.
Kunstler was the show horse, Weinglass the work horse: An expert on constitutional law, he was the one who pointed out the violations of the defendants' rights, from the moment of their arrest through incidents in the trial itself. He should not be confused with Leonard "Boogie" Weinglass, then starting a restaurant chain, and was involved with Baltimore sports.
The main charge was "conspiracy." Abbie told the media, "Conspiracy? We can't even agree on lunch!" But the charge of incitement to riot was bad, made worse by the charge that they had crossed State Lines to do so. (The Convention headquarters, the Conrad Hilton Hotel, now named Hilton Chicago, on South Michigan Avenue in "The Loop," where the worst of the rioting happened, is 14 miles northwest of the Illinois-Indiana State Line, and 47 miles south of the Illinois-Wisconsin State Line.)
According to Weiner, towards the end of the trial, "There was no question we would be put in jail. I ended up going, mostly for correcting my name. People always pronounced it Wee-ner. It's Wye-ner. When the judge would say 'Wee-ner,' I would shout out, 'It's Wye-ner,' and he got pissed off, and charged me with contempt, which was a perfect summary of my political stance. I was sentenced to two and a half months." While the jury deliberated, the judge cited the defendants and their lawyers for 159 counts of criminal contempt. Weiner was convicted on 7 charges of criminal contempt.
After being taken to jail following their convictions for contempt on February 14, 1970, the defendants "almost immediately" stood on top of tables in the common areas and gave speeches of "defiance," getting applause and laughter from fellow inmates, and were quickly put into isolation cells. With the exception of David Dellinger, who was already going bald, jail officials cut the long hair of the defendants for "sanitary reasons." Weiner recalled that Abbie "yelled that we should fight, force them to pay a price, that our hair was a symbol of our freedom and of everything we believed and we couldn't just acquiesce," before being held down by guards for the haircut.
On February 19, a verdict was reached. Shockingly -- but fitting with Abbie's definition of the word -- all 7 defendants were acquitted on the conspiracy charge. Froines and Weiner were acquitted on all of the charges against them.
The other 5 defendants -- Hoffman, Rubin, Hayden, Davis and Dellinger -- were found guilty of inciting a riot, and Judge Hoffman sentenced each of them to the maximum penalty: 5 years in prison and a fine of $5,000, plus court costs. In addition, the Judge sentenced all 8 defendants, and also Kunstler and Weinglass, to lengthy jail terms for contempt of court. They remained free on appeal.
On May 11, 1972, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacated all of the contempt convictions. Six months later, on November 21, that same Court reversed all of the substantive convictions on a number of grounds. Among other things, the appeals court found that Judge Hoffman had not sufficiently measured the biases of the jury, and that he had exhibited a "deprecatory and often antagonistic attitude toward the defense." In other words, Judge Hoffman was guilty of judicial misconduct. Certainly, his actions on the bench caused more damage than the actions of any of the defendants on the streets.
Hoffman remained on the federal bench. In 1982, the Executive Committee of the United States District Court ordered that he not be assigned any new cases because of his age, and complaints that he was acting erratically and abusively from the bench. However, he continued to preside over his ongoing cases until his death from natural causes the next year, a week before his 88th birthday. All the other major players in the story outlived him.
Kunstler and Weinglass kept defending controversial clients. In 2007, Weinglass told an interviewer, "The typical call I get is the one that starts by saying, 'You are the fifth attorney we've called.' Then I get interested." Kunstler died in 1995; Weinglass in 2011.
Abbie kept up his antics, and fled the country in 1973, being caught in 1980, and spending time in prison. He remained unrepentant. When asked what he would take out of the Sixties, he said, "I wouldn't take anything out of the Sixties." When the reporter mentioned drugs, he repeated himself. And yet, he was the 1st of the Seven to die, hanging himself in a hotel room in the suburbs of Philadelphia in 1989.
Rubin turned from Yippie to Yuppie: Young Urban Professional. In 1980, he became a stockbroker, saying, "I know that I can be more effective today wearing a suit and tie and working on Wall Street than I can be dancing outside the walls of power." He made a lot of money, but was hit by a car and killed in Los Angeles in 1994.
In 1996, the next time the Democratic Convention was held in Chicago, Dellinger and Abbie's son, Andrew Hoffman, were arrested in a sit-in at the city's Federal Building. This time, there was no violence. Dellinger turned his attention to protesting so-called "free trade," before age and illness caught up with him. He died in 2004.
Hayden kept up his activism. In 1973, he married actress Jane Fonda, and they had a son. To spare him the stigma of either of their family names, they gave him his paternal grandfather's surname: Troy Garity. He became an actor like his mother, his uncle Peter, and his grandfather Henry (and, as it turned out, his first cousin Bridget, while half-sister Vanessa Vadim, Jane's daughter with Roger Vadim, went into his business, directing).
In 1982, Tom Hayden was elected to the California Assembly. In 1992, he was elected to the California Senate. He was the only one of the Seven ever elected to public office, and he built a strong liberal record, especially on education reform and environmentalism. Shortly before his death in 2016, he said, "I'm Jefferson in terms of democracy, I'm Thoreau in terms of environment, and Crazy Horse in terms of social movements."
Davis concluded that Rubin had a point, but refused to abandon the movement: He split the difference, becoming a venture capitalist for liberal causes. He died in 2021.
Froines served as chair of the California Scientific Review Panel on Toxic Air Contaminants for nearly 30 years. He died in 2022.
Weiner went into teaching, and wrote a memoir, Conspiracy to Riot: The Life and Times of One of the Chicago 7. As of February 19, 2022, he is still alive, the last survivor of the Chicago Seven.
But not -- yet -- the last survivor of the Chicago Eight. Seale ran for Mayor of Oakland in 1973, and finished 2nd, forcing a runoff, but lost that. He had an argument with Huey Newton that led to Newton beating him to the point where he had to be hospitalized. He left the Black Panthers after that, teaching, touring as a public speaker, and even publishing a cookbook.
In 1987, HBO aired the TV-movie Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8. In 2020, Netflix streamed The Trial of the Chicago 7. Abbie was played by Michael Lembeck, Rubin by Barry Miller, Hayden by Brian Benben, Davis by Robert Carradine, Dellinger by Peter Boyle, Froines by David Kagen, Weiner by Robert Fieldsteel, Seale by Carl Lumbly, Kunstler by Robert Loggia, Weinglass by Elliott Gould, and Judge Hoffman by David Opatoshu.
Martin Sheen, going against type, played vicious Chicago police officer James Marion Hunt. Billy Zane also played a Chicago cop. Ron Rifkin played poet and antiwar activist Allen Ginsberg, who testified at the trial.
In 2020, Netflix streamed The Trial of the Chicago 7. Abbie was played by Sacha Baron Cohen, Rubin by Jeremy Strong, Hayden by Eddie Redmayne, Davis by Alex Sharp; Dellinger by John Carroll Lynch, Froines by Daniel Flaherty, Weiner by Noah Robbins, Seale by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Kunstler by Mark Rylance, Weinglass by Ben Shenkman, and Judge Hoffman by Frank Langella, who had previously played Nixon in a film.
Ginsberg was played by Alan Metoskie. Michael Keaton played Ramsey Clark, the U.S. Attorney General at the time of the riots, and John Doman played John Mitchell, whom Nixon appointed to replace him, and who later went to prison for his role in Watergate.
*
February 19, 1970 was a Thursday. This was also the day that baseball pitcher Denny McLain was suspended due to a gambling scandal. I have a separate entry for that event.
Baseball and football were out of season. One game was played in the NBA, and it was unusual: The Philadelphia 76ers, who had been the Syracuse Nationals from 1949 to 1963, went back to the Onondaga County War Memorial (now named the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York, and beat the Detroit Pistons, 133-114.
There were 2 games in the American Basketball Association. The Carolina Cougars beat the Pittsburgh Condors, 106-104 in overtime at the Charlotte Coliseum. And the Miami Floridians beat the Indiana Pacers, 107-102 at the gymnasium of Miami-Dade Junior College North in Miami. At this point, calling the ABA a "major league" was a bit of a stretch. Then again, that was also the case with the NBA until the mid-1950s or so.
There were 3 games in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 3-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.
* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Minnesota North Stars, 3-2 at the Chicago Stadium, 2 1/2 miles west of the Federal Courthouse where the trial was held.
* And the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Los Angeles Kings, 6-1 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.
