That’s what freethinkers say when asked to swear to God, as I was asked in a Chicago courtroom in December 1969.
I testified that Tom Hayden told me one night during the Democratic Convention that the Chicago police knew that the feds were planning an incitement-to-riot case against him. Leonard Weinglass (a very good lawyer) was trying to establish that the cops were intent on a riot occurring.
I could truthfully affirm that I’d never seen Hayden and Abbie et al conspire in the months preceding the convention to incite a riot (as opposed to a demonstration). I did see them plotting to lure “the kids” (Rennie Davis’s contemptuous term) to Chicago with false promises of Credence Clearwater Revival. But the prosecution didn’t ask about that.
According to a Chicago Tribune story, “The witness said he was in Chicago for Ramparts magazine to print a daily convention newspaper called the Wall poster. He said defendant Tom Hayden, after being bailed out of jail on an arrest for deflating a police car tire, came to the newspaper’s office on August 27, 1968.
“Hayden said he was ‘going underground’ because policeman assigned to follow him ‘had threatened to kill him,’ Gardner testified
“:Hayden called himself ‘a marked man,’ Gardner said.
“Gardner also said defendant Abbie Hoffman told him Aug. 22 of ‘threats agaiunst his life.’
“The session was interrupted twice by angry defense protests that US district judge Julius J Hoffman was treating defense witnesses differently from government witnesses. Judge Hoffman, who has threatened attorneys with contempt-of-court rulings several times, warned defense attorney Leonard Weinglass at one point, ‘Be careful. Be careful.’
*Weinglass maintained that ‘two rules apply’ during the trial.
*Attorney William M Kunstler also protested the judge’s ‘lectures to defense witnesses.’
“Gardner said at one point, ‘I do feel ill at ease here, your honor.’
“‘Don’t be critical of me,’ Judge Hoffman said. ‘I didn’t bring you here. You don’t have to testify if you don’t want to.’
“Gardner also told of seeing policeman swinging clubs when he went to the Grant Park band hell August 28 to distribute handbills asking for sympathy by the police and the ational guard. He said he saw defendant Remnnie Davis lying on the ground and bleeding from a head wound. He read the police handbilll to the jury: “Our argument in Chicago is not with you but with the rich men in power,” it said.
The defense had paid my fare and I flew into O’Hare, arriving on the afternoon before I was supposed to testify. They put me up at an apartment on the South Side where Hayden and members of the defense legal team were staying for the duration of the trial. The pad had been put at their disposal by a University of Chicago grad named Bill Zimmerman, who Bensky had described as “Tom’s gofer.”
After dinner Hayden and Zimmerman were going out to a meeting and I was going to sleep. Zimmerman handed me a phone number on a slip of paper and said, in reference to a lawyer on the defense team, “If Kinoy’s wife calls from New Jersey, tell her he’s just gone down for a quart of milk.” Then I was supposed to phone Art Kinoy at his girlfriend’s, so he could call his wife in New Jersey.
I had recently been betrayed myself, so I wasn’t about to be party to someone else’s betrayal. I told them I was tired and wouldn’t answer the phone. I should have said, “Why do you think I would lie for Kinoy, or you, or anybody?” But at the time I hadn’t split with them.
Allen Ginsberg and Phil Ochs and were supposed to testify at that session, too. I remember being with them in a large, dark room, adjacent to the courtroom. Ginsberg asked Ochs where he was staying. Ochs told him. A friend’s place or another defense pad, I can’t recall. Ginsberg asked if there was any room for him. Ochs said there wasn’t. Are you sure? Yes. Ginsberg asked if he could share Ochs’s bed. Ochs laughed it off. Ginsberg asked again. Ochs said no. Ginsberg asked again and again and again and again. Ochs was obviously embarrassed and so was I. I assumed Ochs was straight but what did it matter, no means no, and Ginsberg’s come-on was relentless and creepy.
I have only one distinct memory from my time on the witness stand. After I’d be asked a question on cross-examination, grinning Abbie Hoffman would cup his mouth with his hands and offer a word of silent advice: “Lie.”
The federal conspiracy charge was absurd upfront, but Tom was crazed in Chicago and would have incited a terrible riot if a McCarthy staffer had gone along with the idea of broadcasting a tape recording from the Hilton (where delegates were staying) to the massed protesters across Michigan Avenue, in which Tom asserted that he had made it into the hotel and that everyone “owed it to the Vietnamese people” to charge across the police line! He was completely out of perspective. The murder of Bobby Kennedy had taken away his deep, sincere hope that we could change this country via electoral politics. (A hope he would regain in a few years.)
Who hasn’t had that hope? I had rung doorbells for William Fitts Ryan and William Meyer (pro-disarmament, anti-HUAC Congressmen), and written an anti-war speech for a New York City Councilman named Teddy Weiss.
The Kennedy family invited two peace-movement organizers to Bobby’s funeral –me and Tom. I was in SF. I called my folks to say I might be flying in. My father said, “They know who to kill.”
Conspiracy trial testimony “defendants feared for their lives” by James Kloss and Raymond
Hey San Francisco writer and editor testified Wednesday that the conspiracy seven defendants told him their lives were threatened during the 1968 Democratic national convention.
The witness, Fred Gardner, said he was in Chicago for Ramparts magazine to print a daily convention newspaper called the Wall poster. He said defendant Tom Hayden, after being bailed out of jail on an arrest for deflating a police car tire, came to the newspaper’s office on August 27, 1968.
Hayden said he was “going underground” because policeman assigned to follow him “had threatened to kill him,” Gardner testified
Hayden called himself “a marked man,” Gardner said.
Gardner also said defendant Abbie Hoffman told him Aug. 22 of “threats agaiunst his life.”
The session was interrupted twice by angry defense protests that US district judge Julius J Hoffman was treating defense witnesses differently from government witnesses. Judge Hoffman, who has threatened attorneys with contempt-of-court rulings several times, warned defense attorney Leonard Weinglass at one point, “Be careful. Be careful.”
Weinglass maintained that “two rules apply” during the trial.
Attorney William M Kunstler also protested the judge’s “lectures to defense witnesses.” Gardner said at one point, “I do feel ill at ease here, your honor.”
“Don’t be critical of me,” Judge Hoffman said. “I didn’t bring you here. You don’t have to testify if you don’t want to.”
Gardner also told of seeing policeman swinging clubs when he went to the Grant Park band hell August 28 to distribute handbills asking for sympathy by the police and the national guard. He said he saw defendant Remnnie Davis lying on the ground and bleeding from a head wound. He read the police handbilll to the jury: “Our argument in Chicago is not with you but with the rich men in power,” it said.
