Special to the Fifth Estate
CHICAGO, Oct. 25—This week the Conspiracy is still learning about agents and informers.
Tobin, Chicago Police-undercover; Carcarano, Chicago Police-undercover; Rodriguez, Chicago Police-undercover; Salzberg, underground press photographer known personally and more or less trusted by many of the defendants, got paid $10,000 as an FBI informer for the last two years, code name Winston; Sweeny, FBI Informer; Killian, reporter for the far right Chicago Tribune, Chicago Police-undercover. The list goes on.
Tobin, Carcarano, Rodriguez, Salzberg, Sweeny, Killian, Darga, a veritable all-‘merikan melting pot of spies and finks.
The trial grinds on, settling into some routine, some tedium. Pig after Pig after Pig they move through the 23rd floor modern stainless and walnut train station of the U.S. Railroad.
“I overheard Tom Hayden say he was a revolutionary.” “Jerry Rubin said to fight the police.” Rennie Davis said, “Hell no we won’t go!” to a crowd of people. He also said, “Let’s fight the pigs. Let’s get them. Let’s go.” David Dellinger told the crowd (in San Diego) to come to Chicago for the Convention and they applauded.
So it goes. Blah, Blah, Oink.
Most of what these agents here say is complete fabrication, not just about what the defendants are alleged to have done but about everything.
One said, under oath, that the strongest language he ever heard used by any policeman during an incident was “sonuvagun” and “damn.” Another claimed that he had heard conservative Chicago Daily News editor and Columnist Jack Mabley shout something during the arrest of Jerry Rubin which Mabley witnessed.
In his column the day after the testimony, Mably challenged the pig, Tobin in this case, to take a lie detector test and volunteered to take one himself because he said he never spoke or shouted a word while witnessing Jerry Rubin’s arrest.
He added, “If Tobin lied about what I said, how is it possible to believe his testimony about what Rubin and Rennie Davis and the other defendants said?”
Whether Jack Mabley believes it or not, of course, isn’t the point. The question is whether the jury believes it. But then, that isn’t too much the point either since Judge Julius Hoffman will undoubtedly instruct them to disregard all inconsistencies in the prosecution’s testimony.
That would be in keeping with his continued psychotic conduct of the trial in which all, ALL defense motions, requests, objections and efforts to defend themselves are denied.
Bobby Seale, Black Panther Chairman, is denied permission to question witnesses in his own defense day after day after day despite the fact that he has no attorney representing him in the case since his counsel, Charles Garry, remains ill on the West Coast.
Permission is also denied for the other defendants, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froins, Abbie Hoffman, Lee Weiner, Jerry Rubin and David Dellinger, to bring Chairman Bobby a birthday cake on his 33rd birthday.
In fact, the cake, carried in a briefcase is arrested by the ever-present U.S. marshals. The cake-napping, as Abbie immediately calls it, prompts Bobby to shout, “You can jail a cake, but you can’t jail the revolution.”
Despite the enormous pressure which the Nixon-Mitchell-Agnew government puts on Bobby Seale, he is unbroken and his spirit remains defiant and good.
Another hassle develops over the Button motion in which defense attorney Kunstler tries to get the judge to force the marshals to allow people into the court room who are wearing buttons. Hoffman refuses.
Rennie and David Dellinger have received a request from the North Vietnamese to come to Paris to discuss important developments concerning U.S. prisoners of war. Permission is necessary from the judge for them to leave the country, even though they will be back in time and not miss a single minute of the court proceedings. Hoffman refuses. Attorney William Kunstler finally flies to the Paris meeting.
But the fact remains. The truth that Judge Julius J. Hoffman is a psychotic, malevolent asshole is not the major issue in this case. Just as the behavior of Daley’s police at the 1968 Democratic Convention diverted attention from the War in Vietnam and the bankruptcy of the Democratic party, the antics and atrocities of Magoo have distracted the mass media and those who depend on them for their information from the legal-political issues of the case.
Those issues have to do with what it is that the eight defendants need to be doing other than sitting in a courtroom (and in the use of Bobby Seale, the Cook County Jail) and the methodology of the ruling class government attempt to punish and destroy the Movement for its successes. (It is after all some sort of federal offense to cross state lines to embarrass and expose the Democratic Party and the City of Chicago before the entire planet. One can hardly expect to escape such success without some penalty, although 80-man years in prison, not to mention the hassle and expense of the trial itself, is excessive.)
The “issues” in other words are the same as they always were: Capitalism, Imperialism, Racism, Chauvinism and Repression in an insidious, anachronistic structure and a stupid culture.
Stop the Trial. Stop the War
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Rennie Davis will speak at a Conspiracy rally in Ann Arbor on Nov. 6 at the Union Ballroom.
Jerry Rubin and a member of the Conspiracy legal staff will be at a Detroit rally Nov. 9 to be held at St. Joseph’s Church, Woodward at Holbrook, at 7 30 pm. There is an admission of $1. Also, one of the demands of the demonstration at the Federal Building on Nov. 14 will be to stop the trial and free all political prisoners.