Newly Discovered: The Insider’s Story of the 1968 Democratic Convention Riots, the Trial of the Chicago 8 (afterwards Chicago 7), the Anti-war Movement, Revolutionary Politics, and ’60s Counterculture 

So under his leadership the Vietnam Day Committee became more than an anti-war organization, it became a center for the concerns of American youth, providing information on a wide range of subjects – from cooking to disease prevention. It was also, in effect, a laboratory for the national movement to come. In many ways it represented Rubin's utopian vision of a communal society. In 1966, Rubin brought his vision to politics and ran for mayor of Berkeley. He received 20% of the vote and thereafter turned his full attention to political activism.

In the anti-war movement. In 1967, with Abbie Hoffman, he founded the Youth International Party. The party mixed political activism, counterculture advocacy, and theater to bring on a social revolution. The "yippies," as they were known, staged events and stunts that were intended to gain attention, discredit authority, and by means of countercultural insurgency promote Rubin's vision for a new society. This would be a kind of communalist utopia, a sexist-free and racist-free place where all people would function as equals and would live cooperatively, big corporate power would be eliminated, and government would be forced into morphing into something in keeping with this. They succeeded in reaping a harvest of publicity that enraged the power structure. Rubin did much to further this process when he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities to explain his subversive ways. That committee is best remembered today for searching for communists under every stone, ruining careers during the McCarthy blacklist era, and terrorizing people through innuendo. Rubin was advised to rely upon his First Amendment right of free speech and not give testimony, but he explained that was not his path, as the movement had to be "as exciting as the Mets." Instead Rubin decided to take on HUAC, turning it into his own theater. Dressed up as a Revolutionary War soldier, Rubin prepared an outrageous entrance, passing out copies of "The Declaration of Independence" to the audience. Rubin's lawyers reversed the tables and turned HUAC into spectacle, attacking the congressmen and taunting them about American fascism. It took a great deal of courage for Rubin to stand up to HUAC this way, and his doing so helped bring about the end of the committee as an effective body.

After the HUAC proceedings, Rubin developed even more temerity. On August 24, 1967 he, Stew Albert, Abbie Hoffman, and a handful of the San Francisco Diggers (a guerrilla theater group) entered the New York Stock Exchange to make a statement against the Vietnam War. After arranging publicity, they attempted to get onto the visitors viewing balcony. A guard, fearing a communist hippie demonstration, stopped them and explained that the balcony had been closed to the public for repairs. Hoffman and Rubin responded by exclaiming that they were being denied access because they were Jews. With reporters capturing every word, the guard eventually allowed them onto the balcony. There Rubin gave a short speech against the corporate financing of the Vietnam War and the greed of the American people. After receiving an enthusiastic applause from the stock brokers, the Yippies threw money onto the floor. Stock brokers and traders abandoned their duties to scramble for the falling banknotes. The demonstrators were soon ejected from the building.

That same year Rubin was made project director of a flagging effort to demonstrate against the military in Washington. Novelist Norman Mailer later wrote that "to call on Rubin was in effect to call upon the most militant, unpredictable, creative – therefore dangerous – hippie-oriented leader available to the New Left." What resulted was the celebrated March on the Pentagon on October 21, 1967, where some 75,000 protesters (including Mailer, poet Robert Lowell, critic Dwight Macdonald, Dr. Spock, Noam Chomsky, and many others) rallied and railed against the war. What was labeled as a march turned out to be a siege of the Pentagon. Demonstrators tore down the fences and some actually managed to get inside the Pentagon. The rest set up camp outside the building, singing songs, placing flowers in the gun barrels of the soldiers sent to block them, and attempting to persuade the soldiers to give up their military duties. Rubin and others attempted an "exorcism of the Pentagon", claiming that they could levitate the Pentagon with the powers of their minds. He was arrested for his conduct and received 30 days in jail. But the national publicity was massive.
 

The 1968 riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Then came the historic protests and riots surrounding the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Young peace activists met in Lake Villa, Illinois on March 23 to plan an anti-war protest march at the convention. Anti-war leaders, including David Dellinger (editor of Liberation magazine and chairman of the National Mobilization Committee to End War in Vietnam), Rennie Davis, head of the Center for Radical Research and a leader of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and Tom Hayden (also an SDS leader), coordinated efforts with over 100 anti-war groups. Groups related to this effort also planned events. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman planned a Youth Festival with the goal of bringing 100,000 young adults to Chicago. They tried to get a permit from Chicago to hold a Yippie convention. The permit was denied, but they decided to come anyway.

On March 31, 1968, President Johnson announced he would not seek re-election. Robert Kennedy then entered the ring, joining Eugene McCarthy (already there), and soon after, party establishment favorite Hubert Humphrey declared himself a candidate. Because of his close identification with the Johnson administration, the plans for demonstrations were not cancelled. Then in April, Martin Luther King was assassinated, and in June Robert Kennedy was as well. Anti-war activists and others who had pinned their hopes on Kennedy were angry and distraught, while the entire national mood became extremely tense. Many Democrats were eager to move their national convention from Chicago, over concern about the possibility of unruly protests. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley would not let the convention leave his city, and promised to enforce the peace and allow no large demonstrations.  Humphrey, who wanted the convention in Chicago, came to the city with the nomination virtually sewn up, but he faced major credentials fights and bitter disputes over the party platform, particularly over a peace plank that was being introduced.

Rubin and Hoffman arrived in Chicago just before the convention was to be gaveled open. Their Yippie Festival of Life began on August 23, 1968. On the first day, Rubin and others announced their political candidate at the Chicago Civic Center. As a lavish stunt, they brought out a pig that they had named Pigasus. As soon as they brought it out, the police arrested the demonstrators for disorderly conduct. On the same day, Yippies held classes in Lincoln Park to teach karate, snake dancing, and martial arts. Tension in Chicago was building and so were government forces marshaled against the protesters. Outside the official convention proceedings, anti-war demonstrators would clash with some 12,000 Chicago police, 7,500 Army troops, 7,500 Illinois National Guardsmen and 1,000 Secret Service agents, almost all heavily armed. The violence centered on two things: the Chicago police forcing protesters out of areas where they were not permitted to be; and protesters clashing with police, and their reinforcements, as they tried to march to the convention site.

The violence began Sunday August 25. Anti-war leaders had tried to get permits from the city to sleep in Lincoln park and to demonstrate outside of the convention site. Those permit requests were denied. In fact, Mayor Daley ordered an 11 p.m. curfew to keep activists from sleeping in Lincoln Park. At 9 p.m. the police confronted and attacked a group of demonstrators. When the park was officially closed, Chicago police bombed protesters with tear gas and moved in with billy-clubs to forcibly remove them from the park. Along with the many injuries to anti-war protesters, 17 reporters were attacked by police. The next day (August 26), Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman urged their followers to stay at Lincoln Park. A crowd of about 3,000 people gathered that night. While singing, talking, and chanting Indian wisdom, the police attacked the concert. Activists became took to smashing windows and destroying street lamps.

The worst day of protesting was Wednesday August 28, in what was dubbed the "Battle of Michigan Avenue." A rally at Grant Park on Wednesday was attended by about 15,000 protesters, while additional actions each involved hundreds or thousands. After the large rally, a few thousand protesters attempted to march to the International Amphitheatre, but were stopped in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel, where the presidential candidates and their campaigns were headquartered. Police moves to push the protesters out of the street were accompanied by tear gas, verbal and physical confrontation, frequent use of police clubs to beat people, and rocks and bottles were thrown by protesters. Many innocent bystanders, reporters and doctors offering medical help were severely beaten by the police, and hotels where the delegates were staying were affected by the riots. Fumes from the tear gas used by the police and "stink bombs" thrown by the protesters drifted into the buildings. The media recorded the graphic violence. Another major clash occurred on the final day of the convention, when protesters tried once again to reach the convention center. They were twice turned away. A barricade was put up around the convention center to prevent anyone without credentials from entering the facility. When the convention was finally over, the Chicago police reported 589 arrests had been made and 119 police and 100 protesters were injured. The riots were widely covered by the media.

Meanwhile, this chaos was somewhat mirrored inside the convention, where peace-advocate delegates felt they were being railroaded by the party regulars. When they lost, they staged a demonstration right on the convention floor. Journalists trying to report on this were roughed up by the police. During the nominating speeches, referring to what was happening outside the hall, Sen. Abraham Ribicoff shocked the convention by saying, "With George McGovern as President of the United States we wouldn't have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago!" Mayor Daley erupted in anger and shook his fist at Ribicoff. It was a chaotic moment, an extraordinary moment, and broadcast live for the entire nation to see.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Chicago 8). The city placed the blame for the riots and repercussions squarely on the demonstrators. On March 20, 1969, a Chicago grand jury indicted eight leaders of the demonstrations under provisions of the 1968 Civil Rights Act, which made it a federal crime to cross state lines to incite a riot. The indictees were Rubin, Hoffman, Dellinger, Davis, Hayden, Lee Weiner (a sociology teaching assistant from Northwestern), John Froines (a chemist and member of the SDS), and Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party. These then were the Chicago Eight, and their trial was the high water mark of the counterculture. Their defense attorneys were the renowned social activist William Kunstler, Leonard Weinglass of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Ronald J. Clark. The judge on the case was Julius Hoffman.

The trial began on September 24, 1969, and on October 9 the National Guard was called in for crowd control as demonstrations grew outside the courtroom. Seale wanted the trial postponed so that his own attorney, who was unavailable, could represent him, but the judge denied the postponement, and refused to allow Seale to represent himself. Seale hurled bitter attacks at Judge Hoffman in court, calling him a "fascist dog," a "honky," a "pig," and a "racist," among other things.  When Seale refused to be silenced, the judge shockingly ordered Seale bound and gagged in the courtroom; drawings of this by reporters in the court appeared on the news that night. Ultimately, Judge Hoffman severed Seale from the case, sentencing him to four years in prison for contempt of court, one of the longest sentences ever handed down for that offense in the U.S. up to that time.

The removal of Bobby Seale provided the impetus for social outrage. In the course of the proceedings, the courthouse was transformed into a media carnival. Judge Hoffman would not listen to key elements of testimony; he cited over 200 contempt charges to witnesses, lawyers, and defendants. Hoffman and Rubin mocked courtroom decorum as the widely publicized trial itself became a focal point for a growing legion of protesters. One day defendants Hoffman and Rubin appeared in court dressed in judicial robes. When the judge ordered them to remove the robes, they complied, to reveal that they were wearing Chicago police uniforms underneath. Abbie Hoffman blew kisses at the jury. Judge Hoffman became the courtroom target of the defendants, who frequently would insult him to his face. The trial extended for five months, with many celebrated figures from the left, counterculture and antiwar movements called to testify, including folk singers Phil Ochs and Arlo Guthrie, writers Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg, and activists Timothy Leary and Jesse Jackson. Towards the end of the circus, the defendants, overwhelmed by the judge's intent to silence their testimonies, rebelled against the courtroom. Jerry Rubin marched in front of the judge's podium, giving Hitler salutes and screaming, "Fascist" and "Tyrant". Even the audience joined the cavalcade of epithets. Of these moments, Rubin later reflected, "Our strategy was to give Judge Hoffman a heart attack. We gave the court system a heart attack, which is even better."

On February 18, 1970, all seven defendants were found not guilty of conspiracy. Two (Froines and Weiner) were acquitted completely, while the remaining five were convicted of crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot. On February 20, they were each fined $5,000 and sentenced to five years in prison. At sentencing, Abbie Hoffman recommended that the judge try LSD, offering to set him up with a dealer he knew in Florida. Rubin took it with good spirit. Explaining that the court's verdict was the happiest day of his life, Rubin told Judge Hoffman, "…you have done more to destroy the court system in this country than any of us could have done." Rubin presented Judge Hoffman with an autographed and inscribed copy of his first book, "Do It! Scenarios of the Revolution." Kunstler appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which found that Judge Julius Hoffman had acted improperly in handling the case. It reversed his decisions and also reversed all contempt charges in the case. Rubin was released, but not before spending months incarcerated, some of that time in the Cook County jail on rioting charges brought against him by the state of Illinois.

Rubin's newly-discovered manuscript journal, and his book, "We Are Everywhere".

While in jail he secretly kept a manuscript journal on lined notebook paper, which contained his account of the trial and its meaning, descriptions of its fascinating personal moments, and was in fact a commentary on the identity of the young generation and his manifesto for a second American revolution. It is the highest expression of the Sixties counterculture, both social and political, written at the very height of its influence and reach. It illuminates Sixties thought and action, humor and militancy, goals and aspirations, viewpoints and skills, friends and foes, and all with a strong dose of 60's energy. Pages of the journal were smuggled out of jail by Rubin's lawyer, and just to make sure they would not be seized, Rubin headed the manuscript, "Statement to my attorney Ronald J. Clark," thus protecting it as information useful for his defense. In January 1971 this manuscript was published as a book under the name "We Are Everywhere." By way of description, the back cover of the book reads, "We Are Everywhere is Jerry Rubin’s journal, written secretly in Cook County Jail and smuggled out. Jerry is a convicted felon, Yippie, enemy of the state, pothead, seven-year-old child and author of the revolutionary manifest Do It! We Are Everywhere reveals a defendant’s inside view of The Conspiracy Trial. Written like a scenario, this book focuses on the Weatherman underground, the Black Panther Party, LSD, Women’s Liberation, Walter Cronkite, Judaism, street fighting and the coming revolution. A color layout including more than one hundred and fifty pictures takes you on a multi-media trip, revealing the emergence of a new people."

This is the original manuscript, considered lost and now newly discovered. Its 122 densely packed pages yielded 254 pages in the printed book, but importantly this manuscript contains much material that never made it into the printed book, and thus is more revealing and immediate. It contains an untold number of significant stories, perspectives and insights – evocative, informative, and outrageous – about the 1968 Democratic Convention and riots, the Trial of the Chicago 8 (afterwards the Chicago 7), the 60's movement and counterculture, drugs, and the revolutionary ideas then current. It has over 80,000 words in all, with entries from July 6 to August 1, 1970, and appears today just as it was smuggled out for publication. It is signed scores and scores of times within the document and is complete with his side notations (it lacks the printed book's short forward Rubin inserted way after the event and just before publication). It is noteworthy that this manuscript contains Rubin's original thoughts prior to editing and pre-publication polishing. It is in that sense unique. And since almost every line of this book is fascinating, it would be impossible to mention here even a small fraction of the manuscript's significant quotations. What follows are a few minuscule examples to give you a glimpse of this, the insider's story of some of the 60's most formative events, full of the 60's atmosphere and flavor, in the words of one of its most important shapers. A copy of the original, printed book is included.

The flavor of the manuscript: just a few quotations.

* "The trial became a worldwide international symbolic drama and it's characters symbolic figures. The court room was full of caricatures, comic book characters. Abbie was Dennis the Menace, Julius Simon LeGree, bitter old man. TV made the trial a worldwide soap opera, every night another chapter, kids versus parents, students versus teachers, prisoners versus the court system. Everyone had someone to identify with. It was impossible to be neutral." Interestingly, Rubin's calling Judge Hoffman Simon LeGree did not make it into the published book.

* "We wanted to be indicted. It was like getting a prime time national TV show….The demonstration aimed against the system dealt a death blow to the Democratic Party. Yet if Humphrey had won, we would not have been indicted. The Democrats would not want to turn off the youth…The victory of the Republicans brought cowboy uptight [John] Mitchell into office…No more LBJ politics of consensus. We could hurt LBJ because we were part of his consensus. But to Nixon we did not exist…We wanted to use the trial as a national platform, to build a national organization, and expose repression. We sought repression in order to expose it. The dialectics of Yippie revolution." His remark on the difference between Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon is perceptive.

* "Previous antagonisms from organizing the crime in the first place could not be overcome, between Abbie and I on the one hand, and Ron and Tom on the other…Hayden's position was that we should not work as a collective. If one defendant opposed something, we shouldn't do it. Hayden's facial expression killed many an idea and turned our meetings from turn-on sessions which they should have been to bickering, useless personality conflicts, wranglings. Hayden demonstrated a paradoxical truth about politics: he was the left wing and the right wing in the conspiracy… Beware the 'revolutionary' who gives left-wing reasons for doing nothing. Tom's position was strengthened because John Froinds, indicted by surprise, also felt avoiding a contempt or guilty verdict were the most important things… Tom's view brought him into conflict with Dave Dellinger whose gut politics led him to fight oppression wherever he is, and Abby and I who saw the trial as an opportunity to inspire a children's crusade." In the book, Rubin's remark about Dellinger's "gut" politics was toned down.

* "The American revolution will be unlike Russian, Chinese, Cuban revolutions. A color TV in every home! Food for all! Every man an artist! We have to destroy a selfish capitalist system of rich and poor, but our communism will be hedonistic." Only the last sentence of this actually appears in the printed book.

* "Bill (Kunstler) became an equal, an equal with Yippies and revolutionaries…Kunstler became a national symbol. He lets the 'kids' do what they want to do – better, he becomes a kid. Julius kept trying to get Kunstler to police us." This text mainly does not appear in the book.

* "I am concerned for those murdered and robbed. But it is the court system and jails which create criminals, which perpetuate murder and robbery. Every prisoner is a political prisoner because he or she is a victim of an unfair system. A lot of prisoners are in jail for stealing and I've looked in all the cells and I don't see Nelson Rockefeller in jail. A lot of prisoners in jail for murder but I've checked each jail cell, and I don't see the murderers of Fred Hampton or the Kent State kids in here."

* "The poor and oppressed in Amerika have been taught to believe that the poor and oppressed in other countries are their enemy, so blacks go over there to kill Vietcong for their common enemy, the rich in Amerika…Vietnam is reversing the brainwashing of the schools and media."

* "We arrived at what looked like a huge concentration camp with massive electrified fences and huge guard towers after midnight and I was stripped, searched and led through dark corridors to my cell. When I awoke in the morning I realized I was in solitary confinement, isolated from the population with five locked doors between me and freedom."

* "Bobby Seale taught me something…Bobby knew his myth had preceded him…Bobby was conscious of who he was, what his myth was…When the guards told Bobby to spread his cheeks, he spread his cheeks. He got handcuffed willingly; he joked and rapped with the marshals….When you are in the command of the pigs you have to live with them. You don't become some jive-ass stupid adventurer and go calling them a pig no matter what you think. Bobby Seale taught me how to do time." The term "jive-ass" didn't make it to the book, nor did Rubin's characterization that this doesn't apply if you think they're going to kill you.

* "Near the end of the trial I heard that Dick Cavett wanted me as a guest…I couldn't refuse. If nothing else, my ego wouldn't let me…The style would have to be revolutionary. The medium is the message. I decided first of all to paint my face….Then what about wearing judge's robes and after a while taking the robes off and ripping them up…Walking on the stage in these shows is entering a strange, artificial false world…The audience is out there, filled with people from rural Amerika who wrote away for tickets months earlier. And there's Cavett, shitting his pants, with a long list of questions in front of him. He's scared because he's afraid I might do something." Much of Rubin's description of the show was omitted from the book. He continued, "Abbie went on the Merv Griffin show. He wore a shirt made out of the Amerikan flag. Just before the appearance the president of CBS got on and explained that Mr. Hoffman had violated the laws of several states by wearing the shirt…What happened then was the electronic nightmare, electronic fascism…Every time Abbie talked the screen was total black darkness; when Griffin and Abbie rapped to each other the screen showed Griffin talking to a half black screen."

* "TV, the most powerful communications instrument ever devised by man, is used in Amerika to lull people to sleep…What is left [for government] is to take over the news so that the brutality of the war and riots aren't shown. Agnew's big bad wolf was the first step. He gave a warning – censor yourselves or else. Self-censorship is the appropriate form of control in Amerika, not direct repression of the media…You [the media] don't believe in free speech..But we are winning. We have not disappeared, every year the number of freaks grows geometrically."

* "America is having a heart attack and ulcers 'cause her kids, her best kids, do not want the best Amerika can offer them. They are copping out of the rat race. They are dropping out…We have deserted the sinking ship. We are not helping our fathers defend it. We don't want what our fathers worked so hard and fought for. This kind of rejection is the biggest insult of all. Amerika expects black people to reject her, but her own kids?…So they try to interpret us as just another fad, style…They built their world out of material objects and it meant nothing. Their kids are acting out their own repressed fantasies of freedom. We are doing what they wish they could do. Julius sentenced us to jail because he was so bitterly jealous of our youth, abandon, rebellion, freedom."

* "Do the forbidden. As Abbie says, 'Break every law, including the law of gravity.'"

* "Revolution takes place when the right wing goes after the liberals, because they've been so permissive and let us revolutionaries do so much shit – and the revolutionaries and liberals join fighting fascism and the right wing. The role of the revolutionaries to force liberals to defend our actions, and then to fight the right wing when they go after the liberals."

* "Dave was the bravest cat in the courtroom. He responded beautifully and spontaneously to every injustice. You'd be sitting next to Dave in the courtroom and feel the spirit of freedom rushing through his body. Everyone else got somewhat conditioned to the sophisticated brutality of the judicial system and managed a shake of the head or laugh. Dave Dellinger could never condition himself to injustice. As soon as Julius the Tyrant began belittling our attorneys or someone, Dave was on his feet, a pillar of passion and love of truth. He knew the cost to him someday would be great but how could he calculate the cost to himself when Vietnamese were shedding blood and the memory of Bobby Seale's disappearance hung over the defense table like a dark cloud. Others, like Hayden, approached the trial with an ideology…which blinded them to tyranny, but Dave reacted as a human being. Dave's classic flaw is that he believes in people." The contrast between Dellinger and others did not appear in the book.

* "So today as it reached 4:30 Julius dismissed the jury but asked us to stay after school. Something was up…Dave began taking important notes out of his pockets, clearing out his briefcase…I moved to sit next to Dave and placed my arm lovingly on his shoulder. Julie was putting Dave in jail, canceling his bail. They were picking us off one by one…All hell broke loose, Abbie heroically put himself in front of Dave and chairs began flying, Abbie was thrown into the press section…I began shouting 'Bullshit, bullshit. Take us all.' Abbie blurted out 'You little runt! You would've served Hitler better!' Rennie shouted out. To watch Dave calming getting ready to go to jail was one of the most moving sights. Two marshals pulled Dave into the lock-up amid screaming, fighting, pushing, crying. Julie had incited a riot in his court."

* "These liberals: they can't stand chaos. Uncertainty makes them wet in their pants. We Yippies thrive by noise and chaos – the more things happening at once the better – that's psychedelic…Forget history, man. Smoke pot, get high and look into the future."

* "The reality of the court room: the battle of Jews. Julius is Jewish – in fact he was the B'nai B'rith man of the year. Yippies in the conspiracy – me, Abbie, Lee – were Jewish, which is not to say that only Jews can be Yippies, although Yippie is very Jewish. Both our lawyers, Lenny and Bill, are Jewish. But the hard-driving, conscientious, work-driven prosecutor…is Jewish…Somewhere, somehow we tried to reach Julius and Schultz on the only thing we have in common with them: our historical Jewishness, the role of the victim in history…It is the Jew who should be always on the side of the poor, the oppressed, the underdog, the wretched of the earth, because of his experience."

* "I believe every individual has the right to create his own culture and identity. In creating the Yippies, and the hippies, we are creating a substitute for the dead religions of Judaism, Protestantism, Catholicism, and we are a new race, a new nation and a new religion." This material does not appear in the printed book.

* "The white race can only save itself by condemning its own history and looking at the world from the point of view of the people it has oppressed. Our parents may not be able to do this but we can. We do not do this out of guilt – we do this because we want to be free ourselves."

* "After the prosecution finished its case we debated what to do. I wanted to put on a defense to last years…We'd put on the stand everyone who came to demonstrate that week to say why they had come. Everyone, everyone…The lawyers told us that every lawyer and legal expert near the trial felt the government had not proven anything, and we should not put on a defense. By that time haggling within the defendants reached such haggling that we seriously considered stopping. Dave leaned to stopping. Tom wanted a tight, narrow case. Abbie and I wanted a circus…We couldn't agree on a strategy so we'd all bring our kind of witnesses in. The Yippie strategy was to bring our way of life into the courtroom in the hopes of turning on the jury. If we failed, at least we have fun…We couldn't do our Festival of Life in Lincoln Park; maybe we could do it in the federal court. Our chief witness would be Pigasus."

* "Working on the paranoia and fear of the enemy is our secret weapon. The Conspiracy 8 trial had been a national schoolroom. What World War II was to the post-40's generation on, Vietnam and the Conspiracy Trial will be to the generation of under 25's. Because of the media, the nation as a whole can participate in a collective educational experience virtually overnight. Millions of young kids saw themselves sitting in that court – and Julius became every judge, every pig, every parent, every authority figure. Thanks to the media, nothing is local anymore."

* "No individual can escape the mood of his generation. We live in one of those periods of history, including rapid change, where the history of the movement is the history of each individual…Julius sentenced us to jail, but clearly we won the Trial in Chicago as decisively as any combatant can win any battle, and way beyond our wildest, richest dreams before the trial began…Everyone is a brother, a comrade, in the struggle…We change costumes, language and roles as history moves…Radicalism is an insight, a historical explosion in the body and mind, an apocalypse, in which individuals change themselves overnight. Historical experience – action – pops one individual from one life into another."

* "We have a national movement made up of a myriad rainbow of local cultures and styles and movements. We have called on all young people to leave their homes and schools and become free spirits. The promise of Haight Ashbury must soon be kept. We must create free communities, liberated areas, free cities, where young people can live together under their own rules and values and for their own benefit…The first attempts at such community building…collapsed because of police pressure, heroine, psychedelic capitalism and our inability to get our shit together."

* "Amerika has turned women into slaves. The fight of women is a liberation struggle, and it must take place within the revolution as well as against capitalism and imperialism…The Achilles' heel of Amerika is its suppression of women…The liberation of women – as people, not as bodies – will liberate men from their macho traps… The crime of the advertising industry against the humanity of women by reducing them to kitchen slaves and sex objects is a crime against the people."

* "To be a revolutionary it is not enough to grow your hair long and smoke dope…The Yippies scandalize the movement by trying to reach the masses of young people through TV, circuses and comic books. Elitism and mediocrity go hand-in-hand. We never compromised. Our art was presented just as we made it."

* "After the Conspiracy Trial we were in a rare position to create some of those institutions. Liberal guilt money flowed in. Finally we were in a position to get lots of bread for projects….Even some of the Kennedy and McCarthy money was coming our way. The conspiracy was a $1 billion project…Rarely in history does the left discover such an oil well…We were the new movie stars of the nation…But we learned something. It was a lot harder to deal with success than failure…Maybe the conspiracy was an unnatural, inorganic animal and could not continue as a model for young people because it contained too many diffuse elements. The conspiracy had made its mark on history. Its days were over…For now history will throw new forces and organizations into the battlefield. The vacuum is good because it contains new possibilities. The best thing about life is its unpredictability, the mystery…In the final analysis, each juror would take a look at us and wonder: Are they good guys? Are they bad guys? We were on trial, not for acts committed, but as people…The jury was only an incidental audience – we were playing to the world and history. Each defendant was experiencing his own trial and the lawyers were on their own trip." These interesting characterizations did not make it into the book.

* "For the government to succeed in this trial would mean a freezing – not chilling – effect on free speech and public dissent. It would make the most routine and normal political activities a crime, from attending speeches to meetings…Kunstler saw this trial as free-speech on trial. As far as he was concerned, Martin Luther King was on trial…I dug every word the judge said, and I loved to stare him down. Many times I'd catch him staring at me. I then stick my tongue out at him…He always got the impression we were laughing at him…Once Julie said, 'I wish the record could show the expression on that defendant's face'…Julie was so outrageous that reporters and observers in the courtroom would daily sit with mouths open and breath stopped in total disbelief…His capacity for sadism was endless."

* "Yippie has leveled a powerful psychological attack on the American ego. They don't like the fact that we are having a good time. To maintain their own lie to themselves, they've got to smash us. Amerika must destroy us because we force her to see herself…We represent the impulses and instincts they deny in themselves. Therefore, they must kill us. We are the devil…We will never plea for mercy. We are not individuals – we represent the longings of a generation." Much of this did not make it into the book.

* "What happened between the crime and the trial? The war intensified. Nixon became president. Eldridge [Cleaver] was forced out of the country. Woodstock fulfilled the dream Abbie and I had for Chicago – 500,000 people going apeshit in Chicago. Weatherman took the struggle to deeper levels. People's Park and demonstrations…Bobby Seale jailed on a bogus beef…John Sinclair jailed for 10 years for one joint…During the trial Fred Hampton assassinated in the middle of his sleep in bed. My Lai revelations. Therefore it was anachronistic for us to persist in our desire to have peaceful rock festivals and marches."

* "Let us not get tempted by money or fame or security. Let us realize we are a together nation, a collective ego, solidarity…Attempts to…make us personalities are no good. We are our enemy's nightmare and fulfillment of our dreams. We are…technology's babies. We are each other."

Postlude. After release from jail, Rubin worked closely with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and played the tambourine when they performed at the Apollo Theater. He also helped back-up Chuck Berry in a performance when John and Yoko hosted the "Mike Douglass Show." On December 10, 1971, Rubin helped John and Yoko with a performance to pressure the release of John Sinclair.

In 1973 the Vietnam War ended for the United States, and over the following years the nation changed greatly. Gone were the protests, demonstrations, militancy, mass movements, communal culture, and many other artifacts of the 1965-1971 era. Important personalities who were used to all the benefits of fame and notoriety, such as Rubin, and many other counterculture, political and rock music figures, found themselves no longer relevant. Most did not successfully make the jump from the 60's to 70's. Eventually Rubin moved out of political activism, and became involved with the new age human consciousness movement of the 70's. Later he became a successful entrepreneur, investing in the health food industry. And ironically for a man who had demonstrated at the New York Stock Exchange, Rubin got involved in the stock market. This, and Rubin's new attitudes, led many former Yippies and hippies to criticize him. Where he and his politics would have ended up, no one will ever know. In his last act of defiance against authority, on November 14, 1994, Rubin jaywalked outside his Los Angeles apartment. He was run over by a car and died soon after.