Volume 14, Number 3 · February 12, 1970
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial: Allen Ginsberg on the Stand
By Jason Epstein
Allen Ginsberg was the ninth witness to testify for the defense in the Chicago Conspiracy trial and the first who tried to explain to the jury why at least two of the defendants had decided to come to the Democratic National Convention in the first place. The preceding defense witnesses had testified that whatever violence they had seen in Chicago had been the fault of the police, not of the demonstrators. But Ginsberg, who had been involved in the early plans to protest the Convention, was in a position to talk not simply about what he had seen in Chicago but about the intentions of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin as far back as February, 1968, when the plan to stage a Festival of Life—to contrast with what Hoffman and Rubin called the Democratic Convention of Death—had first been discussed. Since the defendants were on trial for having conspired together with the intention of causing a riot in Chicago, Ginsberg's testimony about these early plans promised to be important. For this reason as well as for the general curiosity about the famous poet, the courtroom, when he arrived, was filled with spectators and reporters.
Feature, 13065 words
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