The Trial of the Chicago 7: The Official Transcript

By Aaron Sorking

Simon and Schuster 2020

Book Review

This book (an edited transcript of a five month trial) is based on the screenplay Steven Spielberg asked Sorkin to write in 2007. After a Writers Guild of America strike forced Spielberg to drop out as director, Sorking himself directed the film in 2019, with Spielberg serving as executive producer.

The film concerns the trial of seven anti-Vietnam war activists* arrested following a police riot against peaceful non-violent protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The protests had a dual focus – both the war itself and the corrupt process the Democratic Party employs for choosing presidential candidates.**

The Chicago 7 trial hallmarked the the intensive militarization of urban police, which continues to the present day, to discourage peaceful non-violent protest.

As the book documents, the defense team elicited testimony Chicago police deliberately started the riot by using clubs and rubber bullets against peaceful protestors and subsequently arrested them for rioting and resisting arrest. Hundreds of protestor were hospitalized with major injuries from police beatings, many with skull fractures. The defense also demonstrated US Attorney General John Mitchell, the FBI and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley colluded in bringing conspiracy to riot charges against seven of the most prominent protestors, who all belonged to different organizations and were only marginally involved in planning or organizing the protests.

Although Judge Julius Hoffman banned the presentation of this evidence to the jury, it became part of the official trial transcript.

Black Panther president Bobby Seal refused to share the same attorney as the other six. When he repeatedly demanded the right to be represented by his own attorney, Hoffman ordered him bound to his chair and gagged.

Most of the prosecution evidence came from police and federal undercover operatives who had infiltrated various peace groups. It consisted mainly of comments individual defendants made at meetings and in speeches about “fighting” the Vietnam War and government oppression.

Each of of the seven were found guilty of some level of involvement in the so-called conspiracy to cause a riot. Both defense attorneys were also charged and given long sentences for contempt of court

All had their convictions overturned on appeal.

The segment of the book I found most intriguing was Appendix B, which detailed each of the defendants’ career path and political activities post trial. Jerry Rubin (1938-1994), for example, decided to forgo political activism and became director of a small Wall Street investment banking firm.

*David Dellinger, Rennie David, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Ruben, Bobby Seale, John Froines.

**The Democratic Party refused to seat the popularly elected Black delegates of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, who opposed the Vietnam War, and seated an all-white delegation appointed by Party leaders instead. See https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/mississippi-freedom-democratic-party-mfdp