Radical Priests v. the FBI

In 1970, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover stunned Congress when he announced that anti-war activists planned to kidnap Henry Kissinger and bomb Washington, D.C. But when the Justice Department pursued these activists, a group that came to be known as the Harrisburg Seven, on conspiracy charges, shocking revelations about the FBI's main witness made many wonder if the plot had ever been real to begin with...

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Listener discretion advised. Like most of us, Elizabeth McAllister never
expected to hear her love letters discussed on the radio.

(00:21):
She certainly didn't imagine that the person doing the discussing
would be the director of the FBI, Jay Edgar Hoover.
But here she was, on a November day in nineteen seventy,
driving to her sister's house in Maryland, listening to a
news broadcast in which Hoover discussed information that he could

(00:44):
only have learned. McAllister thought from reading her private correspondence,
I almost went into a stupor. McAllister remembered, I thought,
what is this? My God, what is this? She kept
the radio on for the rest of the three hour drive,

(01:04):
listening to the story repeat over and over, talking back
at the broadcasters, trying to make sense of it. How
else would an ordinary person react to something like this?
Of course, there were a few ways in which McAllister
was not an ordinary person. To start with, she was

(01:26):
a nun, a member of the religious of the Sacred
Heart of Mary. Plus the man she was writing love
letters to, Philip Berrigan, was a priest, Okay, so these
letters might be scandalous, But what made them so interesting
to Jay Edgar Hoover. Well, there was also the fact

(01:48):
that Philip Barrigan and Elizabeth McAllister were both passionate anti
war activists. Barrigin was so passionate that he'd ended up
in jail for destroying Vietnam tree files. McAllister had been
writing to him in the United States Penitentiary at Louisbourg, Pennsylvania.

(02:09):
And then there was the content of this particular letter.
Because McAllister hadn't just written to ber Agin about how
much she cared for him or how much she missed him.
She had also written to ask his thoughts on a
plan to kidnap Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security advisor
and the future Secretary of State. How romantic. Now sitting

(02:32):
in her car, McAllister was terrified. The letter, written three
months earlier had been a thought exercise. She and bar
Agin were always brainstorming new ways to draw attention to
their anti war cause. He had replied to her letter
with thoughts, suggestions, and concerns, but it had gone no further,

(02:56):
or so she thought. But now Hoover was claiming that
she and her fellow activists were actively plotting to kidnap Kissinger.
How had Hoover even heard about the idea? McAllister had
a guess. To get private letters in and out of prison,
She and Barrigin had trusted a fellow inmate of his,

(03:17):
named boyd Douglas, who was on a study release program,
to carry their mail. Douglas must have snitched, But why
McAllister had known him for months. He was just as
opposed to the Vietnam War as she and Barrigin were,
just as committed to the anti war movement. How could

(03:37):
he have betrayed them? But those questions seemed small now.
What mattered McAllister knew as she pulled up to her
sister's house was that the United States government believed that
she had planned to kidnap a White House official. The
director of the FBI was calling her a threat to

(03:59):
now national security. Whatever was coming next, it would not
be good. That was putting it lightly. Over the next
year and a half, McAllister, Barrigan, and five of their
anti war colleagues from the Catholic left would be investigated
and put on trial for conspiracy. It would be a

(04:23):
journey so filled with shocking revelations and twists and turns
that hearing her love letters referenced on the radio would
come to seem like a triviality. To Elizabeth McAllister, Welcome
to History on Trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward. This
week the United States v. The Harrisburg Seven. By the

(04:52):
time he met sister Elizabeth McAllister in nineteen sixty six,
father Philip Barrigan had made quite a name for himself
in leftist political circles. An extroverted charismatic man, Berrigan and
his older brother Daniel were vanguards of a mid century
movement within the Catholic Church to liberalize the church and

(05:15):
make it more appealing and relevant to young people. The
brothers were also known for their bold and often controversial
stances on civil rights. More than simply taking stances, though,
the Barrigins had reputations as doers, they planned sit ins
in support of racial desegregation, traveled the world meeting activists,

(05:39):
and organized protests. By the mid nineteen sixties, the attention
of both Barrigan brothers had been drawn to the war
in Vietnam. In nineteen sixty five, Daniel founded the Clergy
and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, which became one of the
largest anti war groups in the country. Meanwhile, became involved

(06:02):
with the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission and organized pickets at
the homes of the Secretaries of Defense and State. In
nineteen sixty seven, Philip, feeling that more conventional methods of
protest were not working quickly enough, decided to take a
more radical step. On October twenty seventh, he and three

(06:24):
fellow anti war activists strode into the Selective Service office
at the Baltimore Customs House and poured blood onto the
draft records held there, destroying them. The group's bold actions
inspired dozens of similar raids over the next four years,
in which protesters, often members of the Catholic left, would

(06:47):
destroyed draft records. The raiders would normally wait outside the
draft board offices until the police and the news media
showed up, willingly going to jail as a show of
their case commitment to the cause. Philip Berigan himself faced
jail time for his actions in Baltimore, but while out

(07:08):
on bail in the spring of nineteen sixty eight, he
decided to double down and organize another Draft Board raid.
This time, he convinced his brother Daniel to join him.
On May seventeenth, the Barrigins and seven others entered the
Draft board offices in Catonsville, Maryland, and stuffed three hundred

(07:30):
and seventy eight draft records into a trash bin. They
brought the bin to the parking lot, where news crews
recorded the group as they used homemade napalm to burn
the files. It was a highly symbolic action. Napalm is
an extremely flammable compound that the American military was using

(07:50):
as a weapon in Vietnam, and a photograph of the
protesters praying for peace as they burned the files appeared
in newspapers across the conry. In November nineteen sixty eight,
the raiders, who had become known as the Catonsville Nine,
were convicted and sentenced to various terms in prison for
their actions. While the case was appealed, the nine remained

(08:14):
out on bail. While on bail, Philip Barrigan made two
very important decisions. The first was personal. He and sister
Elizabeth McAllister decided to get married. After meeting in nineteen
sixty six, the pair had grown closer and closer they
eventually realized that they were in love. It was not

(08:38):
as simple for this couple to wed as it would
be for others. They were a priest and none after all,
But by this time their commitment to each other and
the anti war cause outweighed the rules of the church.
They privately declared themselves married in nineteen sixty nine. The
second big decision Philip Barrigin made was politic. After their

(09:01):
appeals over the Catonsville convictions were rejected by the Supreme Court,
the Berigin brothers were ordered to surrender themselves into custody
in April nineteen seventy. In the past, going to jail
had been part of the process for draft board raiders,
but the Bearrigins had begun to wonder if surrendering was
the most effective tactic. I wanted to confront the mythology

(09:26):
of the good guy, whose goodness depends on his willingness
to go to jail. Daniel Berrigan said he thought he
and his brother could be more useful to the movement
on the outside, so they decided to run. For first
time fugitives. The Berigins were surprisingly successful at eluding capture.

(09:50):
They moved from city to city, staying with sympathetic families
or church colleagues. As the days went by and the
FBI did not locate them, the brothers became bolder. They
gave a number of lectures and sermons, always managing to
slip out just before the FBI arrived. Finally, after twelve

(10:11):
days on the run, Philip Barrigan was captured by the
FBI and brought to Louisbourg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. Daniel
managed to stay out for another four months, during which
he made his feelings on the FBI clear. You could
say that my survival is a triumph of the love
and humanity of the people who shelter me over the FBI,

(10:35):
who are merciless but extraordinarily unimaginative men, he said in
one interview in Washington. J Edgar Hoover fumed he took
Barrigin's taunt personally and put the priest on the FBI's
ten most wanted list. Eventually, in August nineteen seventy, the

(10:57):
FBI caught up with Daniel Berrigan, and he sent to
the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. While his brother
had been underground, Philip Bregan had been adjusting to life
at Louisbourg prison. It had not been easy. Louisbourg was
a maximum security prison, and most non violent anti war

(11:18):
protesters who ended up there for processing were quickly transferred
to a minimum security prison. For some reason, perhaps because
of his time as a fugitive, Barrigin was not. Life
at the prison was difficult for Barrigin. Prison officials and
inmates alike were largely hostile to him, and he felt
disconnected from his community. That isolation maybe why Brigin was

(11:43):
so quick to trust a fellow inmate, Boyd Douglas. Douglas
was the first participant in the prison's steady release program,
which allowed him to attend nearby Bucknell University while he
completed his sentence. While at Bucknoll, Douglas had become involved
in the anti war movement. In April nineteen seventy, a

(12:05):
Bucknell professor who mentored Douglas mentioned to him that the
famous anti war priest Philip Barrigan had been sent to
Louisbourg and encouraged Douglas to connect with Barrigin. The two
men quickly struck up a friendship, and Barrigin soon asked
Douglas if he would be able to carry a message
for him out of the prison. Douglas happily agreed. Throughout

(12:28):
the spring and summer of nineteen seventy, Douglas regularly carried
letters in and out of Louisbourg. Many of these letters
were between Philip Barrigan and Elizabeth McAllister. McAllister kept Barrigin
updated on the movement's activities and their plans. She solicited
his feedback on actions, encouraged him to keep his spirits up,

(12:50):
and passionately expressed her love to him. It was in
one of those letters, dated August eighteenth, that McAllister raised
the idea of conducting what she called a quote citizen's
arrest on a prominent government official. The day before, McAllister
and a group of like minded activists had discussed the

(13:11):
idea as part of a brainstorming session. The citizen's arrest
had been proposed by Ekbal Ahmad. Ahmad was a Pakistani
intellectual and activist who had helped coordinate the Barrigin's time underground.
He now suggested kidnapping a prominent politician and holding them
in exchange forgetting the US to stop bombing raids in Vietnam.

(13:35):
The perfect candidate Ahmad proposed was Henry Kissinger, then the
National Security Advisor, because Kissinger both had a lot of
influence and also quote was a bachelor with girlfriends and
wouldn't want a lot of bodyguards around. The group had
tossed the idea around for a while before dropping it
and moving on. McAllister raised the kidnapping idea again in

(13:58):
her letter to Berrigan, writing about the group's discussion and
asking barrigin to think about it. She also seemingly unronically
wrote that the idea was being shared in uttered confidence
and should not be committed to paper. Douglas delivered this
letter on August twentieth. Barrigan, in his reply, indicated interest

(14:21):
in the plan, but urged caution. He also mentioned that
perhaps the kidnapping could be done in conjunction with another
proposed action, which involved interrupting heat or power in Washington,
d C. In order to impede government business. This letter,
dated August twenty second, was the last written record of Barrigan, McAllister,

(14:42):
and their activist cohort discussing plans to either kidnap Kissinger
or disrupt Dacey's power grids. Soon after Douglas smuggled this
letter out of Louisbourg, Philip Berrigan was transferred to Danbury Prison,
where his recently captured brother Daniel was now an inmate.

(15:03):
Three months later, Elizabeth McAllister was driving to her sister's
house in Maryland when the radio broadcaster announced that FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover had just revealed shocking news in
testimony to a Senate subcommittee. Hoover had stated that a
quote militant group composed of Catholic priests and nuns, teachers, students,

(15:27):
and former students, whose principal leaders are Philip and Daniel Berrigan,
plan to blow up underground electric conduits and steam pipes
serving the Washington, DC area in order to disrupt federal
government operations. The plotters are also concocting a scheme to
kidnap a highly placed government official. Hoover promised that quote

(15:54):
intensive investigation is being conducted concerning this matter. Like McAllister,
Ekba Ahmad was shocked to hear Hoover's announcement. It sounded
so ridiculous to me, he said later, I knew I
had brought up the matter of a citizen's arrest. But
the discussion came to nothing. We talked about a lot
of ideas that were rejected. I was worried about Hoover's accusations,

(16:18):
but more amused than anything else. He became a lot
more worried and a lot less amused when he learned
that Elizabeth McAllister had written down the group's discussion in
a letter that she had trusted a virtual stranger, boy Douglas,
to smuggle into prison for her. Ahmad was right to

(16:38):
be worried. Somehow or other, the FBI had obtained private
correspondence from the group, and they weren't going to let
the matter go. The barrigins had been thorns in the
FBI's side for years. Now might be the bureau's chance
to strike back. J Edgar Hoover's declaration to his Senate

(17:06):
subcommittee that Catholic anti war activists were planning a bombing
attack and a kidnapping did not just come as a
surprise to Elizabeth McAllister and Ekbal Ahmad. It also came
as a surprise to Hoover's own Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Before Hoover's testimony to Congress, his prepared remarks had gone

(17:28):
to Charles Brennan, an assistant director of the FBI's Domestic
Intelligence Division, for review. Brennan had strongly encouraged Hoover to
delete the section about the kidnapping and bombing plot, saying
that revealing the FBI's knowledge of the potential plot could
hurt an ongoing investigation. Hoover ignored Brennan's advice, discussing the

(17:51):
alleged plot at least three times with government officials in
the fall of nineteen seventy. In speaking publicly about a
case in which no charges had been brought, Hoover was
also ignoring Department of Justice guidelines, which discouraged this kind
of pre trial statement. Attorney General John Mitchell publicly said
that he was surprised by Hoover's testimony and privately scolded

(18:15):
the FBI director. Why had Hoover acted against the advice
of the Justice Department and his own bureau and spoken
publicly about an ongoing investigation. Part of his motivation may
have been personal. Hoover was seventy five years old in
nineteen seventy, though he still enjoyed the staunch support of

(18:36):
President Nixon. Public criticism of the longtime FBI director was
growing as his reign entered its thirty fifth year. Hoover
wanted to prove that he was still in control of
his bureau's work. He may also have wanted to send
a lesson to the Berrigan brothers, whose time on the
run had humiliated the FBI. Hoover also wanted to prove

(19:00):
the necessity of his agency. His testimony to Congress about
the alleged plot had been part of a larger campaign
to get more funding for the FBI. By demonstrating that
threats against the United States existed, Hoover could justify his
requests for more money and more agents. His plan worked.

(19:21):
Congress would soon authorize additional funding for the bureau, but
Hoover's plan had perhaps worked too well. Discussions of the
alleged plot dominated the news cycle over Thanksgiving weekend. The
FBI now needed to back up Hoover's claims, so a
full blown investigation was launched. Hundreds of FBI agents from

(19:46):
across the East Coast were reassigned to the case. Hoover
reviewed all their reports, writing notes in the margins helpful
things like pull out all stops and push this hard.
An investigation alone was not enough for the hard charging Director.
Hoover was determined to see the case prosecuted. In early

(20:07):
January nineteen seventy one, a grand jury in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
began hearing testimony on the case. Guy Goodwin, an attorney
working in the Justice Department's Internal Security Division, ran the
grand jury's investigation. On January twelfth, the Justice Department announced
an indictment in the case. Six people, Philip Berrigan, Elizabeth McAllister,

(20:32):
Ekbaal Ahmad, Joseph Wenderroth, Neil McLoughlin, and Anthony Skoblick, were
being charged with, quote, conspiring to blow up the heating
systems of federal buildings in the nation's capital and also
to kidnap presidential adviser Henry Kissinger. The conspiracy to commit
kidnapping charges carried a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. The

(20:56):
indictment also listed several unindicted co conspiras, including Daniel Berrigan.
The actual material of the indictment was thin, and the
press noticed. The Saint Louis Post Dispatch called the indictment
quote one of the flimsiest on record. The Barrigans and

(21:18):
their lawyers responded similarly, with one of their lawyers calling
the charges quote a colossal blunder into which the government
was stampeded after j Edgar Hoover concocted them to justify
an appropriation for an additional thousand agents. Vice President Spiro Agnew,
on the other hand, rebuked those who criticized the government's motives,

(21:41):
saying impugning the motives of that grand jury and the
investigative agencies which brought the matter to their attention. In
other words, popping off for political advantage prior to trial
is nearly as reprehensible as finding the defendants guilty before
they have been tried and convicted Privately, however, Justice Department

(22:02):
officials were concerned about the strength of the case. Instead
of shutting down the grand jury after issuing the indictment,
Guy Goodwin kept the grand jury running and continued to
subpoena witnesses. Critics called it a phishing expedition. Goodwin responded
that he was simply investigating the possibility of further indictments

(22:24):
even as the prosecutors looked for more evidence. The government
moved towards trial, arraigning the defendants on February eighth. In
mid February, lead prosecutor Guy Goodwin was replaced by William S. Lynch. Lynch,
the head of the Justice Department's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section,
had an excellent reputation. He took the files home and

(22:48):
studied the case for five days. Lynch was deeply troubled
by what he saw in his estimation the case that
Goodwin had drawn up, a case that focused on Hoover's
allegations of bombs and kidnapping, was untenable. There was simply
not enough evidence. Instead, he urged his superiors the case

(23:10):
needed to include a broader range of criminal activity. Lynch
wanted to tie in charges about the rating of draft
board offices. That way, he believed he had a better
chance of obtaining a conviction. Even more than that, he
told colleagues he could avoid being laughed out of court.
Lynch's superiors agreed, and he was given the go ahead

(23:33):
to restructure the case. After another round of grand jury testimony,
a new indictment was announced on April thirtieth. The new
charges were subtly but crucially different from those in the
January indictment. The indictment now included charges for draft board
raids and omitted the conspiracy to kidnap charge. Lynch had

(23:55):
replaced the conspiracy to kidnap charge with a general conspiracy charge.
It was a much easier case to prove, although the
possible punishments were correspondingly lower. Lynch also gave up on
trying to connect to Daniel Berrigan to the trial, removing
his name from the list of unindicted co conspirators. There

(24:17):
was one more change. The April indictment added two new defendants,
Mary kin Skoblick and John Theodore Glick. Glick's case would
eventually be severed, leaving seven defendants to be tried together.
Thus the group became known as the Harrisburg Seven. On

(24:38):
May twenty fifth, the defendants were arraigned on the new charges.
Each of them refused to enter a plea, citing their
belief that the government was acting quote irregularly and extra judicially.
Judge R. Dixon Hermann was uninterested in their speeches and
registered each defendant as having pled not guilty. A trial

(24:59):
date was set nearly seventeen months after Elizabeth McAllister had
written her fateful letter about Citizen's arrest, and more than
a year after j. Edgar Hoover had discussed the plot
in Congress the Harrisburg Seven would go on trial. The

(25:21):
courtroom for the Harrisburg Seven trial had a singularly ugly
paint job. Reporters described the paint color as oppressive, green,
tired algae and mill pond scum. It was an unprepossessing
setting for such a dramatic case. After nearly three weeks

(25:42):
of jury selection, opening statements took place on February twenty first,
nineteen seventy two. As lead prosecutor William Lynch spoke to
reporters outside the courtroom, it was clear that a change
had come over the man in the year since he
had first come to the case. Yes, While he had
taken the case reluctantly, write Jack Nelson and Ronald j

(26:05):
Ostro in their book The FBI and the Barrigans, Lynch
had psyched himself to the point that he seemed to
loathe the defendants. He described the defendants to the media
as naive attention seekers who believed themselves above the law. However,
Lynch usually kept his personal opinions to himself inside the courtroom.

(26:30):
In his opening statement, he calmly laid out the government's
case Philip Barrigan, Lynch said, was the ringleader of a
group who quote hatched a conspiracy in January nineteen seventy
to commit a series of illegal acts, the thrust of
which was to disrupt governmental activities. These illegal acts included

(26:53):
draft board raids in Philadelphia, which the defendant father Joseph Wenderoth,
among others, had public taken responsibility for. Lynch claimed that
he would prove that Philip Barrigan and two other defendants,
Anthony and Mary Skoblick, were involved in planning these raids.
The next plan in the conspiracy, Lynch shed, was bombing

(27:16):
heating pipes in Washington. He claimed that Wenderrath and Philip
Barrigan had personally visited underground tunnels in DC with quote
the intent of casing or assessing the feasibility of this
particular activity. Finally, Lynch shed the group planned to kidnap
Henry Kissinger. Throughout his opening, Lynch buttressed his claims by

(27:40):
saying that they would be supported by the testimony of
the prosecution's star witness, boyd Douglas. Douglas was the inmate
who had helped Philip Berrigan smuggle letters in and out
of Louisbourg prison. The defense had long suspected that Douglas
was the source of the leak, but Lynch's opening confirmed

(28:01):
it and revealed just how much the prosecution's case was
based on Douglas's information. Douglas, Lynch said, in his opening argument,
had become an FBI informant in June nineteen seventy, almost
immediately after he had begun working with Berrigan. In his
statement for the defense, attorney Ramsey Clark went on the attack.

(28:26):
The defendants had a whole cohort of lawyers representing them
who would share responsibilities during the trial. Clark, the attorney
General under President Johnson and Lynch's former boss, was chosen
to deliver the rebuttal to Lynch's opening. Clark immediately went
after the prosecution's motives and case. The charges, Clark said

(28:48):
were only brought to quote, justify something j Edgar Hoover
had done. He said that his clients were quote the
gentlest of people, not capable of injuring anyone. Any actions
they had taken against the war had not been part
of a conspiracy, but had been individual actions. This was

(29:09):
a key point for the defense. All of the defendants
except Elizabeth McAllister, and Ekba Ahmad had at some point
publicly confessed to participating in draft board raids. Clark wanted
to make the distinction that these raids had not been
part of a larger plot or a conspiracy, which is
what the government was now charging the defendants with. Much

(29:32):
of Clark's opening was devoted to attacking boy Douglas. You'll
have to watch Boyd Douglas, see him, judge him, Clark said,
He's made lying a way of life. It was clear
from both the prosecution and the defense's opening statements that
the trial would hinge on the testimony of Boyd Douglas.

(29:54):
But who was Boyd Douglas exactly? This wasn't an easy
question to answer. Some people, including Philip Berrigan and his
friends at Bucknell University, where Douglas had participated in a
steady release program while still imprisoned, knew Douglas as a charismatic,
complicated man with strong anti war sentiments. Douglas told them

(30:17):
that he had fought in Vietnam and had been horrified
by what he had seen there. Upon his return to America,
Douglas said he had been caught trying to bomb trucks
carrying napalm to be shipped to Vietnam and jailed. While
in jail, he volunteered for a medical study, which had
left him with debilitating injuries. He had won a settlement

(30:40):
from the government for his suffering, he told Bucknell friends,
which was how he explained his ready supply of money,
his ever stocked liquor cabinet, and his off campus apartment
lavish living for anyone, especially a prisoner. Douglas could be
insistent and arrogant, but most who him just thought he

(31:01):
was passionate. At the trial, a very different picture of
Douglas emerged. On the stand, Douglas described himself as a
Catholic who was concerned about Catholic priests and nuns getting
involved in anti war activities. He discussed being worried about
quote the threats of these people to the United States government.

(31:23):
He had gotten in over his head when he had
agreed to help Philip Barrigan smuggle a letter out of prison,
Douglas explained, and knowing that he would eventually be caught,
decided to start copying out the contents of the letters
in order to help the government. After a warden caught
barrigin with a letter in June and realized that Douglas

(31:44):
was helping him. The warden had put Douglas in touch
with the FBI. In his long answers to Lynch's questions,
Douglas explained how he had gotten deeper and deeper into
the movement as a way to aid his investigation. During
Douglas's testimony, Lynch introduced the letters between Barrigan and McAllister,

(32:04):
reading them aloud to the jury. Douglas corroborated references in
the letters to real life conversations he said he had
with the defendants. Unfortunately for the prosecution, most of the
letters were so dull and rambling that jurors literally fell
asleep during Lynch's readings. However, two letters, those sent on

(32:25):
August eighteenth and August twenty second by Elizabeth McAllister and
Philip Berrigan, respectively, were much more exciting. These were the
letters that discussed kidnapping Kissinger and alluded to a disruptive
action against DC utilities. Douglas was key to bringing these
letters to life. His testimony alleged that the discussion of

(32:46):
these crimes was not confined to these two letters, but
had been an ongoing conversation in the summer of nineteen seventy.
The prosecution would ultimately bring in sixty four witnesses, including
FBI agents and police officers, but the only one whose
testimonies supported the charges of bombing and kidnapping was Douglas.

(33:08):
Douglas testified to having discussed the details of the tunnel
bombing project with Joseph Wenderoth, and to having conversations with
Elizabeth McAllister and Ekba Ahmad about the kidnapping plot. Douglas's
allegation that he had spoken to Ahmad on the phone
about the kidnapping was hard to believe. Ahmad was the
most cautious and savvy of all the defendants. He constantly

(33:32):
bemoaned the others naivete saying, I am dealing with children.
Why would he discuss a sensitive matter like kidnapping over
the phone with a stranger. Douglas claimed to have spoken
to Ahmad twice, and said that he picked out Ahmud's
voice from a tape recording the FBI played him. The tape,
it turned out, was from a press conference that the

(33:54):
defendants had given in which Ahmad, the only defendant with
an accent, had literally identified himself by name. This identification
of Ahmad's voice was so suspect that Judge Hermann decided
to strike it from the record. This was not the
only issue with Douglas's testimony. At the end of his
direct examination, Lynch was forced to raise a concerning matter,

(34:17):
a letter from Douglas in which he had requested fifty
thousand dollars from the FBI in exchange for his help
with the case. The defense had told the press about
the letter earlier that week, and Lynch was trying to
get ahead of it. This figure may sound a little high,
Douglas had written, but considering everything, I feel it is
worth it to the government. I will do all I

(34:40):
can to help the government obtain enough evidence to prosecute
these people. However, I don't want to feel that I
am just being used. Lynch tried to move on from
the letter quickly. Douglas explained that he had continued helping
the FBI even after his money request was turned down,
but the damage was done. Several jurors looked at each

(35:00):
other and shook their heads. What came next was even
more troubling for the prosecution. The defense lawyers were unsure
of their ability to shake Douglas from his story about
the defendant's alleged crimes. He was a confident witness, with
an excellent memory for dates and places, and was convincing
in his recall. So the defense, on cross examination decided

(35:24):
to instead go after Douglas's character, and it was here
that a third side of boy Douglas emerged. This version
wasn't the anti war activist known by Barrigan and at Bucknell,
or the patriot concerned with protecting his country portrayed by
the prosecution. The boy Douglas who came out on cross

(35:46):
examination was as Ramsey Clark had described him in his opening,
someone who made lieing a way of life. Born in
nineteen forty in Iowa, boyd Douglas had started committing crimes
at a young age. In nineteen fifty nine, he had

(36:06):
enlisted in the military, likely as part of a deal
to avoid jail time. After deserting the army multiple times.
He was charged in nineteen sixty two with impersonating an
army officer and passing bad checks. He pled guilty and
was sentenced to jail in nineteen sixty three. While in jail,

(36:26):
he had volunteered for a medical study at the National
Institutes of Health. It was true that he had incurred
serious injuries during the study, but it's unclear whether those
injuries were self inflicted or not. Douglas filed a two
million dollar suit against the government, but eventually settled for
fifteen thousand dollars after his lawyer informed him that the

(36:48):
government suspected fraud. Paroled in nineteen sixty six, Douglas immediately
began forging checks again. After waiving a gun at a
bank employee who confronted him and was conson, Douglas was
apprehended and sentenced to an additional five years in prison.
It was for these crimes that Douglas was in Louisbourg

(37:09):
prison where he met Berrigin, not for bombing trucks carrying
napalm like he claimed. Douglas also never served in Vietnam.
Douglas's lies did not stop there. The defense revealed that
Douglas had lied constantly to try to manipulate his friends
at Bucknell, even over personal matters. While at Bucknell, he

(37:31):
had dated two roommates. He told one roommate, Jane Hoover,
that he was dying of cancer and asked her to
marry him. When she refused, he pleaded with her, telling
her that she was the only girl he had ever loved,
except for a childhood neighbor of his name, Nancy, who,

(37:52):
like Jane, had beautiful blonde hair. After Jane once again
rejected him, Douglas moved on to her roommate, Betsy Sandel.
He soon asked Betsy to marry him, movingly, declaring that
she was the only girl he had ever loved, except
for a childhood neighbor named Nancy, who, like Betsy, had

(38:16):
beautiful red hair. It was a trivial lie, but it
seemed to stick with the jurors. While Douglas was supposed
to be gathering information for the FBI, he had instead
spent his time manipulating young college students into becoming romantically
attached to him. Douglas's admission that he had flagged Betsy

(38:37):
Sandel as an anti war activist to the FBI only
after she had rejected his marriage proposal caused one jurors
jaw to literally drop. With all that said, the defense
had been right in fearing that they could not get
Douglas to change his story about the crimes. He alleged

(38:59):
the defendants had He consistently maintained that the defendants had
planned to kidnap Kissinger and bomb the capital. The cross
examinations had certainly damaged Douglas's credibility, but had they damaged
the prosecution's case. William Lynch didn't think so devastating cross examination,
he laughed to a reporter. Lynch's real concern lay with

(39:22):
what the defense would present during their own case. On
March twenty third, after more than a month of testimony,
the prosecution rested. The defense had called witnesses from all
over the country to testify, and people wondered exactly who
would appear on the stand, which, if any, of the
defendants would testify. On Friday, March twenty fourth, Ramsey Clark

(39:46):
again rose for the defense, but instead of delivering a
traditional opening statement, he shocked the courtroom by declaring, your honor,
the defendants will always seek peace. The defendants continue to
proclaim their innocence, and the defense rests. No one knew
quite what was happening. Had Clark said that the defense rested,

(40:11):
they weren't going to present a case, Lynch was baffled,
calling it some sort of trickery, some sort of fraud
on the court, but the defense said that they had
only decided to not present a case the night before.
In a news conference, the defendants explained themselves it had
not been a unanimous decision. Barrigan, McAllister, and Ahmad had

(40:34):
wanted to argue their case, but had been overruled by
a majority of the defendants. The Skobliks, Joseph Wenderroth and
Neil McLaughlin did not want to present a defense. McAllister
had taken notes on their discussion the night before, writing quote,
the response of silence seems the best response to the

(40:54):
illegitimacy of this indictment of the process of this government.
By not present venting a defense, the defendants felt that
they were refusing to engage in a process they saw
as corrupt. The defendants had not forgone every aspect of
a defense, however, they still wished for their lawyers to

(41:16):
conduct closing arguments, which were duly completed by both sides.
No one added anything particularly novel. The defense lawyers argued
that the case was politically motivated, poorly supported, and overblown,
while Lynch contended that the defendants were wolves in clerical clothing.
Formerly non violent activists who had graduated to violence and

(41:39):
posed a genuine threat to the nation. On March thirtieth,
the jury began their deliberations. They had to return to
the courtroom several times for clarification on the charges. It
was a complicated set of interrelated charges, and the jury
and Judge Hermann himself seemed unsure about just how to
approach the law. Over the next week, the jury delivered

(42:02):
several verdicts on a few of the more minor charges,
finding Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAllister guilty of smuggling letters
out of federal prison. But on April fifth, nineteen seventy two,
the jury declared to Judge Herman that they were deadlocked
on the conspiracy charges. They could not reach a decision

(42:22):
about the defendant's guilt or innocence in conspiring to raid
draft board offices, kidnap Henry Kissinger, and baumb Washington, d C.
In the case of the United States v. The Harrisburg Seven,
Judge Herman declared a mistrial. The case might not have

(42:43):
ended there. The government could still choose to retry the
Harrisburg Seven, but it seemed extremely unlikely. Public opinion was
against the government. In this case. The local newspaper, a
conservative journal called The Harrisburg Patriot, wrote, it must be
evident that conspiracy is an elusive charge, that a principal witness, Douglas,

(43:06):
whose testimony can be eroded as his motivation is revealed,
is a very weak read, and that a faulty case
is better left untried than subjected to pitiless media and
public exposure. The jurors concurred with the Harrisburg Patriots conclusions.
Interviews with jurors after the verdict revealed that they had

(43:28):
voted ten to two against convicting on the conspiracy charges,
and that the two jurors who supported convictions had had
their minds made up from the beginning of the trial.
The jurors who voted for acquittal cited Boyd Douglas's lack
of credibility as a major reason for their decision. Any

(43:48):
possibility of a retrial died along with the man who
had pushed for the trial in the first place on
May second, nineteen seventy two, j Edgar Hoover of a
heart attack. A little more than a year later, on
May twenty eighth, nineteen seventy three, Philip Barrigan and Elizabeth

(44:09):
McAllister were legally married, given that they were still technically
a priest and a nun. The couple were excommunicated from
the Catholic Church, but the excommunication was later lifted. Barrigan
and McAllister had three children. They never gave up their
activism work. In the early nineteen eighties, they along with

(44:30):
Phillip's brother Daniel, turned their focus to protesting nuclear weapons.
They employed many of the same tactics they had used
for protesting the Vietnam War, including breaking into nuclear weapon
manufacturing facilities and pouring blood on equipment. Philip Barrigan died
at age seventy nine on December sixth, two thousand and two.

(44:51):
Daniel Berrigan died at age ninety four on April thirtieth,
twenty sixteen. Elizabeth McAllister is still alive. Her last interaction
with the legal system was her twenty nineteen conviction for
breaking into a nuclear submarine base. Ekba Ahmah died on
May eleventh, nineteen ninety nine, after a lifetime spent teaching

(45:14):
political science and speaking out against war and imperialism. His
writings influenced other prominent thinkers, including Edward Sayid and Howard Zinn,
father Joseph Wenderroth, and father Neil McLaughlin returned to Baltimore
to continue their work as priests. They are both now retired.
Anthony and Mary Skoblick seemed to have led more private

(45:36):
lives after the trial. During the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies,
the country struggled to figure out how to respond to
protests over the Vietnam War. America has long been a
land of protesters. Some of the most famous acts of
the country's founding were acts of civil disobedience, but exactly

(45:56):
who is allowed to protest and how they are allowed
to do so are hotly debated issues. I agree with
the protesters, but not with how they're protesting is a
common refrain during fraught times. The theologian Robert McAfee brown,
writing about the Barrigin's destruction of draft records in Catonsville, Maryland,

(46:18):
said that the action was meant to be quote a
vivid reminder of what has happened to the collective conscience
of our nation. We are outraged when paper is burned,
and we are not outraged when children are burned, But
the ethical stakes for burning paper are very different than
those for kidnapping and bombing, and ethical considerations are often

(46:42):
different than legal ones. Prosecuting protesters who commit illegal acts
is as much an American tradition as protesting itself. The
system must have integrity, said the Attorney General in the
nineteen sixties. It never seemed wrong to me that the
rou and Gandhi weer prossecus, or that they went to jail.
That was their point. They so disagreed with their government

(47:05):
that they would sacrifice freedom itself to show their concern.
The speaker there was none other than Ramsey Clark, former
Attorney General and defense attorney for the Harrisburg Seven. The
pattern of protest and prosecution, writes William O'Rourke in his
book The Harrisburg Seven and the New Catholic Left, was

(47:26):
a symbolic one. Church and state are practitioners of myth
and icon. The activists of the Catholic New Left carry
out their symbolic acts of resistance. The government responds with
its own. Each side used its own unique powers and
tools to either upend or uphold the status quo. For

(47:47):
the most part, each side understood the rules of the other.
The Barrigins had upended this balance by choosing to run
instead of surrenders for their prison sentences in nineteen seventy,
but the government in prosecuting the Harrisburg Seven committed an
even graver violation. In this case, the government responded disproportionately

(48:12):
to a basically non existent threat. There is no evidence
that any of the defendants ever seriously planned to carry
out a kidnapping or a bombing. Had j Edgar Hoover
not used the alleged threat of these attacks as leverage
to get more funding from Congress, it's likely that no
prosecution would have occurred. Hoover's power was so great that

(48:36):
it subverted the rule of law right Jack Nelson and
Ronald Astro quote. When a nation that prides itself on
being a system of laws, not men, permits itself to
be so corrupted, the portents are ominous. We often see
this issue on a smaller scale. The personal whims and

(48:58):
biases of judges, attorneys, and jurors can radically shape the
outcome of a trial, But rarely do we see this
kind of personal influence on his grand or as a
disturbing of a scale, as we do in the trial
of the Harrisburg Seven. That's the story of the United

(49:19):
States v. The Harrisburg Seven. Stick around to learn a
fun fact about one of the Berrigan Brothers musical legacy.
In nineteen seventy one, Paul Simon was hard at work
on his second solo album, best known at that point

(49:41):
as a member of the duo Simon and Garfunkel. Simon's
first solo album had only been released in England. This
second album would be getting an American release, and it
was Simon's chance to define his own voice outside of
his partnership with Our Garfuncle had to make something good.

(50:02):
Fortunately for Simon, he did. The album, titled Paul Simon,
debuted in January nineteen seventy two and was critically acclaimed.
It took a little while for sales to catch up
with the buzz, but the album made it to number
four on the Billboard Pop Album chart. The album has
remained a classic and was certified platinum in nineteen eighty six.

(50:27):
One of the best known songs from Paul Simon is
the album's second single, Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.
The song tells the story of two boys breaking a law.
What law exactly is never made clear, With Simon saying
in a nineteen seventy two Rolling Stone interview, I have
no idea what it is. Something sexual is what I imagine.

(50:50):
After the boys are reported to the police by a
woman called Mama, they are arrested. Fortunately a radical priest
comes and gets them released, and they all end up
on the cover of Newsweek. And yes, it was very
hard to read that line without singing. But you don't
want to hear me sing. Some commentators have theorized that
the song tells the story of two gay teens getting

(51:11):
kicked out of their house, and they have also suggested
that the radical priest who gets the pair released is
none other than father Daniel Berrigan. The biggest hint is
the line about ending up on the cover of Newsweek.
In nineteen seventy one, during both the Harrisburg seven fiasco
and Paul Simon's album recording process, an image of Daniel

(51:36):
and Philip Barrigan appeared on the cover of Time magazine,
paired with the headline rebel Priests the Curious case of
the Barrigins. The song may very well not be about
gay men, and the radical priest may not be Daniel Berrigan.
Simon has never confirmed nor commented on either claim. But

(51:58):
if these theories are true, the Me and Julio down
at the Schoolyard, besides being a very catchy tune, is
also nice foreshadowing for Daniel Berrigan's later career. In the
nineteen eighties, in the midst of the AIDS epidemic, when
the cause and treatment of AIDS was still unknown, and
while those affected were largely shunned by society, Daniel Berrigan

(52:23):
began volunteering at the aid's hospice program at Saint Vincent's
Hospital in New York City. He spent twelve years working
with the sick and dying, treating them with love and compassion.
In nineteen eighty nine, he wrote a book about his experiences,
Sorrow Built a Bridge, Friendship and AIDS. At a time

(52:46):
when so many, including the American government, wilfully ignored the
crisis or blamed its victims for their fates, Daniel Berrigan
once again turned his face towards suffering and did what
he could to alleviate it. Thank you for listening to
History on Trial. My main source for this episode was

(53:09):
Jack Nelson and Ronald j Astro's book The FBI and
the Barrigans, the Making of a Conspiracy. For a full bibliography,
as well as a transcript of this episode with citations,
please visit our website History on Trial podcast dot com.
History on Trial is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward.

(53:31):
The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with
supervising producer Trevor Young and executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams,
Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show
at History on Trial podcast dot com and follow us
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(53:53):
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