LETTERS
Editor: Gordon Haskell's article in the March—April 1970 issue of DISSENT, entitled "Civil Liberties: To Hell in a Basket?," is incorrect in a very important respect. After correctly...
...Not a shred of truth inthat...
...GORDON HASKELL American Civil Liberties Union...
...MELVIN L. WULF, Legal Director American Civil Liberties Union GOIWON HASKELL replies: The point I was trying to make in the paragraphquoted by my colleague, Mel Wulf, was that thedefendants in the Chicago 7 trial chose their owncounsel, and that ACLU's direct involvement in the case preceded the point at which the trial became guerrilla theater...
...The only reason the trial became a "kindof guerrilla theater" is because of the way it wastried by Judge Julius Hoffman...
...they are not inexpert in the areas coveredby the trial...
...ACLU'sservices are free of charge...
...After correctly pointing out that the ACLUsought to have the indictments against the ChicagoEight dismissed on the ground that the InterstateRiot Act was unconstitutional, he goes on tosay: "Having been denied their motions, theACLU was told by the defendants that they preferred their own lawyers so that they would befree to conduct their defense in their own way...
...Editor: Gordon Haskell's article in the March—April 1970 issue of DISSENT, entitled "Civil Liberties: To Hell in a Basket?," is incorrect in a very important respect...
...The implication there is that, one, thetrial was in fact a kind of guerrilla theater and, two, that it was a guerrilla theater because of thedefendants' lawyers...
...I disagree with both implications...
...Wulfs quotation my article attacked the police agents, the conduct of the judge, thegovernment's motives in pressing the prosecution, the police riot which led to it all, and only then got around to the defendants and their counsel...
...the organization hasexcellent lawyers both on its staff and as volunteers...
...Easier yet, he might have read theACLU's own news stories concerning its limitedinvolvement as amicus curiae in the Chicago trial...
...Wulf is quite right, they were never retained...
...Mr...
...From that moment on, the trial had been a kind of guerrilla theater in a courtroom setting...
...But would ACLU counsel have identified themselves with the politics of the defendants as Kunstler did, and express that identification by theirconduct of the trial...
...I didn't say ACLU's lawyers were "dismissed," and Mr...
...Perhaps I didn't go down the hall to get my facts straight because the facts don't always look thesame at both ends of the corridor...
...the Union has a certain prestige whichmight have helped the defendants...
...To Mr...
...After Mr...
...The first error is the implication that the defendants were being represented by ACLU attorneys who were dismissed...
...The point was made becauseI have encountered relatively knowledgeable people who either thought ACLU was representingthe defendants (William Kunstler is a member of ACLU's Board of Directors...
...One might, however, wonder why...
...He was the producer, director, writer, and chief actor...
...Second, Haskell tries to leave the implicationthat, if the defendants had not dismissed their nonexistent ACLU lawyers, the trial would not havebecome "a kind of guerrilla theater in a courtroomsetting...
...The defendants from the very beginning were represented by their own non-ACLU attorneys...
...or felt that ACLUhad, in some way, "copped out" because it was not representing them...
...Wulf, that's saying it was all "because ofthe defendants' lawyers...
...Haskell's factual errors are the more surprising because if he walked down the hall fromhis office to mine, he could have learned the accurate facts...
...The only ACLU involvement up to that pointwas an amicus curiae brief which it filed in support of a motion filed by the defendants' ownattorneys to dismiss the indictments because of the unconstitutionality of the statute...
Vol. 17 • July 1970 • No. 4
