The Trial of Dr. Spock, The Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., Michael Ferber, Mitchell Goodman, and Marcus Raskin

by Jessica Mitford

Five exemplary defendants, a cast-iron judge, an anachronistic indictment, a government determined to quell a particular flow of dissent - this is the picture that sharply emerges as Jessica Mitford chronicles at first hand the trial of Dr. the prosecution in Boston, in 1968, of the almost-legendary baby doctor and his four co-defendants on a charge of conspiracy to counsel, aid and abet violations of the Selective Service Act.

Genres: Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters. She gained American citizenship in later life.

Reviews

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars, rounded up to 5. The reason that I would rate it less than five stars is because the back of the dust cover has an epilogue dated July 1969 which should really be inside the book (published 1969, no month given on the copyright page).

Jessica Mitford is an excellent writer and has a sense of humor. Despite the serious event being discussed in this book, she makes it fun to read about.

This book is about a trial for "conspiracy to counsel, aid and abet" draft resistors during the Vietnam War. Mitford starts by describing that several of the people accused learned about their indictment through reading it in the newspaper before having papers served on them. Although all five had been activists or had spoken or written against the Vietnam War, they had not all met each other prior to being indicted for conspiracy. When this issue came up in the trial, the prosecution (with the judge's agreement) said that conspiracy was "agreement" and came from the Latin basis of the word: con (together), spire (breathe). Early in the book, Mitford mentions that when all five were together after the indictment one of the lawyers introduced them to each other.

The book was published soon after the trial rather than as a historical evaluation. I read it almost 50 years later, but I would say it held up very well and I was able to understand what was going on.
Her conclusions (other than the back cover) are about how juries are led to convict in political trials because there are no instructions about jury nullification of unjust laws. It is sad that this seems to still be true today.

[Alex Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be the least interesting of Jessica Mitford's books, despite the fact that it deals with an important subject. However, what is missing is Mitford's own wonderful narrative voice -- the combination of wry humor, witty insights, and cool disgust that greatly enlivened works like "The American Way of Death" and "Poison Penmanship." But Mitford's razor-sharp observations and inimitable use of language are pretty much absent from much of this book, aside from the chapter in which she interviews three of the jurors. I would estimate that more than 60% of the book consists of other people talking -- the defendants making speeches, long excerpts from the trial transcripts, quotations from a pertinent article in the "Yale Law Review," etc., and I found these sections to be pretty dry. A writer of Mitford's talent should not be reduced to providing transitional paragraphs for other people's speeches.

[Dustin · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting window into 1968 and the draft resistance movement. Some notable takeaways:
1) Although many on the left opposed the draft, many Marxists regarded draft resistance as "a middle-class kick", and advocated entering the army and organizing one's fellow soldiers.
2) Local draft boards had full power to revise a person's draft status or deferment after it was issued, and were actually encouraged by the Pentagon to re-categorize people as suitable for induction based solely on their political activity around the draft.
3) The ACLU badly fell down on the job, and played no role in the legal defense, although the Massachusetts branch of the org did do so, with no effective assistance from the national org.

[Suzlizjohnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority" was signed by Dr. Spock and he and the others were charged with trying to incite disobedience or something like that..."

It really is tough to accept it when abuse is acceptable. Some bodies just don't know that they are being abused and furthermore, fancy it just fine and perfectly appropriate to try and incarcerate people for standing up for freedom and liberty - people trying to put an end to public abuses. As if McCarthy and his "investigation of the american film industry" wasn't enough! Some people just don't get it!