In the mid 1960s Goodman and Levertov both became prominent in the anti-war movement.The two began by running paid advertisements in national publications with statements of protest signed by writers, artists and others.
We will, in a clear, simple ceremony, make concrete our affirmation of support for these young men who are the spearhead of direct resistance to the war and all of its machinery... .
[Signed] Mitchell Goodman, Henry Braun, Denise Levertov, Noam Chomsky, William Sloane Coffin, Dwight Macdonald.
[9] These documents and his protest actions led to his indictment for conspiring to council, aid and abet violations of the Selective Service law and to hinder administration of the draft.
He was indicted for conspiracy alongside Benjamin Spock, a famous doctor and author, Marcus Raskin, leader of a Washington think tank, Rev.
William Sloane Coffin, chaplain at Yale, and Michael Ferber, a graduate student at Harvard, in what became known as the "Boston Five" conspiracy trial.
The defendants and others in the resistance movement had hoped to put the morality and legitimacy of the war on trial, but were largely precluded by Judge Ford,[10] who was widely seen to favor the prosecution.
Coffin were ruled to have been more closely involved with the illegal acts in the draft card protests, and so were to be retried in the Federal District Court.
[1][12] Jessica Mitford and Alan Dershowitz have argued that the prosecution for conspiracy rather than for specific crimes was an attempt to repress organized public opposition to the war.
Also, the prosecutor John Wall went as far as pursuing the "applause theory," that those who expressed public support for the defendants statements could be considered part of the conspiracy.
He also gave credit to tens of thousands of people who stood up to what he considered government intimidation by taking part in similar public protests, or by signing letters of solidarity requesting to be indicted on the same conspiracy charges as the "Boston Five.
Described in a New York Times review as a "telephone-book thick proceedings" of 750 pages, it includes essays, manifestos, journalism, and reflections from mainstream publications, radical magazines and student newspapers.