Rebecca Naomi Jones: The Wreckage is made possible by funding from the Ford Foundation.
Additional funding is provided through the American Jewish Education Program, generously supported by Sid and Ruth Lapidus.
Archival Audio – Student Protestors Occupy San Francisco City Hall: On the second day of the hearings – Friday, May 13 – loudspeakers are set up across the street from City Hall in an attempt to alleviate the crowds trying to gain entrance to the hearing room. Nevertheless, hundreds of students, longshoremen, and spectators crowd into the City Hall building, as picketers continued to demonstrate outside the building. Officials admit over 200 of the crowd to the hearing room, until it is once again filled to capacity.
(Roaring crowd and protesters shouting)
Rebecca Naomi Jones: On May 12, 1960, the House Un-American Activities Committee began the first of a 3-day series of hearings to be held at San Francisco City Hall. The committee had been conducting hearings around the country, on a tour designed to investigate what they believed to be hubs for subversive activity.
In what would become the largest anti-HUAC protest in the committee’s history, multiple groups planned to show up and confront the members. Led by Frank Wilkinson, a political activist who lost his job as a housing official in Los Angeles at the height of the McCarthy era, hundreds of members of his organization, the Citizen Committee to Preserve American Freedoms, converged with like-minded student protestors from the University of California system.
The protest erupted into a brutal clash with police, and ushered the new decade into an era of upheaval and political violence, all as the war in Vietnam escalated.
From the American Jewish Historical Society, this is The Wreckage: American Subversives. I’m your host, Rebecca Naomi Jones. Welcome to the rebellion of The Yippies. Our story begins with an anti-HUAC protest.
Archival Audio, Newsreel on the Anti-HUAC Protests: “This is City Hall in San Francisco, the site of hearings held by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in May of 1960. This is the chosen battlefield of the Communist Party’s most organized and violent attack on the committee since the launching of the Operation Abolition Campaign on September 20, 1957.”
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Joining us is Gemma R. Birnbaum, executive director of the American Jewish Historical Society.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: HUAC held hearings at the San Francisco City Hall because they felt that the San Francisco Bay area, like Berkeley and all of the surrounding areas, were what they called a hotbed for, quote, American subversion.
So they subpoenaed a few hundred people, including journalists, college professors, public school teachers, like over a hundred public school teachers. And then they leaked all their names to the press. Keep in mind that this is already a post-McCarthy world, so both his former Senate committee and HUAC are both in decline in terms of respect and prestige, so there’s a big public outcry over the leak, with some people basically saying, you’re putting the lives of these journalists and educators in danger.
You’re putting their jobs in danger. You’re putting their families in danger. When you don’t actually have any proof that any of them are communists or trying to subvert the government or any, or that they’re subversive in any way. So hundreds of people, most of them college students, showed up to protest.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Most of the protestors were unable to get into the hearing room, and rumors spread that the chamber had largely been filled with HUAC supporters. As chants of “let us in” permeated the crowd, the media took notice.
By day two, due in large part to the publicity caused by the events of that first day, the crowd had grown significantly, with estimates of over 3,500 people gathered outside City Hall.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: And that’s when the riot squad is called in. So, what does the riot squad do when they want to move a lot of people very quickly? They turn fire hoses on them. And so they turn the fire hoses on the protesters.
It’s a very common tactic that was used in the civil rights movement to the anti Vietnam War movement. I don’t know how to articulate how powerful a fire hose spray is, but it’s quite powerful. And so this doesn’t just knock people over, they’re in a rotunda, on marble steps. And so when they spray the fire hose, you’ve got like 18 year old kids, again, with cameras watching, being thrown from the stairs and tumbling down head first.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Across the Bay Area, viewers at home watched footage of the protestors cascading down the tall marble steps on the evening news.
In the aftermath of the protests and the aggressive police response, HUAC developed a plan to do damage control.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: HUAC releases a propaganda film afterwards called Operation Abolition, that provided a very negative view of the protesters, a negative view of the people who were subpoenaed, and started showing it at military bases and on college campuses.
And in response, the ACLU released a response film called Operation Correction that debunked essentially every point, you know, point by point in this film.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: The nation’s trust in HUAC was quickly eroding, and critics across the political spectrum continued to denounce its tactics as, quote, “un-American,” “mercenary,” and “a sham.” In a letter to a friend, Dwight Eisenhower lamented:
“It is a sad commentary on our government when such a manifestly useless and spurious thing can divert our attention from all the constructive work in which we could and should be engaged.”
Archival Audio – Universal Newsreel on Vietnam War: A battalion of U. S. First Air Cavalry clashes with North Vietnamese regulars in a central coastal plain near Bong Son. Heavy and accurate sniper fire, zeroed in by telescopic sights, keeps our forces pinned down and dug in. Supporting fire from airmobile gunships helps to drive off the Kong, estimated to number about 150.
After the fighting, coppers put down their guns to evacuate the wounded.
Two Americans were listed as dead. One was a machine gunner, and the second his company commander, who took over the machine gun from his fallen comrade and was killed himself. Thirteen G. I. s were wounded, four enemy soldiers were counted among the casualties.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: So the Vietnam War was a prolonged conflict where the communist North Vietnamese people supported by the Soviet Union and China fought against the U. S. backed South Vietnamese people.
People often talk about the Cold War being a non-violent war, that it’s fought through ideology. I think we’ve all kind of heard that, oh, it’s, that’s why it’s called cold and not hot. But Vietnam is absolutely part of the Cold War and fears over the spread of communism.
So this is what you would call a proxy war between the United States and the USSR. And so they’re essentially fighting the Cold War through the lens of the North and South Vietnamese people.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: On September 2,1945, the communist Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh declared his nation’s independence from France, and assumed the role of President of the newly created Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
A battle between the nations ensued, and in the fight between France and Vietnam, the United States chose to aid the French – a decision that would come to define American foreign policy for decades.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: You’re still solidly in the Truman administration. And so to put that into perspective and just thinking about that chaotic final year of World War II and that immediate aftermath and that refugee crisis. And then there’s this growing red menace. So this is a war that’s really being fought first ideologically after World War II and then quite literally, being fought for a solid 30 years.
And so by the time you get to the early and mid 1960s, that means the American public has been growing very tired, not just of this war. But of the fight against communism and red scare politics in general.
And you can’t really discount the impact that television is having as well. Americans more than ever are getting these regular updates on the evening news.
Archival Audio – Newsreel on Anti-Vietnam War Protests: [Music] Thousands of demonstrators opposed to the Vietnam War assembled in the nation’s capital for a mass protest. For the most part, orderly minor scuffles did occur between the demonstrators and hecklers. A three-hour parade takes the demonstrators across the Potomac, on their way to the Pentagon. The crowd estimated at about 50,000 persons was a confederation of some 150 groups and included adults, students, even children. It is at the Pentagon where the first test of strength comes. Military police contain the crowd, but clashes soon break out. Federal Marshals arrest several who attempt to break through the protective line, reinforcing the marshals. A second wave of MP’s with fixed bayonets in scabbards move into position. Some 400 demonstrators are arrested. Two soldiers are injured, and tear gas is used. Six break into a Pentagon side door, but are quickly apprehended in the day-long disturbance. The next day, campfires are lighted to hold off the Autumn chill. The same weekend saw nationwide demonstrations supporting American GI’s in Vietnam. The Pentagon protest was less violent in its second day of sitting in. The two-day protest ends with over 600 arrested, and in the widespread opinion that the demonstration made everyone a loser.
[Music]
Rebecca Naomi Jones: 1967 was one of the deadliest years for U.S. military casualties in the war in Vietnam, as more than 11,300 American soldiers perished. Fatal civilian casualties across Vietnam exceeded 34,000, and graphic images of children who had been injured or killed by bullets and napalm were broadcast into homes across the United States on the evening news.
All of this fueled a growing anti-war movement, particularly among the many counterculture groups that had formed across the country; many of which also took active roles in the fight for Civil Rights. Among the most prominent in the movement were the Hippies, the Southern Christian Leadership conference, SNCC – the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panthers, and SDS – Students for a Democratic Society.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: And so all of these groups have this one big thing in common, which is in spite of these very important nuances and differences, they are anti-capitalist and they’re anti war in Vietnam.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: On New Year’s Eve 1967, counterculture activists Abbie Hoffman and his wife Anita Hoffman were hosting friends in their New York City apartment. It was there that the couple, along with Jerry Rubin, Nancy Kurshan, and Paul Krassner founded a new group – the Yippies – while they worked on a plan to protest the war at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: It stood for the Youth International Party. They had no real hierarchy or membership model.
They made the flag, they have this flag that they would bring to protests that they made, their logo, it was like a big black flag with a giant red star, and then over the red star there’s like a giant green pot leaf, it’s like, it’s just juvenile, right, and so there’s this kind of juvenile sort of humor behind some of it, also very Jewish humor behind some of it, but we’re also talking about the late 1960s, it’s not like legalization is happening anywhere yet. At one point they do this sort of guerilla campaign where they mail like 30,000 joints across New York City to random addresses and people are just like opening their mail and they’re like, there’s weed in here.
So the Yippies cause chaos. I think that’s their major goal. It’s an upending of the expected and the norm in an effort to garner media attention for their causes. So that ranges from Jerry Rubin showing up to testify when he’s called before HUAC in like a bright red Santa suit.
He says that Santa is the ultimate communist. And that’s why he did it. So he’s, he’s, you know, Santa wears red, he just gives away toys for free, you know, that’s like the most communist thing that you could do.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: When Rubin and Hoffman, who were Jewish, arrived at their HUAC hearings, they were greeted not just by supporters, but also by pro-HUAC counter-protestors from the American Nazi Party. Clad in Nazi uniforms with Swastika armbands, they carried signs brandishing antisemitic slogans, including, quote, “Gas Jew traitors Rubin and Hoffman,” and “Gas – the Final Solution for Red Scum.”
Hoffman and Rubin were undeterred, and over the course of responding to multiple subpoenas, treated the proceedings as political theater, including Rubin showing up in Revolutionary war uniform and handing out copies of the Declaration of Independence.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: So it’s clearly designed to make a mockery of some of these anti-communist proceedings, which by this point have been very publicly condemned by even the most powerful in the country, on the political spectrum, you’ve got Democrat and Republican, you’ve got Truman and Eisenhower, and so, you know, there’s also, you know, it takes the wind out of the sails.
All of it, though, that absurdist activism does come from a very serious place, which is a mounting body count in Vietnam.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: By 1968, more than half a million Americans were still serving in Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson’s approval rating hovered at about 40%, and with no end in sight, nor any clear path to victory as the war raged on, CBS journalist Walter Cronkite called for the US to withdraw from Vietnam.
Multiple anti-war Democrats announced their intent to primary President Johnson, including Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy and New York Senator Robert Kennedy. After immense pressure, Johnson announced that he would not be seeking another term.
In March, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin publicly announced their plans for the protests in Chicago.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: They are pitching this almost like a music festival at one point. Abbie’s like, we’re all gonna like, you know, make love in the park. And so he’s got a very clear message.
In April 1968 Martin Luther King is assassinated and so in the immediate aftermath of that, there are riots both in Chicago and in other cities, and everybody is on high alert. There is just no coming back from that at that point. Everybody thinks it can’t get worse, and then a couple of months later, Robert Kennedy is assassinated. And so, all of these protests are being planned, while footage and, and things of, you know, Bobby Kennedy bleeding to death, with Dolores Huerta holding his hand and crying are circulating.
And at that point, there is a moment where it feels like all bets are off. And if you have committed to peace, and you watch your leaders be repeatedly murdered in the street, or on a balcony, or in a hotel kitchen, well then what does that really mean for your movement? And so, there starts to become an exhaustion and an anger, that I think makes it, by the time you get to August, a hot August in Chicago, you’ve got a lot of angry and grieving people.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: In August 1968, politicians, journalists, delegates, and spectators descended upon Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. Anti-war protestors from the Yippies, the Black Panthers, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, and others arrived ahead of the convention.
Archival Audio – Newsreel Chronicling Protestors Rehearsing: The first demonstration in Chicago took place today beneath the huge Picasso sculpture on Civic Center Plaza. A group of yippies, or yappies, members of the Youth International Party trotted out their candidate for president. A black and brown pig named Pigasus. Police seized the pig and arrested about ten of the yippies on charges of breach of the peace.
ABC’s Jim Burns reports on the yippies and the other groups who planned demonstrations in Chicago. Ready? Wash short! Wash short! Wash short! Wash short! Wash short! These are flower children who’ve moved beyond the age of innocence. Flower children in training as marshals for demonstrations against the Democratic Convention.
Training to snake dance through police formations. To parry clubs with newspapers. And to kick attacking cops in the knee or in the groin.
When the Flower Children and thousands of other protesters hit the streets here next week, many of their moves will be directed from these offices of the Mobilization Against the War in Vietnam. MOBE as it’s called is a loose federation of numerous anti war, anti administration groups. We asked MOBE Project Director, Rennie Davis, why he and his group are conducting defense exercises.
We, of course, have an obligation to the people who are coming to the city of Chicago to do everything possible, not only to defend their right to speak out, but in eventuality there is clubbing or macing or the use of disarmed forces that’s being prepared against them. Uh, to defend them and protect them and to, uh, minimize anyone from being hurt, uh, who have come here, uh, to dramatize their contempt for the war policies of this administration.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Mayor Richard Daley was adamant that the protestors not be allowed to overrun the city, and that the convention needed to go on exactly as planned. Law enforcement flooded the streets of Chicago, barricades were placed around the convention hotel and surrounding neighborhoods, and curfews for anyone under the age of 21 were announced.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: At that point, something like 12,000 Chicago PD are put on non-stop shifts to watch all of the activists.
There’s National Guard. There’s also FBI intelligence officers. There’s Secret Service, you’ve got firefighters who are told that they have to be on standby in case there’s riots or other things.
And then there’s, you know, other uniformed officers that are basically surrounding the amphitheater. And so it is, it is what I would call a tinderbox. So you’ve got all of this firepower, essentially. You’ve got rising heat in August. You’ve got the police telling people there’s a curfew, and that they have to leave, while there’s bonfires and people chanting.
And it all just kind of, at some point, just goes to hell.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Police attempted to clear the protestors from Grant Park, and over the course of just 17 minutes, hundreds of anti-war activists were beaten with billy clubs, used barricades as make-shift weapons, and released tear gas. The spray was so heavy in the air that Democratic Presidential hopeful Hubert Humphrey started to feel the effects while watching the violence from the window of his hotel room on the 25th floor.
Inside the convention hall, during the roll call, the Wisconsin delegate lambasted the violence outside, decrying, quote “that thousands of young people are being beaten in the streets” and demanded that the convention be suspended for two weeks and relocated to another city. He was shouted down, and arguing and fighting ensued inside the convention center. When Georgia delegates attempted to leave the hall, they ended up in a tussle with security, and reporters including 36-year old Dan Rather were caught up in the melee while trying to report live on TV.
Archival Audio – Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather Report Live from the 1968 Democratic National Convention in 1968:
Walter Cronkite: “Dan Rather your…”
Dan Rather: “…and what is your name..,sir take your hands off of me! Unless you intend to arrest me…hey, don’t don’t push me. Please, I know you will, but…don’t push me, take your hands off of me unless you plan to arrest me! Wait a minute, wait a minute…Walter, as you can see…
Walter Cronkite: I don’t know what’s going on, but these are security people, apparently around, Dan, and obviously getting rough.
Dan Rather: We tried to talk to the man, and we got bodily pushed out of the way. This is the kind of thing that’s been going on outside the hall, this is the first time we’ve had it happen inside the hall. We…uh…I’m sorry to be out of breath, but somebody belted me in the stomach during that. What happened is a Georgia delegate, at least he had a Georgia delegate sign on, was uh being hauled out of the hall. We tried to, uh, talk to him to see why who he was and what the situation was, and at that instant, the security people, uh, well as you could see, put me on the deck. I didn’t do very well. (Chuckles)
Walter Cronkite: I think we’ve got a bunch of thugs here, Dan, if I may be permitted to say so.
Dan Rather: Well, mind you, Walter, I’m all right. I…it’s, uh, it’s all in day’s work.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Roughly 650 protestors were arrested, and hundreds were injured. Of those injured, more than 100 protestors and 49 police officers were taken to area hospitals for treatment.
In living rooms across the country, Americans watched in horror as images of blood-drenched protestors and fist-fighting delegates were juxtaposed with Hubert Humphrey accepting the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
In the aftermath, eight protestors – Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, John Froines, and Lee Weiner – were charged with conspiracy, crossing state lines to incite a riot, and a series of other charges related to the demonstrations.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: Right off the bat, there are already accusations that this is a kangaroo court, that this is a show trial, that the FBI is working directly with the judge who’s presiding over the case, that they already know that they’re gonna find these men guilty, and it’s immediately contentious.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: In one of the most contentious moments, Judge Julius Hoffman ordered that Bobby Seale, the only Black defendant, be bound, gagged, and chained to his chair. The jury became visibly upset, and defense attorney William Kunstler decried the action, likening the courtroom to, quote “a medieval torture chamber.”
At a press conference in November 1969, with Seale and the other co-defendants beside him, Rubin spoke out against Judge Hoffman’s treatment of Seale.
Archival Audio – Jerry Rubin Holds Press Conference to Support Bobby Seale: Now we came here today to destroy one concept, and that’s the concept of the Conspiracy 7. And a lot of the press out there have been calling us the Conspiracy 7 for a long time and they’ve got to stop that right now. We’re the Conspiracy 8! Conspiracy 8!
And just because that racist, anal judge Julius Hoffman cut, cut Bobby Seale and put him in jail for four years for standing up to demand his constitutional rights, doesn’t mean that Bobby Seale is not part of this conspiracy. And everybody in this room is part of the conspiracy, part of the conspiracy.
Part of the conspiracy to end the trial over there, and to free every black person and every person in every jail in this country.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Judge Hoffman eventually declared a mistrial for Seale’s case, and he was never re-tried. On February 18, 1970, the verdicts were in. The jury acquitted all seven defendants of conspiracy. Two – Froines and Weiner – were acquitted of all additional charges. Hoffman, Rubin, Hayden, Davis, and Dellinger were found guilty of traveling across state lines to incite a riot.
Outside the courthouse, Yippie co-founders Anita Hoffman and Nancy Kurshan burned judge’s robes in protest. A sign behind them read “We are all outlaws in the eyes of Amerika.”
After a series of appeals, and revelations that Judge Hoffman had violated a number of ethics codes, all of the men were eventually cleared of most of the charges, and none served any prison time.
Archival Audio- Richard Nixon Takes the Presidential Oath of Office, 1969:
Chief Justice Earl Warren: You, Richard Milhouse Nixon, do solemnly swear –
President Richard M. Nixon: I, Richard Milhouse Nixon, do solemnly swear –
Chief Justice Earl Warren: That you will faithfully execute the office –
President Richard M. Nixon: That I will faithfully execute the office –
Chief Justice Earl Warren: Of President of the United States –
President Richard M. Nixon: Of president of the United States –
Chief Justice Earl Warren: And will, to the best of your ability –
President Richard M. Nixon: And will, to the best of my ability –
Chief Justice Earl Warren: Preserve protect and defend –
President Richard M. Nixon: Preserve protect and defend –
Chief Justice Earl Warren: The Constitution of the United States –
President Richard M. Nixon: The Constitution of the United States –
Chief Justice Earl Warren: So help you God.
President Richard M. Nixon: So help me God.
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Republican candidate Richard Nixon went on to win the 1968 Presidential election. The Nixon era proved to be just as volatile as the years prior. In May 1970, on the campus of Kent State University, a student protest opposing the decision to expand the war into Cambodia ended in bloodshed, when the Ohio National Guard opened fire into the crowd of students, injuring nine and killing four.
In 1973, after Nixon was inaugurated for a second term, Jerry Rubin left the Yippies, and retreated from activist life. He reinvented himself as a business man, and became involved in the health food fads of the 80s. On November 14, 1994, he was crossing the street by his home in Los Angeles and was hit by oncoming traffic. He died two weeks later.
Abbie and Anita Hoffman continued their activism, but also lived a tumultuous life together, including Abbie’s arrest for intent to sell and distribute cocaine, and subsequently hiding from authorities for several years. Abbie died by suicide in 1989, at the age of 52. Anita passed away in 1999 at the age of 56, after a battle with breast cancer.
On January 14, 1975, after nearly four decades, the House Un-American Activities Committee was abolished.
Gemma R. Birnbaum: It’s also the same year that the Vietnam War is considered officially over. So we’re on the 50th anniversary of both of those things. It is both coincidental and not that they happen in the same year.
And, you know, I’m a historian, so I can’t necessarily, I’m not going to compare to today, but I think one of the things I notice is people saying and making comparisons to 1968. And there’s this part of me that’s like, well, dear God, I hope it never actually mimics 1968, because I think you have not realized or do not remember how utterly traumatic and devastating and violent and politically violent it was.
Archival Audio – News Footage of Anti-Vietnam War Protest:
“The whole world is watching.
The whole world is watching.
The whole world is watching.
The whole world is watching.
The whole world is watching.”
Rebecca Naomi Jones: Join us in September 2025 for the final chapter of The Wreckage: Open Up the Gates. We’ll go into the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society and hear from historians, political experts, and those who lived through it, to share the stories of the Soviet Jews who sought refuge from dangers they faced living in the Eastern Bloc, and the American Jewish activists who risked their lives to get them out from behind the Iron Curtain.
From the American Jewish Historical Society, I’m Rebecca Naomi Jones. This episode was written by executive director Gemma R. Birnbaum. Recording, sound design, and mixing were done at Sound Lounge. Transcription is provided by Adept Word Management. Archival material is courtesy of the collections of the American Jewish Historical Society, the US National Archives, Pond5, the CBS News Archive, the NBC News Archive, the Richard Nixon Foundation, and Getty Images.
Special thanks to Riv-Ellen Prell, and to Matthew Dallek, Thomas Doherty, Martin J. Siegel, Larry Tye, and Jelani Cobb for contributing to our second season.
For episode transcripts, additional resources, and links to the collections featured in this episode, visit ajhs.org/podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us on your preferred podcast platform which helps others discover our series.
