120 People Meet at Faneuil Hall To Denounce Berrigan Indictment

About 120 people gathered in Faneuil Hall in Boston yesterday to hear speeches denouncing the recent indictment of Philip Berrigan and five others on Federal conspiracy charges.

George Wald, Higgins Professor of Biology, and Vern Countryman, professor of Law, both spoke at the meeting.

The group gave loud approval to a statement read to the assembly by Howard Zinn, professor of government at Boston University, which charged that the indictments "are intended to punish these individuals for their anti-war activities."

The statement included an "indictment" of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI and the Justice Department for "their curtailment of constitutional liberties."

Send It On

After the meeting, half of the group marched to the nearby Federal Building to present the statement to an official in the FBI's Boston office. The official promised to forward the statement to Hoover.

In his speech in Faneuil Hall, Wald charged that the American judicial process is being "subverted" -especially through the courts' misuse of procedures relating to bail, sentencing and contempt of court-and warned that the "American traditions we've grown up under are going down the drain."

Synonym for Guilt

Countryman noted that new immunity procedures established by the Organized Crime Control Act were being used "solely against those who dissent [against governmental policies]." He said that the government has tried tomake "a Federal indictment synonymous with guilt."

Countryman spoke as a representative of the Civil Liberties Legal Defense Fund, which was set up three years ago to raise funds for the defense of those being tried for their antiwar activities.

Joseph Miles, a member of the Greater Boston Peace Action Coalition, called the charges against Berrigan and five others an "attack on the entire peace movement and the civil liberties of all Americans." He demanded that all the charges be dropped immediately.

Transporting Kissinger

A Harrisburg. Pa., grand jury indicted Berrigan and five others for conspiring to kidnap Henry A. Kissinger, Presidential assistant on foreign affairs, and transport him in interstate commerce; conspiring to maliciously destroy U. S. property, specifically, heating systems in buildings in the capital; conspiring to possess dynamite, plastic explosives and detonating cord without registering them under Federal law; and conspiring to transport these explosives in interstate commerce for the purpose of destroying property.