The Harrisburg 7 and the New Catholic Left (William O'Rourke, 2012)

Abstract

Nineteen-seventy-two in Harrisburg? Why, that was Hurricane Agnes, of course, when the Susquehanna crested fifteen feet above flood stage and the region sustained billions of dollars in damage. But there was another inundation just before the June flood, as the national press, FBI agents, and Harrisburg Defense Committee workers descended on Pennsylvania's capital from January to April for the trial of a loose-knit group of opponents of the Vietnam War who became known as the Harrisburg 7. The prosecution of these (mainly) Catholic religious activists, accused by FBI director-for-life J. Edgar Hoover of plotting to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up heating tunnels under the nation's capital, was one of several high-profile trials of antiwar activists on conspiracy charges. The Chicago 8 (who allegedly planned to disrupt the 1968 Democratic convention), the Boston 5 (opponents of conscription, one of whom was pediatrician Benjamin Spock), and Daniel Ellsberg (who leaked the "Pentagon Papers") are better remembered today, but the Harrisburg trial deserves recognition as well. As this evocative account by William O'Rourke reveals, it underscores the intersection of the local and the national during this turbulent era.