The Camden 28 is a documentary film which premiered on US television (PBS) in 2007. The topic is the anti-war movement and civil disobedience in the US during the Vietnam war.
Here is some basic information about the film:
** Writer, producer and director: Anthony Giacchino
** Shown on PBS as an episode of the long-running program POV (Point of View)
** Run time: 83 minutes
Here is the plot:
In 1971, a group of dissidents is holding private meetings in Camden, New Jersey. The members are against the Vietnam war. But for them, it is not enough to hold public meetings and to arrange demonstrations. They want to do more.
They have a plan. They want to enter the local draft board, steal some draft cards and destroy them. They want to do this in order to disrupt the draft system and perhaps even disrupt the US war in Vietnam.
The members of this group are not crazy revolutionaries or wild hippies. They are ordinary citizens who cannot support the US war in Vietnam. They are Catholics. Some are priests and nuns, while others are members of a local Catholic congregation.
As Christians, they feel that war is wrong. They feel that killing is wrong. And it must be stopped.
But the group is facing practical problems. They are not criminals. They do not know how to break into a government office. Now one of them has an idea. He has a friend who is a handyman. Perhaps he can help? The handyman (Bob Hardy) is invited to join the next meeting.
Bob Hardy is against the war, like the others, but he does not like the idea of breaking and entering. He does not tell the group, but he struggles with his conscience. After a while, he decides to go to the FBI and tell them what he knows.
The FBI agents say they understand. They have a suggestion: go back to the group. Join the group and report everything to us. In other words: the FBI agents invite him to become an FBI informant.
Hardy says he will accept the invitation on one condition: the FBI must promise him that his friends do not have to go to jail. The agents tell him not to worry. His friends will not go to jail. From this moment, the plan begins to develop.
The group prepares and plans the break-in. Whenever they need any kind of equipment, Bob Hardy will get it and the FBI will pay for it, because the FBI wants to support their informant.
The operation takes place in the night of 22 August 1971. Around twenty members of the group enter the building and enter the draft office on the fifth floor.
Other members of the group are posted outside the building, on the front and the back. They are lookouts. They are in contact with the main group, because they have Walkie-Talkies (which are paid by the FBI).
Two hours later, while the main group is still in the office, the light is suddenly turned on and FBI agents call out:
“Stop! This is the FBI. You are under arrest!”
The main group of 20 is arrested at once. Five days later, eight more persons are arrested. Hence the name of the group and the name of the case: the Camden 28.
When arrested, the members of the group realize that there must have been an informant among them. But who is it? They look around to see who is not there. The answer is Bob Hardy! He is the informant who has betrayed them to the FBI!
The Camden 28 never expected to break in and steal the draft cards and disappear. They expected to be arrested. In fact, they wanted to be arrested, but only after the event was over.
They wanted to have their day in court and to use the courtroom as a platform to get their message out to the American people:
** The draft is wrong!
** The war is wrong!
But they did not expect to be arrested while they were still inside the office. They did not expect to be betrayed by a member of the group.
Eventually, the members of the Camden 28 have their day in court, but they have to wait a while before they can get it. The trial takes place in the first half of 1973. Almost two years after the break-in.
When the trial begins, the draft has been abolished. Congress passed a law and the draft (which had been introduced in 1940) expired at the end of 1972. When the trial begins, the peace movement is much stronger and much more visible than it had been in 1971.
When Bob Hardy contacted the FBI, he told them that he had a condition: he would only be an informant if they promised him that his friends would not have to go to jail. The FBI agents gave him that promise.
But the FBI and the US government had other plans. They wanted to make an example of this group. The Camden 28 were charged with several serious crimes: breaking and entering, destruction of government property and conspiracy. If found guilty on all counts, they were facing up to 47 years in prison!
When Bob Hardy learns this fact, he feels the FBI has betrayed him, and so he decides to switch sides again. He is not going to be the star witness of the prosecution. Instead, he is going to be a witness for the defence!
As a witness, he explains how the FBI urged him to go on. How the FBI paid for all kinds of equipment which was used for the operation. How the FBI made the break-in happen. Who is guilty here? The Camden 28 or the FBI?
The defence is allowed to call other witnesses. Historian Howard Zinn is called as an expert on civil disobedience. The judge allows Zinn to testify for hours. His testimony is divided into two parts:
The first part is about American history. Zinn explains that the Camden 28 followed an old American tradition when they decided to go into action against a government who had lost its way.
He talks about the Boston Tea Party during the American revolution and about the underground railroad which was established in the 19th century when abolitionists wanted to help slaves from the South escape to freedom in the North.
The second part is about the Pentagon Papers and the COINTELPRO Papers which were leaked to the public in 1971.
The Pentagon Papers were leaked by one man, Daniel Ellsberg, who had access to secret government documents about the war in Vietnam when he was a government official.
The COINTELPRO Papers were leaked by a group of citizens who had broken into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, in March 1971. But during the trial the identity of these citizens was not yet public knowledge.
When Howard Zinn talks about the Pentagon Papers, he can show that the US war in Vietnam is not about freedom and democracy. It is about gaining access to resources in Southeast Asia: tin, rubber and oil.
When Howard Zinn talks about the COINTELPRO Papers, he can show that the FBI is not merely watching dissident groups. The FBI is conducting a secret and illegal operation against these groups.
Undercover agents are infiltrating dissident groups and urging them to use violence, hoping to discredit them and later use this fact against them.
Howard Zinn’s testimony cannot be brushed aside as mere fantasy or speculation, because his account is supported by solid evidence; by secret government documents!
Elizabeth Good is called as a witness; She is the mother of two sons: defendant Robert (Bob) Good and Paul Good, a soldier in the US army, who was killed in Vietnam.
Elizabeth Good explains that she did not complain when Paul was sent to Vietnam. At the time she believed that her son was sent to Vietnam for a good reason: to bring freedom and democracy to this country.
Having listened to the testimony of Howard Zinn, she understands that she has been deceived by the government. Her son had been killed in the war. She asks: For what did he die? And she answers her own question: For tin, rubber and oil!
The testimonies of Howard Zinn and Elizabeth Good make a big impression on everyone present in the courtroom, including the members of the jury.
The Camden 28 try to explain what had driven them to do what they did. They had broken the law when they entered the draft board and destroyed some draft cards. They do not try to hide this fact. But they claim they had done so for a good reason: they had done it to disrupt the draft and to disrupt the American war in Vietnam.
They had committed a small crime, hoping to stop a much larger crime: the draft and the American war in Vietnam. It was the law of necessity. It had to be done, because it was right.
The members of the jury deliberated for a while and then they reached a verdict, which was unusual but not illegal. It is called jury nullification. What does it mean?
Jury nullification can happen when it is clear that the law has been broken, but the members of the jury feel that the law is unfair and unjust and that the defendants should not be punished for breaking an unfair law.
This is why the Camden 28 were found not guilty. This is why they did not have to serve time in prison. The defendants and their supporters were happy, while the prosecution and members of the US government were stunned.
The prosecution and the government had lost and they could not do much about it.
An appeal was hopeless, because the government’s charge was undermined by secret government documents (the Pentagon Papers and the COINTELPRO Papers).
The times were changing. There had been similar cases before this one. The first case (The Baltimore Four) was in 1967. The second case (the Catonsville Nine) was in 1968. Other cases had followed in 1969 and in 1970.
In each case, the defendants had been found guilty. But as time went on, the sentences handed out were shorter and shorter. The case against the Camden 28 was the first time when the defendants were found not guilty.
It was also the last case of this kind, because the draft had been abolished, the US government had made an agreement about the war in 1973 and left Vietnam completely in 1975.
What do reviewers say about this film? Here are the results of three review aggregators:
71 percent = IMDb
73 percent = Meta
69 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)
89 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)
The ratings are quite good, as you can see. When you look at Rotten Tomatoes, you can see that there is a gap between the general audience and the professional critics. The critics are more positive than the audience.
This phenomenon is quite common. In this case, I have to side with the critics.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
PS # 1. The Camden 28 (in alphabetical order):
Jayma Abdoo
Dr William Anderson
Reverend Milo Billman
Terry Buckalew
Paul Couming
Eugene Dixon
Reverend Michael Doyle
Anne Dunham
Reverend Peter Fordi
Keith Forsyth
Michael Giocondo
Robert (Bob) Good
John Grady
Margaret Innes
Reverend Edward McGowan
Francis Mel Madden
Lianne Moccia
Barry Musi
Reverend Edward Murphy
Frank Pommersheim
Joan Reilly
Rosemary Reilly
Anita Ricci
Kathleen Ridolfi
Martha Shemely
John Swinglish
Sarah Tosi
Robert Williamson
PS # 2. The following people were also involved in the case in different ways:
** Bob Hardy = FBI informant
** Terry Neist = FBI agent
** David Kairys = lawyer for the defence
** John Barry = the public prosecutor
** Clarkson Fisher (1921-1997) = the federal judge
** Howard Zinn (1922-2010) = historian, expert witness for the defence
** Elizabeth Good = witness for the defence = mother of two sons: defendant Robert (Bob) Good and Paul Good (who was killed in Vietnam)
PS # 3. Many of the people who are listed here returned to the courthouse in Camden (NJ) for a reunion in May 2002.
Among them was Howard Zinn, who wrote an article about this event in a magazine:
“A Break-in for Peace,” The Progressive, 10 July 2002.
PS # 4. The government and the FBI were very upset about the release of secret government documents.
In the case of the Pentagon Papers, they knew exactly who was responsible: Daniel Ellsberg (1931-2023). But they were unsuccessful when they tried to have him convicted.
In the case of the COINTELPRO Papers, they did not know who was responsible. They were very frustrated about this. But they were never able to solve this mystery.
Who was behind this operation? The question was discussed in 1973, while the trial against the Camden 28 was happening. It is mentioned briefly in the film, but there is no answer.
It was a secret. And it remained a secret for more than forty years. It was not revealed until 2014 when five of the eight members decided to come forward.
In that year, a book about the case was published and a documentary film about the case was released:
The book
** The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s secret FBI by Betty Medsger
The film
** 1971
When the names were made public, it turned out that two of them were also members of the Camden 28:
** Keith Forsyth
** Robert Williamson
For a brief moment, the FBI actually had two of the eight members who were responsible for the unsolved break-in behind bars, but they did not know it, so nothing happened to them!
PS # 5. Two additional references:
Confronting the War Machine:
Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War
by Michael Stewart Foley
(2003)
The Boys Who Said No:
Draft resistance and the Vietnam War
A documentary film which premiered in 2020
*****
The Camden 28
demonstrating against the war in Vietnam
*****
The radical American historian
Howard Zinn (1922-2010)
who testified during the trial of
the Camden 28
*****
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