June 14, 1968
Dr. Benjamin Spock and three co-defendants were convicted of conspiracy to obstruct the draft during the Vietnam War. Author of Baby and Child Care (1946), Dr. Spock was an opponent of nuclear weapons testing and a critic of the Vietnam War. Also convicted were Michael Ferber, Mitch Goodman, and Rev. William Sloane Coffin. One of the principal documents offered by the prosecution was “A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority,” a widely circulated statement that expressed the moral revulsion against the Vietnam War by many of the war’s opponents. The convictions were subsequently reversed on appeal, although on largely technical grounds that did not reach the principal issues raised by the defense.
