In her new book, The View from Third Street, long-time journalist Anita Harris writes about the trial in 1972 of the Harrisburg Eight, a group of anti-Vietnam war activists including the priest Philip Berrigan who stood accused of planning to kidnap Henry Kissinger and bomb underground tunnels in the nation’s capitol. The book is also about Harris’ involvement with an alternative paper in Harrisburg, which was initially funded by the defense committee for the Harrisburg Eight, but evolved into a hard-hitting paper that covered key economic and social justice issues in Pennsylvania (like the abuse of farm migrants and prisoners). At the time of the trial, Harris was all of 23, a recent college graduate living with a law student who was working for the state health and welfare department, and her reminisces from 50 years ago feel amazingly redolent of our current social and political climate. The early 1970s, much like today, were riven by deep partisan divides (the abyss then was U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War), and like today, the political differences spilled over into hatred and occasional violence, mostly by pro-government supporters against anti-war protestors. As a writer and editor for the Harrisburg Independent Press (otherwise known as HIP), Harris covered some of the protests that occurred during the trial of the Harrisburg Eight. While no one was attacked in his home with a hammer (as Nancy Pelosi’s husband was last week), hecklers in 1972 yelled insults at the anti-war demonstrators and in a few cases spit on them.
In her book, Harris writes in the third person and refers to herself as “Ani” in large part, she says to differentiate the award-winning journalist she is now from the newly minted college graduate she was then, struggling to reconcile a traditional upbringing and respect for authority with what she and others felt was a tremendous over-reach of power on the part of those in the Nixon administration (like then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover) who were trying to punish anti-war activists with long prison terms.
“I was trying to get enough distance to write the book,” Harris said in an email explaining her use of the third person. The young Harris was also dealing with the changing roles of women as the feminist movement gathered steam in the early 1970s. Harris’ desire for more than the traditional role her own mother played has a lot to do with why she eventually breaks up with the law school student she is living with that fateful year in Harrisburg.
While Harris’ book is a bit sketchy on the emotional twists and turns of her personal life, I found it fascinating in large part because of the parallels between the early 1970s and our own tumultuous times. Near the end of the book, Harris covers the Pennsylvania legislature’s attempt to ban all abortions (except to save the life of the mother) and you can sense her moldering anger at the conservative state legislators, 90 percent of whom were male. While the state’s more liberal governor Milton Shapp vetoed the legislation, it was very close to becoming law — until the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in January 1973 made abortion legal throughout the country. And now, 50 years later, that landmark decision has been overturned and it feels as though we are marching backwards through history to a time when a conservative patriarchy ruled the roost and young women like Harris faced a stark choice: marriage and stay-at-home motherhood or striking out for meaningful careers.
Postscript: In April 1972, the Harrisburg Seven (charges against one of the activists had been removed) were acquitted of all the charges the FBI leveled at them, except for writing letters that had been smuggled into and out of the federal prison where Philip Berrigan was serving time for a raid on a draft board (he and other anti-war activists would then burn the draft documents in protest). Berrigan was soon released for time served and his lover, Elizabeth McAlister, never served time for the letters conviction. It was a spectacular failure for the Nixon administration, and less than three months later, burglars were apprehended trying to break into Democratic headquarters in the Watergate building. Nixon, who was fighting for his political life, soon began withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam, and our ill-fated venture in Southeast Asia ended a year before Nixon resigned as a result of Watergate.
By then, Anita Harris had left Harrisburg and moved to New England, where she reported for the Boston Phoenix and The Real Paper, two other alternative newspapers, and for PBS’ MacNeil/Lehrer Report, among other media outlets. The paper she and others had started in Harrisburg flourished for another eight years, covering local issues that the more mainstream press ignored. In her book, Harris credits her year at HIP with forging her as the intrepid journalist she became. It’s a worthwhile read!
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