Spock Sentenced

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31729, 12 July 1968, Page 11

Spock Sentenced

(N.Z.PA.-Reuter—Copyright) BOSTON, July 11.

Soon after the American paediatrician and author, Dr Benjamin Spock, had been sentenced to two years in prison and fined lUSSOOO yesterday for anti-draft activities, he pledged himself to continue active opposition to the Vietnam war.

Spock was convicted with three other men on June 14 on Federal charges of conspiring to counsel, aid and abet young men to avoid the draft Two-year prison sentences i were also imposed on a Yale University chaplain, William Sloane Coffin, jun., aged 43; the author Michael Goodman, aged 44; and a Harvard graduate student Michael Ferber, aged 23. Coffin and Goodman were fined SUSSOOO and Ferber, SUSIOOO.

Judge Francis Ford stayed the sentences and continued the defendants' SUSIOOO bonds pending their appeals to the United States Circuit Court. At a news conference after sentencing Dr Spock repeated his contention that the Vietnam war was illegal—a defence argument Judge Ford had rejected at the trial. “I am still not convinced that I broke any law—there’s not a shred of legality in the Vietnam war,” Spock said. “I certainly intend to go on working against the war in appearances across the country.” Pounding on a table, he

added: “I say wake up. Get out there and do something before it's too late. This war could be stopped if millions of Americans stood up and shouted ‘Let's stop this war.’ ”

Before passing sentence. Judge Ford, who is 85, told the crowded courtroom: "Where law and order stops, anarchy begins. Almost every week in this court, young men are sentenced to three years in prison for evading the draft. It is reasonable to conclude that these defendants were instrumental in inciting some of these men to flout the law. “Be they high or low, intellectuals as well as others must be deterred from violating the law. These defendants should not escape under the guise of free speech.”