Editing Abbie Hoffman (section)

=== Return to activism ===

In November 1986, Hoffman was arrested along with 14 others, including [[Amy Carter]], the daughter of former President [[Jimmy Carter]], for trespassing at the [[University of Massachusetts Amherst]].<ref name="icon">{{cite news|first=John T. |last=McQuiston|date=April 14, 1989 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/14/obituaries/abbie-hoffman-60-s-icon-dies-yippie-movement-founder-was-52.html |title=Abbie Hoffman, 60's Icon, Dies; Yippie Movement Founder Was 52 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=December 4, 2013}}</ref> The charges stemmed from a protest against the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s recruitment on the UMass campus.<ref name="acquittal">{{cite magazine |last=Bernstein |first=Fred |url=http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20096192,00.html |title=Amy Carter and Abbie Hoffman Win Acquittal, but They Want to Keep the C.I.A. on Trial |magazine=[[People (magazine)|People]] |access-date=December 4, 2013 |archive-date=November 20, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121120192636/http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20096192,00.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Since the university's policy limited campus recruitment to law-abiding organizations, the defense argued that the CIA engaged in illegal activities. The federal district court judge permitted expert witnesses, including former Attorney General [[Ramsey Clark]] and a former CIA agent who testified that the CIA carried on an illegal [[Contras|Contra]] war against the [[Sandinista National Liberation Front|Sandinista]] government in [[Nicaragua]] in violation of the [[Boland Amendment]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cia-on-campus.org/umass.edu/trial.html |archive-url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20021113133733/http://www.cia%2Don%2Dcampus.org/umass.edu/trial.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 13, 2002 |title=University of Massachusetts |publisher=Cia-on-campus.org |access-date=October 23, 2008}}</ref>

In three days of testimony, more than a dozen defense witnesses, including [[Daniel Ellsberg]], and former Contra leader [[Édgar Chamorro]], described the CIA's role in more than two decades of covert, illegal, and often violent activities. In his closing argument, Hoffman, acting as his own attorney, placed his actions within the best tradition of American [[civil disobedience]]. He quoted from [[Thomas Paine]], "the most outspoken and farsighted of the leaders of the [[American Revolution]]: 'Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. Man has no property in man, neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow.'"

Hoffman concluded: "Thomas Paine was talking about this Spring day in this courtroom. A verdict of not guilty will say, 'When our country is right, keep it right; but when it is wrong, right those wrongs.'" On April 15, 1987, the jury found Hoffman and the other defendants not guilty.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lumsden |first1=Carolyn |title=Amy Carter, Abbie Hoffman, 13 Others Acquitted In CIA Protest |url=https://apnews.com/article/24ada05c5aad060afb270e634760440c |access-date=January 17, 2021 |work=The Associated Press |date=April 16, 1987}}</ref>

[[File:Abbie Hoffman in 1989.jpg|thumb|Hoffman in Tallahassee, Florida, 1989]]

After his acquittal,<ref name="acquittal"/> Hoffman acted in a [[cameo appearance]] in [[Oliver Stone]]'s later-released anti-[[Vietnam War]] film, ''[[Born on the Fourth of July (film)|Born on the Fourth of July]]'' (1989).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0388797/|title=Abbie Hoffman|publisher=[[IMDb]]|access-date=April 10, 2017}}</ref> He essentially played himself in the movie, waving a flag on the [[Defensive wall|rampart]]s of an administration building during a campus protest that was being [[Tear gas|teargassed]] and crushed by state troopers.

Despite his return to activism, Hoffman also grew frustrated with the growing unwillingness of the younger generation to engage in protests.<ref name="jezer-1" />

In 1987 Hoffman summed up his views:

{{Blockquote|You are talking to a leftist. I believe in the redistribution of wealth and power in the world. I believe in universal hospital care for everyone. I believe that we should not have a single homeless person in the richest country in the world. And I believe that we should not have a [[CIA]] that goes around overwhelming governments and assassinating political leaders, working for tight [[oligarchy|oligarchies]] around the world to protect the tight oligarchy here at home.<ref name="icon"/>}}

Later that same year, Hoffman and Jonathan Silvers wrote ''Steal This Urine Test'' (published October 5, 1987), which exposed the internal contradictions of the [[War on drugs|War on Drugs]] and suggested ways to circumvent its most intrusive measures. Although Hoffman's satiric humor was on display throughout the book, ''[[Publishers Weekly]]'' wrote that "the extensive, in-depth research and a barrage of facts and figures{{nbsp}}... make this the definitive guide to the current drug-testing environment."<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-14-010400-4 |title=Steal This Urine Test: Fighting Drug Hysteria in America |year=1987 |website=[[Publishers Weekly]]|access-date=September 16, 2019 }}</ref>

Stone's ''Born on the Fourth of July'' was released on December 20, 1989, just eight months after Hoffman's suicide on April 12, 1989. At the time of his death, Hoffman was at the height of a renewed public visibility, one of the few 1960s radicals who still commanded the attention of the media. He regularly lectured about the CIA's covert activities, including assassinations disguised as suicides. His ''[[Playboy]]'' article (October 1988) outlining the connections that constitute the "[[1980 October Surprise theory|October Surprise]]", brought that alleged conspiracy to the attention of a wide-ranging American readership for the first time.<ref>{{cite news|first1=Abbie|last1=Hoffman| first2=Jonathan|last2=Silvers|url=http://flag.blackened.net/ati/october88playboy.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517032001/http://flag.blackened.net/ati/october88playboy.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 17, 2008 |title=An Election Held Hostage |work=[[Playboy]]|date= October 1988|access-date=December 4, 2013 }}</ref>