'Suburban' Abbie Hoffman Encourages Civil Disobedience

With his kid-clad in an Izod shirt, topaiders and braces-tugging on his sleeve, Abbie Hoffman, graying and balding, stood in the forum at the Institute of Politics and chatted about his latest cause: nuclear waste.

Hoffman, better known for his anti-war, anti-establishment activities in the late 1960s and early 1970s, now lives in suburban upstate New York. His home is near a bridge the government wants to use to transport excess plutonium from nuclear power plants.

"This isn't like the moral issues we dealt with before," he says, explaining that "with an issue like nuclear waste transportation, you've got to learn the scientific evidence. After a pause he adds, "That's a fucking headache at my age."

This crusade "is a 26-hour-a-day project" now for Hoffman. "I came yp [to Cambridge] for family business," the activist, who spent seven years underground hiding from a cocaine conviction, says. He adds that otherwise he would never have taken time off from his fight. But he was in town, so he participated in last night's Miller's Court debate on civil disobedience.

Before an enthusiastic audience of 450--the largest to show up for a filming since the L.v. series began three years ago. Hoffman defended the right to break laws one fiads un just.

Noting that there are currently more than seven million laws on the books. Hoffman argued that "there is a higher moral law." The veteran of 41 prosecutions and 16 trials said, "Inside and outside, the system is a false dichotomy... The only thing that works within the system is double-strength Tylenol."

Hoffman's counterweight in the often heated discussion, which included audience participation, was Avi Nelson, a conservative political commentator and former Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate Nelson took the poorly received position that "in a society as open as ours, we have ample procedure to change the laws."

Nelson said that Moffman was hypocritical for encouraging people to break the law and then complaining about FBI break-ins and wiretaps. "That's civil disobedience," the Boston-area personality said.

Hoffman himself apparently had to turn to the law for help last night, as a group calling itself the Order of the Star Spangled Banner phoned in threats to Hoffman, an official confirmed. But security was not unusually tight, and Hoffman experienced only verbal abuse.