Zoia Horn - Harrisburg Seven Trial

Harrisburg Seven Trial

In January 1971, Horn was contacted by the FBI, seeking evidence involving Phillip Berrigan. Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest and anti-war activist, was serving a sentence in a nearby federal prison for burning draft files concerning the Vietnam War. Berrigan, from his jail cell, was alleged to be plotting along with six other individuals (Harrisburg Seven), to blow up heating tunnels beneath Washington, D.C., and to kidnap Henry Kissinger, the national security adviser to President Richard Nixon.

A prisoner, Boyd Douglas in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary on a work/study program who also worked at the Bucknell library relayed letters, allegedly including anti-war plot details and love letters, from fellow anti-war activists, including Sister Liz McAlistair, to Berrigan in prison. Horn and an other library employee at Bucknell testified before a grand jury. During the trial, they were subpoenaed to testify for the prosecution, but Horn refused to testify at the trial on the grounds that her forced testimony would threaten intellectual and academic freedom. Horn served 20 days in Dauphin County Jail, but was released after the prosecution's case was found unreliable. At the time, the Los Angeles Times published a UPI photograph of Horn being taken from the courthouse in handcuffs and reported: "Mrs. Zoia Horn Galloway, a former Bucknell University librarian, was jailed for contempt ... after refusing to testify despite being granted immunity."

Horn was jailed for almost three weeks "for refusing to testify for the prosecution in the sensational trial of anti-war activists accused of a terrorist plot." Horn stated: "To me it stands on: Freedom of thought — but government spying in homes, in libraries and universities inhibits and destroys this freedom."