Biography
Vietnam veteran and member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) indicted in 1972 as one of the 'Gainesville Eight' for conspiracy to disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach with firebombs and weapons. All eight defendants were acquitted by a federal jury on August 31, 1973.
Fellow Gainesville Eight defendant Peter Mahoney identifies Foss as Alton C. Foss Jr. and describes a separate police detention before the 1973 trial: two undercover officers held him in a motel room for several days, threatening drug charges unless he testified against his co-defendants. Mahoney reports that Foss refused. This was actual police confinement distinct from the formal conspiracy prosecution; the account does not supply the motel detention's calendar endpoints. Foss had grown up in Hialeah, served as a Navy corpsman with Marines in Vietnam, and became VVAW's Dade County coordinator after returning home.
The Gainesville trial was heard by U.S. District Judge Winston E. Arnow, with Jack Carrouth appearing for the prosecution.
Original document 1236, PDF page 11; Original document 1236, PDF page 18; Original document 1236, PDF page 20.
