here since Reich was clearly not out to deny that he had violated aspects of the injunction
and that he felt he had to violate them. He was pleading innocent on deeper grounds—that
the injunction was unconstitutional and unfairly brought in the first place.
Judge Sweeney was a round-faced man who resembled Winston Churchill. He was
pink, debonair, quick-minded, and there was often a slight irony to his remarks. He seemed a
less kindly man than Clifford, yet much stronger and more independent. He struck me as very
fair. As impatient as he became with Maguire’s long-drawn-out proving of the obvious, he
was equally impatient when Reich tried to bring in issues Sweeney thought irrelevant, but he
softened toward Reich during the course of the trial.
The first witness called by the government was Ilse Ollendorff. She was a fine wit-
ness, perhaps the clearest and most secure of any that took the stand during the trial. She
tripped up Maguire on several points: at one time when he tried to link all the literature with
the accumulator, she made it clear that only a very few pieces, such as the catalogue of types
of accumulators and the instruction sheet, went out to those who ordered the accumulator.
Perhaps the weakest part of her testimony in terms of logic was her statement that Reich and
she had not complied with the injunction in the immediate months after the decree because
the FDA had not sent anyone around to supervise its execution; it later became clear that
Reich had no intention ofcooperating with any FDA agents. Still, Ms. Ollendorff was testi-
fying to events that took place while she was at Orgonon.
In his cross-examination, Maguire constantly tried to create a picture of a “business”
activity with a sinister, racketeering connotation. He used such terms as a “drop in New
York” and “big boss” (to describe Reich). In his cross-examination of Ilse Ollendorff, Reich
set the style for most of his later cross-examinations: he would ask one or two questions for
the purpose of eliciting a factual answer. He asked her, for example, what the money from
accumulator rentals was used for and she replied, for research, salary of employees, and so
on. The question was objected to and the objection sustained, but the jury heard her answer.
The next witness was an accumulator user from New York. He shuffled to the stand
looking like the epitome of a deeply sick neurotic. Maguire spent a very long time (clearly irri-
tating the judge) with this witness in order to elicit the simple point that he had continued
paying accumulator rentals after the injunction had been issued. In his cross-examination,
Reich asked the witness ifthe accumulator had helped or hindered him. The witness said it
had helped.Maguire objected to the question and the judge ordered it and the answer strick-
en from the record.
Tom Ross then testified that Silvert had taken books and accumulators from
Orgonon, evidence the government needed to establish its case that Silvert had acted “in con-
cert”with Reich in violating the injunction.A man who built accumulators at the Rangeley
workshop testified that either Silvert or Ross had taken accumulators out of the workshop
after the injunction. In his cross-examination, Reich asked the worker how he tested the accu-
mulators he built. The witness mentioned holding his hand close to the walls and was going
to continue when the judge,after an objection from Maguire, ruled the question out of order
since it bore on the efficacy of the accumulator rather than on the narrow question: contempt
30 : The Trial: 1956 415