Brandeis Magazine

When Stuart “Hutch” Hutchison died in 2012, he left behind a box full of audiotapes. Some were labeled “Allen Ginsberg,” “George Carlin” or “Kurt Vonnegut.” About two dozen of them were scrawled with the name of a famous Brandeisian: social activist Abbie Hoffman ’59.

An actor, writer and radio broadcaster, Hutchison had developed close relationships with celebrities and activists, and recorded interviews with many of them in the 1980s. Snippets from these tapes made their way into “Dear Abbie,” a radio special Hutchison put together after Hoffman’s suicide in 1989. Much of the material, however, was likely never broadcast.

When Hutchison died in 2012, the recordings went to Keith Armonaitis, a New Jersey filmmaker who befriended Hutchison when both were involved in a campaign to impeach President George W. Bush. After listening to the tapes, Armonaitis decided to give them to Brandeis.

Armonaitis doesn’t have any connection to the university. Neither did Hutchison. So why Brandeis?

According to Armonaitis, in one recorded interview Hoffman tells Hutchison he wants his written and personal materials to go to Brandeis when he dies, because the university gave him the educational foundation that led to his activism in the ’60s and ’70s.

“When I heard that, I knew the tapes had to come to Brandeis,” Armonaitis says.

Last year, the tapes, dubbed the Stuart Hutchison Collection, arrived at the Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections. Staff members are in the process of finding out what’s on them and making them available to the public.

“It’s an interesting collection, and it is a little mysterious,” says university archivist Maggie McNeely.

— Jarret Bencks