Amanda good evening. Welcome to the Hudson Library historical society. We are so happy you are here for the event. I am amanda flower, one of the here, andlibrarians tonight we are honored to welcome howard means to discuss kentew book 67 shots state and the end of american innocence. Campus,states main only 10 miles from here, where the shooting took place. We are very excited to have this program of national and local interest. Mr. Means is a editor at the washingtonian, author and coauthor of 10 books, including Andrew Johnson and the 45 days that changed the nation, Johnny Appleseed the man, the myth, an american story, and the first biography on colin powell. Please join me in welcoming mr. Means. [applause] means i also wrote 67 shots. [laughter] thank you, amanda. Veryaa herself is also a accomplished novelist in detective, mystery stories, won an Agatha Christie award. But you are stuck with me instead. I talked with a number of people who were at kent state, in 1970. Can you hear me . Everyone who was at kent state in 1970, stand up, raise your hand. Let me see you. Ok. Wow. This is scary. This is really scary. [laughter] feel free to correct as i go. No, wait until the end to correct. I want to point out gary, can you stand up back there . Jerry was a great help to me in getting contacts, writing the book. Some of you taking this course on kent state. I will start the talk with a slideshow just to get us all on the same page about the time, what the background noise was to what happened on may 4, so people who were not at kent state can envision what the situation would look like. Itall begins, you could say begins anywhere, but it begins april 30, 1970, the evening Richard Nixon addresses the nation. Two weeks earlier he announced they would be a drawdown in vietnam of 150,000 troops on , and on april 30 he announces instead the war will expand into cambodia. Vietnamyou who were in in 1970 would not be surprised, because the war was already in cambodia across the border. It shocked the nation. Nixon expected blowback on american campuses, and he got it. Here is nixon addressing the nation. What het, right there, particularly talked about, a part of cambodia that he said is closer to saigon than baltimore is to washington. A very strange talk, actually. There is a second demonstration about two hours later. Both of them look fairly tame, so the president robert white decides to honor a previous commitment and go to mason city, iowa. That night, things fall apart. Heres what it looked like in the streets at kent about 11 30 at night. Lets set the stage. The first warm day of spring. Campus day. You told me that earlier, campus day. For those of you who were there, remember, they sold beers in kent. 32 beers,lot of and it was a bar owners dream because you had to drink twice as much beer as if it was 6. 4 beer and you felt bloated and nasty. There were a lot of factors involved. A little before midnight, some kids come out and light a fire cars, street, stopping talking about vietnam. They eventually race down, throw some rocks and other things through windows. Timeayor about this declared bars have to be closed. So now you have all these kids coming out of bars. They had been drinking. A lot of them were there to watch bands. As you know, headliners go on around midnight. A a lot of them were also there to see this man perform. Anybody recognize this guy . One of the most prolific scorers in nba history, will chamberlain. Game four of the nba titles series, not the wu quarterfinals. Wilt chamberlain, jerry west, willis reed, etc. A great game. This game starts on the west coast at midnight, and five minutes after it starts, they close the bars, spilling out onto the street. Ugliness ensues. The other problem here is that the city of kent had been prepped by the times and the fbi to assume the worst in any demonstrations. One of the reasons was this man. Anybody recognize him . Jerry rubin had a talk at kent two weeks before, a talk sanctioned by the university. One of the things he said at that talk, jerry rubin was in street theater, worked with Abbie Hoffman for the Youth International party, the yipp ies. Jerry like to provoke. If any of you were there, he said, in order to start the revolution, you have to first kill your parents. Hisy told me he said to students the next day, he was speaking metaphorically, right . No, he meant it understandably, this upset the residents of kent somewhat that a bunch of kids were being counseled to kill parents. You have all that. Around after he gets everyone cleared off the streets, estimates 50,000 of damage. Turns out to be 10,000 or 5,000, depending on what you take as the revised chamber of commerce estimate. Nonetheless, in the wee hours of the morning he called the Governors Office and said there had been trouble in the streets sds students were involved and he makes his first inquiry about bringing the National Guard to kent. To the best of my knowledge or anybodys knowledge, the sds presence on the streets of kent on friday night if it existed at all was absolutely minimal. The dean of student activity, i asked about it, he said, i felt when i looked at the photographs when this was over i would see sds and weathermen all over, and when i looked at them, they were our students, we just didnt know who they were. Sds were how many involved and he said i wouldnt argue if you said zero. But it is now in the ear of the governor that sds is coming to kent. Anyone know who that is with sean connery . [laughter] claudine auger. She was miss france in 1958, and for darn good reason as far as im concerned. [laughter] saturday, they close the bars. Kids cant leave campus, restricted to campus. The university does a great job. They bring in movies like thunderball to show. But they forget about one thing. They dont protect the rotc building. If one thing was predicable on saturday night in kent, that the rotc building would come under assault. There was a big sign in the commons on friday when the demonstrations went on, why is the rotc building Still Standing . Those who lived through that time, rotc buildings were attacked nationwide, as the most ready symbol of the military presence on campus is. Kent state administration leaves the building essentially unprotected. When the guard rolled in from akron, the skies lit up red, and thats what it looked like when they disembarked. They said it looked like it caught on fire, like it was put out, and then it burst into flames. This is the first time the guard comes on campus and thats what they see, what it looked like. Rotc building looking east, and rotc building looking south. This is important, because it sets the stage for monday. The commons behind the rotc building and taylor hall, where a prime this is a prime piece of real estate and every Academic Department wanted this property, one reason perhaps why nobody defended the building. [laughter] why the Campus Police stood aside and let it earn down, basic burn down, basically, did not help the Fire Department when they came out, because this was prime real estate. Letbody explained, if you people burn down a building, they take it as a green light, an ok sign. It was a terrible message to send to the students. So, this is saturday. Jim comes to, kent. Hes in a debate the night before with robert taft jr. , senatorial primary. Friday,by one poll on was trailing by 70,000 votes, and the primary is on tuesday. Town ands comes to this is a chance to energize his law order base and hes not going to pass it up. He has a press conference, calls with people doing these demonstrations wore than brownshirts, worse than night riders, and he says memorably, we are no longer going to treat the symptoms, we are going to eradicate the problem. One, is incredibly provocative, irresponsible language. Jim rhodes was rallying his base. I will give it away, he loses by closes to on tuesday, within that margin in the days before the shootings. Heres what campus looked like. I like this shot, so regular. And i love this one, the campus scene. Guards. Have the but everything altogether. This is more questionable, but there was a lot of that going on. At night, it all falls apart again. Students mass at the main gate, lincoln street. For those who were there, they want to march on the town and the guard says no. There is a confrontation. It gets ugly. Thats the situation right there. This was how sunday night ends, except these are scenes, the kind of equipment the guards brought with them to kent. Five fullycampus, armored personal carriers and eight of these light and medium helicopters, four heavy helicopters, and of course are carrying m1s. Those who were there remember, that is the night of the helicopters, teargas flying everywhere, chasing people back to dormitories. By monday morning when people woke up, its not a confrontation about vietnam anymore, but a confrontation about the guard having taken over the campus. When you talk to person after person after person, they all say it is the same thing. At that point, it was us against the guard. And so, kids wake up monday, have an occupied campus, guards at the gate. The parking lot of the music and Speech Therapy building, i think that is what it is. Theresrybody knows going to be a confrontation at noon on the commons. Theres no secret. Professors are talking about it in class. It is scribbled on blackboards. Everybody knows its going to happen. This is what it looks like at noon on the commons. Kids massed. A closeup. Thats jeffrey lewis. [laughter] sorry, jeff. Thats Jeffrey Miller right there, and he has 24 minutes to live at this point. This is the guard, and what are they holding their arms . M1s. There could not be a worse weapon to do crowd control with. Those of you who have been in military duty, m1s, an m1, if 3 people up at 250 yards out, the round will pass through all three of them. An m1, if you hit an engine block with it, it will move the engine block sitting inside a car. M1 has incredible speed, power, energy, a terrifying instrument. All you can do with an m1 and a bayonet for crowd control is let people get close enough slice to stab them, slive them. The more i thought about this, the images from 1965, from rememberm, alabama, doing crowd control in the streets of birmingham with dob ermans, water cannons. In retrospect, absolutely humanitarian crowd control. I never thought i would think of him as a humanitarian, but by that comparison. This is what they had to do crowd control with. The other thing, excuse me, sorry, one more thing. Also monday, may 4, the brown derby restaurant. Who was at the brown derby . The president , the Vice President , all the senior administrators. Every senior administrator was at the brown derby restaurant having lunch to talk about what they were going to do when the guard left the campus. The president came back sunday at midday, was there, too. There is a Crisis Communications center, a windowless room in the administration building. 24uy named ray was 23, years old, a graduate assistant detailed to president whites office. He was resenting the administrations interest on the kent state campus at the moment all this happened. He couldnt see anything. He told me he was talking to people with walkietalkies, no idea who he is talking to. Thats the state of to munication between the Senior Administration officials at the brown derby restaurant and the campus. Pretty inexcusable. Ok. The guard moves out. Teargas. Notice anything about the teargas . It is dissipating, because theres a 70 mileperhour wind. Gas wask of tear quantifiable. You knew you had x amount of canisters, you knew you had 70 mileperhour wind and you know how much loss you will get firing into the wind, yet this is their principal means for crowd control other than m1s and bayonests. I have a little schematic here. Rotcis where the building burned. This is where the National Guard starts at noon. This is where the kids are. Its kind of like a baseball stadium, the rightfield line, the leftfield line, deep centerfield where the bell is. The guard will come up and push people over the hill. The bulk will go over company a, troop g this way. A group of students that goes here. This is company c. They go over here and stay at the top of the hill. They run up, get to the top of the hill, and what have the students down . Their mandate is the ohio riot act, there can be no crowds on the campus. A guardsman runs you off, says, three people. I think jerry was telling me that. So if two students are talking, i join them, its an illegal crowd . Yeah. Its an insane mandate. They take off. They are up here. The Mission Commander and assistant adjutant general of the ohio National Guard says he hoped with all his heart when they got to the top of the hill the students would have dissipated. What are the chances of students dissipating . Come on. Theyve been run down here, down to the parking lot here. The guards will chase them down, marchescally canterbury his troops into a culdesac down there. On two sides. One thing you never do is march your troops into a culdesac. Company c stays here, turns around. This concrete structure, thats where they turn and fire. So thats the basic movement of the thing. This is the practice field they march them down. You can see there. This is the first time that day line. Orm a skirmish this is allen, as some of you may know. He will be shot in the wrist about 10 minutes from now. They repeat this gesture when they get to the pagoda, on one knee in a skirmish line. This is the situation. They go back, start retreating up the hill, and the students think they are retreating and we have won, start taunting them. That gets to the pagoda. This is where they first turn and start firing. Who was, oncolonel the field command. These closeups, a guy named howard, any of you know him, a photographer . He did wonderful work. The was another closeup, moment Robert Canterbury basically turns, about 30 feet further up the hill, when he turns and first season firing. So, theyre firing at this point. Students start diving in the parking lot, dashing for protection. Then we get to, and i dont want to harp on it, but this is what happened. This is john cleary. Let me go back, one second. The first person, the most distant person shot was a guy named douglas mckenzie. Douglas mckenzie is 250 yards away, 2. 5 football fields, walking away, when he is shot through the neck and the back. The bullet misses his spine by an inch and exits through his jaw. 250 yards away. That gives you some sense of the power of an 1. John cleary was 37 yards away. He brought an instamatic, and was shot in the chest from 37 yards away. He survived but barely, spent three days in intensive care. Then the dead. Youll recognize these photos. Very distinctive looking, very baez whenink of joan so lat t her, looks e1960s antiwar movement. Phil schroeder. You know the story. He won an army rotc scholarship. He went to Colorado College of mines, didnt like his major there and transferred to kent state to be a psychology major. Was number two in his rotc class, freshman rotc. Was on the basketball team, when they had freshman teams. He stopped by to have a look at what was happening. One photograph, you see him sort of holding his books like this going between classes, looking like, what is this all about . Just curiosity. This was the one that breaks my heart every time i try to talk about it. Pathology major and by every indication did not have a political bone in her body. She was walking from one class to another, exactly what kids are supposed to do on a college campus. More about her in a second. And this is Jeffrey Miller. Jeffrey miller was probably of the group the most active. You saw, he darted around a lot, probably shouting and other things could he was shot in the things he wasther shot in the mouth, suggesting intentionality in a horrible sort. It sortere photos, and of exaggerated the sense of innocence loss. Look at these innocent faces. Just horrifying. And this is not the famous photograph of the hands up like this, looking like edvard m unchs scream, but this is just before it. When she just realize what is happening to the person, lying next to her. For some reason to me, that is a more powerful photo. I dont know why. The moment of realization before the shock, raising the arms. Then, back to this one time. Doing that. There we go. [laughter] killed down here, the ks, and the wounded back there. The guard goes back to its original formation. A group of students who never left our over here. Now, students start filtering back, and theyre telling them what happened. The anger. I dont know how many of you were on that side, but this is really in a way the most volatile time of the whole incident. The guard is now facing a crowd, and the guard knows only one thing to do when it faces a crowd, march forward and disperse it. The students are not going to disperse. 20 of them roughly have stripped to the waist and painted xs on their chest adnd forehead. I talked to people who said they were ready to charge. They were so angry, damn the consequences. Thisthey didnt, that confrontation did not take place, is largely due to one man named glenn frank. When you read the record. How many of you had glenn frank for a course . You know his story. Former marine. Geologist. He still looked like a marine. If youve ever seen a marine in mufti. Geology professor. Had a double, i realized when i was doing this. [laughter] you recognize drew carey . The fun part about this, drew carey went to kent state, as you may know. He was there in 1975. He dropped out after a year. If anyone makes the movie, drew carey should play glenn frank. So, glenn frank throws himself between the two groups. With the beard and the megaphone, can you tell . [laughter] confirmation. T ok. Thanks. But they had this confrontation. Theren see, glenn frank, is film footage that i could not use here, but if any of you were there, he starts basically begging, crying, and at some point he falls to the ground. The reason, one is the emotion he, two, hes exmarine, sees that they have been encircled by National Guardsmen. So now the position is ducks in a pond. Finally, the moment breaks, the kids disperse and the event is ended. But it would have been, there were 80 guardsmen left back there whod never fired anything, eight rounds in the 640 rounds and bayonets. And