A man trailing badly in the polls at all that is background noise ultimately to the kent state shootings in the larger horror of vietnam. People died who should not have on both fronts. Antispaces opened that the once been full and both experienced lifetime scars. Heres a final thought, the best thing that could happen for those who still carried the kent state shootings were the vietnam war close to their hearts is to get what beyond who did what when. In the 20 anniversary janice wax so talked about the speaker. Tour my heart out she said i will never forget and id think they are really important lessons in this but if there is no forgiveness there is no healing and murder goes on forever. And thats my talk. Thank you for coming. [applause] i need to listen to you. Please. [inaudible] im sorry, its in the book. They were in akron. He shot a guy come is there any truth to that. There is a photographer he was taken at one point as a sniper in the sniper, did materialize. There was a guy who had a tape recorder sitting on his windowsill in what is now the famous tape which if you listen to it a certain way you can pick up for bang, bang, bang, bang seven seconds before the action shooting. That could be out in what you call and the second man on the grassy knoll. The guy on the grassy knoll in the story in a way. I dont think, i think thats secondary. I think it precedes the shooting by so much that it doesnt comport with anything anybody says. I think the shooting was not caused by sniper fire. Yes maam. I had two children in Elementary School at the Old University school and i went to pick them up and was told i couldnt take them out because there were snipers on the roof and i took them anyway and we literally ran out like this to get in the car to go home. There were couple of kids that tell stories. One girl 10 or 11 years old tells of getting on her bus, the Elementary School bus and she said the big guy gets on with a baseball bat and they tell them to lie on the floor. There are a lot of stories like that, terrifying stories. There were a lot of rumors sweeping. Maid heard some of them to the students were going to attack. We were afraid of the water being contaminated so i guarded that. All night at the present time and there were a couple of guards. There was a neighbor they came out in the morning and gave us coffee per day also guarded, i forget that we were all over. People forget there were over 1000 guardsmen. A lot of those never got on campus and a lot of them, kent was under marshall law too. It reminded me of a story, very prominent rumor that they were going to spike the water supply with lsd. Just a couple of comments. Terry norman leno was an fbi informant. And in terms of that one of the things i was wondering about in your research if he looked at the investigations of kent state in 1969 and would be willing to talk about you know these, many of these rumors that talk about are very similar to the tactics used in colintelpro. I wonder what you think of the governments involvement and just general leading to an atmosphere of distrust in the Community Prior to that. You talk a lot about it. The government i think and lets remember that times. They had set the table for this so her rant page on friday night the storyline was not without support. There was a lot of bad stuff going on. In a way to think i do say in the book book that in a way what happened was inevitable and utterly preventable. It was inevitable because all that sort of stuff we were talking about it all comes together as one spot in northeast ohio and this one moment admit 1970 but at every step of the way, its utterly preventable. Everybody could have made a different set of decisions. One of the storylines is it keeps getting back to nixon that there was some sort of nixon hoover plot to this whole thing. Actually Bob Halderman eventually would say he thought kent state unhinged nixon sufficiently to so it led to the creation of because hoover couldnt find the outside agitator the weatherman that he has sure had gotten in and they lost faith in hoover so we formed his own teleprogram. The plumbers who take care of the work but thats a good point. Im sorry, over here. Anybody else . John dean in his book says he thought kent state in retrospect was the end of the nixon administration. That was the beginning of it and the other thing, friday night and i wasnt there i almost replicate that at most State University towns that the police went in and through bunch of College Students they could all buy beer, they just threw them out of the bars and that was a recipe for disaster. It was senseless stupidity. There were four students who had been released from the county jail just a couple of days earlier so now sts was back on the loose. The other thing is the National Guard kind of symbolically admitted that they had messed up because two days later, thick as two days later dell corso testified in washington that there is a sniper on the ref which is really insane. Someone shooting from the roof so you shoot people on the ground. It made no sense and wonder the most heartbreaking documents in this whole thing after action reports by canterbury and the last question on it was problems encountered and Lessons Learned and he says, none. I dont know it just hit me when i read it. I was struck that affected there were 67 shots fired, four students killed. How many when did . Nine. So thats only 13. You would think with the crowd being as close as they were that there would have been a lot more fidelity is. There were some that were shot in the air and shot at the ground that a guy emailed me four days ago who had been in the guard they are and i cant think of his name off the top of my head. He said two weeks later they were doing target practice and they came in and he said if you guys would have been that good at kent state we could have killed 40. All the gardens were horrified and didnt know what to say and they just sort of looked at the floor. You hear these things and its a heartbreaking story for the people who generational divides. A guy who still teaches at kent state told me five days afterwards a kid came back to his house and everybody had sent sent been said when the campus was closed. His parents and what are you doing at the set i went home and my parents were waiting by the door and they shouted through the mail slot we never want to see you again. There were a lot of stories like that and there is just a generational divide. Such a horrible thing. Yes, please. To you think this sets the stage iv a general disdainful look and victimizing of the students that were protesting authority that has trickled down to art domestic forces today lacks do you know there was an actual student shot by Campus Police dead because he got smart mouth . Campus Police Wanted him to change his parking space or something and he started to lip off to him. Look it up on the internet. Its a very recent occurrence. No, i missed that. Did you happen to hear about the one who was paced by Campus Police while he attended a lecture by i believe it was, oh gosh who is the guy that is Vice President and out . Joe biden was talking on campus and the student got up and started to ask him some hard questions like young people are supposed to do to keep the older generation aware of whats going on and the Campus Police started to approach him and told him to leave and he refused. We whipped out a taser. What i do think is, think the military response, one of the lessons from kent state is there is too much firepower brought to the job and the firepower itself, i know you want to protect yourself. Theres too much firepower and the firepower turned the demonstration from the vietnam war to the purveyors of the firepower itself creates. Do you think Campus Police should be armed . You know, i can answer that and im no expert on the subject. If you want to follow up this is a commercial for the Visitor Center in taylor hall. Its open from 9 00 to 5 00 monday through friday and i strongly recommend it. You can do about a one hour. Take drifted telling of the may 4 story. Its in taylor hall and there is parking particular in the summer could extort and early well done. I graduated in 1977 so i was long gone by may of 1970 but i do remember because i lived in johnson hall in 1964 and 65. The campus day parade which was always the first weekend of may also dormitories and the fraternities and sororities they had stuff going on and there was a regatta at twin lakes etc. , etc. , songfest. There was a guy in my dorm by the name of doc edwards who who was a organizer of the group called the canned committee to end the war in vietnam and they marched in the campus day parade , now what is called 59 but was then around five east main street. It was a preyed upon all the way downtown. It was a big festival. I also knew tony walsh and these guys were there before this confrontation so this was the original concerns about the escalation of vietnam. When johnson took over he suddenly escalated and by 66 we had 500,000, half a million men in vietnam. The events of vietnam in that period from 65 to 70 by frank dramatically frame what led up to this event. It was a loss of innocence. We lost john kennedy in 63 and Martin Luther king in april of 68 and robert kennedy. My brother was called up in the Glenville Wright in 1968 when cleveland burned because of those events. You have to frame this in the context of other bigger and he mentioned that already. Was i try to do in the book that i forgot one thing, karl stokes from cleveland had wonderful description of him. He said he looked like a Football Player turned partition. Its a great description. You have been wonderful and i would be glad to sign books for anyone who would like to have it. Thank you very much. [applause] there are actually more white women in places like indianapolis, chicago and they were described in the same derogatory ways as poor blacks who were living in the city and that is part of our history that we dont talk about. We dont want to really face up to the fact of how important it is. Now sarah baline recalls the volcanic eruption of mt. Saint helens in washington on may 18, 1980 which resulted in the deaths of 57 people and 1 billion in damage. The event was hosted by kramerbooks in washington d. C. Hello everybody. Thank you so much for coming out. On this really beautiful day. Thank you so much for coming. Before we start a few housekeeping rules. Please silence your cell phones. We have a site that kramer. Com and we would love for you to visit. Theres the Science Behind it with what happens to the people who lived it and those who died. As i said there was a particular commitment to kramerbooks and we are so glad he could be with us tonight. Wonderful stories and im sarah by the way. I dont know if i introduce myself. Bringing up authors to our wonderful local connections. So please join me in welcoming steve olson to kramerbooks. [applause] i have never given a talk at kramerbooks before but and really i can hardly begin to tell you how delighted i am to finally be doing this. When my wife vin and i were young newlyweds in the 1980s clinton books was where we came for date nights and winter days just two of her friends to each other right over there to work now married and live in oregon not too terribly far where for a way for relive in seattle. This place has a lot of great memories for me. Euros and of mt. Saint helens which was in that air on sunday morning, may 18, 1988 was one of those events was so dramatic that for people who have a connection to the northwest who remember where we were when we heard the news. I was working on this book and it was sunday morning and i was coming back from church and i heard on the car radio that it erupted or people would say there is an indication of where we were. I know where i was. I grew up in Washington State but in may of 1980 i was living here in washington d. C. And we were about to get married my wife and i3 weeks away so the anniversary of eruption is a good and avert reason for me to member my anniversary is coming up. We got married in rhode island that my grandmother who still lives in a small town rightclick, where he grew up was downwind from the volcano. She knew everyone would the interested. I have always figured it was a good thing that i was on the east coast because i was exactly the kind of kid who was interested in science and interested in geology. I was one of those kids who said when the volcano started shaking in 1980 at would have said i really need to go see that. I would have grabbed her friend and we would have would have jumped in the car and headed down my five, turned off on the spirit lake highway and driven up mt. Saint helens to see these small puffs of that would come out of the volcano when it first reawakened. If id done that on may 17 and if my friend and i had camped on the volcano i wouldnt be here talking to you today. 57 people died from eruption that sunday morning. The majority of them were asphyxiated by ash that some people were blown off ridge tops were swept away in the mudflows. A couple of people were crushed by a tree that fell on them and some people were burned by the hot gases. Only three of those 57 were in areas that had a designated as dangerous and two of them had permission to be there. In fact the only person who is breaking the law was the one victim, remember cantankerous 83yearold harry r. Chairman hurt used to leave his lodge four miles away from the summit down by spirit lake. So those 57 people were too close to an extremely dangerous volcano. Where the danger zones to small . Was the eruption thats much bigger than what geologists had expected and what can we learn from the tragedies of these 57 deaths and living in a world of geological hazards of those were the questions that inspired me to write this book when i moved to seattle six years ago what i discovered was this amazing interconnected story, a story about politics and money and science but its also a story about the establishment of the National Core and a story of a transcontinental route wrote. Its the story of the United States itself and all can together on that one day this one place in 1980. So the story began in rock island and one i which is a town on the Mississippi River about 150 miles west of chicago. Its so hot in here. Do you have a napkin for me . It figures i would come back to washington d. C. On the one hot day in march. This is where a 21yearold german immigrant moved in 1856 and they took a job at a lumberyard. He had previous jobs in a brewery and on the railroad. He was intelligent and friendly and ambitious andy rose quickly through the ranks of lumberyard. The secret is my readiness to work that i never counted the hours are knocked off until i had finished what i had at hand. He and his brotherinlaw, thank you very much. I will pass it around when i am done with it. Within a few years he and his brotherinlaw had half a lumberyard in rock island and began to expand it so it first they bought logs that were wrapped to down the Mississippi River from the force of wisconsin minnesota and put those in their sawmills. The real money we will get back to warehouse or hear. Their preview of the rest of the talk. Warehouser knew they were money late in buying land and chopping down the trees on that land so he began to buy spans a beautiful white pine in the Chippewa River in wisconsin and with the money that he made from chopping down those trees he bought orlando in wisconsin and minnesota. He was an incredible businessman and he was a good lumber man. As one of his Business Partner said no other other man in america knows as much about pine as he does. In 1891 warehouser moved his family including his seven children from rock island to st. Paul minnesota so he would be near the center of his logging operation which moved up the mississippi as wisconsin became over. There he bought a house next to her to james j. Hill who was another remarkable is this is meant visionary who was about to see that great rahway in st. Paul. If you ever go to st. Paul and have a chance to see the James Hillhouse its an amazing monument to the gilded age. Its a wonderful place to visit. So the two men quickly became friends. They were actually very similar and often. Evenings at each others houses. Warehouser after a life. In the woods had a propensity to sleep early and seem like you never slept at all. Hell would be a geisha and some monologue and warehouser would he in the easy chair next to him but it didnt bother hill. The ice hill. The ice like to talk sony to 99 hill faced a major problem. He needed money to pay off a bond issue for the robber but at that point he had way more land than he had money. By that time they control not only the Great Northern railway but also the Northern Pacific rahway which ran from duluth minnesota 22, and in taking control of the Northern Pacific hill gained control of the immense landgrant so this was not property that the federal government gave to the road word as an inducement to build rail lines both the transcontinental and particular person of faith freedom return for building a line from duluth to do, an area greater than the size of florida. They receive part of its land grant from essentially from portland, oregon to tacoma rushing to between 1870 and 1873 so thats a reliance that parallels i5 today. And the landgrant extended to 40 miles on either side of the road roads so mt. Saint helens is about 35 miles east of i5 so thats why when the mountain erupted in 1980, the top of the mountain, the top of the volcano was still owned by hill. Hun jin ryu third, 1900 so a few days into the new century warehouser and hell announce one of the largest private land purchases in u. S. History. For 6 an acre warehouser in his Business Partners bought almost a million acres of timber land in South Washington stadium with that purchase along with a subseque