NOTE: Monday, May 14, 2007: Philadelphia FM radio station WPHT host Michael Smerconish interviews Alan Canfora and agrees the shouted command to fire is obvious in the 1970 Strubbe tape -- "Right here! Get set! Point! Fire!"
Friday, May 4, 2007: WNCX-FM radio station, Cleveland, Ohio, tests prove truth of Alan Canfora description of hidden evidence of shouted command to shoot unarmed Kent State students, May 4, 1970.
NOTE: Thursday, May 3, 2007: YALE DAILY NEWS: http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/21063 "Library's recording may help clarify Kent State killings" An audiocassette that has sat in a Yale library for nearly two decades may hold the evidence explaining why Ohio National Guard troops shot into a crowd of war protesters at Kent State University in 1970. The recording, made public this week by a victim of the shooting, seems to capture the sound of someone ordering the Guardsmen to fire on students protesting the Vietnam War, killing four and wounding nine. Now, 33 years after eight of the Guardsmen were acquitted of any wrongdoing, some survivors of the shooting are calling for the investigation of the case to be reopened in light of the new evidence. The Yale University Library’s Manuscripts and Archives department provided a copy of the recording to a reporter on Tuesday, about an hour before copies of the tape were released by Alan Canfora at a press conference on the Kent State campus. Canfora, who was shot in the wrist during the protest, now heads a non-profit organization that commemorates the incident. Just before gunfire rings out on the tape, a barely audible male voice can be heard ordering what seems to be, “Right here! Get set! Point! Fire!” Immediately after that last command, a hail of gunfire breaks out, lasting for 13 seconds..."
NOTE: Wednesday, May 2, 2007: Sound recording expert Scott Robinson of Bolt, Beranek and Newman in Cambridge, MA, testified July 31, 1975, in our Federal Civil Trial regarding a May 4, 1970, tape recording made by KSU student Terry Strubbe: "The firm was retained by the [US] Justice Department..in January of 1974...we received a recording known as the Strubbe tape...a young man named Terry Strubbe had made the recording during the shootings...a great deal of work was done using a large digital computer. The information on the tape, during--that is, the shooting sequence, not, of course, the entire tape, was converted into the form called digital..."
***** Tuesday, May 1, 2007 ***** Alan Canfora, director of Kent May 4 Center, announces audio proof of shouted verbal command to fire weapons against unarmed Kent State students in 1970. *****
* best photos of 1970 Guardsmen at moment of verbal command:
Howard Ruffner>Kent State University May 1-4, 1970
Howard Ruffner>Kent State University May 1-4, 1970
Supporting evidence and proof of the May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guard order to fire at Kent State University.
SEE BELOW:
A: flawed, incomplete investigations re: order to shoot;
B: Ohio National Guard eyewitnesses;
C: Kent State University campus eyewitnesses;
D: Ohio National Guard commander General Robert Canterbury;
E: Ohio National Guard commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Fassinger;
F: Ohio National Guard commander Major Harry Jones;
G: President Nixon, Ohio Governor Rhodes, ONG General Del Corso;
H: Ohio National Guard anti-student violence at Kent State University.
A) MAY 4, 1970: ORDER TO FIRE -- INVESTIGATIONS
“Was there an order to fire? As to the crucial question, ‘When the Guard went into their huddle on the practice field, was an order given that they should fire when they reached the pagoda?’ …One photograph of the actual shooting shows General Canterbury, who has already passed the pagoda, turning around and storming back toward the troops who had done the firing, as if he were shouting…The same can be said for Colonel Fassinger, who would have had to give the order. And the well-known actions of Major Harry Jones…”
--James Michener, 1971, book: Kent State: What Happened and Why, p.361.
“Canterbury, Fassinger and Jones – the three ranking officers on the hill – all said no order to fire was given (p.273)…A few students and a few guardsmen claim to have heard something like an order to fire…”(p.275)
-- Report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, 1970.
“Afterwards, it seemed, there was the greatest interest in passing the buck. Three major investigations were launched – by the US Justice Department, by the Ohio State Patrol (for use by the Portage County Grand Jury) and, later, by the Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest. Astoundingly, none of the investigations set out to grasp the most significant problem involved in the tragedy: the cause.”
--13 SECONDS, book by Joe Eszterhas and Michael D. Roberts, 1970.
“There were certainly extenuating circumstances which caused the Guard to resort to the use of firearms [at Kent State]…”
--J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director, testimony to US Congress, November 19, 1970.
“As the Guardsmen reached the crest of Blanket Hill…the Guard was ordered to turn and face…Commands…such as, ‘if they charge, shoot them’ had previously been given…A number of Guardsmen stated they heard an order to fire and began firing.”
--“Charts of Movements and Shooting Incident, May 4, 1970”, by Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI), 1970.
"We still do not know why the guardsmen let loose a hail of bullets at students hundreds of feet away. Consequently, we can do no more than what the Justice Department did -- 'speculate upon the possibilities' through an analysis of testimony, official reports, and research findings, using this material in conjunction with photographs to sift fact from fiction..."
--author Peter Davies, from his book: THE TRUTH ABOUT KENT STATE, 1973.
“The weight of the evidence indicates, however, that no command to fire was given, either by word or by gesture…the indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted and inexcusable…Apparently no order to fire was given…”
--Report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest”, 1970.
“The few moments immediately prior to the firing by the National Guard are shrouded in confusion and highly conflicting statements… …there was no initial order to fire…we do not know what started the shooting. We can only speculate on the possibilities.”
--US Justice Department Summary of FBI Reports, July, 1970.
“A team of Beacon Journal and other Knight Newspapers reporters spent two weeks investigating the case…The evidence they found prompts these conclusions:…The Guardsmen fired without orders to do so. Some aimed deliberately at students, others fired in panic or in follow-the leader style…Overwhelming evidence upholds the contentions of [General] Canterbury and Major Harry D. Jones, who was acting commander of the 145th and 107th [Ohio National Guard] troops on the hill, that there was no order to fire.”
--“Tragedy in Our Midst”, A Special Report by the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper, May 24, 1970. ALAN’S NOTE: this hasty, erroneous report earned a Pulitzer Prize for the Akron Beacon Journal.
“Aside entirely from any questions of specific intent on the part of the Guardsmen or a predisposition to use their weapons, we do not know what started the shooting.”
--US Justice Department summary of FBI--US Justice Department summary of FBI investigation, July, 1970.
"...we [the FBI] have some reason to believe that the claim by the National Guard that their lives were endangered by the students was fabricated subsequent to the event...[a Guardsman] admitted that his life was not in danger and that he fired indiscriminately into the crowd. He further stated that the Guardsmen had gotten together after the shooting and decided to fabricate the story that they were in danger of serious bodily harm or death from the students...the guys have been saying that we got to get together and stick to the same story, that it was our lives or them, a matter of survival. I told them I would tell the truth and couldn't get in trouble that way...also, a chaplain of Troop G spoke with many members of the National Guard and stated that they were unable to explain to him why they fired their weapons."
--US Justice Department summary of FBI investigation, July, 1970.
"General Canterbury gave no order to fire...he was not yet ready to give any such order."
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“One of the questions asked is whether or not an order to fire was given. We can find no statement which names any individual who commanded the troops to fire. Some enlisted men stated they heard an order to fire (FARRISS, MAAS, SHADE, SCHOLL, THOMAS)…no one could identify anyone near him as giving a command to fire, it is considered extremely doubtful if a command was given…it is doubtful if any of the troops would have fired if other fire had not preceded their shooting…no order to fire was given by anyone in command. This is based on the fact that the firing was sporadic and uncoordinated or controlled…Communistic elements fronted by the ACLU will attempt to exploit this incident to the maximum by contrived distortion of the facts.”
--Report of the Ohio National Guard Inspector General, J. Gordon Peltier, May 22, 1970.
“The primary cause of [civil court lawsuit action] action is against all of the defendants [Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes and Ohio National Guard Commanders and shooters] arises under [Federal law] 42 U.S.C. Section 1983…Killing or the infliction of serious bodily harm by a state official generally effects a deprivation of a constitutional right which is actionable under Section 1983…whenever state officials unjustifiably kill or injure they deprive the victim of life or liberty without due process of law because the victim was not tried before being punished…there is substantial authority that supervisory persons having responsibility for persons who use governmental force will be liable for negligence, as well as recklessness and unlawful orders, which leads to actionable killing and injury…We need to consider whether we can establish causation on the rhetoric theory through the testimony of persons who shot, gave orders…”
--“GENERAL LEGAL THEORY: written by a KSU victims’ families’ attorney, December 31, 1974.
“Obviously, a number of the Guardsmen are lying. If their claim to firing only 11 shots at the students is valid, how do they account for the fact that there were 15 wounds inflicted and, according to the FBI, there were 32 bullet holes in cars parked in the Prentice Hall parking lot? Most of the shooting was done by members of Troop G…”
--Hon. William S. Morehead of Pennsylvania, in the US House of Representatives, Thursday, July 22, 1971.
“The [Ohio National Guard investigation] report was prepared by J. Gordon Peltier…who was then inspector general of the Ohio National Guard. Peltier is a close friend and associate of Governor James A. Rhodes…Peltier had concluded: ‘It is doubtful that any of the troops would have fired if other [student sniper] fire had not preceded their shooting’…Among the contentions raised by the grand jury and missed by Peltier were: Two [National Guard] weapons were fired that no soldiers would admit firing; One of those weapons was fired five times but no one knows who pulled the trigger; In at least one instance, a box of ammunition was opened up and the men were told to help themselves without the required record-keeping; There was testimony from one armorer that, when ammunition was turned in and some men were short, ‘that the word went back to the men that they better find more ammunition or else they weren’t going to go home’, and that miscellaneous types of ammo, some privately purchased, some armor piercing, were turned in in order to make the count come out right…Peltier’s report was the sole basis for the national guard decision not to discipline any guardsmen for the May 4, 1970, shooting.”
----Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, article: “US Grand jurors find coverup in guard probe”, September 30, 1975.
"Most of the National Guardsmen who did fire their weapons do not specifically claim that they fired because their lives were in danger. Rather, they generally simply state in their narrative that they fired after they heard others fire or because, after the shooting began, they assumed an order to fire..."
--US Justice Department Summary of FBI Reports, July, 1970.
“Members of a federal grand jury which investigated the 1970 killings of four students at Kent State University criticized the official Ohio National Guard investigation as an incomplete coverup…General Sylvester Del Corso, Ohio adjutant general at the time of the shootings, denied the [Ohio National Guard] report was an attempted coverup…”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, article: “US Grand jurors find coverup in guard probe”, September 30, 1975.
“…the shooting on May 4, 1970, was not a sudden reaction to a real or imagined danger…the Justice Department summary of the FBI investigation and the President’s Commission report contain numerous indications that the shooting was indeed a planned and deliberate act executed upon a pre-arranged signal. The shooting was the result of a conspiracy and the combined material presents an overwhelming indication to this effect…one thing is very clear. The shooting took place as the result of a decision or an order. It did not occur in panic or fear or self-defense…”
--Hon. William S. Morehead of Pennsylvania, in the US House of Representatives, Thursday, July 22, 1971.
B) MAY 4, 1970: ORDER TO FIRE – OHIO NATIONAL GUARDSMEN
*includes handwritten statements, May 4, 1970, as written by shooters*
“Almost exactly at noon, the first tear-gas canister was fired at the crowd and the guardsmen stepped off in a skirmish line toward the students…
The advance of the National Guard was directed by three senior officers: Brigadier General Canterbury, Lieutenant Colonel Fassinger and Major Jones. Men from three units constituted the total force: Companies A and C of the 145th Infantry Regiment and Troop G of the 107th Armored Cavalry. Company A, under the immediate command of Captain John E. Martin took the right flank. Company C, under Captain Ronald Snyder, was assigned the left flank. Troop G, commanded by Captain Raymond Srp, had the center. Four lieutenants completed the group of officers: Dwight Cline and Howard Fallon of Company A, William Herthneck of Company C, and Alexander Stevenson of Troop G. Ten officers and 103 enlisted men in all.”
--author Peter Davies, book: THE TRUTH ABOUT KENT STATE, 1973.
“At one point, Sergeant Pryor said, ‘If they rush us, shoot them’.
--Ohio National Guard SP4 James E. Pierce, Troop G, handwritten statement, May 4, 1970.
“…a few seconds prior to the firing by the National Guard troops he thought he heard a command to fire. He stated that this order may have been, in fact, part of a longer order which was muffled by the roar of the crowd.”
--Major _____, S-3, C Company, 145th Infantry Regiment, Ohio National Guard, interview statement, May 10, 1970.
"Most people can remember where they were on Sept. 11, and some can remember where they were when President John F. Kennedy was shot. But others will never forget what they were doing Monday, May 4, 1970. For Matthew McManus, a member of the National Guard, it’s a day he will never forget. He said it is a painful subject. 'It was a military operation, and we were following orders,' he said."
--article: "Many Remember May 4 in Different Ways", by Nancy Hopkins, Daily Kent Stater newspaper online, May 4, 2005.
“My unit for the most part refrained from firing. However several heard one of the commanders of the flank unit yell “Fire” and thought this meant them.”
--Lieutenant Howard Fallon, Ohio National Guard, handwritten statement, May 4, 1970.
“Q) Did you hear a command or an order to fire?
A) I thought I did. I can’t say where from…
Q) Were you provoked into firing?
A) No.
Q) Why did you fire?
A) …Something had to be done…I also thought I heard the word 'fire' and I did hear the others fire.”
--Sgt. Robert D. James, Ohio National Guard, statement to Ohio Highway Patrol, June 9, 1970.
“On 4 May 1970, while participating with my Company (A Company) in the mission…on the campus of Kent State University. I thought I heard the command to ‘Fire’…The firing had started on my left flank."
--Sgt. Roger A. Maas, Company A, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“While participating with my unit…I heard the order to fire…Before I fired after the order to fire was given, firing started on my right…”
--SP4 James W. Farriss, Company A, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“…I heard firing on our right. I heard the order to fire…Approximately 1000 students were partiating at time of fireing.”
--SP4 Robert D. James, Company A, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“While acting with my unit I fired 2 rounds of 30 cal M1 over the crowd in warning after number of men fired and I hear the commaned to fire. I do not know who gave commaned.”
--PFC Richard R. Shade, Company A, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“We were retreating between Taylor and Johnson Hall. At this point an order was given to make an about face and address the crowd. A command was given to use bayonets and rifle stocks upon contact. The crowd was too far away for this to be considered…At this point the order to fire was given ‘Fire – above their heads.’ At this time I expended 1 round up into the air…students were on the ground (one had blood on his jacket); one was being carried away…
--Sgt. Lloyd W. Thomas, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“We began to move rapidly back the way we had come…the crowd starting towards us…We tried to stop them by kneeling on line and pretending to be ready to fire…At this time I heard a ‘command’ to ‘fire if they continue towards you’…I heard someone yell ‘fire over their heads’. At this point I heard rifle fire…there was a lot of firing going on…I noticed several people laying on the ground.”
--Sgt. Dale Sholl, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“On 4 May 70, 1215 hours, as Commanding Officer of Company A with approximately 30 troops were participating in an action to clear the campus of dissidents, when what appeared to sound like gunshots…Fourteen members of my unit, thinking that a command to fire had been given, fired several shots…I ordered them to cease fire….”
--Captain John E. Martin, Company A, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“…small arms fire broke out on our flank…The flank unit of which the majority were G Troop…took up kneeling positions and returned fire at onrushing students. The members of our unit for the most part refrained from firing. However, several heard one of the commanders of the flank unit [Troop G] yell ‘fire’…”
--Lieutenant Dwight G. Cline, Company A, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“…My unit for the most part refrained from firing. However, several heard one of the Commanders of the flank unit [Troop G] yell ‘fire’ and thought this meant them.”
--Lieutenant Howard R. Fallon, Company A, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
"When the firing happened, I felt I did not panic, held my ground, and obeyed my orders...I don't feel they were people but 'savage animals'."
--Sergeant James Pierce, Ohio National Guard, Troop G, handwritten statement, May 4, 1970.
“I thought I heard someone say, ‘Turn around and stand your ground’. At that point, everybody turned around…”
--Ohio National Guard SP4 Lloyd Thomas, Jr, Troop G, Federal Kent State lawsuit trial testimony, 1970.
“As a Guardsman who was present at Kent State, I cannot wholly dismiss the possibilities of a deadly collusion…I know others who welcomed the deadly confrontation.”
--letter to the editor by anonymous “GUARDSMAN”, Akron Beacon Journal newspaper, August 18, 1971.
“Ex-guardsman James E. Pierce testified that he had understood that guardsmen were planning to take a stand against student demonstrators who were closing in on the troops…’I know there was some intent we were going to stop and take a position against them’. Pierce also admitted he had made a [handwritten] statement to the guard immediately after the shootings in which he said: 'At one point, Sgt. Pryor said, "If they rush us, shoot them."'”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article: “Plaintiffs contend sergeant fired nonissue pistol”, June 26, 1975.
“…Yesterday, a former guardsman said he heard an order before the gunfire broke out. Richard K. Love, 29, said he was among 70 or 80 guardsmen at the crest of a hill when he heard a shouted command: “Halt and turn”. He said he whirled around, heard gunfire and then fired his M-1 rifle into the air.”
--Cleveland Press newspaper article: "Guard threatened him, ex-KSU student tells jury”, June 17, 1975.
“In other testimony yesterday, Lloyd W. Thomas Jr., the third former guardsman to testify…said he also heard someone say, ‘Turn around and stand your ground’…”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article: "KSU trial is told of changes in ex-guardsman’s account”, June 11, 1975.
“Members of the Ohio National Guard fired their rifles into a crowd of Kent State University students …immediately after being ordered to halt and turn toward the students, a guard sergeant said Monday in US District Court. Richard K. Love, 29, testified that he heard the order to stop moving and turn around after the guardsmen marched from a practice football field to the corner of Taylor Hall, where the shootings occurred on May 4, 1970. ‘I heard shots seconds after I had stopped and turned…I saw some guardsmen with their rifles in a level position’…Before the demonstration on May 4, Love said his orders from his superiors were to fire his weapon only ‘in protection of life or if ordered. We were told we could shoot if we felt we were in danger’.”
--Akron Beacon Journal newspaper article: “KSU firing came after halt order, National Guard sergeant says”, June 17, 1975.
“I remember sitting with [former Secretary of State] George Shultz in 1970 watching and listening to the film of the shooting at Kent State; stunned, the former Marine said ‘That was a salvo.’ From the sound, he knew an order had been given to fire at the students, and—a good administration soldier, but not one to march over cliffs—he would not accept explanations that the shooting had been sporadic.”
--William A. Safire [President Nixon's 1970 speechwriter], columnist, New York Times, October 11, 1986.
“One guardsman heard someone yell and believed he had been given an order to fire...Another thought he heard someone say ‘If they continue toward you, fire’.”
--US Justice Department Summary of FBI Reports, July, 1970.
“I was waiting for an order to shoot.”
--Private Paul Naujoks, Ohio National Guard, Akron Beacon Journal newspaper investigative report, May 24, 1970.
“On Monday May 4th, 1970…we had been ordered fire our weapons only on command, and we had our bayonets mounted. ..we moved up the hill…we proceeded across the softball field…We tried various facing movements…I was end man on the line…At one point Sgt. Pryor said ‘if they rush us shoot them’…to the right side of Taylor Hall…all of a sudden everyone was firing. I heard no distinct command…I assumed the command had been given and I fired…I saw everyone was shooting directly into them [students]…I then began firing into them—three more rounds—until I heard the command to ‘seize fire’...When the firing happened, I feel I did not panic, held my ground, and obeyed my orders. After the firing, I felt no remorse.”
--SP4 James Edward Pierce, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“In a pre-trial memo filed with the [Federal] court, the plaintiffs’ lawyers say [Ohio National Guard Sergeant] Pryor ‘told other guardsmen that they should shoot persons if certain circumstances occurred’. They further state that some guardsmen ‘agreed to shoot at or in the direction of persons on the campus’.”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article: “Ex-guardsman’s recall may be vital”, May 27, 1975.
“A former Kent State University black student leader indicated Tuesday that an Ohio National Guard officer may have signaled to troops moments before they turned and fired a volley into student demonstrators five years ago. Robert Pickett, a Newark, NJ lawyer who was vice president of the student body in May 1970, told a US District Court jury that he saw a guardsman in a soft cap [Major Harry Jones] motion with his hand to fellow guardsmen seconds before they turned and fired.”
--Akron Beacon Journal newspaper article: “Stage set for 2 key KSU witnesses”, June 18, 1975.
“The position was adopted, Canterbury told the Scranton Commission, in order ‘to discourage students’. He himself did not give any order to kneel [on the practice field] and he would not comment on the appropriateness of the tactic; his commanders, he said, informed him of its purpose. “
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“No officer on the hill that day has acknowledged giving an order to fire. Nor did General Canterbury give any order on the hill, any more than on the practice field, to kneel.”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“…kind of eerie.”
--campus eyewitness, re: kneeling National Guard aiming at students on practice field, quoted by Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
"I personally was told by the Ohio National Guardsman who was standing outside Memorial Gymnasium on Sunday afternoon [May 3] that they were under orders to fire on the demonstrators and shoot to kill if they were attacked."
--campus eyewitness quoted by Commission on Kent State University Violence (CKSUV), KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“Do you know what the [National Guard] order was up at the president’s house? They turned around and they told them if they moved toward the [KSU] president’s house…they were gonna tell them [students] to disperse twice, if they don’t disperse, ‘fire’! They gave them orders to shoot over at the president’s house. They said, ‘fire’. They said, ‘shoot low’.”
--statement of "a member of the press", taped by student Steve Tichenal, May 3, 1970.
"I still think, my own opinion, that the National Guard is not that disciplined that they can turn around and fire at will. I believe that there was an order given for that."
--campus eyewitness quoted by Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“A fearful student who stopped on her way to class to ask a National Guardsman whether he knew about the forthcoming rally and who said to him she didn’t know what to do was told, ‘If I were you, I would get off this campus’.”
-- Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“At Sunday noon, [KSU ROTC] Captain Donald Peters, Assistant Professor of Military Science, as reported by a student who went to South Hall to see if the ROTC cadre needed any help in cleaning up, said that, ‘a general in charge of the National Guard here’ had remarked to him, ‘If things continue the way they have been, there will definitely be people shot’.”
-- Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“Q) On that day [May 4, 1970], did you ever hear an order or a command to fire?
A) No.
Q) Would you have had to have heard such an order if it were given?
A) Not necessarily.
Q) Did you issue any order which could possibly have been mistaken by the troops as an order to fire?
A) No."
--Captain Raymond Srp, Ohio National Guard, Troop G, Ohio Highway Patrol interview, June 4, 1970.
“’I didn’t feel threatened’, said [Ohio National Guard Troop G] Captain Ray Srp, ‘and I was in the center of it’.”
--Akron Beacon Journal newspaper investigative report, May 24, 1970.
“Captain Raymond Srp, who led an Ohio National Guard troop that fired on Kent State University students May 4, 1970, said yesterday his men had not conspired in the shootings…11 of the 16 men under Srp’s command in Troop G admitted to FBI agents in an earlier investigation that they fired their weapons…The whole command was not mine up there’.”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article: “Captain denies Kent shooting plot”, January 30, 1974.
“Significantly, neither of the two unit commanders at the pagoda believed that their lives or the lives of their troops were in danger. Captain Srp, of G Troop, said, “I was right in the middle of it and felt no danger’. Captain Martin of Alpha Company [Company A] supported this opinion.”
--book: KENT STATE: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY, by James Michener, 1971.
"All our witnesses, of whom we have more than a score, agree that the guard turned suddenly. 'They whirled', is the verb used by one of them. 'The men wheeled around', says another,"
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
"The front row of guardsmen, according to many witnesses, knelt almost in unison, while those behind remained standing; they fired almost together."
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“We were trying to get back down the hill…I heard shots, I turned around. Guard’s men began firing on both sides of me…I fired one shot directly into the air. I fired my second shot at the leg of a male student…and buleved to have hit to the left 3-5 ft hit the ground.”
--SP4 Ralph William Zoller, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“On Monday the 4th of May…while serving with my National Guard unit at Kent-State College Roits…We turned and moved very fast the way we came down to the soft ball field—but by the time we got up to the top of the hill we had over a thousand people doing all they could to prove to the student union thay could kill any thing that stood in their way from running the world the way they wanted it to be run…in such a manner that in Roman days thay put people to death. The troops and myself were still in a line type formation, all of a sudden I was on my knee’s and everyone was firing…by the time I fired the people had jumped and the ground head first, except for the one’s that was shot. I would shot sooner if I hadn’t froze to protect my life and company’s life’s…”
--SP4 William Earl Perkins, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“General Canterbury asked Chaplain Simons to talk to the men who had been on the firing line….The first guardsman Simon talked to said, ‘I fired right down the gulley.’ The chaplain noted, ‘There was hate on the guy’s face’…”
--from the book, 13 SECONDS, by Joe Eszterhas and Michael D. Roberts, 1970.
"There were a few Guardsmen who committed second-degree murder. They went there with premeditation--meaning intending to kill students. We (the commission) know about it."
--Joseph Rhodes, Jr., member of The President's Commission on Campus Unrest, Akron Beacon Journal newspaper, article: "2 Guardsmen Went to KSU Ready to Kill", November 30, 1970.
“Former Ohio National Guardsman William E. Perkins testified Monday that he was not provoked into shooting on the Kent State University campus…At the crest of a hill Perkins said he heard a shot and turned around and fired eight times because other men began firing.”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article: “Shots not provoked at KSU”, June 10, 1975.
“A second former Ohio National Guardsman has testified in US District Court that he saw no necessity to shoot students at Kent State University…James W. Farriss of North Lawrence testified Wednesday that at the time of the shooting he saw no rush of students toward the Guard and only saw three or four students some 50 feet from his position. ‘I saw no necessity for shooting straight ahead’.”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article: “Ex-Guardsman saw no need to shoot at KSU”, June 12, 1975.
“During yesterday’s testimony, another former guardsman said he saw no reason for Guardsmen to fire at the students. Former private Richard Snyder of Smithville, Ohio…This was the questioning as posed by plaintiffs’ attorney Professor David Engdahl:
Q: Were you provoked into firing?
A: No.
Q: Had you ever felt the Guard’s positions were about to be overrun by the students?
A: At the time of the shooting, no. There was no need to fire.”
--Cleveland Press newspaper article: “Guardsman says he fired warning shot”, July 8, 1975.
“…we started to retreat to the top of the hill…When we got to the crest of the hill, I was running…The order was given to turn around, I turned…At this time, I was very frighten…That was when the fire started. I fired 2 shots in the air and one at the left leg of a student. After my last shot, the fire stoped. We moved down to our line of departcher. Then we tighten up the line and it was over.”
--SP4 James D. McGee, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“I was in the front line by Taylor Hall at the time of the firing, the man beside me had opened fire before me and then I started fireing. My first shot was over the heads of the crowd…and then fired into the crowd. I fired at one of the demonstrators [Joseph Lewis, Jr.,] and hit him…”
--Sgt. Lawrence A. Shafer, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“We were given the order to retreat slowly…They [students] followed becoming even more thrilled with the thought of defeating us…we reached the buildings at the top of the hill…At that point I heard gunfire to my left, looked and saw an officer firing and I drew my pistol. Dropped to cover and fired two shots into the mob…Then we proceeded back to our original position at the bottom of the hill.”
--Sergeant Barry W. Morris, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“On May 4 1970 we was order to stop a rally at the ROTC building…We was order to moved back on the hill at the top of the firing started and I was firing my 45 cal [pistol] in to the air. I didn’t hear a fire order but the men were fireing.”
--Sergeant Okey R. Flesher, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“I was about 25 feet from the North East end of the building. I fired 5 shots in the air…”
--Sergeant Dennis Breckenridge, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“Then the left flank started firing…I looked around real fast, seeing them coming, and fired one shot…Coming back down the hill, I was honestly in a complete daze. I couldn’t and can’t get the things that happened out of my mind. I know where I shot because only God can take lives and only by his order. I didn’t get the order from him to aim at any human…I just couldn’t shoot at them…I am what I am and only God can change me.”
--Sergeant W. James Case, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“Today our company was involved in dispersing a riot which resulted in gunfire…during the skirmish, our troops used excellent judgment and control…While in a line formation, confusion, due to a quick job of coordination and a number of people directing, may have caused more fire than was necessary…”
--2nd Lieutenant Randall G. Leeper, Company A, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
C) MAY 4, 1970: ORDER TO FIRE – KSU WITNESSES
“Rick Levinger, a freshman from New York City, said he was to the rear of the firing guardsmen. He said he saw ’20 to 30 guardsmen walking away from the students, then suddenly turn around at them and open up’. Levinger insisted he heard one officer issue an order to fire. ‘I saw those guys turn and get on their knees after I heard the officer order them to fire’."
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article: “Troops Lost All Their Cool”, by Joseph Eszterhas, May 5, 1970.
“’So when the Guard retreated, I followed them and found a position near the pagoda. I was the closest person to the Guard and I heard an officer give the order, ‘Turn around and fire three rounds’. He yelled so loud I could hear it very plainly’…’The story has never appeared in any public record. Could it be that the investigators haven’t wanted to believe that an order was given?’”
--KSU electrician “Jack Albrecht”, quoted in book: KENT STATE: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY, by James Michener, 1971.
“Several students said they saw guardsmen taunt the students before the shooting, pointing rifles at them and saying, ‘Come on, come on’…'I saw about eight or nine of them hold their rifles out and say, “Come on, come on!"'."
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article: “Troops Lost All Their Cool”, by Joseph Eszterhas, May 5, 1970.
“’It [shooting] was done with precision, as if on command,’ said Paul Schlemmer, Sports Information Director of the University, who witnessed the incident.”
--The Daily Times newspaper, Niles Ohio, May 5, 1970.
“Said the wife of one Guardsman: ‘My husband is no murderer. He was afraid. He was sure they were going to be overrun by those kids. He was under orders—that’s why he did it He said so’. Whose orders? At week’s end, there was still no answer. [General] Canterbury insisted that ‘no one gave an order’. That statement strains credibility. By Canterbury’s own account, 16 or 17 men fired 35 rounds. They started at virtually the same moment and stopped at the same moment. Many civilian spectators at the scene and some officials seeking to reconstruct the event are convinced that an order was given.”
--Time Magazine, article, “Kent State, Martyrdom that shook the country”, May 18, 1970.
"An Army veteran who saw action in Korea, Brill was certain that the Guardsmen had not fired randomly out of individual panic. 'They were organized. It was not scattered. They all waited and they all pointed their rifles at the same time. It looked like a firing squad'."
--KSU journalism professor Charles Brill, Time Magazine, May 18, 1970.
“What happened at the pagoda seemed to be planned. They sure didn’t look like panicky men…They didn’t react as if there were a sniper. It was nothing but murder’.”
--KSU student Bill Montgomery, a Vietnam veteran, quoted in book: KENT STATE: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY, by James Michener, 1971.
“’I wound up not more than two feet away from them [Guardsmen] as they came charging up the hill, and they were furious. I was in the middle of them fifty seconds before they fired. A short man on the end took out a revolver, waved it in my face and dared any of us to do anything. It was my most vivid memory of the day’.”
--KSU student Debi Moreland quoted in book: KENT STATE: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY, by James Michener, 1971.
“Brian Fisher, another witness to the Guard’s climb to the pagoda, recalls that a girl near him was yelling at the soldiers when one of them , ‘a left-handed fellow’ turned toward the girl and shouted at her: ‘Come one step nearer, you bitch, and I’ll blow your head off’.”
--book: KENT STATE: WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY, by James Michener, 1971.
"…Concerning the actual shooting, he was positioned near the fourth or fifth pillar on the right front side of Taylor Hall…he observed the members of the Guard as they suddenly spun around toward the crowd. The crowd reacted by turning tail and running…some Guard members seemed to aim their weapons up in the air, others pointed them toward the ground, while still others pointed weapons straight out toward the group confronting them. It took but a fraction of a second before the Guard fired their weapons. He was of the opinion they all fired at the same time and did not recall any shots being fired before the volley. He said the ONG following the shooting just stood in the area, regrouped and marched away…"
--statement to FBI by KSU student Richard ______, freshman, Berea, Ohio, Manchester Hall dorm resident, May 21, 1970.
"As the Guardsmen got adjacent with Taylor Hall, a loose formation of Guardsmen formed nearest Taylor Hall…this formation consisted of about 18-21 men. They then turned as a group and then five dropped to one knee and fired a volley of shots into the crowd in front of Taylor Hall and out from the front of Taylor Hall. At this time, I was about 70 feet from the group that fired and to the rear and side of the Guardsmen. I saw people in the crowd falling and one individual reeling. The Guardsmen then moved down the hill back into the Commons and returned to the area where they originally came from…"
--Martin _____, signed statement, May 10, 1970, teaching fellow in KSU English Department, resided at Allerton Apartments, Kent, with wife and child.
""I then moved to the Conference Room of Taylor Hall where I looked out the southeast window toward the practice field. I then saw the Guard march down to the practice field…I could see that numerous students who had been dispersed came back and stood on the southeast side of Taylor Hall and watched the National Guardsmen down on the football field…after about seven minutes, the…National Guardsmen marched back up the hill in a northwesterly direction between Taylor Hall and Johnson Hall dispersing the students both to their right and left. A little before they got to the southwest corner of Taylor Hall, the Guardsmen stopped, turned around and started firing in an easterly direction…I do recall looking at the guns to check their point of aim and it appeared that some were aiming high, others low and some directly at the students. I believe each of the Guardsmen fired several shots over a period of perhaps 15 to 20 seconds."
--statement by Diana ____, Kent, Ohio, 20 years old, KSU junior, Home Economics major, clerk-typist for Dean Flower at KSU College of Fine and Professional Arts, signed statement, May 10, 1970.
"…I observed the Guard in a line on the football field…a short time later, they were moving up the hill in front of Taylor Hall…I then observed the Guard wheel around and face Prentice Hall…guardsmen knelt down and pointed their guns in my direction. An instant later, I heard a popping sound, like caps, which got louder…I dove to the ground in the area of the junction of Midway Drive and the Prentice Hall parking lot. While on the ground, I observed a girl who seemed to be running toward me appear to be yanked into the air, then fall to the ground."
--Richard A. ________, of Diagonal Rd., Kent, OH, KSU student, signed statement May 11, 1970.
"The Guardsmen continued up the small hill to the top and stopped at the concrete umbrella. They turned and fired into the crowd. The Guardsmen were not being surrounded and were not being pelted with rocks. There was no shot before their volley and there were no warning shots fired. They were on a hill about 25 feet higher than the level of the parking lot. The shots were fired directly into the crowd. When the firing started, people were dropping to the ground or turning and running...About four or five seconds elapsed after the shooting stopped before people started to get up. It was then I noticed that very few car windows in the parking lot were intact. The people got up and tried to help the wounded. It seemed like there were dead and wounded all over. One boy was holding a rag over one girl's throat, only there wasn't much of her throat left. Another boy was lying face down in a pool of his own blood."
--Michael S. ______, of Hudson, Ohio, KSU sophomore, Arts and Sciences, interviewed May 13, 1970, furnished a copy of his letter written May 5, 1970, previously mailed to President Nixon, Governor Rhodes, Congressman James Stanton, and John Huffman, Assistant to the KSU President.
“Another witness yesterday, Alan Canfora, who was wounded in the right wrist, characterized the shootings as ‘planned murder’. ‘I saw a small group of guardsmen out of the whole group of guardsmen turn simultaneously and fire on the crowd of students’, Canfora said. ‘I don’t think that happened by accident’.”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article: “Sergeant fired first shots at students, witness says”, June 24, 1975.
“…Mr. Montgomery said yesterday, guardsmen moved up a campus knoll known as Blanket Hill. ‘One man [Ohio National Guard Sergeant Myron Pryor] lagged behind, carrying a .45 pistol…I saw him tap some guardsmen on the back—two, three, four—with his right hand. He was close behind them…Then he turned and he fired with the .45 pistol in his left hand. Almost simultaneously, the men in front of him, those with whom he had communicated, turned and fired with rifles, downhill toward the students’.”
--Harry Montgomery testimony, Federal Court, as noted in New York Times newspaper article: “Kent State Witness Reiterates Testimony on Fatal Shooting”, June 5, 1975.
“A witness in the Kent State University civil damages trial yesterday became the second to testify that he saw a sergeant in the Ohio National Guard tap fellow guardsmen on their backs moments before they turned and fired on students…Charles J. Deegan, a former Kent State student, also said he saw the sergeant [Myron Pryor] take aim and fire his pistol, which he was holding in his left hand, three times…Deegan said he saw the sergeant ‘tapping people on their helmets and shoulders, putting them in line’. As the guardsmen reached the top of the hill where they turned and fired, Deegan said, ‘I heard someone call “Form up” and then some Guardsmen turned...’.”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article, “Sergeant fired first shots at students, witness says”, June 24, 1975.
"The Justice Department summary reveals that 'no verbal warning was given to the students immediately prior to the time the Guardsmen fired.' Canfora states, 'It is clear there was a verbal order to fire. The well-coordinated actions of these triggermen seemed quite planned and executed like a firing squad upon orders to shoot'."
--article: "Kent State Thirty Years Later", by Mac Lojowsky, The Humanist magazine, July, 2000.
"...inevitably one or more of the several 1970 Ohio National Guard Troop G triggermen still living in Northeast Ohio will come forward and admit exactly which National Guard officer gave the verbal command to shoot and kill unarmed students under the noonday sun at Kent State in 1970. This is the ultimate truth we seek. And only the truth can free these triggermen from the awesome burden of history while the blood of our martyrs remains on their hands."
--Alan Canfora, Director, Kent May 4 Center, Cleveland Free Times, May 17, 2006.
“They got almost to the top of the hill, and just like on command, like one movement, they turned and started shooting…people got up right away and started yelling ‘Murder!’.”
--John Dienert, KSU student eyewitness, Akron Beacon Journal newspaper investigative report, May 24, 1970.
D) MAY 4, 1970: ORDER TO FIRE – GENERAL ROBERT CANTERBURY
"These students are going to have to find out what law and order is all about."
--Brigadier General Robert Canterbury, Ohio National Guard, Kent State University Commons, at noon, May 4, 1970.
“Don’t worry, you did what you felt you had to do.”
--General Robert Canterbury, Ohio National Guard, statement to shooters minutes after massacre, May 4, 1970.
“It isn’t a common practice for a general to go out in a field in a civil disturbance such as he [General Canterbury] did at Kent on May 4…Usually the general officers remain in the CP [command post] for numerous reasons. This is the seventh disorder I had participated in and that was the only time that I had personally seen a general officer in the field with the troops.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
Question: “Do you recall whether General Canterbury was in communication with any other persons immediately prior to your marching out…?”
Answer: “Yes, there was something about a telephone call from Columbus. He had to talk to someone in Columbus about what was going on.”
Question: “Do you know who that person was who he had to talk to?”
Answer: “...I believe it was General Del Corso.”
--Ohio National Guard Captain James Ronald Snyder, testimony under oath, 1974.
“Q) General, can you tell us whether or not you have as yet learned if anyone did give the order to fire, and if so, who, and weren’t you there?
A) I was there. There was no order to fire.
Q) Were they ordered to fire in the air before shooting to kill?
A) They were not ordered to fire at all.
Q) You were in charge, sir, of the troops?
A) I am not a direct troop commander, gentlemen. However, I was there.
Q) Are these troops committed to fire on their own if they feel they are in danger?
A) …Under normal conditions a order to fire is given. However, under these conditions…each man made a judgment on his own that his own life was in danger.”
--Brigadier General Robert Canterbury, news conference, Kent, Ohio, May 5, 1970.
“I didn’t give a command to the troops, it wasn’t my function. I dealt with the commanders. I instructed the commanders to line the troops up and get an ammunition count and determine who had fired. It did happen. I was there. It was done right then and there. They were in a single file line…To my knowledge there never was an order to discharge weapons.”
--Brigadier General Robert Canterbury, testimony under oath, 1974.
"Q) Did I accurately understand when you said that you could envisage no commander giving an order to fire into a crowd?
A) That is right.
Q) ...And you are suggesting that the commander under these circumstances did not assess it as requiring fire?
A) No. I won't say that."
--Brigadier General Robert Canterbury, Ohio National Guard, Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest testimony, 1970.
"The man in the plain clothes [General Canterbury]...appeared to be trying to keep them organized, directing their movement [at the hilltop]..."
--campus eyewitness quoted by Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“[Ohio National Guard General] Canterbury said no order was given to shoot. ‘A military man always has the option to fire if he feels his life is in danger'.”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article: “4 Die, 10 hurt at KSU”, by Michael Roberts, May 5, 1970.
“Brigadier General Robert Canterbury, the commander of Guard troops on the Kent State campus, said today no warning had been given to the students that the troop would shoot. General Canterbury, at a campus news conference said in reply to questioning that no official order had been given to open fire…He said a guardsman always has the option to fire if his life is in danger.”
--New York Times newspaper, article by John Kifner, May 5, 1970.
“A Justice Department summary of an FBI report made after the shootings quotes John Simons, a chaplain of the National Guard as quoting General Canterbury as follows: ‘..Del [General Del Corso] and I had a great time chasing the students around the other night [May 2, 1970] even throwing some rocks back at them’.”
--New York Times newspaper article by Agis Salpukas, July 22, 1975.
“I brought up that the people must be read the Riot Act and Canterbury said it was a good idea and that I should take care of that…I made the recommendation to use chemical agents [tear gas] and Canterbury concurred with the decision. Fassinger and I were making recommendations and Canterbury was accepting them…Canterbury was there and said something like ‘we’re going to move out’ [disperse the students on the Commons].
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony under oath, 1975.
“The orders [on the practice field] were coming from General Canterbury and Major Jones. Major Jones seemed to be doing most of the order issuing, but I do not know if they were all being filtered through him from General Canterbury. Major Jones proceeded to one end of the line of troops pointed toward the Dunbar Hall area. He had two groups of about 7 or 8 men kneel down in a line and point their weapons…The locks on their weapons were on and even the order contained ‘with locked weapons and don’t fire just aim…”
--Captain Raymond Srp, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May, 1970.
E) MAY 4, 1970: ORDER TO FIRE – LIEUTENANT COLONEL CHARLES FASSINGER
Question: "Well, they were able to hear you when you gave these verbal orders, isn't that so?"
Answer: "I would say most of the the time it took some extra effort to have them hear me".
--Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Fassinger, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
“As we reached the top of the hill by Taylor Hall…some troops fired their weapons…I heard no order to fire and no such order was issued by myself or General Canterbury”.
--Lieutenant Colonel Charles Fassinger, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 1970.
Question: "Who was in command of the troops, sir, on May 4, 1970?"
Answer: "I was."
--Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Fassinger, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
"By Army definition of military discipline, the purpose of discipline is to elicit an immediate and willing response to an order..."
--Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Fassinger, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
Question: "Some anger and hostility [among 1970 ONG shooters] toward the students?"
Answer: "I am sure that's true, yes, sir."
--Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Fassinger, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
F) MAY 4, 1970: ORDER TO FIRE -- Ohio National Guard Major Harry Jones
"...the intensity of the noise was very high. You couldn't get anybody's attention...I could holler at the top of my voice..."
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
Question: “Why did you turn and face down the hill?”
Answer: “I heard an order, I believe, from Major Jones, stating turn and face the crowd. The shooting started shortly after.”
--Ohio National Guard Sgt. Richard K. Love, statement to Ohio Highway Patrol, 1970.
Question: "Would you describe what occurred as you reached the pagoda area?"
Answer: "As the troops crossed the crest of the hill, just about the time they started across the crest, the crest of the hill...I hollered to them...and about this time there was an explosion."
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
"...we are about now to the top of the hill...some troops was lagging a little bit behind...I had given some instructions to them to move up...Seconds after that, we heard a report or an explosion of weapons being fired..."
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
“’I accept the guilt--if there is any’, Major Jones said days afterwards. ‘The troops were under my command. I’ve done nothing that I am ashamed of’…Major Jones said he gave no order.”
--Akron Beacon Journal newspaper, “Tragedy in Our Midst”, A Special Report by the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper, May 24, 1970.
“”I didn’t know why the shooting had started. First, I didn’t hear anyone give any order to fire. Second, people shooting off in trees, in the ground, the firing was done indiscriminately…I wanted to stop the firing because, first, I didn’t hear an order to fire. Second, momentum was gathering and there were more people firing…At the time of the shooting I didn’t hear an order to fire, or anything that sounded like an order to fire over their heads, nor a order to have the troops turn. I saw nothing which led me to believe that there had been an order given for the troops to turn…I told the troops to turn around, face the ROTC building and move out…We had to get off the hill immediately.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“We got to the ROTC building and had the troops line up…The main concern was the investigation of the incident. Canterbury issued a point, Lt. Colonel Spain and Captain Robinson were appointed as the investigation team..At that time everybody asked who gave the order [to shoot], was an order given, because no one heard it. Canterbury, Fassinger, and Captain Martin asked me who had given the order to fire. I told Canterbury I didn’t know. I asked him if he heard it and he said no as I also said no. No one expressed themselves as saying an order had been given at that time.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“In the front seat [of the National Guard jeep, May 4, 1970] was Major Harry Jones, a 43-year-old native of Tennessee who served full-time in the Guard as the 145th Infantry’s training officer. He wore a baseball fatigue cap and…a baton he carried.”
--book Thirteen Seconds, by Joe Eszterhas and Michael D. Roberts, 1970.
“At noon on May 4 [1970], I had a weapon…That weapon is commonly know as a .22 caliber Baretta [pistol] made in Italy….Captain James Snyder offered me his civilian type weapon…At noon on Monday, I was wearing a fatigue uniform, a soft baseball cap. I had a 2 ½ foot long riot baton made of unbreakable plastic. I didn’t draw my gas mask so I didn’t have it.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“I moved out with [Company C] on the left flank…we proceeded to the top of a hill located left of a building known as Taylor Hall. The remainder of the troops went to the right of Taylor Hall and down the hill into a field...I went down the hill and met [General] Canterbury and [Lieutenant Colonel] Fassinger. After a discussion on the situation it was decided that we should move back to our original position. Troops started to move out…I was behind the troops…I continued to the top of the hill located between Taylor Hall and Johnson Hall…troops on the right flank was starting to turn around to the rear…rounds were fired…At no time did I or did I hear anyone give the order to fire. I did not fire my weapon.”
--Major Harry D. Jones, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“I didn’t see troops pointing their weapons at people on the practice field…I didn’t observe any troops on their knees pointing their rifles in the direction of the people…I had nothing to do with the troops assuming the kneeling position initially…I issued order on the practice field…I said line up, form a wedge get moving. I just hollered to anybody that would hear me…Canterbury and Fassinger issued similar orders.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“The orders [on the practice field] were coming from General Canterbury and Major Jones. Major Jones seemed to be doing most of the order issuing, but I do not know if they were all being filtered through him from General Canterbury. Major Jones proceeded to one end of the line of troops pointed toward the Dunbar Hall area. He had two groups of about 7 or 8 men kneel down in a line and point their weapons…The locks on their weapons were on and even the order contained ‘with locked weapons and don’t fire just aim…”
--Captain Raymond Srp, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May, 1970.
“On the practice field, I didn’t give an order for the men to kneel…I didn’t order the men to rise.
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
“…[Major Harry Jones] got some of the men down there [on the practice field] to line up and kneel down and point their weapons.”
--Captain Raymond Srp, Ohio National Guard, Troop G, testimony under oath, 1974.
“…I didn’t order men to men to kneel and take up firing positions at the northern end of the field. I noticed them kneeling…Various witnesses including [Troop G Captain] Srp are incorrect when say I gave the order for those men to get in the semi-firing position…”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“We stayed on the practice field maybe 10-15 minutes until Fassinger and Canterbury could formulate a plan what they were going to do. They had to come up with a secondary plan as the operation [dispersal] had ended. The decision was made to return to the ROTC building…I assume Canterbury made the decision ..He and Fassinger were talking continuously together so I think they were making the decision…”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“[marching uphill before shooting] The left side was A Company and the right side G Troop. Canterbury and Fassinger were in front of the wedge. The commander was Canterbury with Fassinger assisting him as vice commander. I took up the position in the rear to see the troops move out…I was the rear observer…”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“I don’t recall issuing any other orders on the practice field. I heard no order on the practice field with respect to what should occur when the troops reached the crest of the hill…I heard no communication with respect to the subject of the use of weapons on the practice field or since...It would be 150-200 yards from the practice field to the crest of the hill…It took the troops a matter of minutes to reach that position.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“…I didn’t hear any commands like fire, shoot, etc. Nor did I hear commands to hold up, stay here, or turn around or about face. I gave no such commands.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“I have been trained and train troops not to fire a volley [numerous shots] unless you have been frontally attacked by people with weapons…Those circumstances then were not present…It was in violation of of the policy of the training…one never has a volley against people that are not in the attack with weapons…My personal opinion as a professional officer is that the firing was not justified under those circumstances…It is my honest opinion it should not have happened.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony under oath, 1975.
“I went to sleep about 8:00 hours Monday morning [May 4, 1970.]…I woke up around 10:00 or 10:30 and was told to report to the operations center for a meeting. I was up throughout the early morning hours. I was mostly working with the staff of the 2nd squadron [Troop G] helping to get their operations under control…I had only had a couple of hour sleep in the last two days. I got in my jeep and reported to the Commons.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“I arrived [Monday, May 4, 1970] at the burned out ROTC building. That is where the troops were gathering at the time…Canterbury and Fassinger were there. I recognized some of the troops there. They would have been from the 145th. Company A and C…There were other troops there. I didn’t know them personally, I knew they were members of the 107th Armored Cav [Troop G]. I don’t know that it entered my mind that the troops had loaded weapons. The commander determined that troops should carry weapons loaded or unloaded.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“ I was not the operations training officer on Monday. I was relieved of that responsibility at 0600 Monday morning, May 4. Major Pletcher and his S-3 section developed the plan for Monday.
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“On Sunday May 3, I was hounded by [KSU Vice President] Matson and [KSU legal adviser] Huffman to give an opinion as pertained to the state code. They made numerous visits asking for me to make a decision and I would not make a decision and told them to wait until I could locate the commander. They were having a meeting and wanted me to come and discuss it with them. Wallach was the commander I had in mind…If it came to a question pertaining to the deployment of the Guard, I would refer them to SOP or that you wait and we will have to discuss the question with the commander…They did ask me about what the Guard’s position would be with respect to assemblies in public…It would have been Matson or Huffman who asked it, they asked most of the questions. I referred them to an opinion that I arrived at from the state code and from the Op Plan 2 that five or more people in a riotous condition would be dispersed.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“We did receive some information re: possible events on the evening of May 3 [1970]. We did develop an operations plan for this. We means myself, Wallach, Thompson, Major Sands, who is the S-1. All the staff would be involved in it. As s-3 officer I information from all these areas when we start operations…and then I would sit down and develop a plan and present it to the commander. That is basically the way the plan was made for Sunday evening. The plan was developed from midmorning until late Sunday afternoon. There came a time when the plan was accepted. The intended duration of the plan would be just Sunday evening. It lasted until the operation ended and we had no control of when it would end...I have no specific recollection of any events that occurred that night.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
“Q) You were in a command position at that time, were you not, as a Major?
A) No, sir.
Q) You were taking all orders from General Canterbury?
A) I was a liaison officer, sent out there as a liaison officer by my Battalion Commander.
Q) You mean that you were merely transmitting orders that General Canterbury was issuing?
A) I guess you would call it that, basically, that is right. Yes.
Q) Well, was it anything other than that?
A) I was not a commander. I was not in a command position so I was a liaison officer. Liaison officers transmit messages, does the bidding that the General would want.
Q) You were down on the practice field later when the troops were kneeling down and taking aim with their loaded weapons, weren’t you?
A) Yes.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
"To commence firing as a mass, you would have to say, give an order..."
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
"I may have said...that I was going to shoot".
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
“There can be no definite statement about what happened in those 13 seconds from any witness except the guardsmen…What prompted the guardsmen to turn as they were retreating down toward the Blanket Hill knoll, back towards the Commons. It is likely a clear answer will not be available until the official investigations are completed…something distracted the attention of the men [Troop G] at the right forefront of the flank…What distracted the men of the right flank? What is Major Jones, their unit commander, the man in the fatigue cap, looking at?...Behind the explanation of the distraction on the right flank [Troop G] may lie the key to the shootings and to 13 seconds the nation will never forget.”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer article, by Joe Eszterhas and Michael Roberts, May 17, 1970.
“Q) But it was basically your conclusion as a professional officer that that firing was not justified under those circumstances?
A) That is my own personal opinion.
Q) As a military officer?
A) As a military officer…and it’s my honest opinion it should not have happened. As I see it from where I was standing and from what I know about the incident, it was against the concepts and the procedures that we had trained in. So if you were in violation of those guidelines and concepts and procedures, whichever one you want to call them, then something is wrong…
Q) And in fact, not justified?
A) I will have to go on record as saying that, sir, yes.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony under oath, 1974.
Question: "But do you consider the firing to be indiscriminate?"
Answer: "Definitely...that means that people were indiscriminately firing. Some were firing at trees, into the ground. They were firing all over the place..."
Question: "Is a National Guardsman ever permitted under the regulations to discharge weapons into a crowd at undesignated targets?"
Answer: "No".
Question: "Isn't it a fact that this is what happened at the top of the hill at Kent State University on May 4, 1970?"
Answer: "Yes".
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, testimony at Federal Court, 1975.
Question: “Isn’t it a fact sir, that there are…circumstances in which a Guardsman may discharge a weapon in a civil disturbance…?”
Answer: “That is correct…if there was an order given by a commissioned officer…preferably a commanding officer…”
Question: “…it is a fact, is it not, that you became in charge of developing the plan that would be implemented by the command, is that correct?”
Answer: “Yes...I was in charge of developing the plan, only the plan."
--Ohio National Guard Major Harry D. Jones, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
“[On May 2, 1970] I pulled my convoy into Kent…I went to the [KSU] administration building and met [Major] Wallach, [General] Canterbury, [General] Del Corso…I was directed to set up the command post in the administration building…I was in the command post Sunday afternoon [May 3] and evening…In the CP [command post] I was in communications with higher headquarters That was primarily Del Corso, the Adjutant General who was at that time in Columbus. I was speaking with him by phone…keeping him updated. There was a meeting in the CP about 2:00am or 3:00am Monday [May 4] morning. I conducted a briefing for the incoming 107th Armored Cavalry [Troop G]…Fassinger…Captain Hinton…Colonel Finley…Canterbury…At 6am we started to control the 107th [Troop g]. It took an hour or two…[at 10am] Canterbury wanted to see us…There was numerous people there…Fassinger...Wallach, myself and others…Canterbury probably said there would be no [May 4] assemblies permitted…there was going to be a rally on the Commons and that it was illegal and would be dispersed…if there was a gathering, peaceful or otherwise, they would be dispersed.”
--Major Harry Jones, Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony under oath, 1975.
G) MAY 4, 1970: ORDER TO FIRE – NIXON, RHODES, DEL CORSO
“Then I told [President Nixon] of four students killed at Kent State…hoping rioters had provoked the shooting…hope this serves to dampen other demonstrations.”
--from the book: THE HALDEMAN DIARIES, by H.R. Haldeman (Nixon's White House chief-of-staff), 1994.
“Shortly after hearing about the fatalities…two coeds went over to a group of three Guardsmen standing in front of Memorial Gymnasium…’Two of the men were older and one was very young…I said that I thought [Governor] Rhodes had a lot to do with it. The younger Guardsman said, ‘You’re damn right, sister—this is all Governor Rhodes’s political stunt’. He was about to say more when the older one told him to shut up. We left.”
---KSU student statement, Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“By early 1969, it was clear that [Ohio Governor James] Rhodes…was preparing to run for the United States Senate…Life Magazine…in late April 1969 featured a picture of Rhodes on its cover along with the headline ”The Governor and the Mobster”… Congressman Robert Taft, Jr…announced he would oppose Rhodes in the [May 5,] 1970 Republican primary election for United States Senate…Rhodes again defended his hardline approach to putting down continuing campus upheavals and again suggested Taft would not be nearly as tough…By one count, Rhodes had called out the Ohio National Guard 44 times…After the Kent ROTC building had been torched the night before, Rhodes ordered troops to the campus…dramatically pounded the table at the Kent firehouse and vowed [on May 3, 1970] he would not cave in to this kind of disorder, emotionally calling the students ‘worse than the brownshirt and the Communist element and also the nightriders and the vigilantes. They’re the worst type of people we harbor in America’…On Monday, May 4…four students were killed…”
--from the book: OHIO POLITICS by Alexander Lamis and Mary Anne Sharkey, 1994.
“Rhodes lost the [May 5, 1970] primary election by 5,270 votes, one-half of 1% of 940,000 votes cast. Did the Kent State tragedy beat Rhodes? Polls indicate the opposite. Three polls conducted about a week prior to the primary election showed Rhodes losing by from 7 to 8%. Yet he lost by less than 1%…older, more conservative voters tend to turn out for primary elections, especially Republican primary elections…there is no question that Rhodes’ give-no-quarter stance generally enjoyed wide [Republican] support at the time.”
--from the book: OHIO POLITICS, by Alexander Lamis and Mary Anne Sharkey, 1994.
“The Governor [James A. Rhodes] said that the meeting was off-the-record and that no notes should be kept. He said that he was there to assume full command of the situation [on May 3, 1970]. He told university representatives that the campus was under Guard control and that they should stay out of it. He said as long as he was Governor of the state of Ohio, the campus would remain open…he intended to keep the classrooms open if it meant keeping an armed Guard in each classroom. He said the National Guard should use whatever force was necessary to disperse any student rallies or meetings, and he did not want to see any two students walking together.”
--Sergeant Michael Delaney, 1970 Ohio National Guard, Federal Court testimony, 1975.
"Governor Rhodes flew to Kent by helicopter...For several weeks, he had been threatening to use 'all the force that's necessary' to end the campus disturbances in various parts of the state."
--from the book: THE KENT STATE COVER-UP, by Joseph Kelner & James Munves, 1980.
“On April 4, 1968, [Silvester Del Corso] was invited by Governor Rhodes…to take over the Ohio National Guard. Del Corso was an active adjutant general. He traveled around the state giving speeches, warning of potential trouble, and encouraging mayors to ask for the Guard. He also circularized Ohio’s guardsmen and Guard officials in other states, at Ohio’s expense, urging them to write President Nixon in support of his Vietnam policy and to condemn the peace movement.
“During the two years Del Corso served preceding the Kent shootings, the Ohio National Guard was called out on 31 occasions, six times as often as it had been summoned in the preceding five years of Rhodes’ incumbency and more than any other National Guard outfit in the country….Between April 8 and May 2, 1970, Del Corso dispatched 952 Guardsmen to Cleveland State University, 561 to Miami University in Oxford, 96 to Sandusky, 2,861 to Ohio State University in Columbus and 1,196 to Kent State.”
--from the book: THE KENT STATE COVER-UP, by Joseph Kelner and James Munves, 1980.
“[General] Del Corso, who called himself a military man and not a politician, regarded SDS and the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam as instruments of an international Communist conspiracy, that is, enemies of the United States. We suspected that Del Corso’s political views had contributed to the guardsmen’s behavior being harsher toward the Kent students…
“Del Corso went with the troops to the Kent State campus on Saturday night and was with them when they dispersed the crowd around the fire, marching across the Commons, over Blanket Hill, and down to the practice field in a maneuver that paralleled the one they would make on Monday. Along with [General] Canterbury, he picked up and threw back rocks that had come in his direction from students.”
--from the book: THE KENT STATE COVER-UP, by Joseph Kelner and James Munves, 1980.
“When President Nixon came into office, [Ohio National Guard Adjutant General] Del Corso sensed a change from the permissiveness of the Johnson Administration…Most importantly, it is Del Corso who has strongly advocated the policy, rare among military units and directly contrary to Federal Army practices, that Ohio Guardsmen go into riot situations carrying loaded weapons. In April, 1968, shortly after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Del Corso explained the rules…It was this policy, as much as the firing itself, which has drawn criticism of the Guard.”
--Akron Beacon Journal newspaper investigative report, May 24, 1970.
“Ohio [National Guard] Adjutant General Sylvester T. Del Corso assured Ohioans that local police have the capability to maintain law and order. He said private arms buying was unnecessary. His comments came after he received mail and telephone calls praising his earlier statement saying the National Guard would open fire on looters, arsonists and rioters…We have the capability to maintain law and order…”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article, Police Can Keep Order, Public Told”, April 18, 1968.
“Should looting and arson be made a capital crime in Ohio? Ohio’s Adjutant General [Ohio’s top National Guard leader] appears to have come very close to making both crimes capital offenses, punishable on the spot…Major General Sylvester Del Corso on several occasions has stated his belief that National Guard troops shoot to maim looters and arsonists…Is there not a better way? …more humane than killing a person…Yes, General Del Corso…there are better ways…not merit a bullet a bullet through the head.”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article, “Shoot-to-Kill View Challenged”, by Richard G. Zimmerman, June 2, 1968.
“[Ohio National Guard] Adjutant General S.T. Del Corso yesterday recommended that strong action be taken against students and faculty members at state universities who become involved in riots. Del Corso urged in a report to Gov. James A Rhodes that students and faculty members be dismissed…in such cases…’students and faculty must not be permitted to use the campus as a sanctuary for planning and implementing lawless acts’, Del Corso said.”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article, “Campus Crackdowns”, August 12, 1969.
“The commander of the Ohio National Guard yesterday opened up with his big guns in an attack here against the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (New Mobe) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Adjutant General Sylvester T. Del Corso told a conference of the Progressive Adults of Ohio both organizations are ‘part of the international communist conspiracy’. The SDS is part of the conspiracy to take over schools and colleges that’s been going on for 40 years, he said…‘We Can move against them fast when laws are violated’. Those who practice civil disobedience, he said, are trying to destroy confidence in elected public officials and the nation.”
--Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper article, “ONG Head Rips New Mobe, SDS”, January 13, 1970.
“On Saturday, May 2, when [Ohio National Guard General] Del Corso was leading the troops, he threw a rock at students. Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Carl Kovac heard him say: ‘Throw ‘em back at those b------s’. Kent State student Martin Kurta, former member of the [KSU] student government, heard him say, ‘If these g__-d___ kids can throw rocks, I can too’.”
--book: 13 SECONDS, by Joe Eszterhas and Michael Roberts, 1970.
“Adjutant General Sylvester Del Corso Tuesday said National Guard troops on duty at Kent State University fired ’32 or 36 rounds’ during the Monday disturbance that killed four persons. ‘No one gave an order to fire’, Del Corso said. ‘This became a self-survival incident motivated by the individuals themselves…’”
--Youngstown Vindicator newspaper, article: “General Says 36 Rounds Were fired”, May 6, 1970.
H) MAY 2-4, 1970: OHIO NATIONAL GUARD ANTI-STUDENT VIOLENCE
“Many of the Guardsmen are from towns such as Ravenna, 20 miles east of Akron, and Orrville and Wooster, 25 miles to the southwest. Indeed, all of Troop G, of the 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment—whose members were responsible for most of the firing—are from Ravenna. A Guard officer says, if you had to categorize them, the 107th would be composed of men from a rural background. Many of the Guardsmen were strongly critical of the student demonstrations. Says 1st Lt. Roy W. Dew of G Troop of the 107th: ‘I feel it had to come to an end sometime. These kids just don’t understand. They’re 19-20-21-year kids and they just want to run the country’.”
--Akron Beacon Journal newspaper, special report, May 24, 1970.
“...a US Army major now stationed at the US Military Academy, Professor Maury Baker, got this interesting response: …the officers at the Academy had been discussing the hostility of the National Guardsmen, many of them ‘drop-outs’, to college students, as a contributing factor in what happened.”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“…a different witness thinks that the very youth of the Guardsmen made them a volatile group, more reactive to the crowd. He describes the line of National Guard stretched across Portage Drive about the time of the shootings: ‘The general impression …was that it looked very young and very angry, or, at least, not about to condone any disorder…obviously very concerned with the crowd. One man, particularly caught my eye because of a look of intense hatred on his face’. Was this the particular Guardsman the one, also stationed along Portage Drive, whom another student reports hearing exclaim, when the firing near Taylor Hall began, ‘Shoot the hairy sons-of-b_____!’”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
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“By Monday [May 4, 1970], the cordoned-off areas, campus curfews, rumors of Guard bayonetings and intended entry into dorms, girl-chasing by the Guard, and harassment of long-haired individuals had led to a feeling of occupation…and the situation was growing worse instead of better’.”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“It was at this time the firing began. I had not heard an order to fire. As I turned around most of our troops were in a kneeling position and were firing. The firing was on my side close to Taylor Hall and was spreading to the Johnson Hall side. This was the same area that General Canterbury and Major Jones were in. I heard the order cease fire and was passing them on. Many troopers had to be shoulder shaken to make them awear. Many students were on the ground, many had taken cover there as the shooting started. I did not see any students hit but observed one demonstrator [Joseph Lewis, Jr.] lying in front of Taylor Hall with blood around his hip area.”
--Troop G Captain Raymond Srp, statement, May, 1970.
“I was facing the rioters I heard shots on my left. A big man with something in his hand charged our position. [ALAN’S NOTE: the closest student was Joe Lewis, 60 feet distant] At this time, all rioters were falling to the ground and running to the sides. Me and many other officers yelled sense fire and firing immenditly halted. Many people got up and ran but several did not. They were instantly covered by the rioters. We went back to our original positions.
--Second Lieutenant Alexander D. Stevenson, Troop G, Ohio National Guard, statement, May 4, 1970.
“To my right and front was Taylor Hall. A shot was fired followed very closely by a volley type series of shots. I saw three or four guardsmen firing from a standing position in the direction of the parking lot on the side of Prentice Hall. Immediately I ordered several guardsmen to stop firing. I knocked one rifle into the air. During the firing period I noticed one rioter [KSU student Joseph Lewis, Jr.,] lying directly in front of me and slightly back from the corner of the building (Taylor) holding his gut. He was going through convulsive movements and blood was seeping from between his arms. A girl rioter had dropped to her knees by the head of the fallen student…Another rioter was scrambling for cover or was shot underneath two or three evergreens.
--“Statement of Lt. Ralph G. Tucker, H, 2/107 AC”, statement, May, 1970.
“A short time later I saw the troops backing to the ridge of the hill...When they reached the ridge the firing was instantious (sic). One split second [12.53 seconds, actually] and it was all over. The troops then returned down the hill to the rope where they started.
--“Roger E. Hinton, HHT, 2/107th AC”, view from the KSU Commons, statement, May, 1970.
“The guardsmen stopped at the crest of Taylor Hill. They were faced toward the base of the hill, and toward the Taylor Hall parking lot…and then shooting started…and then a volley that lasted several seconds. At this time (while the firing was going on) students started rolling down the hill. A couple minutes later a student came up and said “Mister there’s someone dead laying on the hill.’ (pause) ‘Honest’. A few minutes later I was order to move my unit out.”
--“James D. Booth Captain Troop F 2/207 AC”, view from near Memorial Gym area, statement, May, 1970.
“…a prelude to disaster is emphasized by a by a student who says, ‘I believe I saw the whole thing start that night [May 3, 1970].’ Certain individual guardsmen, among them officers, unquestionably behaved towards students in a provocative, belligerent and dangerous manner. The student just mentioned…says…’The Guards began to close in, trying to push everyone they saw on campus, alone or not, into one big mass of people. There were a lot of scared female students who did not want to have anything to do with this, but the Guards running down the hills of front campus yelling, “Charge!” with clubs and bayonets, caused mass hysteria…they didn’t care who you were, they were out to kill’.”
--Kent State student eyewitness, Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“’That evening’, [May 3, 1970], remarks a married graduate student, ‘helicopters beaming spotlights on the ground beneath them flew over our apartment just across the street from the eastern edge of campus, passing overhead every couple of minutes, shaking the building and upsetting our two small children’. After two o’clock on Sunday night, a student living in Prentice Hall says, ‘I fell asleep with the sound of helicopters in the air and the feeling I was in an armed camp.’”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“Still, the quality of the wakefulness would have been very different on Sunday night [May 3, 1970]. In addition to the noise of students running around, National Guardsmen chasing them, military vehicles clattering about, tear gas canisters exploding and…helicopters buzzed over the campus late into the night. All evening, in fact, they had been buzzing, and almost all our accounts make some mention of them. Mr. Amrhein, Circulation Librarian, reporting on the disturbance at the library around 9:30 o’clock, says, ‘The main unsettling feature at the time was a helicopter equipped with a searchlight which patrolled the area.’ One student describes four helicopters with large searchlights flying over Glenmorris parking lot and the University School area around 10:30.
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“A young Guardsman with whom one of our witnesses talked after the shootings made a distinction between the attitudes of young Guardsmen and those of older men: ‘…he said that most Guardsmen were college-age or older, and probably wouldn’t aim to kill unarmed students but that the older long-time gun owners and hunters would because they liked the fraternity of the National Guards so much that they often carried their own handguns in their shirts’.”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“…[Ohio National Guard] officers figure as adversaries in more than one account. On Sunday evening [May 3, 1970], at some time between nine and ten o’clock, a student, together with twenty others who witnessed the same event; from the second floor library windows facing Main was watching a group of Guardsmen drilling on the front campus. In command of the group were two officers, perhaps captains. One carried a four-foot black nightstick and wore a hard helmet, as distinguished from the fatigue hats the other guardsmen were wearing. ‘A fellow at my age (20),’ the student testifies, ‘came walking around the walk by the East Main side of the library, I guess to return a book. As he did this, he was approached by one of the two high-ranking officers, who immediately lifted his nightstick and placed it at the fellow’s nose. The officer said, ‘Get out of here!’ The fellow then apparently understood what was going on and started to walk back towards the library parking lot. As he did this, the officer took his nightstick and cracked it across the fellow’s behind loud enough that everyone on the East Main side of the library could hear the crack’…”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“A similar incident is reported by two observers as having occurred on the periphery of the Commons Sunday morning, involving a student and an officer. The student ‘…was wearing an Army fatigue jacket without any insignias or identification. At this time, an officer of the National Guard came up to him, he was carrying a walking stick, he tapped the student on the shoulder, asked him to come with him. He went perhaps 10 or 12 feet out of the group of students who were about there. He asked the student if he was ever in the Army or if he had ever been in the Army and how he got the jacket. Then he said to the student that we are a clean-cut bunch of people and we don’t like degenerates like you wearing our clothes. The entire time that he was talking to the student he kept poking at him with the stick’. The officer had two bars on his hat; this informant thinks therefore that he was a captain…described as ‘over forty years old’.”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“…[Johnson Hall men’s dormitory] at approximately 11:40pm, a small patrol of Guardsmen threw two missiles through my room’s windows. I was alone in the room, trying to sleep with drawn curtains and no lights. No one else was in the area viewable from my windows. More items hit the building’. Later still, at 2am, another student was watching from his Johnson Hall window from twenty to fifty Guardsmen standing in a single line across the hill from the edge of Johnson to the front of Taylor Hall. ‘One Guardsman pointed a machine gun at me in my window. Pistols were also pointed toward open windows in Johnson Hall. Two rifle butts were swung at students who did not immediately respond to Guardsmen orders to enter Johnson Hall’.”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“Harassments of students are numerous in our accounts of Sunday evening [May 3, 1970] and lasted late into Sunday night. Some of the things students were prohibited from doing appeared to them like pointless repression and were further irritants in an inflamed situation…one complaint: ‘we’re all suppressed [in Dunbar Hall men’s dorm]—we’re all put inside the dormitory and we weren’t allowed to cross the street to Prentice [dorm cafeteria] to eat. We hadn’t had any supper. Everything was closed off campus and they wouldn’t allow you to cross the street.”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“The most serious incidents on Sunday night [May 3 night, 1970] resulting from the terrorism engaged in by some National Guardsmen were the bayonetings of the students…One of the participants in the sit-down, expressing his strong sense of betrayal when the Guard broke it up, testifies he saw one Guardsman club a student with his back turned with the butt of his rifle. ‘This same Guard…turned his rifle around and bayoneted another guy with his back turned. I was completely dumbfounded. I’d never witnessed that kind of action before. I turned and ran up Lincoln [Street] screaming about what I’d seen’.”
--KSU student eyewitness, Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“The demonstrators [May 3, Sunday night, 1970] ran down Lincoln Street with the Guard in pursuit. As one youth was running down Lincoln Street away from the Guard, he was stabbed in the back with a bayonet by a National Guardsman…Despite the stab wound, he managed to find shelter in one of the [fraternity] houses on Lincoln Street, where he collapsed, face down and bleeding, on the kitchen floor…a sheriff’s deputy came into the room and told me that he had inspected the wound and that it was too deep and too narrow to have been made by a bayonet. However, I definitely saw the student when he was stabbed by the National Guard’.”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“Far worse was the injury of a girl, in no way involved in the demonstration, who was bayoneted outside the library [now the KSU Fashion Design School and Museum on front campus]…between 9;30 and 9:45pm [Sunday night, May 3, 1970]…Here the witness may speak for herself: ‘Many people started running for the library. Somehow the windows were opened and kids were stuffing themselves through them. There was confusion. It was frightening…I had a total trust the National Guard would never touch us, for we had done nothing wrong. We stood against the library wall along with others to wait until they passed. About 10 of the Guardsmen were grouped together…We were among the first students to be encountered by them. I was still confident they would not touch us. Then I saw their faces. There was hate: and it was coming towards me in the form of swinging rifle butts and bayonets. They were yelling, ‘Get back, get back!’…There was nowhere to go. We were encircled by the Guardsmen. THERE WAS NO PROVOCATION. Before I knew it, they were on us…I was bayoneted in the lower abdomen. And in the right leg…the abdomen was punctured. This all happened in a matter of seconds…There were others there who had been hit badly by rifle butts’…word of the bayoneting spread rapidly and increased the anger and antagonism toward the Guard.”
--Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“…a frat man who had been hit either with a gun or a night stick and who couldn’t walk. His friends wanted to take him to the hospital but they were afraid to try to get through…”
-- Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“…‘one officer’ is singled out as ‘especially vicious’. The identification of this officer, if it could be made, might be valuable. Might he be the same man who appears in several other pieces of testimony. Among them Robert Pickett, who repeated his story before the Scranton Commission…?
-- Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“As I saw the Guardsmen [9:30-10pm, Sunday night, May 3, 1970] I approached them with my arms up in the air, having experience with having seen what Guardsmen do to black people…I was coming in peace. As I approached them, they began to holler obscenities at me…so I kept approaching them and explaining to them…They said to turn around, boy, and run. I kept talking and one of the soldiers cocked an M-16 [rifle] on me and pointed towards my head, and the other officer came over and cocked his .45 [caliber pistol] and pointed at my head. He told me to move and turn around and run.”
--Robert Pickett, KSU student body Vice President, testimony at Presaident’s Commission on Campus Unrest, August 20, 1970.
“This student himself was clubbed by a National Guardsman and severely – he thinks it could have been fatally – hurt: ‘He went to hit my head, but my reflex was to cover my head with my arm. He hit my elbow, All I can say is if he hit my head, I would have been the first Kent State University casualty’…student outrage at the Guard’s presence was intensified by occurrences of this kind.”
--student eyewitness, Commission on KSU Violence, KSU report, Kent, 1971.
“…Individual responsibility: As a member of this unit and the Ohio National Guard, you have a most serious and demanding individual responsibility. You are about to serve on one of the most difficult and unpleasant tasks that a soldier may be assigned. Regardless of the actions and taunts of the rioters, you must remain the well-disciplined soldier. In short, you must look like a soldier, act like a soldier and remain fair and impartial under all circumstances…”
--Annex F (Pre-employment briefing) to OPLAN 2 (Aid to Civilian Authorities, 1969.
“Relationship with civilian population: Our purpose is to restore and preserve peace among fellow citizens, most of whom are friendly, but who will tolerate military control only to the extent necessary as the result of this emergency. When you display fairness and impartiality, scrupulously protect life and property, and exercise soldierly restraint under all conditions, you merit the respect and secure the cooperation of the civilian population. The temptation to use high-handed methods may be great, but you must remain calm and retain your good judgment in order that you may act wisely regardless of personal feelings or beliefs…”
--Annex F (Pre-employment briefing) to OPLAN 2 (Aid to Civilian Authorities), 1969.
The KENT MAY 4 CENTER is a non-profit educational charity based in Kent, Ohio. Since 1989, the KENT MAY 4 CENTER has been recognized by the state of Ohio and the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt, non-profit, educational charity organization.
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY A chronology of the events
