Brian VanDeMark’s book “Kent State: An American Tragedy” will be published in August.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Republican Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) are among the conservative leaders suggesting that the National Guard might be needed to control campus protests across the country against Israel’s war in Gaza. Such calls stir memories of the tragedy 54 years ago at Kent State University in northeastern Ohio.
On May 1, 1970 — a Friday night — several hundred Kent State students poured out of downtown bars near closing time and began harassing motorists, smashing store windows and spray-painting buildings with antiwar slogans. Mayor LeRoy Satrom, a conservative Democrat elected by Kent voters six months earlier on a get-tough platform against “long-haired students,” telephoned the governor’s office the next day. Saying that outside agitators were fomenting subversion and disorder in his town, the mayor asked that the National Guard be dispatched to Kent.
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University officials had a different plan. They preferred to deal with the situation by using university police, with county sheriff’s deputies as reinforcements and Ohio State Highway Patrol officers as a last resort. But they were not consulted.
That Saturday night, student protesters against the Vietnam War put Kent State’s ROTC building to the torch. University police in riot gear eventually drove off the protesters with tear gas. By then, Gov. Jim Rhodes had acted on the mayor’s request, and, a short time later, a line of armored personnel carriers, jeeps and trucks reached campus carrying several hundred Ohio National Guardsmen.
The following afternoon, on May 3, Rhodes met in Kent with state and local officials. Rhodes was in the final year of his second four-year term. Barred by the state constitution from running again, he was seeking the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in a primary election just 48 hours away. Trailing in the polls, Rhodes had positioned himself as the candidate who would use “all the force that was necessary” to end campus disturbances throughout the state.
Though university officials were invited to the meeting, Rhodes brushed them off and effectively silenced the very authorities who best understood the students’ tempers and attitudes. Instead, the governor defined the Guard’s mission as applying “whatever force necessary to break up a protest on campus.” When someone asked Rhodes to define a protest, he replied: “Two students walking together.”
Share this articleShareAt this point, reporters who had learned of the meeting entered the room. Rhodes grew theatrical. Pounding his fists on the conference table, he declared in an angry voice, “We’re going to put a stop to this!” and “we are going to eradicate the problem!” and “they’re the worst type of people that we harbor in America!” The table-thumping performance only added fuel to the blaze of confrontation.
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As the meeting ended, Portage County prosecutor Ron Kane, a blunt-speaking man who understood the mood in Kent as well as anyone, followed the governor into the men’s room for a private talk. Away from reporters, Kane implored Rhodes to close the university while passions cooled. “We’re sitting on a keg of dynamite that could blow at any minute,” the prosecutor warned, adding in saltier language that people were likely to get hurt. “No, we mustn’t do that,” Rhodes replied. “We must not knuckle under.”
As many as 3,000 students gathered the next morning — Monday, May 4 — on the university commons for a previously scheduled antiwar rally. The commander of National Guard forces on the scene, Assistant Adjutant General Robert Canterbury, decided to disperse the protesters. As Kane and others had feared, the presence of armed troops inflamed the students; what had been planned as a protest against the war became a protest of a different sort. “It wasn’t an antiwar rally,” said a student. “It was now a National Guard get-the-hell-off our campus rally.”
Canterbury ordered eight officers to lead 96 Guardsmen to break up the crowd — roughly one Guardsman for every 30 protesters. They received scant guidance. “We had no understanding as to the amount of force we were supposed to use to accomplish that mission,” remembered one of the troops. “There had not been a briefing before we moved out to explain what to do and how to do it.” Looking back years later, another Guardsman wondered: “Why would you put soldiers trained to kill on a university campus to serve a police function?”
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Weary after a series of 12-hour shifts, and having slept little the night before, the troops were in poor condition for the tense confrontation. “The only thing I saw among the guys was fatigue and nerves,” said one Guard officer. Some of the Guardsmen were teenagers. Some were inexperienced with their rifles. Most wore a gas mask and a helmet that made it difficult to hear commands.
The reckless Canterbury also failed to warn protesters — as required by Ohio National Guard regulations for crowd control — that his men were armed with loaded rifles containing high-velocity bullets that could kill at a range of 1,000 yards and at 200 yards could pierce a steel helmet and pass straight through a human head. Unaware of the risk, students advanced toward the nervous Guardsmen, and at 12:24 p.m., several of the troops opened fire. Four Kent State students were killed, and nine were wounded, one of them paralyzed for life.
This entirely avoidable tragedy had its bloody roots in the table-pounding performance of a politician angling for votes. Rhodes should be an object lesson for officials such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who have called for force to quell today’s student protests over the war in Gaza. So far, campus demonstrations have been nuisances, even disruptions. Where there has been antisemitic harassment by protesters, the demonstrations have included reprehensible expressions of intolerance and hate. But they have not been violent, and violence should not be threatened in response. University officials, not state authorities and armed troops, possess the knowledge and insight best suited to dealing with these constitutionally protected expressions of dissent. The goal of university and college administrators should be to guarantee the safety of all students while fostering civil engagement over passionately held views. This is the lesson of Kent State University.
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