| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| New light shed on Kent State killings - Shots fired at Guard, declassified files indicate |
| 2010-05-04 |
| Previously undisclosed FBI documents suggest that the Kent State antiwar protests were more meticulously planned than originally thought and that one or more gunshots may have been fired at embattled Ohio National Guardsmen before their killings of four students and woundings of at least nine others on that searing day in May 1970. As the nation marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State antiwar protests Tuesday, a review of hundreds of previously unpublished investigative reports sheds a new -- and very different -- light on the tragic episode. The upheaval that enveloped the northeastern Ohio campus actually began three days earlier, in downtown Kent. Stirred to action by President Nixon's expansion of U.S. military operations in Cambodia, a roving mob of earnest antiwar activists, hard-core radicals, curious students and others smashed 50 bank and store windows, looted a jewelry store and hurled bricks and bottles at police. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose |
| #13 So, in other words, they went looking for trouble, went so far as to provoke said trouble, then whined when it found them? There should be a law against the... Part of the radical left's playbook is to stage public turmoil, riots and then hope there will be a violent response so it can said: "See how decadent and evil this system is", e.g. Chicago Democratic Convention 1968, Kent State. They often use "useful idiots" in the protests to be out in front--often people who believe they are taking part in a humanitarian cause but are somewhat naive. The purpose of the radical left is to replace the existing system. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-05-04 23:09 |
| #12 I remember my high school Physics teacher posting a 'scoreboard' on the blackboard, and that day's score was "National Guard 2 - Kent State students 0." A former Manhatten Project physicist, he was not very politically-correct. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2010-05-04 21:40 |
| #11 Even if they were shot at, how does that for a minute excuse firing on the crowd. Did the shots come from or over the crowd? I can see how a sniper or belief of a sniper would ensure the guns were loaded and the whole situation was tense but it still seems the order to fire on the crowd was a bit of an overreaction to the protests. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2010-05-04 20:35 |
| #10 So, in other words, they went looking for trouble, went so far as to provoke said trouble, then whined when it found them? There should be a law against the... |
| Posted by: Jefferson 2010-05-04 18:49 |
| #9 A friend of mine that was in the Kent State ROTC at the time told me he had been shot at (during drill) earlier that semester. Some one was shooting a rifle at Kent State, and had been for some time. |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2010-05-04 11:25 |
| #8 This was reported at the time, it was wiely believed to be an excuse by the Guard, as NO shots were picked up by ANY of the many Camera/Microphones at the event prior to the Nat Guard firing. Having said that, the Guardsmen were surrounded By a Mob, and backed up against a wire fence and had to shoot their way out, it was labeled as a "Command Failure" of the young inexperienced (Very Green) Leutenant in charge. I saw it on TV at the time, they were trapped and surrounded. The leutenant was courtmartialed for letting his unit get trapped and surrounded, not for shooting his way out, but for Putting his men in danger in the first place. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2010-05-04 11:02 |
| #7 In his dreams. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-05-04 10:46 |
| #6 "the planners of these events were manic control freaks and there was little that was not choreographed in advance" Remind you of anyone these days, Name starts with "O"... |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2010-05-04 10:44 |
| #5 I am surprised this has been kept quiet successfully this long. It is my recollection that the planners of these events were manic control freaks and there was little that was not choreographed in advance. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-05-04 10:38 |
| #4 the Kent State antiwar protests were more meticulously planned than originally thought and that one or more gunshots may have been fired at embattled Ohio National Guardsmen Does anyone know where Bill Ayres was at the time? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-05-04 10:26 |
| #3 How many ROTC buildings burned on campuses afterward? Contrast and compare to Carbecues routinely held in France. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-05-04 09:33 |
| #2 In other news, Martin Luther King FBI file to be released to the public in only 33 more years. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-05-04 01:23 |
| #1 No mention of the legal hell those National Guardsmen went through following the incident. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-05-04 00:25 |