Mistake? Yes by the agitators, there would have been no confrontation without them.
Not a policy? Of course it was a policy to confront the kind of violence that started days earlier. The Guard did not get called up that day, walk on campus and start firing.
Folks the Ayers-Dohrn bombers and various actual and wanna be murderers were on virtually every campus. I was surprised to hear that the Guard carried ammo for their M-1s but would anyone be willing to be pelted with objects heavy enough to kill? Those old W.W.II steel pots and liners were noting like the headgear today. Fatigues was the uniform -- no better than jeans and a good shirt to protect against flying bricks and whatever.
Some claim to have a recording: "Right here! Get Set! Point! Fire!"
"The recording captures the 13 seconds of gunfire – more than 60 shots were fired – that left four students dead and nine others wounded."
"Right here!" Right here? There was all kinds of commotion and people swarming all around throwing rocks and the like at the Gruardsmen -- plus the usual crowd of on-lookers. Right here? Where?!
"Point!" Point? Is it necessary to comment about "point"?
According to one source:
"Families of the victims spent the next several years trying to pin the responsibility for the Kent State tragedy on Governor Rhodes and the Ohio Guard. Criminal trials in both federal and state court were either dismissed or ended in acquittals. (Civil lawsuits filed by survivors and families of the four dead students were eventually consolidated into one: Scheuer vs. Rhodes.) A civil trial for wrongful death and injury failed when the judge excluded key evidence and the jury decided against awarding damages to the parents; but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati overturned the verdict because of jury tampering and a second civil trial began in 1978. On January 4, 1979, an out of court settlement was reached. The State of Ohio awarded the plaintiffs $675,000 in damages along with a statement of "regret" (not an apology or admission of wrongdoing)"
There should have been Kents in every state and thus we would not have today one of the major political parties run by the 1960s street rabble and their ideological issue.
The few deaths here would IMO have prevented most of the deaths following the crushing defeat of the commies resulting from their 1968 Tet Offensive. The few deaths would have denied the North Vietnamese Communists their most valuable guerrilla base: universities and the MSM.
If the Guard couldn't do it then the regulars should have been deployed and got the job done 40 years ago and that's been my opinion for 40 years.
Nice to see some facts on this thread.
It looks like many of the loons wern’t alive or very young
in the 1960s as the William Ayers, and his Wheathermen
and other Marxists were in the streets by the thousands
over those yrs. and also demonstrating on the univs.
It was a battle zone.
Also the Civil Rights demonstrations and the cities of Detriot, LA, parts of NY, etc were burning during those
years. Blocks and blocks of center cities going up in flames.
Thank goodness for the Army, National Guard, etc. who spent
time on the streets during those years helping to
defend good Americans from the Marxists bombers & shooters.
Many on FR don’t have a clue about the 60s to early 70s
or they wouldn’t show such ignornance