Don't interrupt the inmates with these new details. Kent State was one of the building blocks of their movement.
Posted on 05/03/2010 6:27:24 PM PDT by jazusamo
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As the nation marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State antiwar protests Tuesday, a review of hundreds of previously unpublished investigative reports sheds a new — and very different — light on the tragic episode.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.
Four officers suffered injuries, and the mayor declared a civil emergency. Only tear gas dispersed the mob.
An exhaustive review later concluded that this unrest on the streets — the worst in Kent's history — was "not an organized riot or a planned protest."
But the FBI's investigation swiftly uncovered reliable evidence that suggested otherwise. Among the strongest was a pre-dawn conversation — never before reported — between two unnamed men overheard inside a campus lounge later that night. Their discussion was witnessed by the girlfriend of a Kent State student and conveyed up the FBI chain of command 15 days later.
"We did it," one man exulted, according to the inquiry. "We got the riot started."
The second man expressed disappointment at being excluded from the riot's planning. "Wait until tomorrow night," the leader replied excitedly. "We just got the word. We're going to burn the ROTC building."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
You could take out the leaders but that didn't work to well if I remember right but if you put say fifty or a hundred of the mob in Jail for say a year and did it consistently it would made a difference. The shield of anonymity would be gone and it would have had an effect.
bttt
A lot of people have believed this for years.
True. But why let facts get in the way of leftist propaganda?
the truth never stopped them before.
Don't interrupt the inmates with these new details. Kent State was one of the building blocks of their movement.
Ok, by your rules, you have to be hit by gun fire before you return fire????your a girl!
Okay, THAT is frightening!
Me too and I was just a dumb teenager at that time. It was obvious that SDS and other subversive groups planned all of these events even to me then. Wonder where the POS Bill Ayers was that day.
my alma mater
Yeah I always get a good chuckle out of that one, Peaceful demonstration? First they destroyed cars And set fire to the streets next day they burnt the ROTC building then they threw rocks and bottles at the national guard, now we find out someone did shoot at the Guard.
BTW the Mayor of the town was the one to declare a state of emergency and begged the Governor for the National Guard (Nixon had squat to do with it) BTW the mayor was a Democrat!
Interesting. Those anarchists always seem to coordinate with other groups. Talk about fake anarchy!
Problem is hindsight is 20/20. With the mindset we had then about not allowing communism to spread- and events that had taken place in Vietnam during and after their revolution, added to agreements made following WWII there was a good case for the Vietnam War. On the other hand- given the strong probability that Johnson created a situation and then over-reacted to it is hard to say it was reasonable for the U.S. to get fully involved when it did- if ever. Then we have the issue of the dims being really good at bringing about crisis and war and not being able to deal with the reality when it happens- there are just to many ifs ands and maybes. If Johnson hadn’t micro-managed- if so many things. It is good to analyze history, but hard to see all of the sides of the equation of things in the past.
Interesting thread and interesting comments.
When this Kent State thing happened, I had been back from a 13 month tour in Vietnam for almost a year. I was going to college on the GI Bill at ODU in Virginia. Back then ODU was a lazy little southern campus where the most exciting things going on involved the girls dorm streaking across campus now and then and Friday afternoon fraternity keg parties. There was a little group of hippie types that tried to start a protest of some sort or another every once in a while. They were kinda wierd but they never caused any real trouble and they were pretty much ignored.
Hiya, Dolly,
Haven’t seen you in a while, hope all’s well. Also hope you weren’t there when it took place. I was in CA at the time and remember not only that but the unrest and rioting across the country, not good times.
It is the Butterfly Effect - we will never know. It is a good exercise to help people realize that actions have consequences. Obama is the result of the Perfect Storm of the 60s.
Thanks, Smooth.
Seems like your college wasn’t the kind we saw on the news on almost a nightly basis, you were fortunate but I guess there were a lot more campuses like yours than the riotous ones.
I was working, married and raising a family at the time and was a conservative, didn’t take kindly to the anarchism taking place. I worked with several younger guys who’d served in Vietnam and they weren’t happy with the turkeys either. There were plenty of the hippy type around but never had a confrontation with any.
I was living in the area at the time. For some reason, rural Kent State had a large number of very obnoxious, well-off students from Cleveland who thought they were enormously superior to the locals. Town-gown conflicts can be a problem anywhere, but I’ve lived in other university towns and the attitude of the college community wasn’t quite as grotesque as it was at Kent State. IIRC, there was an arts program there, which may have been the thing that attracted students with a serious leftist attitude problem.
In any case, it doesn’t surprise me in the least to hear that some of the little darlings may have fired on the Guard (whom they despised for simply breathing). It would have been nice if this could have been mentioned at the time. But of course, why would the press of Woodward and Bernstein have cared about a genuine scandal?
...you’re going to have a very hard time rewriting a seminal moment in liberal history from their birth in the 60’s/70’s.
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