THE KENT STATE SHOOTINGS:
WILLIAM A. GORDON'S BOOK
During the Kent State trials it was widely assumed that someday a scholar (or scholars) would diligently study the mountains of evidence deliberately preserved for history, sift fact from fiction, and finally answer the questions that dominated the public debate. The most important question was: "Why were four students killed by Ohio National Guardsmen during a campus protest on May 4, 1970?"
To date, only one person has even tried to accomplish this almost herculean feat. That person is William A. Gordon, a 1973 graduate of the university who, as a freelance journalist, covered the aftermath and wrote numerous articles and opinion pieces over a period of 19 years.
To date, only one person has even tried to accomplish this almost herculean feat. That person is William A. Gordon, a 1973 graduate of the university who, as a freelance journalist, covered the aftermath and wrote numerous articles and opinion pieces over a period of 19 years.
Mr. Gordon, who is now a full-time author and publisher, was a quiet yet virtually ubiquitous figure in the aftermath. He reported on events as they actually unfolded, attended the trials, reviewed thousands of pages of official documents, and talked to as many of the key players in the Kent State tragedy as he could.
His research included over 200 new interviews with 170 people, including eyewitnesses to the shootings, Ohio National Guardsmen, high ranking Justice Department and White House officials, attorneys in both the criminal and civil trials, surviving wounded students and the parents of the fatalities, an Ohio governor, and local law enforcement officials.
Mr. Gordon was also the only journalist to review the extensive pretrial depositions taken for the wrongful death and injury trials and the 44-volume, 13,000-page trial transcript. Along with other journalists, he also filed Freedom of Information Act requests which resulted in the release of the FBI's 8,000 page investigative file and other internal Justice Department documents.
On top of that, Mr. Gordon conducted additional research in the archives at Yale; Kent State; the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus, Ohio; and Richard's Nixon presidential papers, which were then housed in Arlington, Virginia.
The result of Mr. Gordon's efforts is Four Dead in Ohio, a book which remains the first and only study to re-examine the various explanations why the four students were killed by Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State.
Mr. Gordon was also the only journalist to review the extensive pretrial depositions taken for the wrongful death and injury trials and the 44-volume, 13,000-page trial transcript. Along with other journalists, he also filed Freedom of Information Act requests which resulted in the release of the FBI's 8,000 page investigative file and other internal Justice Department documents.
On top of that, Mr. Gordon conducted additional research in the archives at Yale; Kent State; the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus, Ohio; and Richard's Nixon presidential papers, which were then housed in Arlington, Virginia.
The result of Mr. Gordon's efforts is Four Dead in Ohio, a book which remains the first and only study to re-examine the various explanations why the four students were killed by Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State.
READ MORE: http://www.nrbooks.com/kent-state-index.htm
New light shed on Kent State killings
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.
READ MORE: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/04/new-light-shed-on-kent-state-killings/?page=all
Kent State Victim Claims Evidence of Order to Fire
A man wounded when Ohio National Guard troops opened fire on student anti-war protesters at Kent State University 37 years ago says an audiotape recorded that day reveals someone gave the order to fire.
The recording captures the 13 seconds of gunfire – more than 60 shots were fired – that left four students dead and nine others wounded. One of the injured was Alan Canfora, who was shot in the wrist.
On Tuesday, Canfora released newly enhanced audio recordings of the incident. Shortly before the volley of gunfire, he says, a voice in the background can be heard yelling, "Right here! Get Set! Point! Fire!"
"When I first heard that, I was shaking. I shed tears," Canfora said.
Canfora wants the government to reopen its investigation of the May 4, 1970, shootings. They occurred on the fourth day of a demonstration against the recent American invasion of Cambodia, during the Vietnam War. Ohio's governor had called out the National Guard to quell the uprising.
Ever since the tragic events of that day, Canfora has been trying to make sense of it — how an anti-war demonstration at Kent State, not unlike hundreds then taking place on college campuses across the country, could end in bloodshed and death.
He says he has listened to other tapes, analyzed photos and researched witness accounts, transcripts and interviews. Canfora says he has always felt that one of the three Guard officers on the scene must have given an order to fire.
Kent State shootings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Kent State shootings | |
|---|---|
John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was shot by the Ohio National Guard
| |
| Location | Kent, Ohio, US |
| Date | May 4, 1970 12:24 pm[1] (Eastern) |
| Target | Kent State Universitystudents |
| Weapons | M1 Garand rifles .45 caliber pistol 12-gauge shotgun |
| Deaths | 4 |
Non-fatal injuries
| 9 |
| Perpetrators | Ohio Army National Guard |
The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre)[2][3][4] occurred at Kent State University in the US city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.[5][6]
Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the Cambodian Campaign, which President Richard Nixonannounced during a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.[7][8]
There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of four million students,[9] and the event further affected public opinion—at an already socially contentious time—over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.[10]
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