Darkest Hours: The Kent State Shootings

Summary

American History Hit
Host: Don Wildman
Episode: Darkest Hours: The Kent State Shootings
Guest: Historian Brian VanDeMark
Date: February 16, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, host Don Wildman sits down with historian Brian VanDeMark to explore the tragic events of May 4, 1970, at Kent State University, where members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of students protesting the Vietnam War, killing four and injuring nine. Through a detailed conversation, the episode examines the cultural, political, and social backdrop of this “darkest hour,” the escalation that led to violence, and how the aftermath reshaped American society, politics, and attitudes toward protest and authority.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Stage: America in 1970

• Vietnam War Context:
  • By 1970, American involvement in Vietnam was deeply unpopular and increasingly costly, both in lives and money.
  • The war was fought during a period of compulsory draft, impacting young Americans directly—especially after 1969, when student draft deferments were revoked.
  • Widespread protests had become a fixture of American life, not just about the war but other issues like civil rights and women’s liberation.
• Social Division:
  • America was “deeply divided. The polarization in the American body politic was profound” (Brian VanDeMark, 08:13).
  • Particularly at Kent State, the campus—largely first-generation, working-class students—sat amid a conservative, traditional town population, creating a volatile social mix.

The Road to May 4th: Escalating Tensions

• Catalysts for Protest:
  • Nixon's expansion of the war into Cambodia in spring 1970 inflamed opposition, viewed as a betrayal of the promise to withdraw troops.
  • Students felt directly threatened after draft deferments ended, raising the stakes of protest.
• Prelude to Violence:
  • May 1: Two peaceful protests; unrest spills into downtown Kent—fires and smashed windows.
  • The Ohio National Guard is called in and a state of emergency is declared by Governor Jim Rhodes, who was running on a law-and-order platform.

The Authorities’ Missteps

• Leadership Failures:
  • Local university officials warned against bringing in the National Guard, fearing escalation.
  • Guardsmen were insufficiently trained for crowd control, equipped only with tear gas and live ammunition.
  • “The three most fundamental points to convey here are poor leadership, poor training, and a volatile emotional atmosphere on both sides.” (VanDeMark, 22:01)
• Governor’s Response:
  • Rhodes used inflammatory rhetoric and made “law and order” a political calling card.
  • “He’s gonna project this image of being the tough law and order guy … not gonna put up with the radical fringe …” (VanDeMark, 16:42)

May 4, 1970: Chaos on Campus

• Gathering of Protesters:
  • Despite assembly bans, about 2,500 students arrived for a planned anti-war rally.
  • Only ~100 National Guardsmen faced the crowd; they were ordered to load rifles with live ammunition—without notifying the students.
  • “The recklessness of that, to me, is absolutely appalling.” (VanDeMark, 25:32)
• Escalation and Shooting:
  • Students confronted the Guard, some hurling rocks.
  • Guardsmen, feeling under threat and cornered against a fenced area, retreated and then, on a loud and chaotic Blanket Hill, a command to “fire in the air” devolved into a volley of gunfire at students.
  • “The ambient noise was so loud, and their level of anxiety and tension … that what effectively happened was some Guardsmen … reacted to just the first word—‘fire.’” (VanDeMark, 32:51)
  • Approximately 35 Guardsmen fired; between 10–12 fired directly into the crowd.

The Tragedy

• Four students killed:
  • Jeffrey Miller (~100 ft from soldiers)
  • Allison Kraus (300 ft)
  • William Schroeder (400 ft)
  • Sandy Scheuer (unaffiliated, merely walking to class)
• Nine others, including one who was paralyzed, were injured.

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Aftermath & National Reaction

National Uproar and Divides

• The shootings sent shockwaves nationwide, triggering protest on over 600 campuses and involving 4 million students.
• On May 10, 1970, 100,000 demonstrated at the White House.
• The event further radicalized students and polarized America:
  • “You have two different Americas who are just unwilling to try to understand the other’s point of view.” (VanDeMark, 38:17)
• While most in Ohio defended the Guard, most of the country and later investigations condemned the use of lethal force.

The Scranton Report (36:18)

• President Nixon’s commission determined that:
  • “The shooting itself was unnecessary, unwarranted and unjustified.”
  • “Even if the Guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force … The 61 shots by 28 Guardsmen certainly cannot be justified.” (Wildman quoting, 36:39)
  • No orders to fire had been given, and the Guard lacked fire control discipline.
  • After Kent State, loaded rifles were no longer routinely provided to Guardsmen at demonstrations.

Impact: Division and Legal Fallout

• Nationally, college campus culture shifted left, while conservative America became more entrenched.
• Lawsuits by victims’ families led only to modest settlements; there was little sense of justice or accountability.
• Governor Rhodes refused to take responsibility:
  • “Toward the very end of his life, he basically … said, ‘It was a tragedy. It was the worst day of my life, but I did what I thought I needed to do.’” (VanDeMark, 42:46)
• VanDeMark stressed: “Fundamental responsibility for this debacle lay in the hands of the political military leadership of the state of Ohio and the utterly appalling lack of training of those National Guardsmen.” (VanDeMark, 44:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the divisive context:
  • “The center is collapsing effectively in America in 1970. And that sounds troublingly similar to what’s happened here in the last few years.”
    — Don Wildman (08:13)
• On Guard readiness:
  • “They were armed with tear gas and high velocity rifles with live bullets, nothing in between, nothing else. And they had no experience dealing with student protests.”
    — Brian VanDeMark (22:01)
• On failure of leadership:
  • “Leaders have … a moral responsibility to be thoughtful and restrained in the words that come out of their mouth when it comes to dealing with highly volatile situations.”
    — Brian VanDeMark (22:10)
• On the firing event:
  • “Some Guardsmen … either heard or reacted to just the first word—not ‘fire in the air,’ but ‘fire.’”
    — Brian VanDeMark (32:51)
• On national collapse of dialogue:
  • “We’ve reached a point now where there are two Americas … who essentially obviate the capacity to reach out and attempt to communicate … If you don’t communicate, you can’t understand. If you can’t understand, you can’t find any common ground.”
    — Brian VanDeMark (40:45)

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Timeline of Key Segments

• US and Vietnam War context: 04:25–08:13
• Kent State’s place and social mix: 09:31–13:17
• Lead-up to the shooting: 16:23–24:08
• National Guard’s deployment and training failures: 22:01–25:32
• May 4th events, step by step: 25:32–33:18
• Immediate tragedy and national reaction: 34:24–39:09
• Aftermath, legal outcomes, and legacy: 41:44–45:01

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Reflections & Contemporary Resonance

The episode ends by drawing parallels to today’s polarized America, noting the enduring lesson that democracy’s strength lies in communication and restraint—not force. VanDeMark’s caution about political leadership and the need for proper training resonates anew in a climate of ongoing protest and division.

• “The strength of America lies in the unity of its people.”
  — Don Wildman (41:44)
• “Political leaders … have a moral responsibility to be thoughtful and restrained in the words that come out of their mouth when it comes to dealing with highly volatile issues.”
  — Brian VanDeMark (44:32)

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Recommended Reading:

• Kent State: An American Tragedy by Brian VanDeMark

Guest Bio:

• Brian VanDeMark, historian, recently retired from the US Naval Academy, co-author of In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (with Robert McNamara), and author of Kent State: An American Tragedy.

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For more American History Hit, follow the show for twice-weekly episodes exploring the pivotal moments that shaped the United States.

Transcript

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[C]

It is noon, Monday, May 4, 1970. Around 3,000 people are loosely assembled today here on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. A few hundred are actively protesting the US Military's involvement in Vietnam and President Nixon's recent expansion of that war to neighboring Cambodia. Many more have just stopped by to demonstrate their support or because they're curious. Some are simply moving between classes. It is a typical scene repeated on campuses across the country for years now. Students chanting, shouting, waving hand scrawled placards. Many more merely standing around. But something feels different today. Across the commons, a group of soldiers, members of the Ohio National Guard, have formed a skirmish line, bayonets fixed onto the barrels of their M1 rifles. Some are wearing masks to protect against the tear gas now deployed. The acrid, stinging smoke spreads low and fast across the ground. Some of the students scatter in fear. A few others pick up the gas canisters and toss them back towards the troops. Rocks are hurled. A noisy tension builds. But for the moment, matters seem contained. That is, until the line of guardsmen halt, level their rifles at the students and fire. It is American history hit. And I'm your host, Don Wildman. Nice to be with you. What defines a darkest hour? Well, it's when a crisis has reached its nadir, when all hope seems lost. In that moment of trepidation, we face disaster, destruction, and the real possibility that what we value most in life may disappear. Paradoxically, though, with life so much in the balance, it is a prime opportunity for profound and lasting change. Though it's hard to see it at the time, it being the darkest before the dawn. But some of our most Distressing moments have led to the most redemptive transformations, one of the enduring hallmarks of American history. In May of 1970, four undergrads were shot dead with nine others injured on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. A nation already at a contentious low fell further. What caused this tragedy, how it played out and what changes came to pass as a result is what we'll discuss today with historian Brian Van de Mark. Recently retired from teaching history at the United States Naval Academy, he is the author of the a number of books on US history. He co authored In Retrospect, Robert McNamara's number one best selling Vietnam memoir. His latest book is Kent State An American Tragedy, long listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Hello professor, nice to meet you. Greetings.

[D]

Thank you, Don. I enjoyed being on your program.

[C]

Now, while we are most certainly not a current events series recording here in late January 26th on Kent State, it's impossible not to ignore the echoes of history. Big differences, of course, from then to now. But shootings of American citizens in the act of protest by government forces is such a rarity, you can't help it. But for this conversation, we are steeped in 1970 in a brand new decade at the time. Take us to that time. What is going on in us and in the world?

[D]

This is a period when American involvement in the Vietnam War has been going on for several years. American casualties as well as far larger Indochinese casualties have skyrocketed and the American military effort in Vietnam is clearly bogged down. Progress is not being made in the American people's frustration with the effort and the costs, both in blood and treasure. That result from that is intensifying dramatically. It has a deeply polarizing effect on the American public and public opinion toward the war, roughly.

[C]

It's interesting. This is baby boom generation. Roughly half of that population is in college at that time in, you know, after high school. The first major anti war rally was in April 1965. 20,000 people went to D.C. and they've continued ever since. The march on the Pentagon, October 1967. There's a nationwide moratorium. October 1969. The My Lai massacre has happened in 1968, 16th of March. Details were published in the New York Times in 1969. I'm just sort of ratcheting up what's happening in the the society of America, in the media especially. Why does a bout of protests begin in May on Kent State campus?

[D]

Well, I want to make a general point and then a more specific one. The Vietnam War was fought in an era of the draft. And that is a qualitatively profound difference between today and yesterday, so to speak. The draft essentially granted deferments and or exemptions to college Americans up until 1969, when the manifest injustice of that system which effectively prejudiced working class Americans whose families couldn't afford to send them to college, they were exposed to draft, whereas college students were not. That deferment exemption was lifted in 1969, which now exposed college Americans to the draft. Another more specific point is that Richard Nixon had been elected president in 1968 in part on a, quote, secret plan to end the Vietnam War. And the center of gravity politically in the United States, particularly beginning in 1968 and 69, was to move away from continued support to the American military commitment because of the rising costs and the failure to achieve qualitative progress. And in the spring of 1970, Nixon made a decision to send American military forces into Cambodia to attempt to interdict communist sanctuaries. He had been urged to do this by the commanding American general in Vietnam, Creighton Abrams, because in order to speed up the withdrawal of American forces, which he had begun to do, Abrams said, you need to protect such withdrawal by removing these sanctuaries. The problem with that was that it directly contradicted the impression he created when he sought and won the presidency in 1968 to withdraw America from the war. It looked to a lot of college aged Americans as though the war was being expanded or intensified, which inflamed their already pre existing opposition to the war rather dramatically. Right.

[C]

I was a young guy at the time. I was probably less than 10 years old, certainly. And yet I remember how frequently we heard about protests. It was a long several years of various kinds of protests going on from civil rights onward into Vietnam. It was just. It had become a way of American life and almost like, oh, here we go again kind of feeling. But there was even more substantial theme to this in that many people, you know, the silent majority, was awakened by Richard Nixon's election. There was pushback in a big way happening in America against this at the time. Right?

[D]

Yes. I mean, this is a theme which we see operative today as well, which is the American public was deeply divided. The polarization in the American body politic was profound. To simplify things a bit in order to make my point, opponents of the war who tended to be young grew increasingly frustrated, resentful and angry about the persistent American involvement. And let us not forget that 1968 and 1969 were the bloodiest years of the war in terms of American casualties. For example, in 1968, 45Americans were caught dying a day in Vietnam, and much the same remained the case through 1969. So you have rising American casualties, a protracted American conflict which is intensifying the polarization in American society between those who oppose the war and more traditional, socially politically conservative Americans who want to maintain the commitment and view the growing voices of protest and dissent and criticism of the war and at a more broad level, the American system, quote, unquote, it angered them. So the center is collapsing effectively in America in 1970. And that sounds troublingly similar to what's happened here in the last few years.

[C]

Yeah, speaking of center, I mean, this will take place geographically in the relatively center of the country in the Midwest. Where is Kent State University exactly? It's northeastern Ohio, Right?

[D]

It's in northeastern Ohio. It's about an hour southeast of Cleveland, near Akron.

[C]

Conservative, part of the world, very midwestern, traditional manufacturing base, working class jobs and so forth. A lot of those people are not going to be agreeing with those students who, you know, they see as privileged people and youngsters without responsibility who are, you know, taking it upon themselves to essentially protest their now involvement in the war directly because suddenly the draft deferment is gone. What is specifically at hand here at Kent State University? Are they protesting Cambodia? Specifically the involvement in Cambodia?

[D]

Yes. I think Kent State in many respects is a very typical American university then and now by 1970, as I said, college students have lost their deferment exemption status, so they're now fully exposed to the draft. Many of them have brothers or cousins or friends who have been to Vietnam and have reported back the frustrations and hardships and lack of success in terms of America's military effort there. And there are increasing numbers of Vietnam veterans on the GI Bill who are enrolled at Kent State now. And this is in a mix with a residential population of the town of Kent, Ohio, which is very traditional and very conservative. And I think that created a very volatile mixture which is part of the broader setting for the tragedy.

[C]

Exactly. And place it against the backdrop that I mentioned before, which is we've been going through these cycles of protest for a long time now. It's been on the news, been covered a lot. And it's not just the war, it's women's liberation coming up. It's all sorts of things that are happening along the way. And so Americans have a knee jerk reaction to it of either support or rejection, but it's really a part of life. What happens at Kent State is unique for many reasons, but one of them is it wakes us up to, oh my gosh, you know, something much more serious than had begun to be the norm as far as these protests goes, happens here.

[D]

Yes. And I think another important point to recognize is that by 1970, what had begun back in the mid-60s as protests against segregation and the Vietnam War had metastasized by 1970 into a much broader, deeper and more vocal cultural critique of traditional America on the part of many college opponents of the war. And that was very unattractive in the minds of the more conservative elements on campus in the town of Kent.

[C]

It's now worked its way deep into the culture, music and writing and so forth. All of these things are reflecting this general discontent in the country from whichever side you're coming. And that has kind of infected the whole feeling of the country. I'm not the historical part of this, but it's worth the lens. I do remember how much that had become, you know, as you're becoming aware of things at that age and that really, you know, not long after this, meaning five years or so, there's going to be opec, there's going to be recession. It's a tough period in American history. That sort of one thing led to the next. But really off the bat, it was the. It was the protests against Vietnam. As far as the domestic side of things, what happens in Kent State is really the beginning of May of 1970, the first few days leading up to the fourth, when the event happens. But there were a lot of these maneuverings going on politically and locally, really of different people saying things about how they're going to handle this stuff. Had the protest been announced? Was this a big. Was there a lot of awareness of what was happening on the campus?

[D]

Well, I think that one of the distinguishing features of the student body at Kent State in 1970 is that most of those students were the first members of their families to ever have attended college. Many of them had blue collar, working class backgrounds. And there was. This is more of a blue collar middle class socioeconomic cohort than a middle or upper middle class one.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

And many of them were the children of those who had been come of age politically during the year of the Depression, the New Deal, who came from fairly strong democratic capital D families with a tradition of protest. So they were predisposed to vocalize and articulate their opposition to particular policies. And when you put that in contrast to a very conservative social composition of the town and the county surrounding the town of Kendon, the university It's a very combustible potential mixture.

[C]

Right. I mentioned this in the opening. How many of these protests are the vocal? Few are what people are seeing. And then life is going on around this situation. You usually have a lot of people observing what's happening. You have people who are going about their own life. Sometimes it's in the city streets, but this is on a college campus. Still. The same sort of scene is going on where you'll see this as it's happening. And of course, these were not designed to be what we now know, the Kent State killings. This is a peaceful rally. This is a nonviolent protest. They're out and about on the campus doing this thing. But anyway, it's all talked about as it comes up. The difference here, as far as my reading could tell me, was that local authorities had said, we see what's coming, we're going to do this, that, and the other thing while this is happening, the local mayor, et cetera, outside of this community. Of course, America isn't hearing about this at the time. Was this a typical situation with these campuses and how local communities reacted?

[D]

Well, I think it depends largely on location. For example, if you're talking about the residential population of Berkeley, California, or Manhattan, it's a different dynamic. The residential population of Kent, Ohio, was classically Midwestern, classically traditional, socially quite conservative. And amid all of this is a student body that's becoming more and more frustrated, angry and vocal in their opposition to the war and the American system, which they view as producing this unhappy result in Indochina. So it's a situation where both sides are going further and further apart. The capacity to put yourself in the other person's shoes is diminishing to the vanishing point. The willingness to communicate or give someone else the benefit of the doubt, at least in terms of their intentions, is also rapidly eroding. And that's going to create a dangerous chasm of breakdown in communication and empathy, which I think is a crucial piece to all of this. And again, when I say these things, I think about today.

[C]

Right, Exactly. Let's go through the chronology of these days. May 1, two peaceful rallies are held on the campus, followed by unrest downtown in the town of Kentucky. Fires are lit, windows smashed, the National Guard is called in, and a state of emergency is declared. Who calls that emergency? The governor.

[D]

The governor, Jim Rhodes, who was a very popular Republican governor of Ohio, who was, because of term limits, his service as governor was about to expire, and he was seeking nomination on the Republican ticket for a Senate seat that was open and he had positioned himself as a law and order candidate. And that primary election was gonna be held on Tuesday, May 5, 1970. And I think part of his processing and reaction to these student protests downtown on Friday evening and the burning of the ROTC building on Saturday was he's gonna project this image of being the tough law and order guy who's not gonna put up with the radical fringe that is disrupting the campus in the town of Kent.

[C]

Right.

[D]

The important thing to recognize is local officials, both the university administrators and the county prosecutor named Ron Kane privately implored him not to send the National Guard because they understood the mood on campus, how volatile it was, how unstable it was, and how angry the students were. And their fear was in this environment, sending uniformed soldiers onto campus is just going to put aviation fuel on the fire.

[C]

Yes. Right. I'll be back with more American history after this short break.

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[C]

The next day, a thousand gather on the campus, and this is what you refer to the rotc. The army training building is burnt down by a couple of protesters. Was this an intended mission of that group, or did it sort of happen in a random kind of way?

[D]

Oh, I. I can't give you an utterly conclusive answer to that. It's. Generally speaking, I would say that the center of gravity in terms of student opinion on the war had soured dramatically over the last year to year and a half. So in the sense that it's safe to generalize that the majority of students oppose the war by that point. But I think it doesn't take a large number of fervent, impassioned, angry people to take that a step or two further. And it was putting the ROTC building to the torch that, in a sense, for the conservative population of Kent and the Republican governor of Ohio, they look at this and they say, this is out of control and we're going to have to deal with this by dropping the hammer. But again, university administrators who were not asked what they would do in response would have said the last thing to do in terms of coping with this is to send in the National Guard, get the county sheriffs to deal with this. If you're going to go up the ladder in terms of response, then turn to the State Highway Patrol, because they understood that those entities had been trained to cope with student protests in a way that the National Guard had not.

[C]

That's a big question for me in this, because nowadays we are so conditioned to see these, this news video of forces in answer, you know, they all have their costume, they all have their uniforms, they all have their helmets. Everybody around the world is now ready to control a riot somehow with big Plexiglas shields and so forth. Back then, it wasn't really like that. And I wonder, although, of course, we see riots being controlled by everybody. But, you know, that's what I always wondered about this situation, whether it was a matter of training and understanding the circumstances as much as it was the intentional, you know, desire to control these things in a different way.

[D]

Well, when I reflect on the tragedy, I think that the three most fundamental points to convey here are poor leadership, poor training, and a volatile emotional atmosphere on both sides. And in descending order of Priority from first to last. Leaders have to me a moral responsibility to be thoughtful and restrained in the words that come out of their mouth. When it comes to dealing with highly volatile situations. The military leadership of the National Guard at Kent State on May 4th under Assistant Action General Robert Kendrick was abysmally inappropriate, unwise, and the consequences of that were horrific. And the National Guardsmen themselves had almost no training whatsoever in dealing with student protests. Just to make my point, they were armed with tear gas and high velocity rifles with live bullets, nothing in between, nothing else. And they had no experience dealing with student press. They hadn't been conditioned in terms of how to de escalate a situation, how to minimize the use of force. In fact, I think quite frankly, a lot of them had joined the National Guard to avoid the draft and as a result of that, didn't want to be there to begin with.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. May 3rd, 3rd day of these, these events unfolding. 1200 National Guard are on the Kent State campus. This is when Governor of Ohio Jim Rhodes, he promises at a press conference that he's going to use law enforcement against the students, declares that the protests are caused by a group of agitators going to campus to campus. This is language we hear even today, but nonetheless, the university remains open with classes going ahead. Those demonstrators then block traffic and become dispersed with tear gas and importantly, bayonets. Right. This is always a startling thing to me that you would fix bayonets when dealing with what is essentially a bunch of unarmed, you know, rather peaceful, in most cases, protesters. Why the bayonets?

[D]

Well, again, think about how they are trained or not trained at all, and how they're equipped. And as I said, it's so difficult and frankly, often dangerous to generalize about this, but if you pressed me, I would say that the typical National Guardsman in Kent over that weekend before May 4th was probably a working class guy whose parents could not afford to send him to college and at some level resented the fact that these quote unquote privileged kids who had become radicals who are disrupting law and order and they're operating in an increasingly emotional atmosphere too. And I think that it's a dangerous mixture, it's a volatile mixture. But another irony of this is on that Sunday, May 3, during the day the National Guardsmen had fraternized with the Kent State College students on campus, there was actually a mood of concord and dialogue. Things got worse that night because protests had reignited and confrontations occurred between guardsmen and students, which restarted this friction and animosity which is going to carry over until the next morning of May 4th.

[C]

Let us go there. May 4th, the demonstrations have been banned. That's announced by a distribution of leaflets. That seemed interesting to me. What did the leaflet say?

[D]

Well, it basically said the governor has heard that assemblies of more than two people are prohibited. The scheduled rally against the war on the morning of May 4th is prohibited. And yet approximately 2,500 students showed up on the commons of the campus to assert their constitutional right to free speech and dissent. And that is the setting to what will occur later that morning. The guard is deployed, and it's led by Robert Canterbury, who is. He and his forces are outnumbered 30 to 1. 30 to 1. So if you're one of those roughly 100 guardsmen confronting 2,500 students, you can see how they must feel insecure, anxious, and vulnerable. And he tells them to load live ammunition into their rifles and then fails to inform the students who are assembled there that that's been done directly contradicting National Guard regulations to do so. I mean, the recklessness of that, to me, is absolutely appalling. To tell the guardsmen to load their rifles with live actions is bad enough, but then not to inform the crowd of students who are there, that that's been done is inexcusable.

[C]

Ryan, you say that the amount of guardsmen on the campus is about 100. I previously mentioned 1200. It's a whole bunch of deployment going on here in the area, right?

[D]

Well, they were deployed throughout the town of Kent and surrounding areas of Portage county, as well as on campus.

[C]

It's important to realize that at this point, you're talking about a massive group of people, you know, thousands of students, against what is essentially a hundred national Guardsmen, right?

[D]

Correct.

[C]

How does that unfold?

[D]

Well, the students had assembled in the commons, which was an open area in the center of campus, and Canterbury, who's the ranking National Guard officer on the scene that morning, as I already mentioned, ordered the guardsmen to load their rifles with live ammunition, which to me was unwise and reckless. And then he failed to inform the students that that had been done. And then he sends out, I believe it's a Kent State University police official to use a bullhorn to tell the students to disperse, which they don't, because in their opinion, and the Justice Department of the Nixon administration later said they had a constit right to express their opinions about the war. And that escalates the emotional level, the atmosphere there dramatically. The students become more vocal in terms of the epithets that they hurl vocally, the Guardsmen, and some start beginning throwing stones in rocks. And then the Canterbury orders the Guardsmen in a line to disperse the crowd.

[C]

Okay. At that point, you had the students pretty well dispersed across what is Blanket Hill at the top of Blanket Hill, is that right?

[D]

Well, it's the Common, which is a lower area below Blanket Hill, a little bit west of Blanket Hill, in front of Taylor hall, which was a very large university building that lay essentially at the conjunction of the Commons and Blanket Hill.

[C]

And what would be perceived as the threat that the students were presenting? Were they going to burn a building down? I mean, what were they being called?

[D]

I think the rationale, the justification at that moment was the Governor has prohibited assemblies, and we are enforcing the Governor's edict prohibiting assemblies.

[C]

I see.

[D]

And once the Guard is moved out, that's when things escalate even further. It's at that point for the students. Well, in the sense that the students become more confrontational. They begin throwing projectiles toward the Guardsmen, and the Guardsmen fire tear gas as they move across the Commons up Blanket Hill. And I don't want to get into microscopic detail, but the fundamental point is they're coming into close physical proximity with one another now. And these Guardsmen have live bullets and high velocity rifles that the students don't realize. And the students are becoming more aggressive in terms of their resistance to the dispersal order.

[C]

To be clear, the National Guardsmen are retreating, in effect. Right. Moving backwards.

[D]

Well, eventually they'll go over Blanket Hill down to a playing field area, and adjacent to that is a parking lot from which a lot of students will hurl rocks and stones and other projectiles at the Guardsmen. And the Guardsmen are effectively, they're cornered because that playing field had a wire fence around it, which meant that they couldn't go any further. And they felt that the students were beginning to surround them, which I think increased their anxiety and their insecurity.

[C]

And it is from that vantage point, from that parking lot that these shots are fired, is that correct?

[D]

Well, the Guardsmen, while they're on the playing field, are ordered by Canterbury to point their rifles toward the students in the parking lot, but only as a deterrent, symbolic deterrent. They weren't ordered to fire. They were just basically trying to scare these people back to get distance, greater distance created between them and the students who were vocally and harassing them and taking in some cases, more aggressive steps by throwing things at them.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And it's at that point that Canterbury then orders the Guardsmen to retreat Effectively back up, back a hill, down the other side, across the commons, back to where they hit initially proceeded from. And as the guardsmen retreat back up Blanket Hill, the students who were in the parking lot in the lower slope of Blanket Hill start moving toward them, first at a walk and then at a pretty rapid walking clip and in some cases at a run. And there's a tremendous amount of noise. There's a campus bell that's clanging. There's a lot of shouting. There was actually an audio recording of the event, which has been preserved, and it's just chaotically loud. And that, again, is one of these factors that contribute to the tragedy, because as the guardsmen crested Blanket Hill and a small group of students got relatively close to them, that's when some of the guardsmen were feeling imminently threatened and basically stopped, turned, and pointed their rifles downhill again, initially as a deterrent, as they had done when they were down on the practice field, to effectively get these people to back off. And it was at that point that a platoon Sergeant named Matthew McManus issued an order to fire in the air in an effort to prevent bloodshed. Let me reiterate.

[C]

Over the heads.

[D]

Yeah, over the heads of the students in an effort to prevent bloodshed. The problem was they had not been trained in firing warning shots, and the ambient noise was so loud, and their level of anxiety and the tension there was so tremendous that what effectively happened was some guardsmen singular or guardsmen plural, either heard or reacted to just the first word. Not fire in the air, but fire.

[C]

Yeah. Right. Wow.

[D]

And the best estimates are that about 35 guardsmen fired their rifles, which is about a third of those who were on the hill. So a minority fired. And of those roughly 35 who fired, the vast majority of them either fired toward the ground or in the air, but there were probably about 10 to 12 who fired into the crowd.

[C]

Wow.

[D]

And that's what precipitated what followed, which.

[C]

Is when we get the tragedy and the images that come from that tragedy, the most famous of which is Mary Ann Vecchio over Jeffrey Miller, which goes on to win a Pulitzer Prize. I'll be back with more more American history after this short break.

[A]

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[C]

Only. Four students are killed. Jeffrey Miller, about 100ft away from the soldiers. Allison Kraus, 300ft. I mean, this is how they're all different places that these are. These people are being hit. William Schroeder, 400ft away. Sandy Scheuer, who was just a person on her way to class, apparently. And that's why we've. I've gone out of my way to ask you about, you know, what was happening there because you have lots of people doing other things on this class, on this campus at the time. Nine others we often forget were physically injured, including one person who was fully paralyzed. And the closest of that route was only 20ft away from those people. So it's just one of those situations where so many factors are involved in creating a moment of chaos and mayhem and nothing ever goes well in those situations.

[D]

It's a perfect storm of tragedy, Dom. The multiplicity of factors, long term, intermediate term and short term coalesce to create this tragedy.

[C]

Yeah, but the unprecedented quality of the situation calls for a big, you know, outcry nationally. And the troops argue, some of them, that they were threatened by a sniper. Is that. Where did that even come from?

[D]

Well, there was no merit to that after the fact, based on investigations that occurred following the shooting. But the broader point is, at the time, there had been reports submitted to the National Guard intelligence officer on Kent State's campus that morning that there were reports of snipers either on campus or in town, which were retrospectively proven false. But at the time, it ratcheted up the fear anxiety on the part of the National Guardsmen who were there.

[C]

What was the Scranton Report which came out of this? A President's commission.

[D]

President Nixon, after the tragedy, appointed a blue ribbon commission to investigate what had occurred and why it had occurred. And these are very responsible, thoughtful, experienced people across a spectrum of occupations that were really top drawer and the commission's basic judgment was that the shooting itself was unnecessary, unwarranted and unjustified.

[C]

I'm going to read a quote from that report. Even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 Guardsmen certainly cannot be justified. Apparently no order to fire was given and there was inadequate fire control discipline on Blanket Hill. The Kent State tragedy marks the last time that as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrations. Everything you've spoken of very tersely wrapped up there, right in that. That thing. Kent State was processed pretty quickly as a nation, wasn't it? I mean, it was seen as wrong right off the bat, wasn't it?

[D]

Well, again, it depends on who and where you focus. But, for example, most opinion polling in Ohio in the days, weeks and months after the shooting effectively defended the guardsmen and playing the students. Though nationally, majority of the American people thought it was excessive, reckless and inappropriate. And the America's college campuses just erupted in the wake of that shooting. I mean, they literally. ROTC buildings went up across the continent, so to speak. Campuses were shut down. I mean, it had a massively radicalizing effect on student opinion, both toward the war and the quote, unquote, American system. It moved student opinion even further to.

[C]

The left, right, and further divided on other lines. I mean, now you have the generational thing happening, which is, you know, just no one under 30 or and over 30 liberals in curved services are no longer talking to each other. We have this.

[D]

They're not even talking to each other. Yes, they suspect the patriotism of each other and the intentions of one another. And that's, to me, what's so sobering and frightening in terms of the resonances between then and now America. In the wake of Kent State, you have two different Americas who are just unwilling to try to understand the other's point of view. And that's certainly true today.

[C]

Just to put a number to your point, 4 million students took part in the nationwide protests. I mean, my goodness, talk about the wrong result of something you were trying to accomplish. May 10, 100,000American citizens demonstrate in front of the White House. I mean, we're right back to LBJ at that point, you know, and everything that Nixon was trying to accomplish kind of backfires, doesn't it?

[D]

Often in politics, it's ruled by the law of unanticipated and unintended consequences.

[C]

Yes, indeed. It also adds fuel to the fire nationally in terms of these demonstrations. There are Other shootings on other campuses. May 15, Jackson State University in Mississippi. There's a shooting that kills two, injures 12. Much of this was not National Guardsmen anymore. It was local authorities. But steps were taken. There were shootings at Cal State, Fresno by police. Augusta College in Georgia. The message was clear. The tenor has completely changed as far as how these campuses were viewed. I mean, part of the reason that there was such a lot of protests is that those students felt protected there, Right?

[D]

Yes. And again, it's another tragic unintended consequence of what occurred on that tragic day, which is it moved students further to the left, whereas conservative, traditional America moves further to the right. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that the center utterly collapses, but the center is the locus where you have communication, dialogue, and at least the possibility of mutual understanding and some kind of functional reconciliation. And that's the thing about 1970 that troubles me the most in terms of its parallels to today. Exactly. We've reached a point now where there are two Americas that are they caricature and stereotype the other to a degree which essentially obviates the capacity to reach out and attempt to communicate. And if you don't communicate, you can't understand. And if you can understand, you can't find any common ground in today's climate.

[C]

I feel so lucky to be the age. I am to have been born in the early 60s, so that I have some perspective over that time. I mean, the parents of these students were all people who had. Lots of people had taken part In World War II, I mean, or the Korean War, you know, in these generation. Yeah. These unified efforts nationally to fight for the national identity together. And so whether they were from different stripes or different backgrounds, there was still a sense of a oneness of America, a center, as you're talking about, that had really been profound throughout the previous decades.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

Many things contribute to their. Not to mention people getting older changes that whole situation culturally. But politically, May 4, 1970, Kent State killings has a lot to do with marking a moment when the division really started to happen, one that we're still living with today.

[D]

Yes. And I would add to that, in my judgment, the strength of America lies in the unity of its people.

[C]

Exactly. I do want to point one thing. How does this all play out in the long run? There are lawsuits and such. Right. I mean, when does things really kind of resolve?

[D]

Well, I think one of the frustrations that were felt, particularly by the student victims, both the family members who lost loved ones and those who were injured One of whom spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair, is that there seemed to be no judicial accountability. There was a criminal trial in which the National Guard defendants were acquitted, and then the families of the victims sued in civil court. And that, too, led ultimately to acquittal. But there was eventually further litigation that concluded in a settlement where there were financial damages of rather modest scope that were provided to many of the shooting victims. But I think that created a certain frustration, cynicism, and resentment on the part of a lot of the student victims that you can't get justice under the. The current system. And it's frustrating and regrettable, but there it is.

[C]

That governor actually does write a letter of regret, correct?

[D]

Well, he doesn't sign the statement of regret, but the guardsmen who settled the civil suit against them eventually will issue a statement of regret. And Rhodes, who lived into his early 90s, I think, for decades, refused to discuss this issue at all. And toward the very end of his life, he basically, in a very laconically defensive way, said, it was a tragedy. It was the worst day of my life, but I did what I thought I needed to do. If you will allow me to editorialize for just a moment. Sure. When I look back in terms of responsibility, I would prefer to use that word over blame. I think that the fundamental responsibility for this debacle lay in the hands of the political military leadership of the state of Ohio and the utterly appalling lack of training of those National Guardsmen. To send the National Guard onto a college campus which was already emotionally heated in their opposition to the war, and sending soldiers with rifles to that was patently unwise. Canterbury lacked good judgment. The commanding officer on the scene and the utter absence of control of his men in terms of fire control discipline is completely inexcusable. What's even worse is that he later claimed that he was in command that day. There was the subordinate officers underneath him that day who were in command, which is an abdication of mature responsibility of the worst kind to me. And what lessons can you draw from all of this that speak to us today? As I said before, I think that political leaders, both at the local level, the state level, and the national level, have a moral responsibility to be thoughtful and restrained in the words that come out of their mouth when it comes to dealing with highly volatile issues. And I think those who are assigned to deal with protests ought to be very well trained in minimizing the use of force, de escalating tensions, and trying to act with restraint rather than excessive force.

[C]

Sage words but we live in an imperfect world full of imperfect people and leaders who don't always do the right thing, include you.

[D]

And me too, Don. That's the reality of life, isn't it?

[C]

Brian DeMarc is a historian who has formerly taught at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, recently moved to California. I envy him for that. He is the author of several books on American history and I invite you to look at the number one bestseller from the past. Robert McManra's Vietnam memoir, which Brian collaborated upon, eventually became a very famous film, Fog of War. His latest book that we've been discussing is Kent State An American tragedy, published in 2024. Thank you sir. It's been a great pleasure to meet you.

[D]

Well, I've enjoyed our conversation and I hope the your audience finds it useful as well.

[C]

Hey, thanks for listening to American History hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History hit with me, Don Wildman.

[A]

So grateful for your support.

[E]

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[B]

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