Tue, 10/09/2012
by Laurel Krause with Mickey Huff
New evidence in the 1970 Kent
State University
massacre “is compelling, clearly showing how US
covert intelligence took the lead in creating this massacre and in putting
together the ensuing cover-up.”
Contrary to the official version, a direct order to fire is
heard on tape, an FBI agent provocateur fired his weapon just before the
fusillade, and law enforcement completed the burning of an ROTC building.
by Laurel Krause with Mickey Huff
This article is from the forthcoming book Censored 2013: Dispatches from the
Media Revolution and intends to expose the lies of American leadership
in order to uncensor the “unhistory” of the Kent State massacre, while also
aiming toward justice and healing, as censoring the past impacts American
Occupy protesters today.
“Lawful protest was pushed into the realm of massacre as the
US federal government,
the state of Ohio , and the Ohio
National Guard (ONG) executed their plans to silence antiwar protest in America .”
Ohio National Guardsmen fired sixty-seven gun shots in
thirteen seconds at Kent State University (KSU )
on May 4, 1970, they murdered four unarmed, protesting college students and
wounded nine others. For forty-two years, the United
States government has held the position that
Kent State
was a tragic and unfortunate incident occurring at a noontime antiwar rally on
an American college campus.
In 2010, compelling forensic evidence emerged showing that
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Counter Intelligence Program
(COINTELPRO) were the lead agencies in managing Kent
State government operations,
including the cover-up. At Kent State ,
lawful protest was pushed into the realm of massacre as the US
federal government, the state of Ohio ,
and the Ohio National Guard (ONG) executed their plans to silence antiwar
protest in America .
The new evidence threatens much more than the accuracy of
accounts of the Kent State
massacre in history books. As a result of this successful, ongoing Kent State
government cover-up, American protesters today are at much greater risk than
they realize, with no real guarantees or protections offered by the US First
Amendment rights to protest and assemble. This chapter intends to expose the
lies of the state in order to uncensor the “unhistory” of the Kent
State massacre, while also aiming
toward justice and healing, as censoring the past impacts our perspectives in
the present.
The killing of protesters at Kent
State changed the minds of many
Americans about the role
of the US in the Vietnam War. Following this massacre, there was an
unparalleled national response: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high
schools closed across America
in a student
strike of more than four million. Young people across the nation had
strong suspicions the Kent State
massacre was planned to subvert any further protests arising from the
announcement that the already controversial war in Vietnam
had expanded into Cambodia .
“Instead of investigating Kent
State , the American leadership
obstructed justice, obscured accountability, tampered with evidence, and buried
the truth.”
Yet instead of attempting to learn the truth at Kent
State , the US
government took complete control of the narrative in the press and ensuing lawsuits.
Over the next ten years, authorities claimed there had not been a
command-to-fire at Kent State ,
that the ONG had been under attack, and that their gunfire had been prompted by
the “sound of sniper fire.”
Instead of investigating Kent
State , the American leadership
obstructed justice, obscured accountability, tampered with evidence, and buried
the truth. The result of these efforts has been a very complicated government
cover-up that has remained intact for more than forty years.1
The hidden truth finally began to emerge at the fortieth
anniversary of the Kent State
massacre in May 2010, through the investigative journalism of John Mangels,
science writer at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, whose findings supported the
long-held suspicion that the four dead in Ohio
were intentionally murdered at Kent State
University by the US
government.
Mangels commissioned forensic evidence expert Stuart Allen
to professionally analyze a tape recording made from a Kent
State student’s dormitory window
ledge on May 4, 1970 ,
forever capturing the crowd and battle sounds from before, during, and after
the fusillade.2
For the first time since that fateful day, journalists and
concerned Americans were finally able to hear the devastating soundtrack of the
US government
murdering Kent State
students as they protested against the Vietnam War.
The cassette tape — provided to Mangels by the Yale
University Library, Kent State Collection, and housed all these years in a box
of evidence admitted into lawsuits led by attorney Joseph Kelner in his
representation of the Kent State victims — was called the “Strubbe tape” after
Terry Strubbe, the student who made the recording by placing a microphone
attached to a personal recorder on his dormitory window ledge. This tape
surfaced when Alan Canfora, a student protester wounded at Kent State, and
researcher Bob Johnson dug through Yale library’s collection and found a CD
copy of the tape recording from the day of the shootings. Paying ten dollars
for a duplicate, Canfora then listened to it and immediately knew he probably
held the only recording that might provide proof of an order to shoot. Three
years after the tape was found, the Plain Dealer commendably hired two
qualified forensic audio scientists to examine the tape.
But it is really the two pieces of groundbreaking evidence
Allen uncovered that illuminate and provide a completely new perspective into
the Kent State
massacre.
“Allen’s verified forensic evidence of the Kent
State command-to-fire directly
conflicts with guardsmen testimony that they acted in self-defense.”
First, Allen heard and verified the Kent
State command-to-fire spoken at noon on May
4, 1970 . The command-to-fire has been a point of contention, with
authorities stating under oath and to media for forty years that “no order to
fire was given at Kent State ,”
that “the Guard felt under attack from the students,” and that “the Guard
reacted to sniper fire.”3
Yet Allen’s verified forensic evidence of the Kent
State command-to-fire directly
conflicts with guardsmen testimony that they acted in self-defense.
The government claim — that guardsmen were under attack at
the time of the ONG barrage of bullets — has long been suspect, as there is
nothing in photographic or video records to support the “under attack” excuse.
Rather, from more than a football field away, the Kent
State student protesters swore,
raised their middle fingers, and threw pebbles and stones and empty tear gas
canisters, mostly as a response to their campus being turned into a battlefield
with over 2,000 troops and military equipment strewn across the Kent
State University
campus.
Then at 12:24 p.m. ,
the ONG fired armor-piercing bullets at scattering students in a parking lot — again,
from more than a football field away. Responding with armor-piercing bullets,
as Kent State
students held a peaceful rally and protested unarmed on their campus, was the US
government’s choice of action.
The identification of the “commander” responsible for the Kent
State command-to-fire on unarmed
students has not yet been ascertained. This key question will be answered
when American leadership decides to share the truth of what happened,
especially as the Kent State
battle was under US
government direction. Until then, the voice ordering the command-to-fire in the
Kent State Strubbe tape will remain unknown.
The other major piece of Kent
State evidence identified in
Allen’s analysis was the “sound of sniper fire” recorded on the tape. These
sounds point to Terry Norman, FBI informant and provocateur, who was believed
to have fired his low-caliber pistol four times, just seventy seconds before
the command-to-fire.
Mangels wrote in the Plain Dealer, “Norman
was photographing protestors that day for the FBI and carried a loaded
.38-caliber Smith & Wesson Model . . . five-shot revolver in a holster
under his coat for protection. Though he denied discharging his pistol, he
previously has been accused of triggering the Guard shootings by firing to warn
away angry demonstrators, which the soldiers mistook for sniper fire.”4
“The identification of the “commander” responsible for the Kent
State command-to-fire on unarmed
students has not yet been ascertained.”
Video footage and still photography have recorded the
minutes following the “sound of sniper fire,” showing Terry Norman sprinting
across the Kent State commons, meeting up with Kent Police and the ONG. In this
visual evidence, Norman immediately
yet casually hands off his pistol to authorities and the recipients of the
pistol show no surprise as Norman
hands them his gun.5
The “sound of sniper fire” is a key element of the Kent
State cover-up and is also referred
to by authorities in the Nation editorial, “Kent
State : The Politics of
Manslaughter,” from May 18, 1970 :
The murders occurred on May 4. Two days earlier, [Ohio National Guard Adjutant
General] Del Corso had issued a statement that sniper fire would be met by
gunfire from his men. After the massacre, Del Corso and his subordinates
declared that sniper fire had triggered the fusillade.6
Yet the Kent State “sound of sniper fire” remains key,
according to White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman, who noted President
Richard Nixon’s reaction to Kent State in the Oval Office on May 4, 1970: Chief
of Staff Bob Haldeman told him [of the killings] late in the afternoon. But at
two o’clock Haldeman jotted on his ever-present legal pad “keep P. filled
in on Kent State.” In his daily journal Haldeman expanded on the President’s
reaction: “He very disturbed. Afraid his decision set it off . . . then kept
after me all day for more facts. Hoping rioters had provoked the
shootings — but no real evidence that they did.” Even after he had left for the
day, Nixon called Haldeman back and among others issued one ringing command:
“need to get out story of sniper.”7
In a May 5, 1970 ,
article in the New York Times, President Nixon commented on violence at Kent
State : This should remind us all
once again that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy. It is my
hope that this tragic and unfortunate incident will strengthen the
determination of all the nation’s campuses, administrators, faculty and
students alike to stand firmly for the right which exists in this country of
peaceful dissent and just as strong against the resort to violence as a means
of such expression.8
President Nixon’s comment regarding dissent turning to
violence obfuscated and laid full blame on student protesters for creating
violence at Kent State .
Yet at the rally occurring on May 4th, student protester violence amounted to
swearing, throwing small rocks, and volleying back tear gas canisters, while
the gun-toting soldiers of the ONG declared the peace rally illegal, brutally
herded the students over large distances on campus, filled the air with tear
gas, and even threw rocks at students. Twenty minutes into the protest
demonstration, a troop of National Guard marched up a hill away from the
students, turned to face the students in unison, and fired.
The violence at Kent
State came from the National
Guardsmen, not protesting students.
On May 4, 1970 ,
the US
government delivered its deadly message to Kent
State students and the world: if
you protest in America
against the wars of the Pentagon and the Department of Defense, the US
government will stop at nothing to silence you.
Participating American militia colluded at Kent
State to organize and fight this
battle against American student protesters, most of them too young to vote but
old enough to fight in the Vietnam War.9
And from new evidence exposed forty years after the
massacre, numerous elements point directly to the FBI and COINTELPRO (Counter
Intelligence Program) as lead agencies managing the government operation of the
Kent State massacre, including the cover-up, but also with a firm hand in some
of the lead-up.
“Twenty minutes into the protest demonstration, a troop of
National Guard marched up a hill away from the students, turned to face the
students in unison, and fired.”
Prior to the announcement of the Cambodian incursion, the
ONG arrived in the Kent area acting in a federalized role as the
Cleveland-Akron labor wildcat strikes were winding down. The ONG continued in
the federalized role at Kent State, ostensibly to protect the campus and as a
reaction to the burning of a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) building.
Ohio Governor James “Jim” Rhodes claimed the burning of the ROTC building on
the Kent State
University campus was his reason
for “calling in the guard,” yet in this picture of the burning building, the
ONG are clearly standing before the flames as the building burns.10
From eyewitness accounts, the burning of the ROTC building
at Kent State
was completed by undercover law enforcement determined to make sure it
could become the symbol needed to support the Kent
State war on student protest.11
According to Dr. Elaine Wellin, an eyewitness to the many
events at Kent State
leading up to and including May 4th, there were uniformed and plain-clothes
officers potentially involved in managing the burning of the ROTC building. Wellin
was in close proximity to the building just prior to the burning and saw a
person with a walkie-talkie about three feet from her telling someone on the
other end of the communication that they should not send down the fire truck as
the ROTC building was not on fire yet.12
A memo to COINTELPRO director William C. Sullivan ordered a
full investigation into the “fire bombing of the ROTC building.” But only days
after the Kent State
massacre, every weapon that was fired was destroyed, and all other weapons used
at Kent State
were gathered by top ONG officers, placed with other weapons and shipped to Europe
for use by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), so no weapons used at Kent
could be traced.
From these pieces of evidence, it becomes clearer that the US
government coordinated this battle against student protest on the Kent
State campus. Using the playbook
from the Huston Plan, which refers to protesting students as the “New Left,”
the US government employed provocateurs, staged incidents, and enlisted
political leaders to attack and lay full blame on the students. On May 4, 1970 , at Kent
State University ,
the US
government fully negated every student response as they criminalized the First
Amendment rights to protest and assemble.13
The cover-up adds tremendous complexity to an already complicated
event, making it nearly impossible to fairly try the Kent
State massacre in the American
justice system.
This imposed “establishment” view that Kent State was about
“civil rights”—and not about murder or attempted murder—led to a legal
settlement on the basis of civil rights lost, with the US government
consistently refusing to address the death of four students and the wounding of
nine.14
“The burning of the ROTC building at Kent
State was completed by undercover
law enforcement.”
Even more disheartening, efforts to maintain the US
government cover-up at Kent State
recently went into overdrive in April 2012, when President Barack Obama’s
Department of Justice (DOJ) formally announced a refusal to open a new probe
into the wrongs of Kent State ,
continuing the tired 1970 tactic of referring to Kent
State as a civil rights matter.15
The April 2012 DOJ letters of response also included a full
admission that, in 1979, after reaching the Kent
State civil rights settlement, the
FBI Cleveland office destroyed what they considered a key piece of evidence:
the original tape recording made by Terry Strubbe on his dormitory window
ledge. In a case involving homicides, the FBI’s illegal destruction of evidence
exposes their belief to be “above the law,” ignoring the obvious fact that four
students were killed on May 4, 1970. As the statute of limitations never lapses
for murder, the FBI’s actions went against every law of evidence. The laws
clearly state that evidence may not be destroyed in homicides, even when the
murders are perpetrated by the US
government.
The destruction of the original Strubbe tape also shows the
FBI’s intention to obstruct justice: the 2012 DOJ letters on Kent
State claim that, because the
original Strubbe tape was intentionally destroyed, the copy examined by Allen
cannot be compared to the original or authenticated. However the original
Strubbe tape, destroyed by the DOJ, was never admitted into evidence.
The tape examined by Stuart Allen, however, is a one-to-one
copy of the Kent State Strubbe tape admitted into evidence in Kent
State legal proceedings by Joseph
Kelner, the lawyer representing the victims of Kent
State . Once an article has been
admitted into evidence, the article is considered authentic evidentiary
material.
Worse than this new smokescreen on the provenance of the
Kent State Strubbe tape and FBI efforts to destroy evidence is that the DOJ has
wholly ignored or refuted the tremendous body of forensic evidence work
accomplished by Allen, and verified by forensic expert Tom Owen.16
If the US Department of Justice really wanted to learn the
truth about what happened at Kent State
and was open to understanding the new evidence, DOJ efforts would include
organizing an impartial examination of Allen’s analysis and contacting him to
present his examination of the Kent State Strubbe tape. None of this has
happened.
“President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ)
formally announced a refusal to open a new probe into the wrongs of Kent
State , continuing the tired 1970
tactic of referring to Kent State
as a civil rights matter.”15
Instead, those seeking justice through a reexamination of
the Kent State
historical record based on new evidence have been left out in the cold.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, involved in Kent State from the very beginning as
a Cleveland city council person, asked important questions in a letter to the
DOJ on April 24, 2012, titled, “Analysis of Audio Record of Kent State Shooting
Leaves Discrepancies and Key Questions Unaddressed”:
While I appreciate the response from the Justice Department,
ultimately, they fail to examine key questions and discrepancies. It is well
known that an FBI informant, Terry Norman, was on the campus. That FBI
informant was carrying a gun. Eyewitnesses testified that they saw Mr. Norman
brandish that weapon. Two experts in forensic audio, who have previously
testified in court regarding audio forensics, found gunshots in their analysis
of the audio recording. Did an FBI informant discharge a firearm at Kent State?
Did an FBI informant precipitate the shootings?
Who and what events led to the violent encounter that
resulted in four students dead and nine others injured? What do the FBI files
show about their informant? Was he ever debriefed? Has he been questioned to
compare his statement of events with new analysis?
How, specifically, did the DOJ analyze the tape? How does
this compare to previous analysis conducted by independent sources that reached
a different conclusion? The DOJ suggested noises heard in the recording resulted
from a door opening and closing. What tests were used to make that
determination? Was an independent agency consulted in the process?
For more than a year, I have pushed for an analysis of the
Strubbe tape because Kent State
represented a tragedy of immense proportions. The Kent State shooting
challenged the sensibilities of an entire generation of Americans. This issue
is too important to ignore. We must demand a full explanation of the events.17
Concerned Americans may join Congressman Kucinich in
demanding answers to these questions and in insisting on an independent,
impartial organization—in other words, not the FBI—to get to the
bottom of this.
The FBI’s cloudy involvement includes questions about Terry
Norman’s relationship to the FBI, addressed in Mangels’s article, “Kent State
Shootings: Does Former Informant Hold the Key to the May 4th Mystery?”: Whether
due to miscommunication, embarrassment or an attempted cover-up, the FBI
initially denied any involvement with Norman
as an informant.
“Mr. Norman was not working for the FBI on May 4, 1970 , nor has he ever been in
any way connected with this Bureau,” director J. Edgar Hoover declared to Ohio
Congressman John Ashbrook in an August 1970 letter.
Three years later, Hoover ’s
successor, Clarence Kelley, was forced to correct the record.
The director acknowledged that the FBI had paid Norman $125
for expenses incurred when, at the bureau’s encouragement, Norman infiltrated a
meeting of Nazi and white power sympathizers in Virginia a month before the
Kent State shootings.18
Even more telling, Norman ’s
pistol disappeared from a police evidence locker and was completely retooled to
make sure that the weapon—used to create the “sound of sniper fire” on May 4 — would
not show signs of use. Indeed, every “investigation” into Kent
State shows that the FBI tampered,
withheld, and destroyed evidence, bringing into question government involvement
in both the premeditated and post-massacre efforts at Kent
State . In examining all inquiries
into Kent State ,
an accurate investigation has never occurred, as the groups involved in the
wrongs of Kent State
have been investigating themselves.19
“Every ‘investigation’ into Kent
State shows that the FBI tampered,
withheld, and destroyed evidence.”
The Kent State
students never had a chance against the armed will of the US
government in its aim to fight wars in Vietnam ,
Cambodia , and Laos
back in 1970. Further, the First Amendment rights to protest and assemble have
shown to be only vacuous platitudes. Forty-two years later, the Obama
administration echoes the original drone of the US
government denying the murder of protesters, pointing only to civil rights
lost. When bullets were fired on May 4th at Kent State, US government military
action against antiwar protesters on domestic soil changed from a civil rights
breach to acts of murder and attempted murder.
Congressman Kucinich, in an interview with Pacifica Radio
after his exchanges with DOJ by May of 2012, said, There are some lingering
questions that could change the way that history looks at what happened at Kent
State. And I think that we owe it to the present generation of Americans, the
generation of Americans that came of age during Kent, the students on campus,
we owe it to the Guardsmen, who it was said opened fire without any provocation
what so ever . . . we have to get to the truth.20
As long as American leadership fails to consider killing
protesters a homicidal action and not just about civil rights lost, there is
little safety for American protesters today, leaving the door wide open for more
needless and unnecessary bloodshed and possibly the killing of American
protesters again. This forty-two-year refusal to acknowledge the death of four
students relates to current US
government practices toward protest and protesters in America ,
as witnessed at Occupy Wall Street over the past year. When will it ever become
legal to protest and assemble in America
again? Will American leadership cross the line to kill American protesters
again? 21
In a rare editorial addressing this issue, journalist Stephen
Rosenfeld of AlterNet wrote,
History never exactly repeats itself. But its currents are
never far from the present. As today’s protesters and police employ bolder
tactics, the Kent State
and Jackson State
anniversaries should remind us that deadly mistakes can and do happen. It is
the government’s responsibility to wield proportionate force, not to over-arm
police and place them in a position where they could panic with deadly results.
22
Though forty-two years have passed, the lessons of Kent
State have not yet been learned.
No More Kent
States23
In 2010, the United Kingdom
acknowledged the wrongs of Bloody Sunday, also setting an example for the US
government to learn the important lessons of protest and the First Amendment.
In January 1972, during “Bloody Sunday,” British paratroopers shot and killed
fourteen protesters; most of the demonstrators were shot in the back as they
ran to save themselves.24
“The new Kent State
evidence is compelling, clearly showing how US
covert intelligence took the lead in creating this massacre and in putting
together the ensuing cover-up.”
Thirty-eight years after the Bloody Sunday protest, British
Prime Minister David Cameron apologized before Parliament, formally
acknowledging the wrongful murder of protesters and apologized for the
government.25 The healing in Britain has begun.
Considering the striking similarity in events where
protesters were murdered by the state, let’s examine the wrongs of Kent
State , begin to heal this core
American wound, and make a very important, humane course correction for America .
When will it become legal to protest in America ?
President Obama, the Department of Justice, and the US
government as a whole must take a fresh look at Stuart Allen’s findings in the
Kent State Strubbe tape. The new Kent
State evidence is compelling,
clearly showing how US
covert intelligence took the lead in creating this massacre and in putting
together the ensuing cover-up.
As the United States
has refused to examine the new evidence or consider the plight of American
protest in 2012, the Kent State Truth Tribunal formally requested the
International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague
consider justice at Kent State.26
Who benefited the most from the murder of student protesters
at Kent State ?
Who was really behind the Kent State
massacre? There is really only one US
agency that clearly benefited from killing student antiwar protesters at Kent
State : the Department of Defense.
Since 1970 through 2012, the military-industrial-cyber
complex strongly associated with the Department of Defense and covert US
government agencies have actively promoted never-ending wars with enormous
unaccounted-for budgets as they increase restrictions on American protest.
These aims of the Pentagon are evidenced today in the USA PATRIOT Act, the
further civil rights–limiting National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and
new war technologies like CIA drones.
Probing the dark and buried questions of the Kent
State massacre is only a beginning
step to shine much-needed light on the United
States military and to illuminate how the
Pentagon has subverted American trust and safety, as it endeavors to quell
domestic protest against war at any cost since at least 1970.
Laurel Krause is a writer and truth seeker dedicated to
raising awareness about ocean protection, safe renewable energy, and truth at Kent
State . She publishes a blog on
these topics at Mendo
Coast Current. She is the cofounder and director of the Kent State Truth Tribunal. Before
spearheading efforts for justice for her sister Allison Krause, who was killed
at Kent State
University on May 4, 1970 , Laurel
worked at technology start-ups in Silicon Valley .
Mickey Huff is the director of Project Censored and
professor of social science and history at Diablo
Valley College .
He did his graduate work in history on historical interpretations of the Kent
State shootings and has been
actively researching the topic more since his testimony to the Kent State Truth
Tribunal in New York City in 2010.
Notes
[1.] For more background on Kent
State and the many conflicting
interpretations, see Scott L. Bills, Kent State/May 4: Echoes Through
a Decade (Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 1982). Of particular
interest for background on this chapter, see Peter Davies, “The Burning
Question: A Government Cover-up?,” inKent State/May 4, 150–60 . For a full account of Davies’s work,
see The Truth About Kent State: A Challenge to the American Conscience (New
York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1973). For a listing of other works see
Selected Bibliography on the Events of May
4, 1970 , at Kent State
University ,http://dept.kent.edu/30yearmay4/source/bib.htm.
[2.] John Mangels, “New Analysis of 40-Year-Old Recording of
Kent State Shootings Reveals that Ohio Guard was Given an Order to Prepare to
Fire,”Plain Dealer (Cleveland), May 9, 2010, updated April 23, 2012,http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/05/new_analysis_of_40-year-old_re.h...Interview
with Stuart Allen analyzing new evidence who said of the efforts, “It’s about
setting history right.” See the footage “Kent State Shootings Case Remains
Closed,” CNN, added April 29, 2012 ,http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2012/04/29/justice-department-will-not-reopen-kent-state-shootings-case.cnn.
[3.] Submitted for the Congressional Record by
Representative Dennis Kucinich, “Truth Emerging in Kent State Cold Case
Homicide,” by Laurel Krause,http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r111%3AE14DE0-0019%3A.
For a brief introduction on the history and emerging historiography of the Kent
State shootings, see Mickey S. Huff, “Healing Old Wounds: Public Memory,
Commemoration, and Conflicts Over Historical Interpretations of the Kent State
Shootings, 1977–1990,” master’s thesis, Youngstown State University, December
1999, http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?acc_num=ysu999620326.
For the official government report, see The Report of
the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest (Washington: US Government
Printing Office, 1970), also known as the Scranton Commission. It should be
noted that the Scranton Commission stated in their conclusion between pages 287
and 290 that the shootings were “unnecessary, unwarranted and inexcusable” but
criminal wrongdoing was never established through the courts and no one was
ever held accountable for the shootings. Also, it should be noted, that the
interpretation that the guard was ordered to fire conflicts with Davies’s
interpretation, in note 1 here, that even though he believes there was a series
of cover-ups by the government, he has not attributed malice. For more on the
Kent State cover-ups early on, see I. F. Stone, “Fabricated Evidence in the
Kent State Killings,” New York Review of Books, December 3, 1970,http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1970/dec/03/fabricated-evidence-in-the-kent-state-killings.
[4.] Mangels, “Kent
State Tape Indicates Altercation and Pistol Fire Preceded National Guard
Shootings (audio),” Plain Dealer (Cleveland), October 8, 2010 ,http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2010/10/analysis_of_kent_state_audio_t.html.
[5.] Kent State Shooting 1970 [BX4510], Google Video, at 8:20 min.,http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3727445416544720642.
[6.] Editorial, “Kent
State : The Politics of
Manslaughter,” Nation, April 30,
2009 [May 18, 1970 ], http://www.thenation.com/article/kent-state-politics-manslaughter.
[7.] Charles A. Thomas, Kenfour: Notes On An Investigation (e-book),http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/4may70/kenfour3.
[8.] John Kifner, “4 Kent
State Students Killed by Troops,” New York Times, May 4, 1970 ,http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0504.html#article.
[9.] Voting age was twenty-one at this time, until the
passage of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution in 1971, which
lowered the voting age to eighteen, partially in response to Vietnam War
protests as youth under twenty-one could be drafted without the right to vote.
[10.] It should also be noted, that Rhodes
was running for election the Tuesday following the Kent
shootings on a law and order ticket.
[11.] “My Personal Testimony ROTC Burning May 2 1970 Kent
State,” YouTube, April 28, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ppBkB4caY0&feature=youtu.be; Freedom
of Information Act, FBI, Kent State Shooting, File Number 98-46479, part 7 of 8
(1970), http://vault.fbi.gov/kent-state-shooting/kent-state-shooting-part-07-of-08/view.
[12.] The Project Censored Show on The
Morning Mix, “May 4th and the Kent State Shootings in the 42nd Year,” Pacifica
Radio, KPFA, 94.1FM, May 4, 2012
live at 8:00 a.m. , archived online
at http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/80293
and http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42635027/20120504-Fri0800.mp3. For Wellin on ROTC,
see recording at 28:45.
Show description: The May 4th Kent State Shootings 42 Years
Later: Justice Still Not Served with Congressman Dennis Kucinich commenting on
the DOJ’s recent refusal to reopen the case despite new evidence of a Kent
State command-to-fire and the ‘sound of sniper fire’ leading to the National
Guard firing live ammunition at unarmed college students May 4, 1970; Dr.
Elaine Wellin, Kent State eyewitness shares seeing undercover agents at the
ROTC fire in the days before, provocateurs in staging the rallies at Kent, and
at Kent State on May 4th; we’ll hear from investigator and forensic evidence
expert Stuart Allen regarding his audio analysis of the Kent State Strubbe tape
from May 4th revealing the command-to-fire and the ‘sound of sniper fire’
seventy seconds before; and we hear from Kent State Truth Tribunal director
Laurel Krause, the sister of slain student Allison, about her efforts for
justice at Kent State and recent letter to President Obama..
Also see Peter Davies’ testimony about agents provocateurs
and the ROTC fire cited in note 1, “The Burning Question: A Government
Cover-up?,” in Kent
State/May 4, 150–60 .
[13.] The Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC),
“Volume 2: Huston Plan,”http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports_vol2.htm.
[14.] Associated Press, “Kent State Settlement: Was Apology
Included?,”Eugene Register-Guard, January
5, 1979 , http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19790105&id=xvJVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BuIDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3696,963632.
[15.] Mangels, “Justice Department Won’t Reopen Probe of
1970 Kent State Shootings,” Plain Dealer (Cleveland), April 24, 2012,http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2012/04/justice_department_wont_re-ope.html;
and kainah, “Obama Justice Dept.: No Justice for Kent State,” Daily Kos,
May 2, 2012, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/02/1086726/-Justice-Dept-No-Justice-for-Kent-State.
[16.] Mangels, “New Analysis.”
[17.] Letters between the Department of Justice and
Representative Dennis Kucinich, archived at the Congressman’s website, April 20
and April 24 of 2012,http://kucinich.house.gov/uploadedfiles/kent_state_response_from_doj.pdf andhttp://kucinich.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=292306.
[18.] Mangels, “Kent State Shootings: Does Former Informant
Hold the Key to the May 4 Mystery?,” Plain Dealer (Cleveland), December 19, 2010 ,http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2010/12/kent_state_shootings_does_form.html.
[19.] Freedom of Information Act, FBI.
[20.] The Project Censored Show on The
Morning Mix, “May 4th and the Kent
State Shootings in the 42nd Year.”
[21.] Steven Rosenfeld, “Will a Militarized Police Force
Facing Occupy Wall Street Lead to Another Kent State?,” AlterNet, May 3, 2012 ,http://www.alternet.org/rights/155270/will_a_militarized_police_force_facing_occupy_wall_street_lead_to_another_kent_state_massacre.
[22.] Ibid.
[23.] Laurel Krause, “No More Kent States,” Mendo Coast
Current, April 21, 2012 , http://mendocoastcurrent.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/13-day-for-kent-state-peace.
[24.] Laurel Krause, “Unjustified, Indefensible,
Wrong,” Mendo Coast Current, September
13, 2010 ,http://mendocoastcurrent.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/unjustified-indefensible-wrong.
[25.] Associated Press, “Bloody Sunday Report Blames British
Soldiers Fully,”USA Today, June 15, 2010, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-06-15-Bloody-Sunday-Ireland_N.htm;
and Cameron’s direct quote from Henry McDonald, Owen Bowcott, and Hélène
Mulholland, “Bloody Sunday Report: David Cameron Apologises for ‘Unjustifiable’
Shootings,” Guardian, June 15, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/15/bloody-sunday-report-saville-inquiry.
[26.] Laurel Krause, “To the Hague :
Justice for the May 4th Kent State Massacre?,” Mendo Coast Current, May 7, 2012 ,http://mendocoastcurrent.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/may-4th-kent-state-massacre-a-call-for-truth-justice;
for more on the Kent State Truth Tribunal, see www.TruthTribunal.org.
Dosamuno - 10/11/2012 - 06:42
Eleven days after the Kent
State massacre, on May 15th, 1970 , two more students
were killed and twelve injured at Jackson
State University
in Jackson Mississippi. Like the students at Kent
State , these students were
protesting mass murder by the American government in Vietnam
and Cambodia .
The Commemorative Wall, which was built as a monument to
Americans who died as combatants in the appalling imperial violence known as
The Vietnam War, should include the names of the brave brothers and sisters who
were killed or injured at Kent State
and Jackson State .
And it should include the millions of victims of the war from Vietnam
and Cambodia .
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