Campus Scene during Shootings at Kent State University, Records of U.S. Attorneys, National Archives at Chicago, NARA ID 2723186.
Map of Site of Shootings at Kent State University, President Nixon's Commission on Campus Unrest. 6/13/-12/1970, NARA ID 596837.
KENT STATE SHOOTING #OTD 1970
In the midst of Vietnam War, President Nixon televised his decision to initiate the Cambodian campaign. This apparent expansion of the war detonated an explosion of antiwar activity that escalated to a national crisis when 4 students were shot at a protest at Kent State University in Ohio.
Affidavit of student shot, Donald S. Mackenzie, NARA ID 596838.
Telegram from Doris and Arthur Krause to President Ford re: the Pardon of Former President Nixon, Ford Library, NARA ID 16637619.
Did you know...?
- While Nixon spoke of initiating the Cambodian campaign, he had been secretly bombing Cambodia since mid-March 1969—an escalation of a covert bombing campaign started by President Johnson in 1965.
- Ohio National Guard troops opened fire on unarmed students. There were over 1,300 armed troops, armored personnel carriers, mortar launchers, and helicopters.
- 67 shots were fired in 13 seconds, killing 4 students and wounding 9—one paralyzed for life (Dean Kahler).
- Two of the students murdered weren't protesters; they were walking to class, and one of those was ROTC and planned to enter the military.
- Following this shooting, an estimated 4 million striking students shut down 800 campuses nationwide.
- According to a Gallup Poll, 58 % of Americans blamed the students for the violence at Kent State.
- Dean Kahler, who was shot and paralyzed during the attack, came out of an induced coma to read a letter that began: “Dear communist hippie radical, I hope by the time you read this, you are dead.”
- President Nixon responded to the shootings stating: “When dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy.”
- President Nixon's Commission on Campus Unrest concluded: “the indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted and inexcusable.”
- A federal grand jury indicted 8 guardsmen, but found they were not subject to criminal prosecution because they acted in self defense.
See also:
Remembering Vietnam: Online Exhibit
Nixon Library's Nixon and Kent State - Fifty Years Ago: Tragedy Strikes at Kent State
