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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from coast to coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Just past noon, Kent State University in Ohio, May fifth,

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Speaker 2: more than fifty years ago, fifty third anniversary was just observed.

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Speaker 2: In just thirteen fatal seconds, sixty bullets were fired at

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Speaker 2: demonstrators and that left four Kent State students dead, nine wounded.

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Speaker 2: And I was just asking Robert Giles, author of When

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Speaker 2: Truth Mattered, why didn't the governor or the president of

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Speaker 2: Kent State shut down the university on Sunday morning.

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Speaker 3: Well, there's several reasons for that. First off, as the president,

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Speaker 3: Bob Wide, was out of town. He left on Friday

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Speaker 3: afternoon to go to Iowa for an educational meeting and

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Speaker 3: a family visit. And when he last checked, he thought

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Speaker 3: that the campus was going to be quiet and there

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Speaker 3: was nothing to be alarmed about, and he felt free

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Speaker 3: to take his trip. And so when Governor Rhodes came in,

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Speaker 3: the first thing he did was go into a secret

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Speaker 3: meeting with local officials and the county prosecutor. A man

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Speaker 3: named Ron Kine strongly urged the governor to shut down

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Speaker 3: the campus. He said, there's going to be something terrible

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Speaker 3: is going to happen here and we should shut down

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Speaker 3: the campus now, and Rhodes said, absolutely not. He said,

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Speaker 3: he's quoted as saying if I shut down the campus,

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Speaker 3: people are going to look at me and say he

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Speaker 3: caved in to the radicals. And so that was the

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Speaker 3: theme that he then carried out into his press conference

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Speaker 3: when he's referred to these young demonstrators as worse than

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Speaker 3: the Nazis and so on. But that was a series

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Speaker 3: of things. And then after after the shooting, the county

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Speaker 3: prosecutor ron Kin again called the governor's office, who governor

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Speaker 3: with Brogues back in Columbus by then called his office

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Speaker 3: and said, you've got to shut down the campus, and

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Speaker 3: there was a hesitation, and Rose's aide said, well, the

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Speaker 3: governor wants to think about it, and so ron Kin

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Speaker 3: turned to the local judge named Carris, who said absolutely,

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Speaker 3: adiation in order shutting down the campus immediately, so that

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Speaker 3: the campus was shut down from late afternoon on May

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Speaker 3: the fourth, after the shooting, and it was the campus

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Speaker 3: was shut down except for people who had special passes

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Speaker 3: and for national guards when who were still on for

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Speaker 3: fifteen days.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's a type of hubris and the part

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Speaker 2: of politicians that this is about them and not about

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Speaker 2: public safety, which is just you know, it doesn't matter

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Speaker 2: the party. It happens all the time where at an

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Speaker 2: every level, including one centator right now from California, it

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Speaker 2: seems to feel like the whole country can't go on

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Speaker 2: without her. So they don't want to resign. They don't

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Speaker 2: ever want to do anything. They want to control everything

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Speaker 2: about their career and about their image, and it's just

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Speaker 2: all ego. What would have happened had they shut down

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Speaker 2: the campus that day?

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Speaker 3: Oh, I saw people would sell me alive because they

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Speaker 3: have had to go home, and and there wouldn't have

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Speaker 3: been any gathering of students to give the service targets

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Speaker 3: from the National Guard.

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Speaker 2: The What would the National Guard have done? Would they

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Speaker 2: have do you think they would have stuck around on

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Speaker 2: campus for a day or two? But they shut it down.

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Speaker 3: The governor said that we'll keep the National Guard here

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Speaker 3: as long as it takes to get the campus under control,

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Speaker 3: so they would have stayed for some time.

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Speaker 1: So the.

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Speaker 2: Take me through step by step. Then after that announcement

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Speaker 2: gets made, what the rest of Sunday looks like when

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Speaker 2: the campus is open, You've got stringers on the field.

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Speaker 2: You've got photographers and you have one print reporter who's

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Speaker 2: there on campus.

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Speaker 3: Is that correct that that was on Monday day on Sunday,

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Speaker 3: not on Sunday. Well, we had people covering it on Sunday.

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Speaker 3: But what happened on Sunday was that it was it

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Speaker 3: was a nice spring day, and the kids started to

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Speaker 3: engage with the guardsmen. They played frisbee, you know, they did,

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Speaker 3: got friendly with them until about late in the afternoon

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Speaker 3: when things got tent and the students wanted to have

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Speaker 3: another small demonstration, and the guardsmen pushed them back through

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Speaker 3: the campus gates and shut the campus down. There was

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Speaker 3: no there was no rough stuff, but it was clearly

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Speaker 3: a moment of rising tension because the guardsmen knew that

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Speaker 3: they had by then, had you been given their orders

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Speaker 3: through the governor uh to make sure that there was

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Speaker 3: going to be no no rally of peace or otherwise

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Speaker 3: the next day, And so the students were already making

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Speaker 3: noises and fading things, which indicated that they were going

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Speaker 3: to try to defy the governor's orders and have their

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Speaker 3: protests gathering on the following day at noon. That was

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Speaker 3: just a void from Monday in May the fourth.

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Speaker 2: The irony then of the governor coming out and calling

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Speaker 2: the students brown shirts, when in fact the National Guard

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Speaker 2: was acting more like the controlling you know, I mean,

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Speaker 2: I think the word goon would be too strong a term,

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Speaker 2: but they immediately slipped into the we're going to control

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Speaker 2: you physically, we're going to we're in charge here, much

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Speaker 2: more of what we would consider it to be typical

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Speaker 2: brown shirt behavior. If we're going to look at it

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Speaker 2: like that, go ahead, go ahead, Robert.

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Speaker 3: I was going to say that the Guard leadership was

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Speaker 3: very incompetent because they didn't have a plan. They didn't

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Speaker 3: have a plan for when the Guard arrived, They didn't

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Speaker 3: have a plan for how they were going to disperse

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Speaker 3: the students on Monday, and they didn't have a plan

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Speaker 3: once they they put their their plan, not their plan,

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Speaker 3: but they gan to move against the students on Monday

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Speaker 3: on noon when the students were gathering for their demonstration.

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Speaker 2: So what was the background? I mean a lot of ways. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: they didn't plan it, but they were also weren't trained

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Speaker 2: how to plan it, right.

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Speaker 3: That's true. But they had a Brigadier General Robert Canterbury

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Speaker 3: who was in charge, and some of the photographs show

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Speaker 3: him on Monday Day. In fact, the cover of the

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Speaker 3: photograph and the cover of the book shows him in

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Speaker 3: a civilian suit and tie, and he's at the back.

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Speaker 3: There's a picture on the cover of this of the

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Speaker 3: guardsman shoot actually shooting at the students and General Canterbury's

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Speaker 3: way at the back, and he's got his hand up

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Speaker 3: now he's trying to get them to stop shooting. But

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Speaker 3: he had no he had no control over the troops.

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Speaker 3: And obviously they the shooting. I think it was everybody

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Speaker 3: seemed to conclude with spontaneous. There's been a lot of

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Speaker 3: effort to sign you know, a command that to shoot,

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Speaker 3: you know, as a single shot, because regards to respond

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Speaker 3: the way it did.

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Speaker 2: You know the old expression if all you have is

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Speaker 2: a hammer, or everything looks like a nail, right, And

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Speaker 2: so this this general, what was his background.

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Speaker 3: He had many many years of good service as a

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Speaker 3: in combat and other places. And he was he was

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Speaker 3: the commander of this National Guard unit in Ohio, right,

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Speaker 3: And but he was willfully unprepared. One of the questions

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Speaker 3: that I raised about him was why he wasn't court martial.

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Speaker 3: It turns out that when he was when the National

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Speaker 3: Guard was sent to again state. They were under the

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Speaker 3: command of the governor of Ohio. Had the had the

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Speaker 3: federal government sent the National Guardian the President Nixon sent

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Speaker 3: the National Guardian, then he were and the National Guard

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Speaker 3: would have been under the federal government, and he would

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Speaker 3: have been subject to the military court of Justice and

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Speaker 3: subject to course martial.

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Speaker 2: You know, that's so interesting. I didn't know that because

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Speaker 2: in a way, my impression of that was shaped by

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Speaker 2: the Neil Young penned song Ohio done by Crosby Stills,

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Speaker 2: Nash and Young that Tin Soldiers and Nixon's coming were

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Speaker 2: finally on our own. It would have ruined it if

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Speaker 2: they had mentioned the governor. It wouldn't have seemed like right.

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Speaker 2: It's poetic somehow, but that's unfair, all right, So the

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Speaker 2: things get chippy again between the students and the National Guard.

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Speaker 2: Late on Sunday, what was Sunday night like.

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Speaker 3: That was pretty quiet. I think the students were back

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Speaker 3: and behind the campus gates, and I think they have

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Speaker 3: some of them were planning how they were going to

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Speaker 3: organize on Monday, or they're going to begin their rally

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Speaker 3: and so on and their protest. But until up until

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Speaker 3: noon on Sunday, just before noon on Sunday, things were

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Speaker 3: fairly quiet.

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Speaker 2: And so your experience then you didn't even have a

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Speaker 2: reporter there, as you said on Sunday, because it looked

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Speaker 2: perhaps like everything was calming down or that this was

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Speaker 2: going to get resolved peaceably. There still was no indication

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Speaker 2: of what was coming up on May the fourth, but

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Speaker 2: what was the So you I imagine you were tracking

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Speaker 2: what the college newspaper was doing or have since then,

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Speaker 2: or the college reporters, because you had said you often

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Speaker 2: hired people from the campus that came out there, and

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Speaker 2: it looked like some as particularly the photographers, seemed very

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Speaker 2: talented that came out of out of the student newspaper.

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Speaker 3: Well, a student newspaper was not really very much involved

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Speaker 3: in our coverage. And we had a very experienced journalism

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Speaker 3: student named Jeff Salad who was having his on Monday,

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Speaker 3: in fact was his final day of journalims school classes

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Speaker 3: and we had hired him, so they were when he

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Speaker 3: did his coverage, he was really working for the Acrobacon

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Speaker 3: Jeneral and so so uh, we didn't just didn't use

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Speaker 3: use actual members of the college campus newspaper in our

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Speaker 3: cage a Kent State because we had other people who

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Speaker 3: had been on Kent State campus in various roles covering education,

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Speaker 3: covering sports, doing a lot of other things for many

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Speaker 3: many years, including some demonstrations that had taken place two

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Speaker 3: and three years before. There was a chapter of this

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Speaker 3: Students for Democratic Society that protested against the appearance of

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Speaker 3: police recruiters from Oakland, California. And then there was a

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Speaker 3: group of there was an organization called the Black United

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Speaker 3: Students who protested for more courses and more attention given to.

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Speaker 2: The black experience, black history, black black literature.

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Speaker 3: Right right, So, as a matter of fact, this is interesting.

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Speaker 3: The Black United Students, uh did not participate at all

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Speaker 3: on Monday, and they said told one of our reporters

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Speaker 3: that they knew once they saw the guards had had rifles.

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Speaker 3: They said, you know, we will be the first target.

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Speaker 3: So they they disappeared, they lay low, and of course

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Speaker 3: they were not participating in any way in the demonstration,

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Speaker 3: and because they knew that they could become easy targets

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Speaker 3: or they.

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Speaker 2: Would stand out in war perhaps against the white, predominantly

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Speaker 2: white campus.

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Speaker 3: So anyhow, so when you look at the photographs of

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Speaker 3: the masses of students, you won't see any any black students.

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Speaker 2: That's really really thank you for that. I never knew that.

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Speaker 2: Very interesting. So things calm down maybe a little bit.

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Speaker 2: On Sunday night, there's some talk in the dorms, I'm sure,

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Speaker 2: being like any college campus, I'm sure there was a

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Speaker 2: lot of people who were complaining about their campus being

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Speaker 2: under siege and feeling like and this is so interesting, Robert,

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Speaker 2: I think you'll agree with me, there was a different feeling.

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Speaker 2: Young people today may not realize kind of that sense

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Speaker 2: of ownership that student bodies felt when they gathered at

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Speaker 2: a college campus. It was only going to be theirs

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Speaker 2: for four years. It was a transient ownership, but they

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Speaker 2: were invested in it and this was their place of

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Speaker 2: learning and that this is that whole concept of alma mater.

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Speaker 2: You know, this is a place where something new was

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Speaker 2: being born and being hatched. And I don't know that

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Speaker 2: there's the same feeling on campuses today everywhere like there

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Speaker 2: was back in the nineteen sixties, that sense of almost

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Speaker 2: you know, proprietorship or territorialseness to the.

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Speaker 3: It was territorial, but in a different way. Yeah, sort

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Speaker 3: of a snapshot that said it was expressing deep resentment

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Speaker 3: that these armed soldiers were on their campus trying to

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Speaker 3: prevent them from exercising their First Amendment rights to have

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Speaker 3: a protest. It was a very focused kind of reaction,

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Speaker 3: and but it was it ran very deep throughout that

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Speaker 3: crowd that gathered on the on the Commons on Monday

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Speaker 3: noon because and it was clear that they shifted their

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Speaker 3: their anger from Nixon to Vietnam War to the idea

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Speaker 3: that here were American soldiers with armed arms on their.

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Speaker 2: Heads, bearing arms yea, and.

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Speaker 3: Bearing arms, and they were on there this is our

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Speaker 3: turf place where you know, we had we had the

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Speaker 3: freedom to express ourselves.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast a M every weeknight

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Speaker 1: at one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to

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Speaker 1: Coast a m dot com for more