May 4, 1970 is a date that should live in infamy. As Walter Cronkite, the newscaster and host of the docudrama “You Are There” often remarked, “It was a day like any other, filled with the events that make history.” The history-making event of that day was the murder of four college students and the wounding of nine others by members of the Ohio State National Guard. America witnessed its own armed forces killing and maiming unarmed civilians, most of whom were protesting the Vietnam war. It was called the Kent State massacre. Like the Boston Massacre 200 years earlier, it revealed to Americans that their government, or at least many of their elected officials, were not necessarily “of the people, by the people and for the people.”
The Guard had been dispatched to the Kent State University campus to disperse protesters and restore “law and order.” Protests against the war had flared up across the nation after the U.S. started carpet bombing Cambodia. The rationale for this incursion on a sovereign nation was that it would cut off supply routes to forces opposing the American-supported government in South Vietnam. Richard Nixon was the President at the time of this initiative, and he had assured Americans prior to his election that he had a “secret plan” to win the war. He insisted that he could not reveal the plan before the election because the Viet Cong, the resistance force from the north, could use that knowledge to subvert his winning strategy. This was, of course, nonsense, but a war-weary nation was willing to try any new approach that promised to end the slaughter and mutilation of American soldiers.
Bombing the country next to Vietnam hardly seemed a strategy that could be concealed for more than a few minutes after the first bombs were dropped. Demonstrations against the war had already been occurring for years, but before the Kent State massacre they had little impact on the U.S. government’s commitment to prop up the unapologetically corrupt South Vietnamese government. Even after the shootings at Kent State, most Americans were willing to give the Nixon government an opportunity to end the war “with dignity.”
The public demanded justifications for the Kent State shootings, and numerous propaganda mills were ready with stories that blamed the victims. Some claimed the Guard had been fired upon, and a Guardsman had been killed. Others reported that a massive body of rock-throwing students rushed and surrounded the small contingent of Guardsmen. The President himself called the protesters (and the bystanders) struck by the bullets “bums” and claimed that the protest had been organized and coordinated by “outside agitators” intent on provoking the National Guardsmen. Investigations that followed the shooting established that the Guardsmen suffered no injuries, other than one man who claimed bruising to his arm. None of the protesters had brandished or carried weapons. The Guardsmen had not been rushed or surrounded. All of the victims were university students.
Twenty-eight National Guard troops fired 67 live rounds at students in their vicinity, most of those injured actually being no closer than several hundred feet from the shooters. Several of the wounded who survived were permanently disabled; one was left paraplegic by a bullet that shattered his spine. None of the Guardsmen were convicted of any criminal activity. A civil suit against the Guard and the University initially succeeded, but the unanimous verdict of the jury was overturned on appeal on the grounds that the trial judge had not ruled appropriately when advised that one of the jurors had been threatened. (Note to the former President’s defense team: All of the jurors in the “hush money case” may face threats that will provide a basis for rejecting the jury verdict if, in fact, the jury delivers a guilty verdict).
These past events cannot be ignored in the context of the spreading protests connected to the Middle East war. How long before we witness another Kent State? How many confrontations between police and demonstrators will end with no deaths or paraplegics? Once again, many in our country are labelling outraged citizens as “outside agitators” and foreign operatives. It is a worrisome déjà vu, especially for the friends and relatives of the students who are protesting. That they are protesting for or against Hamas, Israel, Palestine, or any other agenda in this grotesque struggle becomes irrelevant when agitation and anger peak and bullets start flying. College campuses have once again become dangerous places.
There is no denying that the attack on unarmed civilians by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, leaving more than 1,200 noncombatant Israelis, including women, children, and the elderly, dead and more than 250 kidnapped, will forever stand as one of the most indefensible acts of war in modern history. This indiscriminate slaughter established beyond any argument the cruelty and immorality of the government officials in Gaza who orchestrated or allowed this attack to occur. Unfortunately, the Palestinian citizens of Gaza, rather than the perpetrators of this horrific crime, have faced and continue to face the full wrath of an Israeli government that failed to protect its own citizens and has turned to a “scorched earth” strategy that is also indefensible.
Our history in Vietnam indicates that a nation cannot bomb its way to peace. For every innocent life taken by American troops or bombs, dozens of enemy combatants were created. Obviously, every Palestinian child killed by Israeli soldiers or fighter jets has parents and grandparents and siblings who will not forget or forgive. Israel has been surrounded by enemies for more than 70 years and has suffered greatly at the hands of hostile governments. Nonetheless, reason demands that the killing, hostage taking, arbitrary detentions and other acts of war stop. That student demonstrations will affect this madness is unlikely, but Americans have an irrevocable right to express their opinions, concerns and outrage without fear of being killed or crippled. As people who call themselves “leaders” cast obscenities at each other and plot the destruction of their neighbors, we Americans can only hope that the madness does not infect our young people, and our politicians do not feel obliged to demonstrate their “strength” by sending armed troops against protesters.
Dr. Lechtenberg is an Easton resident who graduated from Tufts University and Tufts Medical School in Massachusetts and subsequently trained at The Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan. He worked as a neurologist at several New York Hospitals, including Kings County and The Long Island College Hospital, while maintaining a private practice, teaching at SUNY Downstate Medical School, and publishing 15 books on a variety of medical topics. He worked in drug development in the U.S., as well as in England, Germany, and France.
