5-1-07, 10:45 pm EDT

It was a time of resistance and rebellion. A mass movement had emerged against the war, and millions were outraged by an illegal US military intervention. The man in the White House wasn't named Bush. He was named Nixon. The nation invaded wasn't Iraq, but Cambodia.

It took thirteen seconds. In these thirteen seconds, four young people died, and nine others were maimed. But now, thirty seven years after shots were fired by National Guardsmen at Kent State University in Ohio, a newly disclosed audiotape may put new perspective on the events of May 4, 1970.

'Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming......'

Alan Canfora, 58, was shot in the wrist that day. He was joined at a news conference by Joseph Lewis, 56, who was also wounded. According to Canfora, the audiotape contains the voice of an unidentified Ohio National Guard officer saying, 'Right here! Get set! Point! Fire!'

Canfora said he will turn over copies of the tape to federal and state officials with an appeal to reopen the investigation over how the firing began, according to an article by Thomas Sheeran of the Associated Press, which covered the news conference.

'Last summer I hear the drumming....'

Before early May of 1970, there was little to distinguish Kent State University outside the midwest, although visitors have always commented on its well maintained campus. In 1970, it was a largely working class school with many of its students coming from places like Cleveland, Youngstown and Akron.

Kent State, as other campuses across the nation, had a substantial and active movement against the war in Vietnam. And on April 30, 1970, when President Richard Nixon announced the secret US military invasion of Cambodia, Kent State was only one of the campuses to rebel.

On the evening of the following day, May 1st, incidents of vandalism were reported on Water Street, an off-campus area that was home to more than a few bars. This incident, which included bottles being thrown at passing cars or through shop windows -- and, later, a bonfire -- seem to have involved intoxicated patrons and not Kent State students.

But the Water Street events did succeed in frightening LeRoy Satrom, the then mayor of Kent, who contacted then Ohio Governor James Rhodes on May 2nd with the request that the National Guard be sent to Kent to maintain order. By the time the Guardsmen arrived that evening, a dilapidated structure used for ROTC classes at Kent State was already ablaze.

'Four dead in Ohio...'

On May 4, 1970 students began to assemble in the commons area of the campus for a previously announced protest against the US invasion into Cambodia. Many students were also protesting the presence of the armed National Guard troops on the Kent campus.

A National Guardsman in a jeep and holding a bullhorn announced the assembly was illegal and that students should disperse. When this proved unsuccessful, National Guardsmen in full riot gear and wearing gas masks, fired tear gas at the students, and this was generally successful in clearing the commons.

Students moved away from the commons and toward a structure outside Taylor Hall known as the pagoda. Behind them, the National Guard advanced and went up and over a spot known on the campus as Blanket Hill. Students were generally dispersed near Taylor Hall or Prentice Hall, located nearby.

After one detachment of the Guard found themselves on an athletic field bordered by a chain link fence, they began to move back toward the commons area. This company had just reached the pagoda at the apex of Blanket Hill when they stoped, turned around, and fired. At the front of the line, a left handed Guardsman is firing a handgun. Other Guardsmen are firing their rifles, and one of these Guardsmen appears to be taking dead aim at the photographer whose camera captured the image. Several Guardsmen have their rifles pointed almost straight up into the air.

It was over in thirteen seconds.

'What if you knew her, and found her dead on the ground...'

Allison Krause was 19 years old and had been active in the anti-war movement. She would be immortalized by Soviet poet Yevgeniy Yevtushenko. In an encounter with a National Guardsman the day before, she had placed a small flower in the barrel of his gun and said, 'Flowers are better than bullets.' She was killed by a gunshot wound to the left side of her chest. She was 343 feet away from the National Guard at the time of her death.

Jeff Miller was 20 years old. While photographs taken that day show him actively taunting the National Guardsmen with two upraised middle fingers, he was not known as an activist. Friends recall him as rather shy, and trying to find his way. In short, a not atypical young man. He had been to the now legendary Woodstock music festival, and played the drums. One thing is for certain: With his two-tone shirt, long hair and headband, he stood out. He was killed by a gunshot wound in the mouth and died instantly. It is his body in the foreground of the Pulitzer winning photograph of the tragedy, in which an agonized young woman kneels next to him. He was the closest to the Guard among the four students killed. He was 270 feet away.

Sandy Scheuer was, like Jeff Miller, 20 years old. The available accounts state that Jeff and Sandy were friends, and that he would often come to her house for a meal. Sandy was not a participant at the demonstration on May 4. She was walking to class when a National Guard bullet went through her throat. She was 390 feet away from the Guardsmen.

William Schroeder was 19 years old. He was part of Kent State's ROTC program and was not part of the May 4 demonstration. He had a folder in his hand and was headed for class. Reports suggest he was determined to stay behind the National Guard because he believed that was the most safe position. He was behind the Guard, and he hit the ground when shots rang out. And it was while on the ground, lying on his stomach, that a Guard bullet went through his back and entered his chest. He was 382 feet away from the firing line.

'Gotta get down to it, soldiers are gunning us down...'

Of the nine wounded students, the most seriously injured was Dean Kahler, shot at a distance of 300 feet from the Guard. Kahler was permanently paralyzed as a result of the bullet wound to his spine.

In the aftermath of the Kent State shoots, President Nixon created the President's Commission on Campus Unrest, also known as the Scranton Commission. The Commission found the shooting at Kent State to be unjustified.

Despite this, no criminal prosecution was ever pursued against the National Guard. Although eight members of the Guard were indicted by a grand jury for their actions at Kent State, the charges against them were dismissed in 1974. There were numerous civil litigations against the Ohio National Guard, the last one of which resulted in a settlement to the families in the amount of $63,000 per victim.

'How can you run when you know?....'

A great deal has changed in thirty seven years. In May of 1970, most people in the US would have felt a measure of confidence in government, even if anti-war sentiment had been growing for five years or more. Watergate and the disclosures which followed were two or three years away. COINTELPRO was still shielded from the public by the cloak of national security.

There was still a level of naivete it would be difficult to imagine today. On May 4, there was a widespread belief that the National Guardsmen did not have live ammunition in their guns, and that they were carrying blank rounds. This delusion was not shared by the African-American students on the Kent campus who had the experience many of their white counterparts lacked. They knew that guns were always loaded.

With the hindsight of history, we know that the government isn't shy about covering up and using lies to maintain power, political, or economic advantage. The exposure of the Bush administration's manipulation and use of falsehoods to buttress their desire to invade Iraq is certainly proof of that.

Alan Canfora is right to state that the technology exists today to filter out the static and sonic defects on a recording that is almost four decades old. If this is done, and a clean and enhanced version of the tape made at the time of the shooting does clearly reveal a National Guard order to fire on Kent State's unarmed students, the result may be one thing a bullet cannot shatter and kill. The truth.

[The quoted lines in segment breaks in this article are excerpts from the song 'Ohio,' by Neil Young].

-Lawrence Albright is a contributing writer on politics and culture for Political Affairs.

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