![]() ![]() ![]() He had “called attention to the grave dangers which accompany the new politics of violence and confrontation which have found so much favor on our campuses.” The college antiwar movement was no more than a front for a “calculated, consistent, and well-publicized barrage of criticism against the principles of this nation.” īut the President, when newly elected and anxious to pull the mantle of statesman over his accustomed garb of political street fighter, had appointed more sensitive men to his cabinet, whose presence he was by now coming to regret. Kent State, he told the American Retail Association, had been “predictable and avoidable”. Later that evening, Nixon’s chief rhetorical surrogate, Vice President Spiro Agnew, amplified on the administration’s lack of remorse. These notes included comments that Haldeman was too discreet to include even in his personal journal: “The need to mobilize Congress now to stand up don’t waffle under student riots resist gov. to stand firmly for princip & right of peaceful dissent & just as firmly against the resort to violence.Violence can only result in tragedy. This should give added impetus to the efforts of resp. The statement’s callous tone struck some as a verbose paraphrase of the reflexive response of Nixon’s Middle American supporters: “They had it coming.” Some of the younger White House staff members “refused to believe that the president had seen the statement before it was issued, much less written it.” Actually, Nixon had personally dictated it, in even more brutal terms than the official issuance used:Įvery Am feels deepest sympathy for families of those who died in these incidents 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 that exists in this country to dissent and just as firmly against the resort to violence as a means of such expression. ![]() This should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy. – after Wall Street, already on the decline since the President’s invasion of Cambodia four days before, closed on its single worst day’s finish since the Kennedy assassination – White House press secretary Ronald Zeigler read the official administration statement on the killings in Ohio: Main need right now is to maintain calm & hope this serves to dampen other demonstrations rather than firing them up. There’s an opportunity in this crisis as in all others – but it’s very hard to identify & know how to handle it. Hoping rioters had provoked the shooting… The journal entry also betrays more than a hint that he hoped this show of force might help achieve a primary goal of his presidency: to crush the student antiwar movement that had driven his predecessor Lyndon Johnson from office: ![]() According to his version, the President had quite a bit more to say – and was less concerned with the human implications of the bloodshed than with the political ramifications for his administration. Haldeman, as usual, took notes during the conversation and wrote them up in journal form that evening. Nobody knows why it happened.” Īccording to Nixon’s account, written eight years after the fact, this was all that was said. “Something just came over the wires about a demonstration at Kent State,” Haldeman explained, “The National Guard opened fire and some students got shot.” He took a nap after lunch and then called in his chief of staff, H.R. He was planning a vacation for the coming weekend in Florida. Thomas (partial work)Īccording to the Memoirs of President Richard Nixon, the early afternoon of was quiet. MISSION BETRAYED: Richard Nixon and the Scranton Commission Inquiry into Kent State.Īn e-book by Charles A. ![]()
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