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Today in history, Vietnam

Ohio Governor James Rhodes

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Ohio Governor James Rhodes

May 3, 1970

The fuse is lit

On May 4, 1970, life ended suddenly and horribly for Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Knox on the Kent State (OH) campus.

Like any historic event, the story was not a spontaneous one. The story had a lead up.

Ohio Governor James A Rhodes, first elected in 1963, had what was known then as a “law and order” view of unrest.

Ohio Governor James Rhodes

 From Mendo Coast article

Less than year before the tragic shootings at Kent State, the SAC [Special Agent in Charge] of the Cincinnati Bureau [FBI] sent [FBI Director] Hoover a memo detailing Rhodes’ attitude towards civil unrest: “He personally feels that the Director is the outstanding American and that he is the only person who has consistently opposed those persons who would subvert our government. He feels that the Director’s stated position of dealing firmly with these groups is the only sensible method.”

“He [Rhodes] commented on the riots and unrest which have occurred repeatedly and said that some of this might well have been avoided if the Director’s warnings and advice had been followed. In Ohio, he has not hesitated to use the National Guard to deal with these situations and has instructed the Guard to act quickly and firmly. He feels that this is the only way to maintain law and order, and that the maintenance of law and order is the only way our government can survive,” the memo records. [my emphasis]

Ohio Governor James Rhodes

Cambodian Invasion

Keep in mind the days preceding May 4.

As promised by the newly-elect President Nixon, the Vietnam War seemed to be winding down. Then in late April of 1970, Nixon ordered the US invasion of Cambodia and widened the Vietnam War. Nixon announced the invasion on April 30, l970.

The next day student protests erupted on many college campuses. Kent State University was one of those place and announced plans for a second rally noon Monday 4 May.

Saturday 2 May. Kent Mayor Leroy Satrom asked Governor Rhodes to send in the Ohio National Guard. Stationed close by, the Guard arrived that evening to the burning of the University’s ROTC building.

Ohio Governor James Rhodes

Sunday 3 May

Sunday 3 May. About 1000 Ohio National Guardsmen occupied the campus, While tense, the mood was not threatening. Student quietly conversed with Guard members. It was on this day at a press conference that Ohio Governor James A Rhodes called the anti-war protesters “the worst type of people we harbor in America, worse than the brown shirts and the communist element.”

That evening confrontations between protesters and guardsmen occurred and once again rocks, tear gas, and arrests characterized a tense campus.

Ohio Governor James Rhodes

May 4, 1970

May 4 was simply another day in most ways. People awoke. Ate breakfast. Began their day.

“ABC” by the Jackson 5 was Billboard’s #1 single.  Ironically, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was the #1 album.

The tragedy of May 4 would leave us perplexed, shocked, and with many questions.

Did the National Guard need to shoot? Were their lives in danger? Why were between 61 and 67 shots were fired in a 13 second period? Should the Guard have been on campus to begin with?

The 418 page Scranton Committee Report on the event determined that “The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.”

No legal proceedings ever found the Guard culpable and the January 1979 monetary settlement paid out of court by the State of Ohio was termed an apology, not an admission of guilt.

Regardless of any possibilities, for Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Knox life ended suddenly and horribly on May 4, 1970.

Ohio Governor James Rhodes
Today in history, Vietnam

Saigon Vietnam Falls

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Saigon Vietnam Falls

April 30, 1975

Saigon Vietnam Falls

CBS News report of the Fall of Saigon
Saigon Vietnam Falls

A lifetime of war

For some, the Vietnam War had been their entire lifetime. For far too many, the war was the end of their life.

If you were born in the late 50s or early 60s, by 1975 you were a teenager who’d heard about Vietnam as long as you could remember. Perhaps you knew a friend or neighbor whose name would one day be on the Wall in Washington, DC.

Few understood even in 1975 that Vietnam had been a French colony promised independence after World War II; that the French had reneged on that promise and how on September 2, 1945 Ho Chi Minh had declared Vietnam’s independence.

The first lines of his speech repeated verbatim the  second paragraph of our own Declaration of Independence. (see History matters site)

Saigon Vietnam Falls

Gulf of Tonkin

The Gulf of Tonkin may have been the first time we heard the word “Vietnam” when our President Lyndon B Johnson stated that the North Vietnamese had deliberately attacked our ships. It turned out that there was no attack, but given the momentum of anti-Communist fervor and our belief in the Domino Theory, we acquiesced and approved the escalation of our participation.

Saigon Vietnam Falls

Broken promises

Johnson left office because of the war.

Richard Nixon promised he’d end the war. He did, but only after escalating the war and invading Cambodia in 1970. American college campuses erupted in protest. The Ohio National Guard shot and killed four students at Kent State University. 11 days later, police killed two students at Mississippi’s Jackson State.

Saigon Vietnam Falls

Reluctant removal

Finally, on January 23, 1973, Nixon announced that the US and North Vietnam had reached an accord to end the Vietnam War. Later that year, the Nobel committee award the Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger, our chief negotiator, and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho. Tho refused the honor. Though the war may have ended for Americans, it hadn’t for the Vietnamese. American aid dwindled and later in 1973 the North and South resumed fighting. In January 1974, South Vietnam’s President Thieu declared the accords no longer in effect.

North Vietnam forces advanced south, and by the spring of 1975 were nearing the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon.

Saigon Vietnam Falls

A Ford at the end 

April 1975. Nixon was gone. The Watergate Scandal had destroyed his presidency. President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu asked President Gerald Ford for more financing, we turned down the request. On April 21, Thieu resigned and gave a speech accusing the United States of betraying South Vietnam and Kissinger for signing a treaty that brought about his country’s defeat.

North Vietnamese troops overran Saigon on April 30, forcing South Vietnam to surrender and bring about an end to the war. (see NYT article]

Related link >>> Fall of Saigon

Saigon Vietnam Falls
Draft, Today in history, Vietnam

Paul Robert Cohen

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Paul Robert Cohen

Are words on a jacket conduct or speech?
And if speech, is it protected?

Bill of Rights

We know our Constitution contains the Bill of Rights and the very first of those first 10 Amendments reads:


Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


Freedom of speech does not mean that we can say anything at anytime. We cannot yell “Fire” in an assembly. Nor can we protest on the steps of the US Supreme Court.


Paul Robert Cohen was 19 and worked in a department store. On  April 26, 1968, Cohen was in the corridor of the Los Angeles Courthouse waiting to testify on behalf of an acquaintance.


He had he met a woman the night before and she had stenciled the words “Fuck the Draft. Stop the War” on his jacket.


Police arrested him

Paul Robert Cohen

Convicted

A court convicted him of violating Section 415 of the California Penal Code, which prohibited “maliciously and willfully disturb[ing] the peace or quiet of any neighborhood or person [by] offensive conduct” and sentenced him to 30 days in jail. (California Legislative article) 

Cohen appealed, but the California Court of Appeals upheld the conviction. That Court held that “offensive conduct” means “behavior which has a tendency to provoke others to acts of violence or to in turn disturb the peace.”

Cohen appealed to the California Supreme Court, but that Court denied the appeal.

Fortunately for Cohen, on June 22, 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal. (1970 NYT article)

Almost a year later, on June 7, 1971 in a 5 – 4 decision, the US Supreme Court agreed that California’s statute had violated Cohen’s freedom of expression.  (Oyez article)

Paul Robert Cohen

Court

In an opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan, the Court reasoned that the expletive, while provocative, was not directed toward anyone; besides, there was no evidence that people in substantial numbers would be provoked into some kind of physical action by the words on his jacket. Harlan recognized that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” In doing so, the Court protected two elements of speech: the emotive (the expression of emotion) and the cognitive (the expression of ideas). (see Oyez article) 


In his dissenting opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun suggested that Cohen’s wearing of the jacket in the courthouse was not speech but conduct (an “absurd and immature antic“) and therefore not protected by the First Amendment.

Though he asked, Cohen never got back his jacket.

Paul Robert Cohen