Arthur Koushel, Oral History

Recorded: May, 1995
Transcribed by Lisa Whalen 

Note: This transcript includes geo-references to locations that are discussed in the oral history. Geographical names linked in the transcript will open in a new window or tab that takes you to that location information and map in the Mapping May 4 project. To request a transcript without geo-reference links included, please contact Kent State University Special Collections & Archives.

[Arthur Koushel]: My name is Arthur Koushel. That's A-r-t-h-u-r K-o-u-s-h-e-l. May 4th, 1970 I was a sophomore, completing my second year of school. Lets see -- okay, where -- where should we begin?

I think that -- everyone really knows about the chronology of the events, they pretty much have been well established. I'm 44 years old now, I'll be 45 this summer. Kent, for me -- I grew up in Philadelphia -- and when people asked you where you went to school, and you said, "Kent State," they would say, "Penn State." You would say, "No, I just go to school in Ohio." And to this day, people -- when you say you went to Kent State, they -- They actually step back, and they're -- they're well aware of the -- the University. Whereas before, they weren't.

There was always a sense of, "What could you do as an individual?", ever since that day. What could -- at least personally for me -- was that you felt this need to do something, but what could you really do?

When we -- after the shoo -- after the incident, the shootings -- I was there -- I wasn't in the group of people that got pushed up over the pagoda hill, I was the group of people that got pushed to the left and came around the parking lot on the back side. Because the concept, at least I believed, was to separate the group into smaller groups that actually were on the front side of Taylor Hall and The Commons hill. So, we went to the left, instead of getting pushed up over to the right side of the building, we got pushed up over the backside of the building. The actual shootings -- I froze. I didn't dive for cover, or -- I just stood there. It happened extremely quickly -- before I realized what was going on it was over. Did not expect them to not only shoot, but never even realized that they actually had loaded weapons at all. When you talk to a soldier, you debate politics, when you talk to a policeman, you move. When the police took over -- afterwards, when an Ohio Highway Patrolman with a string of bullets across his chest with an automatic pump shotgun says move, you -- you really don't debate politics with that individual. You really don't. But an Army person you do and I guess the expectation for -- that they had guns, but they -- and they had tear gas, was the extent of what their arsenal was. So not expecting them to not only not fire, but the fact that they had live ammunition, never really crossed my mind. Never even thought about it.

The times be -- the University, I think, was totally unprepared, so was the city of Kent, for this kind of situation. I think that they -- because they were not prepared, they probably made a lot of mistakes. I think that Kent although, had its share, and I think it was a very limited share of radicals; other people classified people as radicals in those days -- were limited. I don't believe there was a tremendous amount of outside influence on the masses of people, maybe on certain individual people, but certainly not people that I knew, or the masses or the large numbers of people.

I think that just to transgress really, to even Saturday night -- I thought that they -- I saw the building, the ROTC building -- someone threw a flare, a roadflare, in the window. And -- and it didn't catch on fire right away. They actually had to -- to go back up there. There was like curtains in the windows. And -- common sense says that, if I'm gonna put out a fire, I'm not gonna run my hoses through large numbers of people that are protesting. But that's exactly what they did. They could have approached it from the -- the power plant, and -- you know, nowhere near anybody. So people say they were cutting fire hoses and things like that. I'm not sure if they didn't want their fire hoses cut. However, when I saw the building the next day, I thought, either they have the worst fire department in the world, or they let the building burn down just to say, "Do you see what these kids -- students did?" Cause I was amazed at how it was totally destroyed.

There was no leadership by the administration, at all. And no one really knew how to de-escalate a problem that was escalating. I think that it was -- if I had to blame anybody for the whole situation, I'd blame the Governor of -- of Ohio, Governor Rhodes at the time. I think that his -- the way he handled the situation had more to do with his personal advancement in politics than anything else. I don't think that a lot of people know -- or remember, that the primary election was on Tuesday, this was the weekend before the primary, and he wasn't doing so well in the polls. So I think that, from that perspective, I think that, if he wanted to make a political statement instead of controlling the situation. You know, "I'm going to show the people in Ohio that I'm a law and order Governor, I'd make a good law and order Senator, and I had a lot of problems with the teamsters a couple weeks ago, andnow I have these problems and..." We saw the pictures of Ohio State, where they had just -- run out of tear gas, they had so much -- tear gassing in Columbus -- and I think he had serious political problems. That he came in here with his own personal agenda. The -- I know that people did not want -- pictures taken. If you had a camera people would take -- not your camera, but they would expose your film. Everyone was paranoid about people taking pictures.

[Interviewer]: When was that?

[Arthur Koushel]: Throughout the whole weekend. And -- yet, I was here for the Scranton Commission, and I couldn't believe how many pictures they had, of things that I thought that only myself or a small group of people would see. They had actual photographs. And where they ever got those photographs, I don't know. They'd be nice to have because now we see some old pictures, and where are all those pictures? But there were many pictures of -- of the people.

Just interesting side notes on the -- on Saturday, they -- when the Army moved in, they came down Main Street, and -- to the front of the campus on Lincoln. And they were -- made a move to push everybody back. I lived in Beall-McDowell at the time -- dormitory. And their idea was that we would open up the cafeteria at night and -- and serve like, ice cream and cookies -- and that would make people stay in. But in reality what that did was when people got hungry, they went up, had their ice cream and cookies, and went back outside. But I distinctly remember about this -- about eleven o'clock at night on Saturday. Things were winding down, but we wanted to watch ourselves on television, so we went to Tri-Towers, to watch television, to see what the live reports were on the news. And they interviewed one of the commanding officers, or whatever, who said that, " We believe that the students are in this part of the -- of the campus," you know, and they were kind of trying to search everybody out. And we said to ourselves, "Here we are watching television, they're interviewing the general, we look out the window and we see the Army moving up!" So we just decided to stay in the dorm for a while. And -- and Saturday came and passed. And -- and as everybody remembers, Sunday was just a beautiful Spring day -- I mean, it was just a pleasant day. but people were -- at least -- they were amazed at the mass of military equipment and hardware. Seeing rows of pup tents, and armored personnel carriers. I mean it was as if they were on manouvers, per se. And looking back, it's probably just how the Army does things, but they sort of seemed like a little bit of overkill.

Sunday night -- I -- again, I don't think anybody, like really why -- okay everyone knew that everyone was against the war in Vietnam. But why was it escalating here and escalating so quickly? And , I remember being in front of the old library, on Main Street, and the police were on Lincoln, stopping people from going downtown. People didn't know whether there was a curfew downtown, on campus; they were changing times. But there was a matter of principle, okay. You're really taking away my freedom of movement. And I remember being on Main Street that Sunday night, and the police said, "If you move from the street to the front of the campus, and not block the street (although traffic wasn't going anywhere anyways), we -- what will it take to make things settle down." And people wanted to talk to someone -- the President of the University, the Mayor of Kent. And they were trying to arrange that. And -- and it was really Kent City Police, and they were really trying hard to do that. But I honestly believe at that time, they were still not communicating with the Army, and then, from behind, the Army lines formed. And I remember thinking, "Gee, this is a bad spot. You got police lines in front of you, you got the Army lines behind you, and you have the library on," -- you know, you're really boxed in! Very -- kind of precarious situation. But the people were calm. The people were willling to talk it out.

I think then, even though the main issue was Vietnam, it got down to local issues. And I think that local issues now, were -- are the same now as they were twenty-five years ago. I think that many people who lived in the city of Kent honestly believed that the town would do well without the University being here. You look back and a lot of people in Kent are what I consider to be, "slum landlords," but they're -- they're taking advantage of the situation. I think it got down to local issues. Why is the cost of living higher in Kent than it is two miles away? Why do -- why do people charge students by the person to rent living quarters, rather than the unit? If you went out in the real world, that apartment would cost 'x' number of dollars per month. Not 'x' amount of dollars out of -- I don't pay rent for myself, my wife and my two kids individually, I pay the unit. But yet, that hasn't changed. And that was an issue. You know it -- you know an issue was, you buy a textbook for thirty dollars, they buy it back for five and sell it used for twenty eight. And that still hasn't changed. But they were local issues -- as well as national issues.

But my recollection of the event was that -- going to these things -- there was no -- national conspiracy that people think there -- that these groups were being controlled by some outside forces, I think that it was a spontaneous thing that happened. There was -- you know, there wasn't a whole lot of people who had ever been in a protest or a sit-in before. But I -- just as everything was calming down, things were calm, I remember hearing the sound of bayonets clicking on to rifles. And over the loud speaker, the Army ordering people to disperse. I think even the police were surprised. And then after they gave the order to disprese, just charged into that group. And it was like mice kind of, scattering. And people just kind of went -- everyone was on their own, people just kind of went every which way and, just to get out of the dangerous spot. But I think that the police were surprised. That they had the situation under control -- but they weren't talking to each other. And everybody just went their way and -- I met some policemen -- and this relates to some story the next day, but the -- I had met two soldiers that night, in my attempts to just get back home. And -- I had later met them, after the shootings, that afternoon, of May 4th, on that Monday. And they wouldn't even talk to you. They would look straight ahead as if you weren't there. I think that most people thought that if the Army would have pulled out on Sunday, things would have went right back to normal. But they didn't. And I think that the purpose of the rally was the fact that, there shouldn't be a military occupation of a university campus. That was the issue. And I think a lot of the faculty agreed with that issue. Whether they agreed with your reasoning or not, as far as protests, they honestly believed that the university environment was not a place for a military occupation. I think the University lost absolutely all control as to the events that were going on, and gave it up to the state. But being -- having a rally -- and being surprised that there was a rally, shouldn't have been a surprise. Because it was well publicized and everyone knew about it, you know, it was there. Well, whenever you have a couple thousand people doing something, there's like twenty thousand people doing something else. So you really have to put the numbers in perspective.

You still get chills when you -- remember back. I mean, I saw Sandy's play in Chicago a couple weeks ago, and you still get that chill down your spine when you -- when you think back on it. After the immediate -- you know, shots were fired, there was chaos. There was chaos. There were people laying all over the place. I had never been in the Army, I really never saw a dead person before that day. I never saw people like, massively bleeding, some people were that -- would just look at people and pass out. So you weren't sure who -- who was actually shot and who had just fainted. Being -- me having a health background, being a first-aid type person, --there was very little help. It took a long time to get -- to get help to the scene. I think that if help would have gotten there faster, maybe -- some people may not be dead. But I'm not really sure. I was close to Jeffrey Miller. I mean, and there was no question that he was dead on impact. But after everyone was taken off the hill, people went back to the front side of the hill; and I thought that, if there was going to be a reaction... I mean, people who were not radical, who were not militant, became very militant, like, in seconds. And there was -- I thought, at one point, the people were just going to charge that military line. And actually engage in a hand to hand type combat. Why didn't that happen? That didn't happen because of one individual. And that was Glenn Frank. I know that, listening to people who never knew Glenn Frank that day, that ever met him, never had him as a teacher; he was not a radical professor, or didn't have radical views, but he was out there. I remember him being out there, in a white, short sleeved shirt, with a pocket protector, and he pleaded with people for calm and restraint. And people listened to him. They sat on the hill. And I remember them passing out popsicles. Bubblestick popsicles, because in those years, people shared with each other. And people, you know -- they passed out popsicles afterwards. On the hill, and he calmed people down. I -- I really think that the University needs to recognize his contribution, because it was enormous. I know that over the years, whatever, as you get older, some people handle old age very well, and some people don't. But whatever, there should be more recognition, people should know who he was and what his role was. Because it was enormous. I think that if it wasn't for him, there'd be many, many more people killed here than just four. Because people were really ready to -- "This is it, let's go. The revolution starts here." But then the police moved in, and everyone dispersed.

And this is some of the side stories of people, as I was telling Sandy. The side stories. We went back to the dorm, there were buses lined up to take you to major cities in Ohio, bus stations, airports. And all of the cooks at Beall-McDowell left. They still had to feed all these people. And so we ended up cooking like an early dinner for twelve hundred people in the dorm.

[Interviewer]: Who is 'we?'

[Arthur Koushel]: Myself, and my roommates and friends, you know. And we were cooks, not cleaners, so we cooked for everybody, but we left it pretty messed up. But it was late in the afternoon, and it looked like it was -- it was very dark and kind of grey; like it was gonna rain. And you had to leave. Just had to leave. And I was -- we were going to go to Chicago. Myself and five other people. Because my roommate's girlfriend actually went to school at Northwestern, in Evanston just north of Chicago. And we were on Lincoln one block off of Main. And I ran out of gas. Now, they wouldn't give you gas in a gascan if your life depended on it. In fact, everything was closed. But I went -- I went to the street and I saw the two soldiers that I'd met the night before. 'Cause there used to be a show called "Combat," with Dick Morrow, tee hee, and I remembered on the back of the jeeps there was always gascans. And I tried to talk them into like, taking their gascan from their jeep and giving me gas to get out of town. But they would look forward as if I wasn't there. They just wouldn't move, they just kind of wouldn't acknowledge listening. And I went out into the middle of Main Street, and at that time, about every minute or so, there'd be a police car passing by. They had their windows taped. They were riding five to a -- five to a car. And they had three shotguns sticking out the window. And they would continuously circle the campus. And I just flagged one of those down, and they opened the windows -- it was the first time I ever had a gun pointed at me directly. And he put that shotgun right in my face and like, I took my hand and I actually pushed the gun away. Because I didn't want this guy to burp! This guy would burp, and I would lose my head! I didn't want that to happen. And I explained to him that we were leaving town, but I had run out of gas. And his answer to me was, "Find a fucking place to sleep, and get off the street." Well, that's a good answer, right? The next police car coming through was a Kent City policeman. And I explained that to him, and he took me to a gas station along Main Street. They wouldn't give gas to me, but they gave gas to the policeman. But they wouldn't fill up the car, they would just give him a can. So we got the can, it was starting to rain, and there was five other people in my car. Now, this all took about forty-five, fifty minutes. So we put the gas in the car, but they were listening to the radio while we were trying to get gas. So we went to start the car, the battery was dead. So I had to get jump started by a policeman -- by a police car, in order to get out of town, you know, in the middle of all this.

We -- you had this urge to tell people, "What could you do?" Well, the only thing that you really could do was tell as many people as you could what really happened, as you saw it. Not what was reported in the paper, because, when I finally was able to call home in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Daily News -- the local paper said, "Two Guardsmen, two students killed." Okay, so you had this urge to tell people. So we were on our way to Chicago, in Indiana, and I -- the phone system here just kind of collapsed, and you couldn't get out. So we got to Indiana and I finally called home. In those days there were no calling cards, in order to make a collect call, you had to go through the operator. And I started talking to the operator, and she wouldn't put me through to my parents until I told her what happened, you know. And then we went to Chicago, and to Northwestern and -- we found out when you weren't in Kent -- if you were from Kent -- free room and board anywhere in the country. And we went to Northwestern and they fed us, they put us up, the five of us. Everyone needed information. Schools were going on strike then, all over the country. We were at Northwestern, at a rally and we spoke at the rally at Northwestern the next day. They wanted to know what had happened. And they wanted to burn down their ROTC building. And I really, you know -- I told them they were crazy. This wasn't like some temporary wooden building, this was like a multi million dollar stone structure. I said, "You know, if you're going to burn that down," I said, "They're not gonna like call the National Guard, first of all, they're gonna call the police. And they're gonna like -- they'll bring in Federal troops. They're not gonna -- no games here. It's a little bit different." Then a professor from the University of Chicago said, "Would you come down to the University of Chicago, talk to that group." There were about four thousand people kinda crammed into this auditorium and I'm like, "Chicago is not the place to like, lead a demonstration. I mean, just not a good place after the convention of '68."

And so we decided it was time to leave Chicago, and we went up to Ithaca, New York, where Cornell was. And then we went up to -- my other roommate lived in Connecticut, so we were in New Haven Connecticut at Yale. I met my first Black Panther. That weekend. Or that -- that week, right after the shooting. And, I'll never forget what he said to me, he said, "You know, people think Black Panthers are a bunch of crazy niggers going around shooting people, but here at Yale, we run day care centers, and do a lot of things."

And then, when I called home, the FBI came to my house, in Philadelphia, and wanted to interview me.

[Interviewer]: Because?

[Arthur Koushel]: Well, I think that their -- their way of investigating was, "Who were you with?" syndrome. They interviewed, probably, somebody from Cleveland and said, "Except for anyone that you know in Cleveland, who were you with?" And they said, "Well, I was with Art Koushel, he lives in Philadelphia." And so they were at my door step, and the last statement that he made to me was, "Except for anyone you know in Cleveland, who were you with?" And I said, "I was with my roommate Steve, and he lives in Connecticut." And the next day, they were at his door! So that's how they pyramided that investigation. I think that's why they say that the investigation was about fifteen thousand pages, summarized in twelve. And that's how they did that. I felt strongly that if they just wanted to know who -- if their involvement was, if the ROTC building was technically Federal property, or whatever, if that's all they were interested in -- I really didn't want to talk to them. But if they really wanted to know my perspective of the entire event, I'd be willing to talk to them. Never heard from them again afterwards.

[Interviewer]: What kind of questions did they ask you?

[Arthur Koushel]: They just wanted you to just basically you know, tell them the story of -- of what happened. Or what -- what you knew. They asked if I knew who -- who threw the flare in the building. And I honestly didn't know the persons name. Not that I would tell them anyway. But I really didn't know. But they just wanted to know the whole story. Well, I told them I would just talk to them about the whole story, they could pick out whatever pieces they wanted. And then they left and I never heard from them again.

[Interviewer]: How did your family react?

[Arthur Koushel]: It turned -- my mother was like a World War II type era type mom. USO dances kind of thing. You know, graduated high school I think in forty-four. And she turned a hundred and eighty degrees around. I had a neighbor who actually said to her that if the National Guard could shoot into a crowd of three hundred people and only kill four, they should be on a target range. And so she was exposed to that kind of mentality, and I think it turned her -- her thinking around a little bit. An interesting side story was that I had a class that was discussing the possibility of John F. Kennedy not dying in Dallas. People can get half their brain shot off and still live. Might be a vegetable ,but you could still live. But we were all so hung up in the funeral that no one asked some very critical questions at the time, and whatever. And the whole scenario of marrying somebody who has an island, you know, closing Parkland Hospital, and whatever. And my mother at that time related that to the FBI agent. And the FBI agent's response was that, "We've heard similar stories, but we cannot comment," to my mother was like, "Yes lady, that's right, but I can't say anything." And that amazed her. That -- that really amazed her. I still, you know -- at that point it was like towards the end of the week, I was amazed at... (Tape ends here.)

I didn't -- I didn't expect school to be over, for the term. We hadn't taken midterms yet, we were still on quarters. There were no semesters like they have now. All I had really was the -- a pair of jeans and two shirts and a toothbrush. I couldn't get back to Kent for three weeks and they were only bringing -- because I lived on campus, and they brought people back in, a couple hundred people at a time. And it was kind of stirring, because when you know that school's going to end, you sort of like, say your goodbyes, and find out where people are going to be for the summer. And things were just cut off very abruptly. So we came back to Kent, and we just took a hotel room for a week. As people came back, we kind of just had this like week long -- kind of, goodbye party. I -- I don't think that when people came back they were like, militant, coming back. Concerned, distressed, but not necessarily like, "Well, we're gonna pick up where we left off." I think it was just another over reaction.

[Interviewer]: What about classes? Were you able to finish your classes?

[Arthur Koushel]: They -- they sent everything home, understanding that they didn't want to -- if they didn't give you grades, they'd have to refund your tuition. Couldn't do that, you know. So they sent things home. Some classes, you could take the entire quarter on pass-fail and some -- some classes that I had just kind of -- were more of like, you know, writing an essay more about how you are feeling and whatever. But my zoology class, the final was so hard, that I was amazed that I passed it, even with the book. And in fact, a couple days ago, Dean "Collier," -- is that how you pronounce his last name? The one in the wheelchair. -- Kahler. Yeah. Well Dean was -- I saw him a couple days ago, and he was in my zoology class. And we were talking about how hard the -- you know, the final was. That they sent all the information home because they wanted you to take the final, in order to get a grade, so they could keep your tuition. And he said that he actually was -- he was actually doing the final in the hospital bed. And but we -- I knew he was in the class, I really didn't know him. Sandy Scheuer was a little sis in the fraternity. Really as apolitical as you could -- as you could really be. I mean, she really was not into the politics of it all. But she was a little sis in the fraternity. So, I knew her. So I think that -- from that perspective, you know, you knew some people.

But we left, and we came back -- came back in the summertime. So and we met, and there was this big meeting to sort of bring the town and the University together. That "town gown" syndrome, which, at the Sarah Brady dinner last night, someone was talking about this new "town gown" type commitee. And I'm like, "It's been around for twenty five years." It's not a new concept here. So, I think that, some things just -- probably just never stay the same, they're inherent to colleges and college towns. What happened here, Kent always was and still is classified as a party school; in which, you can still get a good education. There are schools across the country that are party schools, that you can't get a good education. Kent has always been known as a party school that you can get a good education at.

But it's still chilling -- I think that the more you -- you listen, and the more you talk to people, the more you realize how much- you probably really do not know about what really happened and the causes for it or who the participants were, and I don't think we'll ever know, and I'm not sure if that's not unusual because there's probably a lot of things in this country that, you only know what they want you to know, and no more, no less. But little things come out. I think there's still some unanswered questions , some people wrote some -- some good books.

[Interviewer]: You mentioned the Scranton Commission. Could you tell us a little bit about your role in that?

[Arthur Koushel]: Well, they were looking for people to testify, at this Scranton Commission, and I was here during the summer. And the Scranton Commission, I guess, was looking at, not only this event, but the event at Jackson State and sort of violence across the country. I think that they really -- you know -- the governments reaction to anything is to like hold hearings and have commissions. Whatever came out of it, I'm not -- I'm not really sure. But retrospectively looking back, all the things that we were protesting about at the time, turned out to be right. Okay? Nixon was a crook. Cheated on his taxes. You know, Agnew was a -- you know, left. Okay. I think that to look back and say that, well I -- we were reallly on target.

Desert Storm was very tough for me, because I'm older and I had mixed emotions about it. And the analogy really is, that if we went into Vietnam the same way we went into Desert Storm, you wouldn't have protests. Because we went in with all of our assets, we went in with clearer objectives. And we were in and out. I think if they -- I don't know if my mother had said to me- "War is good for the economy." And -- and truly, it probably is. But at what expense do we -- do we prop up the economy? You know? And whose lives are being lost for it? Certainly, Chrysler was making tanks, and people who make guns and ammunition; I'm sure people who make tents and blankets and everything else, were supporting the economy. People were working making blankets and tents and other -- canteens and other things that one needs for a military operation. So, there was a real difference because you felt differently about it. It just -- we didn't go in to win, just didn't go in to win. And I think at some point, everyone said, "Enough's enough." I don't think that the anti-war movement really took hold until the adult population joined in. And -- and after the shootings, Kent became so well known across the country -- in the movement itself, that Kent was much more political in the -- in the months and years after -- after the shootings than it was before the shootings. It was nationally recognized. We're -- we were no leaders of a revolution here, we're just middle class college students, trying to get an education like everybody else was. But we cared about stuff. And I know that -- I've had conversations with Chuck Kegley, he told me, one time he said, teaching in the eighties was boring. I said, "Why?" He said because kids didn't care about anything. They just wanted to come to school, get their -- get their degree, and get out. And, no one questioned anything. And in those days, everybody questioned everything. If there was a tuition increase, people said, "Well if you're going to raise the price of tuition, then you have to be concerened about the quality of education. You can't raise the price and keep the quality the same. If you want to raise the price, improve the quality." Now, no one really -- really does that.

[Interviewer]: How -- what was the impact on you personally? In terms of your life goals.

[Arthur Koushel]: Well, I always -- I was very lucky in that I always knew what I wanted to do, sort of at least I had a very good, clear direction. And that I was a health major, I actually had the first non-teaching health degree the University ever gave out here. And now I have a -- a national health care consulting company in Chicago. This -- I took a -- it's not really sort of a conscious view, but in order to change the system, you really have to, like, become part of the system. You can't buck it and win, what you have to do is take control over it. And I think that -- what really what has to happen is -- it's still happening now -- is that no one really has control of the system. At least, we don't have total control of the system, more control; we had less control when we were eighteen. But you have to become part of the system, then change it and do it your way. You still have people running for President that are in their seventies. They're still from the old Guard, okay, and I think that you have to -- when they've all retired or pass away, you'll see the real change. But you have to become part of the system. And change it. And that's what I did. Your politics change to some extent. You become more conservative as you get older. You start getting concerned about how the government spends money when you pay substantial taxes. And when you become really in the buisness world, and you are successful, you start paying serious taxes, and you're concerned about where that money's going! More so than when you're not paying taxes. I think that you have to be involved, and you have to give back. Okay, and people give back in different ways. I give back by being involved in the community and a planning commission -- I'm on the planning board where I live. I coach baseball, I umpire baseball, youth baseball, you know, in the area. I'm on a variety of committees, environmental resource comittee, whatever. But I'm not blinded by people that are still out there. Some people never got out of the sixties. Some people here at Kent never -- got stuck, like in a time zone. They just never were able to move on with their life and -- and I was able to do that and have a family, and two boys. My -- my oldest boy is -- is a student here now. When we moved to Chicago from Philadelphia, Kent was always half way. So we stopped a couple times here, and I showed my boys like, the May 4th room. What's interesting now is that I have more stuff than the May 4th room has. I mean, as far as like, the original Life magazine, and the Newsweek and the Times, I still have those. But the May 4th room doesn't. Some people take things out and I'm like, yeah, but you know you're a library and you can control that if you really want to. I think the University wanted to forget, only because it had such a severe economical impact on the University. Enrollment was down, and they needed to make it pass.

I always wondered why Glenn Olds became President of Kent. We had a personal relationship. Because I ran this like emergency response group, that put me in the forefront a lot. And I had gotten arrested three times after the shootings, at various times. And Glenn Olds wrote me a personal letter to perspective employers; if that ever became an issue, as to why. I always asked him what he was doing here. I later on found that he was a -- basically a troubleshooter. And the first anniversary of the shootings, if you remember, everyone left. There was like, eighty five percent of the student body left. And there was like disaster teams and media, and police. That's it. Everyone went to Washington. The second year, there was no national event to take the pressure off, and people dug in as if every radical and hippie across the country was going to converge on Kent. And Glenn Olds -- I remember sitting in the President's house, which is now the alumni center, brought twenty five students and faculty to his home, and said, "What can we do to help you?" What was interesting was that the president -- he wanted to help. He said, "What can I do to help?" And I remember that I wanted a tent, as a first aid tent, if people would either get hurt or heat exhaustion or whatever. I needed telephone communication lines. And he provided all of that. And it went off really, without incident. The only incident that I remember was that there was an undercover agent that was in the Vietnam group -- Vietnam Veterans group. And I always thought that, if anyone had a legitimate right to protest, were people who were there. Okay, so the Vietnam Veterans, if anybody had a legitimate right to say, "This is not right," are people who were there and came back. And I remember, about a week before, -- the lawyers were here all the time. And I remember the week before the second anniversary, the pol -- the city police, arrested this man. I think his name was Moore. And he was a -- headlines read, "Undercover policeman found with an AK-47 machine gun and a grenade launcher." Didn't sit well, I think, with a lot of people. And I think that a lot of the protests that happened after that -- "I push you, you push me. I push you harder, you push me back." And things would happen where just -- a teargas canister would go off in the middle of a crowd, and they would get mad, and the next thing that -- "You get mad, I hit you." "Well, I'm gonna hit you back."

And -- but they were letting -- they were interesting years, and it's sad that people lost their lives, but you really become part of history. And I came back one time, and there was a new student orientation. And I was showing my children the May 4th room. And there was a -- a student guide, reading off a script. Then she diverted from the script, and I looked and I said, "You know, that really didn't happen that way." And she looked at me like, "Well, who are you?" And I said, "Well, I was there. It didn't happen that way." And at that time I thought that -- that they were looking to build memorials and things like that. And I -- I tried very hard to -- to say, what you really need is -- is to take the event and put it into some type of historical perspective. Put it on video tape. But put it in like a VCR in that -- in that room. And let people see, not only what happened in Kent, but sort of how it fit into things. And there's an archives in the -- on the -- I don't know. I think the sixteenth floor of the library, where there's like the old, 16 mm. projection films. It was very loud, and clackety and you know, not well done. But I always thoght that they'd do -- I think there's some attempts now. But I think that thats what they really need to do. Not divert, or script it out. Some people care, some people don't care, but -- And they really need to do that.

Finally, and we've been talking for a while, there's a generation -- there's a lot of history that's missing. And just to -- to end the story; last night, I went to the dinner. Sarah Brady dinner. And as I was walking up to the table to register, George McGovern was right next to me. And you had to give your name, and they gave you a name badge and your ticket. And this student volunteer who was doing it, looked up and said, "Name?" And he went, "McGovern." And she went, "First name?" And he went, "George!" I looked at him, he looked at me and I said, "Senator, she probably wasn't born yet." Here's a man that looks the same for the last fifty years, and I said, "She probably wasn't born yet." And we smiled and we went on our way. It's good to be back. I think that the University, the physical plan for the University is better today than it's ever been. This building was under construction when I was here. So I'm at least getting some use out of the building. I think it's going through some corporate downsizing and restructuring. Doesn't make a lot of faculty and staff happy because it's a change. But, you know, corporations have been changing, reorganizing and downsizing for the last ten years because of economic needs. Universities are sort of like behind and not really involved in that. They've sort of lived in their own seperate world. But as money and resources became limited, hey, maybe -- maybe it's not a bad idea to have a job for life. You have to perform and, it's one thing to teach very sophisticated, upper level skill type things with very experienced people, but do you need those same people teaching History 101? The economics, as they say, that's really not practical anymore.

But, it's still Kent, it's still a great place to be. And now that my son is here, it's an opportunity to almost, you know, re-live the experience. And that's whats good about it. And I think that we remember so we don't -- I think that we observe these things, so that we don't forget. The same way -- because, it could happen again. I mean, it truly could happen again. I believe that there's just not a -- a unifying issue. But it could happen again. And I think that's the same way -- we're not really remembering, we're not really celebrating. It would be the same way as people remember the Holocaust. They don't -- they don't remember the Holocaust to sort of -- they're not celebrating it. They're doing it so that people will not forget. And I think that's why we're here today, is so that people don't forget. Or we tend to want to say -- there are some people that say the Holocaust never happened. You know, we're doing it so that you don't forget. And there's a need -- there was a need for me to come back. I would probably have come back, even if my son wasn't here. I came back the twentieth anniversary. But even twenty-five's a little -- you know, a little bit more signifigant. I don't come back every year. I think that we need to do that so that we don't forget. And it's important not to forget. Why this became the pivotal point of the whole thing, I'm -- I'm not sure. There certainly were other signifigant events that -- that happened. But the media focused that Kent was the pivotal point of whatever. And it has helped make that more of -- of an event. I mean, people are shot and killed every day. Do people remember? Probably not. Do we remember because we don't want it to happen again? That's probably why. Does administrations in the past want to forget about it? Well, it's an economic problem. And so, it's a good thing that we don't forget. It's part of history. It won't go away. So you just have to deal with it, and deal with it in an intelligent way.

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