Rob Fox, Oral History

Interviewed by Henry Halem, May 4, 2000
Transcribed by Rhonda Rinehart and Craig Simpson

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.

[Interviewer]: My name is Henry Halem. We are at the Student Center; it's May 4, 2000. Could you tell us your name and what you were doing on May 4th?

[Rob Fox]: Sure. My name is Rob Fox. I was a student senator at that time, and I'm going to start at the beginning of the four-day weekend and what occurred. On Thursday, May 30th, President Nixon gave his speech where they were going to move troops into Cambodia.

[Interviewer]: May 30th?

[Rob Fox]: I'm sorry; April 30th. Thank you. I gotta get the dates straight here. At that time I lived in Wright Hall, and a number of students were talking about it [i.e., the war] and concerned about it. And the rumor spread around the campus that there would be a rally on The Commons by the Victory Bell. That would be on Friday, May 1st. So I walked by there on my way to class, and there were maybe about 5[00]-600 students just milling around talking. A few people were talking and chatting, and not too much was going on, quite honestly. You know, they talked, somebody buried the Constitution at the corner of the Bell there. Some people talked about meeting later that evening, and really nothing happened. Later that evening, then, there were some disturbances downtown, which I did not know anything about. We heard about it in the dorms as some of us started to walk down toward the downtown area; but by that time they had started dispersing us, so we just went back to campus that time.

The next day we started to see posters posted around the campus and in the dorms and stuff that there's going to be a rally to oppose the invasion of Cambodia. You gotta remember that one of the reasons Richard Nixon was elected president was the fact that he was going to end the war in Vietnam. So from the students' standpoint, they saw this as an esculation of the war because we thought it was supposed to be wound down. People thought this was the peace candidate; he was going to broker peace with the Vietnamese and that never happened. So Saturday evening after dinner, a number of us from Wright Hall, we walked over to The Commons area; people were just milling around, quite honestly. There was nothing organized; there were just people milling around. And then there--I noticed one student walked up to the old ROTC building and broke out the glass, took his lighter, started lighting the curtains. Then I saw a couple others break some more glass, and the amazing thing I noticed was that there were police officers at the top of the hill down there by the old Student Union. They were just sitting there, watching. And then the little flames started going, and then the fire trucks; and then the fire trucks were up there for a while, and they came down. They took their fire hoses out and they were sitting there seeing what was going on. And then we left. We left. We started walking downtown. We were dispersed. We went downtown. People were milling around once again. Then the National Guard came in that night and started dispersing people out of the downtown area at the time.

I left there thinking the ROTC building was put out--the fire. The next day when I went over to The Commons area, which was Sunday, it was just a pile of rubble. To this day, I can't believe--I think they let that burn down, that building. You know, there were stories how kids were hacking the hoses with knives and machetes and--I didn't see any of that. I saw a few kids grabbing--trying to grab the fire hoses, but there were not that many. There were not many students around there at all. And so that is a puzzle to this day--why the police sat up there on top of the hill. The fire trucks that did come down--who I thought had the fire under control--then people just started dispersing because the police came down, too, quite honestly. Honestly, we just started dispersing.

On Sunday, then, it was just sort of a peaceful day. People just walked around the campus. The Guard was on the campus, and most of us just looked at them, they were just like us. They were just kids. Those were just kids in uniform; we did not look upon them as the enemy. Some of those kids may have been college students. Some of those kids may have been opposed to the war. This was their way to get out of going overseas. And we did not look upon the Guardsmen as enemies; in fact the rumor started circulating that they were carrying live ammunition. In context, what you gotta realize, too, is that these Guardsmen came from a Teamsters strike that was occurring up on the interstate. So a lot of these guys were already on duty trying to prevent the Teamsters from doing damages on the turnpike and the highways. So they were tired when they came to Kent because they had already been on duty.

The other thing we need to realize, too, is that there was a primary that was taking place on Tuesday, May the 5th, involving our governor at the time, who was Governor James Rhodes who was running for United States senator against a man by the name of Bob Taft. In California - the governor was very popular in California - his name was [unintelligible]. He was popular because he got very tough with the students. They made comments like, "We aren't going to let these students take over, these long-hairs take over our campuses." In my opinion, the governor of Ohio was doing the same thing here at Kent. It was incredible that we bring the troops on the campus and the school's still functioning normally while we have all of this going on. Aside, light of that, James Rhodes lost that primary to Bob Taft in a very narrow vote. A lot of people feel that one of the reasons he lost that one of the reasons he lost that primary because of what occurred here at Kent State. Because there was a public backlash there.

Sunday, people milled around. That's the night of the helicopters. It was very frightening. We were told we had to be in our dorms. Kids started moving around back to The Commons area. There was no nonsense. This was the most frightening thing I can remember, with these helicopters with their searchlights, as I felt like I was in Vietnam, to be quite honest with you. Buzzing the Tri-Towers, shouting at us from [their] speakers, and in fact the Guard marched right up to Tri-Towers in the windows, and had some kids pressed against the windows in there, because we were told we had to be confined. There was screaming, pandemonium was taking place. And, you know, people were pleading with kids to calm down, relax, don't go out there, because they were supposedly arresting people, hitting people, hurting people. I don't -- I can't verify that because I stayed in the dorm trying to keep people under control. And we remember that night as the night of the helicopters.

Word spread out throughout the campus that on Monday there was going to be a rally at The Commons. I was in student government. And we also were told to be out there, if we could help, as observers, et cetera. And see -- it would be helpful, whatever we could do. About 11:30 I walk over The Commons area. There's, uh -- first thing I noticed, I have to say at the base of The Commons of Taylor Hall there, there's maybe, the number kept growing, when I first got there, maybe about 4[00]-500 people. And then what was interesting, the Guard was encamped where the old ROTC building was, in formation form. And they were lined up there and they had jeeps out there. And then, here we have students going to classes. It was a nice spring day, when it was a warm weekend like last weekend, one of the few warm weekends that we have. Early spring weekend. And kids surrounded the entire commons, which as you know is about, equivalent of about 6 to 8 football fields out there. And I thought how it was like a beach party out there, with kids milling around just to see what was going to happen. I do remember vividly one student, male student, with a black flag who was running back and forth with this black flag in front of the Victory Bell, and he was waving it back and forth. And now the crowd had grown maybe to a thousand at the base of the Victory Bell.

And I remember the jeep coming out and shouting at us, one or two jeeps were coming out at us, and they were saying, "Disperse immediately. This is a[n] unlawful assembly. Disperse immediately." I'll never forget, somebody threw a croquet ball out and it bounced up against the jeep's wheels. A red croquet ball. And everybody just laughed. We just laughed! Because we said, "How can this be an unlawful assembly?" We were told to go to classes. There's probably anywhere from five to six thousand people watching this just to see what's going to happen. We have the Guard over encamped in street-tight formations about ten abreast, ten to twelve abreast. And then the next thing I know they start shooting tear gas out at the crowd. Some kids got brave, ran back and threw the tear gas back. At this point, I did not see any rocks being thrown personally. The only thing I saw were tear gas cannisters being thrown back towards the Guard. And what happened--it was sort a breezy day, light breezy day, and the tear gas, the crowd would just move from one side to the other from where the tear gas was coming from. Then the Guard started marching out in formation. And we couldn't understand what they were doing. We wondered: What were these folks doing? And so did the kids. And so they started marching out toward us in formation, in block formation. We saw them moving. People stayed away from them, at least 50 to 100 yards away from them. They had bayonets, they had their bayonets, they were marching, people would spread as they would go away.

I went, as the Guard are marching up, I went around the Taylor side where the Pagoda is, up the Pagoda, and they kept coming, and I went over in the parking lot. And then I stood in the parking lot at the far end of the parking lot, where the street is that goes to Manchester Hall and up to the Union now. I stood there and watched. I watched the Guard go into what was the old practice football field which is part of where the Gym is now. The Guard marches down into this practice football field. They knelt down and they aimed their weapons. Course, people were saying even then, "They don't have weapons--they don't have live ammunition in their weapons. It's just to scare us, don't worry about it." I heard one student say that to me. "Don't worry about it." I was around with maybe two or three kids. They said don't worry about it. So, I was standing there.

I did see a few kids throw stones. There was a parking lot across the street there. You gotta realize, this is grass everywhere except for this parking lot across the street which had small stones. I did notice two or three kids throwing stones from a distance, of maybe 75 to 100 yards quite honestly. Three quarters of the distance. If you listen to the media or listen to what some people have said, they make it sound like the sun was blotted out by stones. It was not. Because first of all, this campus is mostly grass like it is now. And the kids did not come--but I did see a few kids throwing stones, but it was from a great distance. Nor did I see any students get closer than 50 to 75 yards.

As the Guard started to move back, after they snailed it down to the practice football field, I said to myself--after they started to move back up towards the Pagoda--I said, oh, they're going back. So I moved more into the parking lot, into the center of the parking lot. I continued to watch them as they were going up there, and there were people lined up along Taylor Hall there, in the bal--along the side there at Taylor Hall watching this. It was packed with kids along the side there. There were not as many kids in the parking lot, because--it was not real packed in the parking lot, with maybe a hundred to two hundred kids milling around in the parking lot. I watched the Guard continue to march up towards the Pagoda. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw the Guard stop. And then I saw them turn. And then I was up now close where Jeffrey Miller ended up getting shot. There's a - if you look at the old pictures, there's pictures of Volkswagens and there's a couple of cars there in that area now. I then--out of the corner of my eye, because I'm looking to see what's going on, I hear this popping sound going on. And I saw that the Guard had turned, had wheeled, and I heard this popping sound going off, and I saw Jeffrey Miller--I didn't know it was Jeffrey Miller at the time - I saw this student out of the corner of my eye, because I'm looking this way, to the right, get hit. I said, oh my God, this is real. And then I dived between the cars. And then, uh, when I looked up again, they were gone. They had marched across. They had stood there a few minutes, the Guardsmen, and then they had marched off.

After that, there was just absolutely pandemonium in the parking lot. We were just powerless. People were saying, "Where are the ambulances?" We had people screaming. It was just absolutely pandemonium. Myself, I did not know what--I mean, it was just, it was just a helpless situa--I went over. There were people were cradling kids. Other kids cradling, you know, their classmates. I noticed where Allison Krause--I did not know who she was at that time--this girl was just bleeding profusely. And I just absolutely personally just felt absolutely powerless to do anything. This went on. And we kept saying, "Where are the ambulances?" It seemed like eternity 'til an ambulance finally got there. The ambulances came then, and they took care of the people.

And then the strangest thing. There's something about crowd psychology. People got mad. They really got angry. This is after, after seeing their classmates, people got absolutely furious. A large number of people, I would say almost maybe a thousand people went, after the bodies were taken, and maybe they were still taking some of the bodies out of there, went to the other side of Taylor Hall now, where the Victory Bell was. And the crowd, they sort of, in the semi-circle area down there at the base of the hill started gathering again, and acro--at the Guard. Here we--here we are, at the other side of Taylor Hall now, the Guard is back at the original encampment. There--more--it seemed like more Guardsmen were there now. We've got this huge crowd there now who's absolutely furious. Angry. And there's one professor, Glenn Frank, who a lot of kids had, who pleaded with us. I'll never forget that. And Steve Shirraf, who was a grad student. And, if it wasn't for Glenn Frank, I think there would have been more killed that day. And that crowd, we, that crowd and myself, we were, I mean, you felt like you were invincible, because you were so angry what happened. I'm convinced they would have fired on more of us, and more of us would have been killed. I'm convinced of that to this day. And it was Glenn Frank. And there was another professor there too, sort of a bald-headed--I think it was--I think his first name was--I did not know him. I can't forget. There was two of them that just absolutely--they got hold of a bullhorn or something. And he, Glenn Frank, begged us to go home. And we did. We left. And I'm convinced if it wasn't him, because he was very popular, he taught geology, he taught it in a large setting, and people loved him, and a lot of us had him in classes. Even though we were not science majors, we had to take a science. And I'm convinced to this day, he saved a lot of people. It would have been worse. And I've read since then, and there's even a picture in some of the books, where Del Corso said, "If you don't get these kids out of here"--there's a picture of him talking to Steve Shirraf--"that if you do not get these kids out of here, I'm moving the troops out again." So, I attribute him to that.

Afterwards, then, we were told we had to be off campus immediately. The campus was closed. I forget what time they said we had to be out of here. I think it was two o'clock or something like that. I was from Findlay, Ohio. We got a bunch of our classmates, our kids from Findlay, together, we got those kids together, and we got out of town. We left town. The university continued to operate through visa-correspondence to us. Those that stayed here at Kent. And that's the real untold story, really, is how we stayed alive as a university. And I was always proud. Before I went to Kent State--I'm from Findlay, Ohio, which is the northwest Ohio. And when I told people I went to Kent--and the reason I went to Kent is, first of all, it was a very well known, in the state of Ohio, it's probably one of the best education schools, and it probably still is, it was at that time, and probably still is, if you were going to major in education. And the second reason, a friend of my family's had graduated from the university and came here. So when I told folks I was going to Kent, Ohio, Kent State, they said, "Where's that? Canton, Ohio?" They never heard of this place. When I went home, everybody heard of Kent, Ohio and Kent State. They'd even heard of it in China. So nobody ever asked me that about Kent State. There was a real backlash towards people who went to Kent, especially in very conservative communities. People would come up to my mother who was in charge of children's services, and say in court--these were other lawyers--"They should have killed more students." Like they had no right to speak up against their government. As my mother said, "Hey, they're citizens too. They have a right to speak up, and that was a peaceful assembly, how can you not--how can you have the Guard on the campus with school going on?" And I'll never forget, my mother called me up on Sunday and said, "Rob, you need to come home." And I said, "Why?" "Well, you've got people with guns on your campus. You need to come home." And I said, "We've got classes tomorrow!" I said, "I can't go home. We've got classes. Plus, I'm going over there to help, to see if I can marshal or see what's going on." Because I was opposed to the war to begin with. And so, that is what occurred.

And, to this day, you know, they say your memory gets better as you get older. Your short-term memory. And I think they're right, because it's just like a motion picture that's going through your--through your mind of what occurs there. But the big things that really have always puzzled me was the ROTC building and allowing that to burn, and why that wasn't stopped. And the other one has always been, why didn't we have some kind of moratorium on those Mondays to have a discussion. And I realize that President White wasn't calling the shots anymore, the National Guard was. And he was told not to close the university because we had a governor who was running for United States Senate. And it was just an absolute tragedy to this day. And those of us who graduated from Kent State, we carry that banner high for this university. And people--we have gone on in the fields and excelled in fields, and when we tell our story, people listen to us. And people want to know what really happened there. So that's why I came in today. I have wanted to do this for a long time.

[Interviewer]: Terrific. Terrific.

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