Terry Strubbe, Oral History

 

Recorded: January 31, 2020

Interviewed by Kathleen Siebert Medicus

Transcribed by the Kent State University Research & Evaluation Bureau

 

 

[Interviewer]: This is Kathleen Siebert Medicus speaking on Friday, January 31, 2020, in Special Collections and Archives in the University Library Building on the Kent Campus. As part of the May 4 Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, we are recording an interview today over the telephone. Could you please state your name for the recording?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Sure. My name is Terry Strubbe.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you. And do you mind if I call you Terry during the interview?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Terry is fine.

 

[Interviewer]: Terry, thank you so much for making the time to meet with us today. I should mention on the recording that I also have a graduate student in History, Jennifer Hivick, sitting in on the interview today. She’ll be listening in. And I really appreciate your willingness to share your story with the Oral History Project, it’s very generous, thank you.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: You’re welcome.

 

[Interviewer]: If we could start with just some very brief information about you, your background, so we could get to know you a little better. Could you tell us where you were born, where you grew up?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Sure. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. I graduated from James Ford Rhodes High School in 1969 and applied and was accepted at Kent State. The primary reason why I wanted to go to Kent State was because I was interested in getting into radio and television production work. And I knew that Kent State had a pretty good reputation in that area. And my brother was a student there, too, so that didn’t hurt.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you had big brother already here, nice.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yep.

 

[Interviewer]: Nice. You started at Kent State in the fall of ’69 then—after you graduated?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yes.

 

[Interviewer]: I don’t know if you have any memories you’d like to share of when you first were on campus? How aware you were of protests going on, either anti-war or civil rights protests on campus, what your impressions were?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I would say, when I first got to campus, I was totally unaware of anything of that nature. I don’t personally recall seeing any kind of sit-ins or protests when I first got there.

 

I do not recall seeing any until, and we were on, I think Kent State’s on semesters now?

 

[Interviewer]: We are now.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: We were on quarters then. And when I got to the spring quarter, that’s pretty much when I first became aware of the protests, et cetera.

 

[Interviewer]: So that—your first spring, 1970 on campus?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yes.

 

[Interviewer]: Do you have any specific memories from seeing a protest or hearing about one you’d like to share?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: You know, what I remember and, keep in mind, we’re at almost fifty years ago now. But what I remember seeing was kind of interesting. They were almost like human chains or human snakes. There were groups of people that were walking around the campus and there would be somebody out in front, more or less leading the group. Some had megaphones, some didn’t. And then there’d be a whole trail of students behind them. And the impression that I got was they were walking around the campus in hopes of picking up more people to join them in their walking around the campus.

 

[Interviewer]: So, behind the person in front, it was almost like single file? Or was it more of a crowd?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: It was, I wouldn’t call it a crowd and I wouldn’t call it single file. It wasn’t real orderly. It wasn’t like a military operation or something, it was just students. And it appeared to be mostly students. I had heard rumors that there were outside agitators that were fairly organized and came to the campus and were leading those. If they were, I didn’t get that impression. Everybody looked like students to me. Now they could have very well been somebody else, I don’t know, but by outward appearance, everybody appeared to be students.

 

[Interviewer]: And you were new on campus, so you probably knew a lot of faces, but not as many as somebody who’d been here longer maybe. Is it something your brother had talked about before you arrived on campus, that there was a pretty active anti-war movement or anything going on?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: He never mentioned it. He never said anything about it.

 

[Interviewer]: What was your situation in terms of the draft board at that time? Were you on student deferment, or was it already the lottery?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Student deferment. Yeah, I think I was student deferment.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:05:15] Is there anything you remember about the environment in your classes that quarter in the spring? Were your professors talking more than you remembered earlier in that year about the war or politics? Anything come to mind with that?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: One thing that I remember—I was over in, I think it was Bowman Hall, I could be wrong, but one of the classes that I took, the professor actually—the professor was actually teaching how to make Molotov cocktails in his class. And even passed out instructions on how to make a Molotov cocktail.

 

[Interviewer]: The professor of your class?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right.

 

[Interviewer]: And this wasn’t one of your classes in your major of radio and television? I’m guessing, in Bowman Hall?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No. Really, like most college curriculum, I didn’t get into that until probably my—I don’t remember exactly, but probably at the very earliest my second, probably more likely, my third year.

 

[Interviewer]: So, freshmen year, you were doing more kind of core requirements, sure.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Freshmen year was like high school. Taking English classes, and sociology, and geology, and things of that nature. I’m just being honest, that’s what it was like, it seemed more like high school than college.

 

[Interviewer]: Was it a little more difficult than you remembered your high school being, or were you pretty comfortable?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No, no, no.

 

[Interviewer]: Are there any other memories from your freshmen year before we get into leading up to the shootings that stick out that you’d like to share?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: What kind of memories?

 

[Interviewer]: Anything.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Oh, boy.

 

[Interviewer]: Maybe, you know, for students today and into the future, just to have a sense of the average freshman’s experience on campus. If you have a favorite story from that.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Well, I can tell you a story, it’s kind of a weird story, but I do remember it. I had always thought that I was a fairly decent writer. So, you have to take English Composition your first year. And I remember, this will seem weird, it has nothing to do the protests or anything, but I remember that the teacher—it was the first class that I was in at Kent where the teacher actually had a seating chart. Every other class, everybody just sat where they wanted to sit, which was kind of interesting, because human beings being what they are, what normally happened is that everybody would almost always sit where they always sat anyway.

 

[Interviewer]: Everybody would have a favorite spot, yeah.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. When you went from class, you know, when you went to sociology class, everybody pretty much sat where they originally sat in the class. But this English instructor had a seating chart, and the first thing that struck me that was kind of odd was that he had all the girls sit in the front, and all the boys sit in the back.

 

[Interviewer]: That’s a funny detail.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: And then we had to turn in essays and so on, and I would get—I was expecting better grades. I was getting probably Bs: B-, B+. And I got to know some of the girls in the class, and I talked to them, and they were all getting As. I suppose enough time has passed that they are not going to take my diploma away from me, but I thought, Okay, I want to really see what’s going on here. I went to the library and went way back in the archives and I got some essay that was written by somebody who was very brilliant, and I turned that in as mine for my next essay. And I got a B-.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you were doing an experiment.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Because I just wanted to know, was it me, or was there something else going on in this class? So, I can’t remember, it was like a seven-thirty or seven-forty-five class, was the first class of the day. And back then, obviously, there weren’t all the kind of communications that you have now through the internet and cell phones and all that.

 

I had to do something. I went to the class, because I knew, that particular instructor, if the class started at seven-forty-five, he’d always show up about seventy-fifty or seven-fifty-five, when everybody was already there.

 

So, I went to his class, probably a half-hour early, when there was nobody there, the next class, and wrote on the blackboard that his class was cancelled for that day. As everybody came in, I wasn’t there then, I left. But apparently, as everybody came in, then they left. And when he showed up, his class was empty. And the very next class we had, I remember sitting there, and he was madder than a wet hen. And he did that act where he said, “Okay, I know somebody in here knows who did that. Now, nobody’s going to get in trouble, but I have to know who did that.” Well, I didn’t tell anybody.

 

[Interviewer]: No one really did, no one actually knew, right? Except you.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No, just myself. But I suppose that was my little act of defiance against the—when I finally figured out what he was doing, I thought, Okay, well, I can’t go talk to him about it because I can see what he’s doing here, and it’ll actually probably just get worse.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you didn’t own up to the professor that it was you, yourself? Okay, that’s an interesting story.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No, absolutely not. No. Don’t know if that’s the kind of story you were looking for, but—

 

[Interviewer]: No, no. It’s, it gives us a sense of you and being in class and just kind of your experience your freshmen year. Did you talk with other men in your class about what you felt was happening?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I did. And they were all getting low grades, too. All the guys were getting low grades and all the girls, all of them, were getting As.

 

And it just seemed fundamentally unfair, but if you’re eighteen years old at the time, you don’t think you can really fight the system.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. None of you felt or tried to go talk to the head of the department, or, you know.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No, no, I never did that. Just decided to take my own little personal bite out of the class.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. Well, thank you. Thanks for sharing that story and being brave enough to admit those misdemeanors on tape!

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah. The statute of limitations is probably expired by now. I won’t get my diploma taken away from me.

 

[Interviewer]: Your diploma should be safe. Was that the only class that you had an experience like that in?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yes. Yes.

 

[Interviewer]: Was geology really interesting?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: It was interesting. It was very interesting.

 

[Interviewer]: I’ve heard a lot of people just rave about those professors.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah, it was great. It wasn’t something I wanted to pursue, but the professor made the class really, really, interesting.

 

[Interviewer]: Did you happen to have Dr. [Glenn] Frank?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yes, I did.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:13:31] Do you have any memories from that class? About him, that you, that stick out?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Oh, I remember there were a lot of people in the class. And I just remember he was a very—he seemed like he was genuinely interested in the students, you know. Beyond just a teacher in the classroom.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, yeah. You’re corroborating what many other people have said.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right, I mean he wasn’t there just—some people you can tell that just, punching in and punching out, and doing their time. But not, he did not do that.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, he was engaged. Thank you. [00:14:15] At this point, maybe should we move to your memories leading up to the shootings? I don’t know where you’d like to start. April 30th, when Nixon announced the expansion into Cambodia? Or if there are days before that you have memories to share?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Not really. Outside of, you know, and I remember what you’re talking about, and I did not actually see this, but I was told that in protest of him not being honest about moving the troops into Cambodia, I think the word that went around was that some students got together and buried a copy of the Constitution on Blanket Hill. I didn’t see that, but that’s what I was told.

 

And Friday night, I was not in downtown Kent. But Friday night, I heard that there were a lot of disturbances, primarily, oh, something like garbage cans in the middle of the street and people were lighting fires in it, and some of the people that were in the bars were coming out and running around it and kind of whooping and hollering, that kind of thing.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you heard about it from friends?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. From people that were there. People in the dorm, people in my classes. And I can’t—like I said, it’s been a long time now. I know that, I know that, that was Friday, and then Saturday and Sunday, I know, I’m thinking it was, I’m thinking it was Saturday, but I could be wrong, that the ROTC Building burned down.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah. The ROTC fire was Saturday night, Saturday evening, May 2^nd.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Okay. I remember that because I was there. I actually was standing right next to the building. And the building was burned down by one, two people at the most. It was not like a—it was not something where there were a bunch of people lighting Molotov cocktails and throwing them through the window. I just recall one, maybe two. And the fire department came.

 

[Interviewer]: You saw them with matches, or what did you see?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: They had a Molotov cocktail and they lit it and threw it through the window.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, but just two people, not a whole crowd.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. There was a crowd there, but the whole crowd didn’t participate in, you know, lighting Molotov cocktails and throwing them in the building. And then the fire department came, and they were trying to lay out their hoses to put the fire out, and the students kept impeding their attempts to lay the hoses out and put the fire out. The building eventually just burned down, then.

 

[Interviewer]: What did you see people doing to impede the fire fighters? Do you remember?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Grabbing the hose and pulling it, pulling it away, and just getting in the way. Not letting them hook the nozzle up to the hydrant and run the hose to the building. There was—I wouldn’t say, it was not violent, but there certainly was a concerted effort to not let the fire department put the fire out.

 

[Interviewer]: And at that point, it’s more people actively participating in that?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. There were a lot of people participating in that.

 

[Interviewer]: In that part?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right.

 

[Interviewer]: Were there any law enforcement personnel there, in addition to the firemen? Do you remember seeing any National Guard or police, at that point?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No, no. No, I don’t recall seeing any law enforcement there. Just the fire department and students. If there was law enforcement there, I don’t recall seeing them. And it’s kind of interesting because everybody in my family background are either firemen or policemen. My father was a fireman, retired from the Cleveland Fire Department. Not then, after that, but. On one hand, it kind of felt a little funny, a little guilty about being there and, because almost just by being there, you felt like you were not trying to stop anything, so in a way you were almost semi-participating. I felt a little guilty about that because, like I said, our whole family history were firemen, primarily.

 

[Interviewer]: So, one of those firefighters was somebody like your dad, basically.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right, right.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:19:38] What else do you remember from being there?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Well, it burned down. I remember the students were all cheering and they were happy that it burned down.

 

[Interviewer]: And the firefighters eventually left?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: You know, I don’t remember, but I think they just left because they couldn’t do anything. Once the whole building was engulfed and they weren’t able to try to put it out, then, I don’t remember. I don’t know how much longer I stayed after the building burned.

 

[Interviewer]: Were you afraid at any time, like maybe the fire could spread?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No. No.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:20:39] You mentioned, in your outline that you sent me, there was a gathering that took place on Blanket Hill that ended up with tear gas. Was that later that night or maybe the next day? Or is it hard to pinpoint that?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I’m trying to remember because, obviously, the National Guard had to be there, because they’re the ones that fired the tear gas. And I’m trying to remember the progression of when Governor Rhodes called in the National Guard. It seemed to me that he did that after the building burned down. I could be wrong.

 

[Interviewer]: Maybe don’t worry about that part as much, if you just want to tell us the story of what you saw and what you remember from that incident on Blanket Hill.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: There were quite a few students out there in different groups and, as I recall, the National Guard was in their groups in different areas. In other words, it wasn’t just one huge circle of students and one huge circle of National Guards, there were sort of like groups of each out there. And the tear gas was fired, and this is the one that I was telling you about earlier, there was a female who was affected by the tear gas and, since I lived in Johnson Hall, myself and a couple other students took her into the first floor into the restroom, where the showers were, to turn the shower on and put her face in it. Now, this part I don’t know, but I was told, I think the next day, that—and this is what’s kind of, this is what’s really, I don’t know, but this is what I was told. I was told that Allison Krause’s boyfriend lived in Johnson Hall. And I was told that was Allison Krause.

 

[Interviewer]: The woman who was brought into the shower to help her eyes.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. I don’t know that, because obviously when that was happening, you didn’t say, “Hey, what’s your name? Who are you?”

 

[Interviewer]: But friends, later, told you that’s who that woman was.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. And I don’t know that, but that’s what I was told. But that’s the tear gas canister that you see sitting in that box.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you’ve kept that specific canister?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. I picked it up and took it back into Johnson Hall.

 

[Interviewer]: Were you part of the small gatherings of students on Blanket Hill? Were you hanging out at Blanket Hill yourself? Or were you passing by?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Oh no, I wasn’t passing by. See, by living in Johnson Hall, a lot of the things that started, started right in front of our windows, so I’d go out. I was eighteen years old, I was very curious to see what was going on.

 

[Interviewer]: Right, your dorm is literally to the side of Taylor Hall and right next to what students call Blanket Hill.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. I was in room 110, with a window sort of facing out in that, well—because they, I think they tore Johnson Hall down now, but they built another one in its place. You can kind of get an idea if you were on the first floor there and you had a window, what you would be able to see.

 

[Interviewer]: So, what you saw was more than just students just hanging out on blankets, and just for fun, was it, was it more of a protest?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Oh, yeah. No, I wouldn’t categorize it at all students on blankets for fun. It was definitely part of a protest.

 

[Interviewer]: I see. Okay, okay. Because Blanket Hill was a place to also just hang out, from what I understand.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. I used to eat at Stopher [Hall], so we used to, quote, “borrow” the trays, in winter quarter and go slide down Blanket Hill.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, there are photographs of students sledding on cafeteria trays.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: That’s what we did. It was fun. You get a crowd of eighteen-year-olds together and cafeteria trays and a snow-covered hill and it doesn’t take much.

 

[Interviewer]: No, letting off a little steam, stress, from being a student. [00:25:35] Could you maybe talk a little bit about your overall impression of when the Guard arrived on campus, or what it was like living in your dorm and you didn’t go home that weekend, you were on campus? Did you feel threatened?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I absolutely, positively never felt threatened by the National Guard. I saw the National Guard all over the place. I saw all kinds of what I guess you would describe as small skirmishes where you had groups of kids and then you had the National Guard facing off, but I never, in the entire weekend, the worst thing that I saw on the students’ part, and I didn’t see very many of them doing it, were throwing rocks.

 

But in my perception, at the time, and actually my perception now, I did not see the rock-throwing as so egregious that it would result in something so violent as being shot at. It wasn’t like a whole crowd of students got a few National Guardsmen cornered in a fence or something and started pelting rocks at them, it wasn’t anything like that. Everything that I saw was out in the open and it was—I don’t even remember actually seeing anybody hit by a rock, because they were never very, they were never very close to each other.

 

But I did see some students throwing rocks but, again, it wasn’t, and it wasn’t, I never saw anything that looked like it was an organized effort. When I say organized effort, I didn’t see ten students standing next to each other with pillows full of rocks, throwing rocks at the National Guard and advancing or anything like that. You’d see maybe one student way over here that was throwing a rock and one way over to the left throwing a rock.

 

[Interviewer]: Did you see equipment, personnel carriers, helicopters? Was that kind of part of what you were seeing that weekend?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I saw—that’s interesting you would say that, because one of my memories was when the students were down, it wasn’t downtown, it was in that area—there was a bakery on one corner and then catty-corner to that was the Robin Hood Inn, the Robin Hood bar.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, big landmark for everybody.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: And the students were on one side of the street and the police and National Guard and Highway Patrol were on the other side of the street. And they kept telling us to disperse and, eventually, we did. And I remember leaving that and going back to the—right over to the campus then, and you mentioned helicopters and it was, it was nighttime. It was real eerie because then helicopters started flying overhead real low. And you could see them, and you could hear them. And what it reminded me of was when you would watch the national news and you would see the helicopters in Vietnam. It was sort of the same feel of seeing that up there.

 

[Interviewer]: So, that was while you were walking back, Sunday night.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: We ran back.

 

[Interviewer]: You ran, oh, ran back to Johnson Hall?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. They dispersed everybody, and I remember it happened real fast, and everybody got up and pretty much ran.

 

[Interviewer]: So you were running uphill, too! Front campus, and then across over to your dorm. Do you have any sense of what time Sunday night that was, that you were dispersed and running back to your dorm? Was it middle evening, or later, like ten?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Well I know it was, I know it was dark out. And that was springtime, so. I’m not sure what time the sunset is in the spring, like maybe, it couldn’t have been earlier than what, eight, eight-thirty?

 

[Interviewer]: No, it had to have been, yeah, for it to be dark, it would have been at least eight-thirty, nine, I’m guessing.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: That’s what I’m thinking too.

 

[Interviewer]: Or later. Do you have any other visual memories from that protest? That was at Lincoln and Main [Streets], near the front campus. Any other memories stick out from that?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No. Like I said, I just remember it was definitely—if you want to call it a confrontation, but it didn’t get physical because all the students were on the one side of the light heading—sitting in the street, filling the street up sitting there. And then all of the other, the National Guard and police departments were on the other side.

 

[Interviewer]: So they were on, they were in the city of Kent, off campus, and you were in the street, pretty much.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah, we were in the street, but I think—

 

[Interviewer]: Maybe you were surrounded by them?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: We were both, there’s a light there, and if you came down the one street and kept going, on your right hand side would be the Robin Hood. And then the bakery, I think, was on the corner, just before you got to the intersection. And we’re sitting from the bakery on back, going towards downtown Kent. And they were on the other side, like pretty much in front of the Robin Hood heading, I guess you’d say, towards Ravenna.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you. That’s real clear, thanks. [00:31:49] Do you want to move from there to Monday, May 4, or is there anything else from that night that you remember?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I don’t think there’s anything else from that night, no. I had, and I took them, there was one—I think one of the court proceedings I went to required it, but most of them really weren’t interested in anything besides the tape that actually has the shots on it. But I have like four different reel to reels. And they’re just—everything was either recorded off my windowsill and, not to get ahead of myself, but the was one that wasn’t recorded on the windowsill was, after the shootings, there were telephones in your room, wall telephones.

 

[Interviewer]: Really? Okay.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Each room had a wall telephone in it, and they told us that if we wanted to know what the condition of the students were because, right after it happened, we didn’t know how many people were shot, how many people were killed.

 

But what was interesting is they told us we could call Robinson Memorial Hospital and they would give us an update on what the condition was of the students that were brought there. And I haven’t played that tape in a long, long time, so I can’t tell you specifically, but I remember I called that number and then I recorded it on the recorder, too.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, my goodness.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: And the information they gave was wrong. But I’d found out later. Now how it was wrong, like I said, I probably haven’t listened to that tape in forty, forty-five years, but their numbers were wrong. However many people they said were shot or however many they said actually were killed, the information that they gave out was incorrect.

 

[Interviewer]: Interesting. And you were able to get through from your dorm room, on the phone, to the hospital?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Well, it was a recording. You didn’t actually talk to anybody.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, I see.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: They gave you a number to call. When you called the number, a recording, a prerecorded message, came on telling you what the status of the students were that were brought to the hospital.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:34:15] So, for people who don’t know the story, let’s backtrack a little bit and, I mean you were a radio and television student, so you naturally were, you owned your own tape recorder. Maybe tell us about that a little bit before we move on.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Well, when I was in junior high and high school, I had a paper route. And I used some of the money to buy what was a Craig model, it’s called a Campus Pet. It was a small reel-to-reel tape recorder. And that’s what I had, and that’s what I took to school with me, and that’s what I made all the recordings on.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, and not everybody had something like that. I mean, if somebody had a tape recorder at that time it would have been probably a cheaper, cassette tape machine. So, this was a step up, I’m guessing?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I’m trying to think, I don’t even know if they had cassettes, I don’t even know if they had cassettes then yet.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, there weren’t cassettes yet? Okay, thank you.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Maybe, but I don’t know.

 

[Interviewer]: That might have been a little bit later in the Seventies. That would make sense.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah, I didn’t know anybody else that personally had a tape recorder. You know, what I mean, everybody that I knew—it wasn’t like these days where you could have a small little digital tape recorder that you could take to class with you or something.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. Well, and that’s why I asked, because students today when they listen to your story, I mean everybody, almost everybody practically, has a smartphone and they can do an audio recording any time. So for you to have this tape recorder, that was not something everybody had.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. And I don’t know if you want to get into now, but I can tell you what the significance was of the recording, if you want.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:36:17] Well maybe, could you tell us first the story of Monday, May 4, where you were? You were in your room, and how you made the recording?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I was in my room. I did have the tape recorder up on the windowsill. But I spent most of my time, and if—if you heard the recording, you can actually hear me leave the room. Because they had those big wooden doors, and you hear the door close.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, I do, because I have listened, okay.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: And then I went out on the campus, and I was standing between Johnson [Hall] and Taylor Hall. If you walked out the side door of Johnson Hall and started heading towards Taylor [Hall], about the midpoint of those two was where I was standing.

 

It was a beautiful day, weather-wise. It was really nice. The sun was out, it was real warm. And there was quite a bit going on then. When I say quite a bit, there was a lot of activity out on The Commons, there was a lot of activity from where the Pagoda is towards where the practice field is.

 

When I say activity, there were—you mentioned Dr. Frank, he’s on the recordings, you can hear him. He’s riding around on a jeep with a megaphone, basically begging people to be peaceful and, you know. And there’s—when I say a lot of activity, there were, I don’t want to make it sound like it was a war or something, but there were little skirmishes all over the place. There were groups of students here, and groups of National Guard, groups of students here, and groups of National Guard, and facing off. It was a lot of tear gas, a lot of noise, a lot of people. There were a lot of students out there and there were a lot of National Guard. But again, it wasn’t like there was a line drawn down the middle of The Commons or something and the students are one side there and the Guard were on the other. There were groups of people spread out all over that area.

 

And I was standing, like I said, about halfway between Johnson Hall and Taylor Hall when the shots first started. And honestly, what originally I thought was going on, I thought somebody lit some firecrackers and threw them out of a dorm window. At first.

 

Because, in my mind, I never, ever imagined that things were—and I don’t know if I was naïve—but I never—my perception wasn’t that things were so bad that there was even a potential for someone to get shot. I never saw things that—I never saw that it was that serious.

 

And if you would have asked me beforehand if they actually had live ammunition, I would have told you no. I would have guessed no. Because I didn’t think they needed it, by what I saw. But then, you realized it was obvious, then you realized very quickly that there were people being shot. And it was interesting because I don’t recall anybody ever organizing this effort, but there were ambulances that were parked way on the other side of The Commons area, almost pretty close to where the ROTC Building used to stand, they had ambulances over there.

 

[Interviewer]: Near the Student Union?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: So, when all these shots were fired, and I can’t tell you, there must be pictures of this. It’s not like somebody organized it, but the students started gathering in circles around the people that were shot. And it was my understanding that they were doing that so that, because there were so many people out there that when the ambulances came over, they would know where to go.

 

But that being said, I don’t recall anybody saying, Hey, let’s start forming human chains around the victims that have been shot so that the ambulances know where to go.

 

[Interviewer]: It just happened.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: It just happened. So, that when the ambulances came over, they would know where to go.

 

[Interviewer]: So you remember seeing parked ambulances earlier in the day? Near the Student Union?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No, I don’t. But, when all this happened, and I remember looking over there and I saw them all parked over there. But I don’t remember when they arrived there.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:41:36] And where you were standing, you were really close to the Guards that fired weapons. Am I right on that?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. If they, because if I recall correctly, they came up by the Pagoda, and then they turned around and started firing the other direction. Now, if they had come up to the pagoda and dropped to a knee and started firing the direction that they were walking in, then yes, I would have been right in the line of fire.

 

[Interviewer]: You would’ve, if they’d fired towards The Commons, you would have been in the line of fire.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. But they turned around and fired in the other direction.

 

[Interviewer]: Good grief. Where was your brother at this time? Do you know? Or, you don’t have to answer that question.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: He was no longer a student. After my first quarter, his academic standing was not very good.

 

[Interviewer]: So, he wasn’t on campus that day?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No. He was actually in the Navy then. Because he was only there for my first quarter, then he, I guess the term is flunked out, and went home, didn’t quite know what to do so he joined the Navy.

 

[Interviewer]: Joined the Navy, okay. I was just curious if he was living in your dorm still. [00:43:12] What happened next? What do you remember next? And you must have been in shock at that moment?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah. Like I said, I don’t think anybody anticipated that. Nobody, like nobody was like, Well, you know it happened, but I can see why it happened because things became so dangerous. I don’t recall anybody thinking like that. I went back to my room after a while and then, eventually, I can’t remember how much time there was, but then they eventually closed the campus and everybody had to leave. I just packed up what I could, took my tape recorder, and left.

 

[Interviewer]: And took all your tapes, I assume?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yep.

 

[Interviewer]: Had the tape recorder run out of tape at that point, and it was still going when you got back?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Oh, it was still going when I got back. No, actually, it might have run out. Because, I think, if I recall correctly, it ran for about—and this is where the significance comes, it ran for about ten minutes before the shots started, and maybe five to ten minutes after. And I was outside for longer than five to ten minutes. I was outside for quite a while before I came back in. So it would have had to have run out.

 

[Interviewer]: Were you talking to other people when you were out there? Can you paint a visual for us in that immediate aftermath?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I would say that everybody was in shock. They were just so—like I said, it was unbelievable. It was almost incomprehensible that it happened. Again, it wasn’t something that you saw building up and it was a likely conclusion to what you saw taking place before your eyes. It wasn’t like that at all. It was very sudden. It just didn’t—it didn’t make any sense at all.

 

[Interviewer]: And then, after that, it was quieter in terms of skirmishes.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Oh yeah. It was almost like everything changed like 180 degrees.

 

It was, at that point, it was done. You know, the protests and the confrontations, they did not continue on. When that happened, it’s almost like time stood still for a while and then it just did not restart in the same fashion that was taking place before the shots. Does that make sense?

 

[Interviewer]: Absolutely, thank you. [00:46:15] So you got to your room, got your tape recorder, packed up what you could. Where did you go, did you go home? How were you able to get home?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I hitchhiked home. Because you had to leave. You didn’t have a choice. You couldn’t say, “Well, I’m going to call my parents and they’ll come pick me up,” because they were not going to let anybody onto the campus. We just had to get off the campus.

 

[Interviewer]: And this tape recorder was a little bit heavy, I’m guessing? I’ve seen photos of it. I mean it wasn’t super easy to carry. How did you, did someone give you a ride to the highway? How did hitchhike?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No, to go back to your first question, no, it’s not really that heavy. I don’t know what it looks like in the pictures. And you can actually see it if, they have it there somewhere, because like I said, I donated it to them before I—

 

[Interviewer]: To the May 4 Visitors Center, they have it, correct, yeah.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah, before I moved, because all these years since it happened, it sat in my closet at home. And we were getting ready to move to Georgia and I told my wife, I said, “You know what, there’s no reason for me to have that.” I said, “I should donate that to the school because it’s a lot more significant to them, than it is sitting in my closet.” That, every once in a while if somebody goes, “Hey, you know that tape recorder that,” and they want to see it. It certainly is a lot more significant to me to give it to the university than for me to keep it in my closet.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, thank you.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: But it wasn’t very heavy, no. It’s not that big. And I had a gym bag. And you just put—I didn’t have very much. I probably just had my clothes, my tape recorder, and I think I took my books, and that’s probably it. I didn’t really have that much, as you would say, stuff. We had a small refrigerator in the room, but those you rented. Didn’t own it.

 

[Interviewer]: That stayed behind, sure.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah, it’s not like college students these days. When you went into our rooms, there was almost nothing in there. It had a desk, a chair, a lamp.

 

[Interviewer]: Some books.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: In fact, I’ve often thought about it, because my brother, when he lived in a dorm, he lived in Moulton Hall, which wasn’t a dorm for long. But when I was in high school I came down and visited him a couple times, and I remember going to his dorm room in Moulton Hall, and I thought, This is more like a prison cell.

 

[Interviewer]: Or a monastery.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah. I said, “This is a dorm room?” Like, wow.

 

[Interviewer]: And you still wanted to go to college, good.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah. But I guess my point is that we didn’t really have much. And like I said, you go in the students’ rooms now, they’ve got furniture, they’ve got couches and chairs and televisions. We didn’t have anything like that.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, no. [00:49:33] So you successfully hitchhiked home? Do you have any memories from that trip?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No, not really. It’s not too far. It’s not too far from Kent to Cleveland.

 

[Interviewer]: And was that something you regularly did to get home? Was hitchhiking your main way of getting back if you wanted to visit your parents or be home for the weekend?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Pretty much so.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: You want another memory of Kent State?

 

[Interviewer]: Yes, I do.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: My roommate and I, when we’d get bored sometimes on a Friday night, we would—I guess you could say it was somewhat of a game. We would say, “Okay, we’re going to start hitchhiking in that direction and wherever we are in two hours that’s where we’ll stay.”

 

So we go out in front of the university, start hitchhiking, and whatever we decided, an hour, two, three. I mean things were really different then.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh yeah. This is good for students to hear because, yeah, this is very different.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Because you could hitchhike all over, and I didn’t feel threatened hitchhiking. And wherever we ended up, we would usually knock on someone’s door, and ask them if we could either sleep in their house or sleep in their backyard.

 

[Interviewer]: No, seriously?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: And you know what, they would let us.

 

[Interviewer]: So you could be anywhere, you could be in rural central Ohio?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I think the furthest we ever got was Geneva-on-the-Lake.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh my gosh, okay. Yeah, that’s a good long trip.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Because I remember we knocked on someone’s door and there were about three or four teenage girls there. And we asked them if we could stay in their house, and they said, “Sure, come on in.” So we did. And their mom wasn’t there, their mom wasn’t in the picture, their dad worked nights. So he wasn’t there either. But I remember, my friend and I were sleeping in their living room and I remember the father came home from work and all you could hear was—he called his daughters and they came down and you could hear, you can hear conversation going on, and he goes, “What!? Who are they?” And he came in and asked us to leave, so we did.

 

[Interviewer]: That’s a really interesting story.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: But those are some of the things we did for fun, before you had the internet and everything else, and social media.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. And Kent was a small town.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah, yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: You were eighteen, you were able to go to a bar and drink 3.2 beer when you were a freshman?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah, they did have that, right, 3.2 beer when you were eighteen. I think the caps were a different color or something like that.

 

[Interviewer]: So that was something you did also, but this was much more adventurous, hitchhiking as far as you could get in a couple hours.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah, yeah. It was fun. But, like I said, I wouldn’t recommend that somebody do that today! The way things are, but back then it wasn’t really that odd.

 

[Interviewer]: You met a lot of really nice people who took you in, probably fed you, yeah.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Truckers, truckers would give you rides. They’d even stop at truck stops and feed you.

 

[Interviewer]: Tell you stories. Very fun. [00:53:11] So you got home, maybe tell us your stories regarding the tape, especially the recording of the actual gunfire. What happened next?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Well, I played the tape for my parents and then they called my grandfather over. And my grandfather, at the time, was one of the battalion chiefs of the fire department. And so he knew some people with the Plain Dealer. And I know he contacted, I think it was before he left the Plain Dealer, I think it was Joseph Eszterhas [00:53:52] that came and did an interview with me about the tape recording. And my grandfather, I don’t know if he also contacted them, or Eszterhas did, but somebody contacted the State Highway Patrol. And so they knew about it. So they came, and they took me to some office somewhere and they made a copy of the recording. And they gave me the original back.

 

Which is kind of interesting, because if you read, jumping forward quite a few years, if you read some of the things that Alan Canfora was talking about and some other people, they made it sound like nobody knew that this tape existed, which wasn’t true. People knew from the very beginning that it existed. Because then I eventually had subpoenas to testify before the Grand Jury over in Portage County. And I had to testify in federal court. And I had to take the tape recording with me every time. But the last time that I testified in the federal case, they made a copy of the recording and gave me the copy and they kept the original.

 

So I have the copy that they gave me, but they never gave me the original back. And we had made some efforts years and years ago to get it back, but they claim that they lost it. Which, in a way, I kind of believe because when all this came up with Alan Canfora, I’m sure you’re familiar with that story, what he did?

 

He listened online to that cassette copy that was in the Library of Congress and he said he heard some order of “Fire.” The FBI contacted me again because they did lose the original, and so the Justice Department came and they got the tape again, analyzed it again. That was just a few years ago.

 

[Interviewer]: But at that point, that was a second generation, that was a copy of your original tape, correct?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. It was a copy that they gave me, correct.

 

[Interviewer]: So no one’s been able to do more advanced digital analysis based on the original tape that you made? Am I right?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: They’ve done, they’ve done a digital analysis but, you are correct, not on the original because I think the federal government lost it. Now, now the original tape itself, when the federal government had the original tape—I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the investigative report that was done by Bolt, Beranek and Newman [00:56:52]?

 

[Interviewer]: I have not.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: They’re the organization that, incidentally, also analyzed the Watergate tapes. Well, they put together, and I’ve got it sitting right in front of me, it’s a real comprehensive—what it is, is it’s a spectral analysis of the original tape. And I can get into it now if you want me to: what the significance of it was?

 

There had been some theories that, because nobody could believe that the National Guard would just, on their own, drop down to a knee and start shooting people. So, there were a lot of theories, at the time, that perhaps there was a sniper on top of one of the dorm buildings or in a tree or somebody that was in one of the crowds that shot. And the National Guard was reacting to that shot by getting down to their knee and shooting. Because the feeling at the time was, Well there’s no way that just, on their own, they would have just decided to get down on their knee and shoot. Something must have precipitated that. There had to be some kind of a trigger.

 

What the spectral analysis did was it took the tape recording, and you can break down every second of the recording and, since it ran for ten minutes before the shots started and five to ten minutes after the shots concluded, it is the only recording that exists that contains sound from before the shots started. You can break down that entire tape and see exactly, when you do a spectral analysis, you will show what kind of a weapon was fired and where was that weapon. Because they can plot out that whole area of the campus. And when you do a spectral analysis, you can go, okay, well there was an M1 that was fired from this location at this point during the thirteen seconds.

 

So, there were no shots fired from any trees or buildings or anything like that. So that’s what I was getting to, that’s the significance of it, because it basically proves that. And if the tape didn’t exist, somebody could always say, Well, they heard somebody shooting at them, so they were returning fire. The only other recording that exists is—somebody from Channel 3 WKYC was actually on Blanket Hill. They had one of those shoulder video tape recorders. But they didn’t start recording until they heard the shots. And not only did they not start recording until they heard the shots but, as we discussed, electronics have become so much more advanced today, at that time, for the machine to get up to speed, took “x” amount of seconds. Probably like ten seconds or something. Because that was a videotape that was in a, like a VHS tape almost, that would be in the machine that they used. And when they hit their record button to start recording what’s around, it takes time for that to build up to speed, it’s not instantaneous like now with your cellphone.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. [01:00:33] If I could ask a quick question here, back when you were in your room before you had started the tape recorder, what was going through your mind? You thought, There’s a lot going on, I’m going to turn on my tape recorder? I’m just curious about you in that moment before you started the tape recording.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I think what you said is accurate. And it’s interesting that you would ask that question because some of the proceedings that took place over in Portage County, if I remember the prosecutor was Seabury Ford [01:01:10]?

 

[Interviewer]: Can’t answer that, sorry.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I’d been questioned a lot because there was some kind of feeling that somehow, someway, that maybe I was associated or affiliated or participated in something like SDS or the Weathermen, or something like that, and that’s why I was recording this. Because they said, “Why would somebody just record this? Why would he just happen to do that?”

 

[Interviewer]: So, that was part of your testimony.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: It was. I did just happen to do it. I wasn’t associated with anything like that. I wasn’t doing it to have some kind of an audio diary of what was going on for SDS or the Weathermen or any underground organization, or anything like that. But that’s kind of the direction he was going in. It’s interesting, when I went over to Portage County, when I went over there to testify, they, first, before I went to the courtroom, they took me across the street. I can’t remember exactly what the building was, but inside was something like a gymnasium, because it was a huge wide-open room.

 

And inside the gymnasium, the floors were covered with card tables. And on each card table was all the information that somebody put together on all the different persons of interest. Because they took me to my card table and showed it to me. And they had my high school yearbook and report cards, you know, stuff like that. Whatever they could find out about my background. So, I could see kind of what direction they were heading in.

 

But this shows, if you’re interested, this shows that. I don’t know if you ever, have you ever looked at that Bolt, Beranek and Newman report?

 

[Interviewer]: I have not yet. I need to.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: There were sixty-seven shots, thirty-two, and in the last eight seconds there were thirty-two from an M1 rifle, three from a forty-five-caliber pistol, and two from a twelve-gauge shotgun. And the shots last 12.53 seconds. Everything I’ve read always said thirteen seconds.

 

[Interviewer]: They round it up.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah. I think the university probably has a copy of this. When it was produced, it was produced on February 28, 1974. And it was done for, it’s seventy-two pages long, and it was done for Stanley Pottinger, who at the time the assistant attorney general of the civil rights division for the United States Department of Justice.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. That’s this report that you’re referencing, okay.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right. When I testified, one of the engineers that put together the report, his name was Scott Robinson, and I was sitting in the witness room with him, and he had the report and that’s what he was there for. And I asked him if I could have a copy of it, and he promised that he’d give me a copy as long as I didn’t release it to the media.

 

[Interviewer]: As long as you did, or did not?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: As long as I did not. But a big part of my testimony, before the state and before the federal government, was they asked me questions like, Did you make this recording at a studio? Did you alter or edit this recording after it was made? Is this an original recording? Did you start and stop the recording? Which I hadn’t. It ran, you know, the whole tape ran.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah. While you were outside.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Because they were trying to make sure that it wasn’t something that was created in a studio or something, you know, just for whatever reason.

 

[Interviewer]: Sure, yeah. Your testimony was critical to confirming the authenticity of this piece of evidence. Absolutely.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right, since I did it. I had to testify that, like I said, it was continuous running, wasn’t edited, didn’t come out of a sound lab somewhere.

 

[Interviewer]: [01:05:52] That must have been, what was that experience like, testifying at these different hearings? It must have been really stressful at the very least, I’m thinking, for a young person.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: A little. I mean part of it, I had moved to Washington, North Carolina, after I graduated. Because I did work at a—I did direct the six and eleven o’clock news at an NBC station down there.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. You’re more experienced at this point.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I guess where I’m sitting is up there now but, I keep saying down there because I’m not used to living in the South. But it was interesting because I was working, I was in the studio and two federal marshals came, and they came to the front and I remember my boss said, “Hey, there’s two federal marshals here.” I said, “Oh, okay.” And they had a subpoena.

 

[Interviewer]: Did your boss want to know, What have you done?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: They had a subpoena and a plane ticket! Because I had to fly back to Cleveland, then, with my recordings and stuff.

 

[Interviewer]: And remind us, what year was this?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Well, let’s see, I can probably tell you in a second here. I think I have a copy of my subpoena. This is in October of 1974. “You are commanded to appear in the Courthouse, Northern District of Ohio, and bring with you the tape recording of the gunshots made at Kent State University.”

 

[Interviewer]: You were a recent Kent State graduate at that point, working in your first job?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right, right. That’s when I was down in North Carolina. I remember my boss said, “Okay, why are the marshals here?”

 

[Interviewer]: That’s a really bad traffic ticket!

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah. “What exactly have you done now?”

 

[Interviewer]: Oh dear.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No, it was all okay. You know, it just—they understood.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah. They probably wanted to hear your story, too, at that point, I’m thinking, if they hadn’t already.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: You know, surprisingly, they didn’t. They didn’t really inquire a whole lot. I don’t know if it was because it was down in North Carolina and, I don’t know, maybe it didn’t seem quite as newsworthy as maybe to somebody in Ohio.

 

[Interviewer]: [01:08:58] I guess my next question for you, unless there’s something else you want to touch on, would be kind of just all of these events—being there that day in particular, but then also the whole aftermath that you were part of with having to testify and the significance of the recording that you made—just what the impact of all of that has been on you personally or the path your life has taken, and the course of your life after that.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Honestly, when I was eighteen years old, I was probably pretty immature and pretty naïve. At that point, I realized I made the recording but it wasn’t at—and originally, when I was eighteen years old, the significance of it wasn’t that apparent to me at the time.

 

I wasn’t thinking of the whole global picture. But I was thinking, Oh, wow, this, I made this recording, and now you can hear the shots on here, but I wasn’t thinking of the whole picture of what the consequences could be. And then, it didn’t take too long to figure out, because I could see, like I said, in Portage County, I could see that they were kind of more interested in trying to figure out who to prosecute for committing maybe criminal acts. As opposed to the federal government, where they seemed like they were just more interested in finding out what happened and, at least from my perspective, was the tape real and, again, did I do anything to alter the tape, was it an actual, original tape, and so on and so forth. Over the years, because it’s certainly been a lot of years now, it’s almost what, fifty years?

 

I’ve had—it’s interesting because when the anniversaries come by, sometimes I’ll get a lot of inquiries about doing interviews, which I’ve not responded, to the best of my recollection, to any of them.

 

The only interviews I’ve done, I’ve done with—this one with you, and I did one maybe two months ago with a high school student in Virginia. Because they were working on a project and they asked them to interview somebody who had some experience of something of a historical nature. And so, they chose me, and I did a telephone interview with them.

 

And there was a grad student at Kent maybe ten years ago that as part of his—he took a class, I think, that revolved around May 4^th. And he asked if he could, for his project, he asked if he could interview me and I went over to his house and did an interview with him.

 

Now, there were some at the beginning with newspaper reporters and stuff like that, right after the initial event. But, throughout the years, what I’ve mentioned has basically been it.

 

I had a lot of requests when Alan [Canfora] came out with that, that feeling, that there was—and I asked somebody about that. When the FBI came and asked to use the copy again to listen to it again, because they were basically, somewhat, to a lot lesser degree, reinvestigating it after those remarks were made that there was an order to fire.

 

And I asked them, I said, “How is it possible that somebody’s going on the internet and listening to this?” And what the FBI agent told me, whether it’s accurate or not I don’t know, but what he said was, “Through discovery.” And you know what discovery is?

 

That all the attorneys that were involved in the civil case were provided with a cassette copy of the shootings. And one of those attorneys donated his cassette copy to the Library of Congress.

 

The Library of Congress then, in turn, uploaded it to their site. And then Alan, sitting at his house on his computer, was doing searches and he found that recording in the Library of Congress. And I was thinking to myself, Okay, I’m not an engineer, but you’ve got different generations of a tape and by the time you took the original tape and you took a copy of it, and then you made a cassette copy of it, and then you uploaded it to the Library of Congress, and he’s sitting at home listening to it on his computer—

 

[Interviewer]: Right, with a small speaker.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Yeah. I would certainly like to think this agency, this Bolt, Beranek and Newman, they had, they had nothing to lose one way or the other, they weren’t part of the federal government. They were an independent company that analyzed the tape. I mean, they analyzed every second of that tape. I’m certain they would have heard. I would have heard it, too. I heard the tape enough, I would have heard that, if something was that clear that he could hear it that many generations in on his computer at home, I certainly would have heard it myself. And Bolt, Beranek and Newman certainly would have heard it when they analyzed the tape, that’s obviously something they wouldn’t have ignored. But I did have a lot of requests after that, but I just didn’t respond. After that information came out.

 

[Interviewer]: You received more interview requests from media at that point?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Right.

 

[Interviewer]: So, you stayed away from doing interviews with the media, basically.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Pretty much so, right. Yep.

 

[Interviewer]: Any particular reason or aspect of that that you’d like to share?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Well, I don’t know, maybe it’s my experience working in the media. Usually there’s an agenda that somebody’s working from. And I just found most reporters aren’t just being totally objective and looking for maybe the truth. They’ve got an idea of what they want the truth to be and they sort of try to lead you down that path, but you’d answer the questions that they think will result in them achieving their goals. That might sound definitely a little jaded, I realize!

 

[Interviewer]: That’s fine. No, I mean, this is your frame of reference, absolutely.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: I’m just very careful.

 

[Interviewer]: And it’s really generous of you to share your story with those students who were working on research projects, and very generous to share it with this Oral History Project, because then that will enable additional students to hear it, now and into the future. [01:16:35] At this point, I don’t have any other questions, I don’t know if there’s anything else that you wanted to mention or talk about that we haven’t touched on?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No, I don’t think so. I’m looking at my little notes here and I don’t think so.

 

I think I just would reemphasize, again, that, and it’s just answering your question again, that my perception when I was there on May 4th was not that that the situation was so severe or so serious that I would anticipate that somebody was going to get shot. I just couldn’t, I mean, I—

 

[Interviewer]: You probably wouldn’t have stayed standing outside if you had had that sense.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Exactly. I might have been eighteen years old, but I would have enough common sense, I wouldn’t go stand on, I guess, what you would sort of perceive as a battlefield. I wouldn’t go stand out there to watch people shooting at each other.

 

[Interviewer]: Right, yeah. Anything else connected to that?

 

[Terry Strubbe]: No, I just—that’s just the way I feel. And I think that’s—you know, you’re talking about memories and recollections—and that’s just honestly my perception of what I felt was going on around me standing out there and actually experiencing it firsthand.

 

[Interviewer]: Terry, I want to thank you again, so much. This has been so interesting, and a really important contribution to the Oral History Project. Thank you.

 

[Terry Strubbe]: Well, you’re welcome. If there’s anything else that you need clarified, or need information on, feel free to call me again.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, I will. I’m going to stop the recording.

 

 

[End of interview]

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