Kent State: An American Tragedy

by Brian VanDeMark

These differing reactions reflected a country torn between opposing outlooks, a profound dislocation in the American system. Predictably and regrettably, both sides rushed to judgment. To those on the Right, the shooting represented a grimly satisfying, overdue “law and order” response to years of student unrest. They blamed the victims and believed the guardsmen had not reacted harshly enough. Four students dead in Ohio? More than a dozen young American servicemen who hadn’t dodged the draft died in Vietnam every day. A Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans blamed the students; only 11 percent blamed the National Guard. Ohio National Guard headquarters received 10,089 letters in the weeks after the shooting; only 454 were critical—a ratio of 22 to 1. Conservative Kent State students spread malicious rumors that Allison Krause had been “the campus whore,” that her body had been found ravaged by syphilis, that “when they got her to the hospital, they found she was carrying hand grenades,” and that she had met with Communists a week before the shooting. One student’s mother “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.” When another student returned home after the shooting, his mother told him that “it would have been a good thing if all of them had been shot.” “Mom,” said the student, “that’s me you’re talking about.” “It would still have bee...