Nixonland: America's Second Civil War and the Divisive Legacy of Richard Nixon 1965-72

by Rick Perlstein

Some guardsmen started removing their name patches because kids were looking up their numbers in the Akron phone book and harassing their wives: “Hey, you beautiful chick, who are you fucking now that your pig husband is here on the Kent campus?” Night fell. Students gathered at the Victory Bell, though rallies were supposed to have been banned: “One, two, three, four! We don’t want your fucking war!” “Fuck you! Ag-new!” A jeep, a bullhorn: “You are breaking the law. You must disperse. If you continue to demonstrate, you will be arrested.” “Fuck you, pig!” Shortly before 8 p.m. a guardsman found two bottles of gasoline and a wick in the bushes by university police headquarters. Fifteen minutes after that, five gallons of gasoline were found on the roof of the administration building. After nine, radicals marched to the president’s house, surging past the dormitories: “Join us! Join us!” They were turned back by tear gas, and two hundred detached themselves to take Main Street. They were met by an armored personnel carrier. When it rumbled onto a side street, they cheered a tactical victory. They sat in the middle of a busy intersection. Helicopters flashed antiriot lights over rooftops, searching out snipers. At the street corner the cops handed over a car’s PA system to a student who seemed responsible. He turned out not to be so responsible. He claimed the police had told him they wouldn’t be arrested and that the National Guard was leaving campus. At eleven, the hour of...