* Yale Political Union Colloquium Participants

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POSSIBLE KENT  STATE EVIDENCE FOUND IN YALE ARCHIVES: 2007




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SNAPSHOTS USA

  (2008)

Based on research done at

Yale's Kent State Collection

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The Participants in The Kent State Colloquium Sponsored by The Yale Political Union 

Peter Davies, author of The Truth About Kent State

Glenn A. Olds, President, Kent State University*

Three decades later the papers of President Olds became a source of controversy about Yale's Kent State Collection itself.

Henry Steele Commager, Historian :  Professor Commager's  famous speech about Kent State, The University and the Community of Learning, can be read at 
 

 

http://www.commager.org/legacy_paul_keane.php

 http://www.commager.org/speech_kent_state_address.php

  

Sanford Jay Rosen, Attorney for the Families of the Kent Slain and Wounded

Rev. John P. Adams, Director of Law, Justice and Community Affairs of the United Methodist Church's Board of Church and Society, Washington, D.C.

Adams, John P. At the Heart of the Whirlwind. New York: Harper and Row.

This memoir describes the major role Adams played in helping get the federal grand jury investigation [of the Kent State shootings], as well as his role in other civil rights causes. See also Adams, John P. “Kent State: Why the Church?,” American Report, November 12, 1971, p. 22-S and Adams, John P. “Kent State and Morality.” Cleveland State Law Review 22 (Winter 1973), p. 167.

Areh Neier, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union

J. Gregory Payne,  Playwright, Historian

NOTE: Lawrence Dowler, Head, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, created its Kent State Collection. He later became archivist at Harvard University, a position he held until retirement.


POSSIBLE KENT  STATE EVIDENCE FOUND IN YALE ARCHIVES
Thirty years after the Kent State Collection was created at Yale's Sterling Library, this forgotten audiotape was uncovered in that very Collection by one of the Kent State shooting victims, Alan Canfora. Recently developed enhancing techniques may have revealed in that audiotape a command by Ohio National Guardsmen to fire on Kent State students:

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/06/nyregion/yale-preserves-history-of-kent-state-tragedy.html

from The New York Times

COLLECTIONS>YALE

Yale Preserves History Of Kent State Tragedy

By NORA FITZGERALD
Published: May 06, 1990

IN Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library, 76 boxes of legal transcripts, letters, and rally posters recall the deaths of four students 20 years ago at Kent State University in Ohio.

The Kent State Collection's accumulated details tell a powerful story. Yale librarians warn potential viewers that one box contains disturbing photographs - morgue shots of the slain students, Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, William K. Schroeder and Sandra Lee Scheuer.

Another box holds a videotape documenting 13 seconds on May 4, 1970, when 27 Ohio National Guardsmen dressed in riot gear fired their combat rifles at students who were protesting President Richard M. Nixon's announcement of an offensive by American troops in Cambodia.

The massive repository of documents and memorabilia is at Yale because it ''was the only place that agreed to give anyone access who wanted to see the collection, and that's what the families wanted,'' said Steven Keller, a Columbus, Ohio, lawyer. In the 1970's, Mr. Keller helped the victims' families seek redress, and he donated much of the Kent State material to Yale on the seventh anniversary of the killings.

The Kent State Collection documents the decade that the victims' families sought justice in the court system. A 1974 criminal complaint, in which they contended that the students' civil rights had been infringed, was dismissed. A civil suit ended in defeat in 1975. The families appealed, and in 1979, the case finally ended in a settlement of $675,000, to be shared by the plaintiffs.

The families said they agreed to the out-of-court settlement only because it was accompanied by an apology from the defendants - Gov. James A. Rhodes of Ohio and 27 National Guardsmen. The apology said, in part, ''Better ways must be found to deal with these confrontations.''

Deciding on the wording of the apology took several days of negotiation, Mrs. Holstein said. And even then, she said, the families found it unsatisfactory. ''We had to wrench every word out of them,'' she said. ''And even then, it could be interpreted several ways.''

Letter to Nixon

There are many vignettes within the larger story of the collection, like that of Dean Kahler, one of nine students wounded by the guardsmen. Mr. Kahler was shot in the back and paralyzed from the waist down; today the 38-year-old is the County Commissioner of Athens County, Ohio.

Mr. Kahler said he will donate his own materials to the Yale collection, ''including the clothes I wore that day.''

Another vignette concerns Peter Davies, a British-born former insurance agent, who knew none of the victims but was so outraged that he began to work tirelessly as an investigator of the incident. Eventually, he wrote a book, ''The Truth About Kent State,'' and donated all material from his research to Yale.

The collection begins with a letter to President Nixon from Mr. Davies, dated May 8, 1970, protesting the killings.

Less known than the stories of the students are those of the National Guardsmen involved, who were about the same age as their victims.

Box 25, still closed by court order, is thought to contain sensitive material about the guardsmen, including medical records and family histories.

Yale's Kent State materials are available to anyone who wants to see them, weekdays from 8:30 A.M. to 4:45 P.M. Despite its size, the collection is still not complete. Sanford Rosen, a Yale Law School graduate and the chief counsel in the civil suit brought by the families, said he has a roomful of materials that he will soon donate.

''Some files have yet to be disgorged by the Department of Justice,'' Mr. Rosen said. ''They simply have not complied with the Freedom of Information order. I'll have to pursue that. The litigation may not be over.''

Each year, the anniversary of the Kent State killings attracts a flurry of activity. But when commemorative events and coverage subside, there is still the collection, which makes the students' deaths an enduring part of history. ''I do get some solace in that,'' Mrs. Holstein said.

*

http://www.fox8.com/wjw-yalewontacceptmorekentst-3460933,0,4674966.story

http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/3137852

SNAPSHOTS USA






  (2008)




Based on research done at

Yale's Kent State Collection

Norm Weissman testifies before the Kent State Truth Tribunal 20ll