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Campus "Unrest" demonstrations and consequences, 1970-1971

1971-11-12 American Report: Review of Religion and American Power Page 24

20-S AMERICAN REPORT, NOVEMBER 12, 1971

'Elevating the Uniform Above the Law'

[Cont. from p. 19-S]

That's when I first spoke to him

How did you come to make contact and develop your friendship with Arthur Krause?

That goes back to about May 8. The whole thing was finally too much for me and I wrote this two page letter to Nixon and early the next week I thought I'd send a copy to the Krauses with a note. Then he called me because he liked what I'd said in the letter to Nixon

You conclude in your report that the shooting began as a result of a planned pre arranged act involving a certain number of guardsmen. Would you elaborate on this charge?

As an individual. I approached it in a similar manner as the Justice Department approached it. Their lawyers wrote a summary of the F.B.I investigation, and in a sense I did a similar thing. I used all the materials that had been produced and I used the photographs. Putting all of this together - with what they say, combined with what the photographs show,k indicates to me that this is an explanation for the shooting which, at the very least, mandates a further investigation. 

How did you come to the decision to publish your report? You say more than a year had passed before you actually published it. If the Justice Department had called for a Federal Grand Jury would you have....

No , It was simply done to try and get the Federal Grand Jury. I felt that it would move Mitchell to act. 

What does the Attorney General's recent announcement that there will be no Federal Grand Jury do to your conclusion?

Nothing. I think it's rather interesting that he doesn't dismiss it. He said he was unable to find any credible evidence of a conspiracy, yet he has not used the tool by which such evidence is obtained: a Federal Grand Jury with the power to grant immunity to witnesses. 

What do you think motivated Mr. Mitchell's decision, especially in light of your evidence that the truth has not yet been told about Kent State?

What motivated his decision? Politics. I think there are many factors, but this thing has been inundated with politics from the beginning. 

Do you think it's why he waited for more than a year to even make an announcement? Especially in light of t he Justice Department's unusual speed in moving against the New York Times, Daniel Ellsberg and the Berrigans?

I don't think he had any intention of making an announcement. I think he was just going to let it slide into oblivion. in  a sense, it was my report and the interest shown in it by the news media which forced the decision. But he timed it beautifully. Congress was out that Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. Mind you, he was playing no different tactics than we. We released our report on Thursday so we had the coverage for Friday. 

Prior to the announcement, did the Justice Department make any kind of response to your report?

No, That's why it was released. 

President Nixon, shortly before the Kent State tragedy, referred to student protesters as "bums" How valid do you think the young people's quarrel with Mr. Nixon and the Establishment is?

There's been a lot of misinterpretation and distortion about this quote. There's no question he said it. It was a typical Nixon remark which he intended in a certain context and which was slightly altered in transmission to the people. I have no doubt in my mind that in my mind that when he used that phrase he was referring to a specific incident. I don't think he meant to call all students bums. I mean, there's a lot of Young Americans for Freedom who are students and I'm sure he's not talking about them, The point is that he has to understand that this is how the students, through the media, interpret what he said 
But the fact that he used the term "bum" is indicative of the general lack of what one would expect of someone holding his high office. The rhetoric is crude. It demeans the office. It's typical though. It fits the pattern with his statement that Charles Manson was guilty. It fits the statement he made after the Kent shooting. It fit the statement he made after a guard kills a hijacker and Nixon goes out of his way to personally congratulate hi. But he didn't phone any of the parents of the Kent dead and wounded to express his sympathy. And I think the students do have a valid complaint about this Administration because it strikes me that it's not humane Administration at all. 

Then do you see a general pattern in the way Nixon responds to crises in general?

He had a pattern of responding to those outside his constituency, or what he considers his constituency. 

Speaking of patterns, do you see the events surrounding Attica and My Lai related to those surrounding Kent State?

Very much so. Like I said in the report, the whole reaction of horror that anyone would even suggest that a number of guardsmen might have deliberately shot a student is ignoring reality They're all human individuals and just because they put on a uniform it doesn't change them one iota. Now there is an element in our society that hates students. One guardsman interviewed by C.B.S afterwards was asked how he felt about it and his response was , "It's time they got it like that."
Well. the same thing happened in My Lai. Here you have unarmed civilians who are identifiable with the enemy, with the Viet Cong, and you had a few guys who are filled with hate and anger because somebody's been wounded or killed earlier. So suddenly it's time and, boom, they let loose. But it' murder, and whichever way you turn it around a uniform makes no difference. But that is the problem in this country. We're elevating the uniform above the law. 

Does this say anything to you about the general direction that our country is going? Is this a trend or just an aberration in time and history?

It is a trend, and I suppose, in one sense, that everything we're doing on Kent represents an attempt to reverse the trend. Because if we don't reverse it, if the people don't wake up to the fact that this is a dangerous trend in this county, then every time these things happen and the people responsible are not held accountable, if we do nothing (thee way we did nothing at Kent, nothing at Jackson - we'll probably do nothing at Attica, nor with the F.B.I's indirect culpability in the recent killing of a pilot and a young woman at the Jacksonville airport in Florida), then we are just encouraging State officials and law enforcement officers to rely upon an easy solution to every kind of disturbance and situations such as the recent Jacksonville hijacking: arbitrary force. 
I want to say more about the Jacksonville tragedy. The Justice Department should immediately investigate into the circumstances whereby two F.B.I agents could arbitrarily ignore pilot Brent Downs' request to the control tower for a fuel truck so that he could continue on to Bermuda, the destination chosen by the hijacker. Downs and 25 year old Susan Giffe were held at gunpoint by her estranged husband, George. When the F.B.I told the pilot they would not allow him to refuel, Downs said, "You are endangering lives by doing this, and we have no other choice but to go along, and for the sake of some lives, we request some fuel out here please." One of the F.B.I agents callously replied, "The decision will be no fuel for that aircraft" Some minutes later F.B.I. agents opened fire on the plane and thereby triggered George Giffe to shoot and kill the pilot, Mrs. Giffe and himself. 
This is an even more horrifying example of official contempt for human life than Kent State and Jackson State.It convinces me there is a definite trend in this country toward Government by the law of force, rather than, as Dr . Glenn Olds recently advocated the force of law. 
You know, the F.A.A. transcript of the conversations between the control tower and the hijack plane contain a background remark by someone in the tower after the shooting was over and it symbolizes to me what is happening to America today: "You can't win them all," someone cracked. 

I think the students have been saying in their protests that we do need to turn things around that the country is headed in a wrong direction. I think that some of their actions indicate that they haven't been listened to by our national leaders and as a result there is a kind of despair and frustration among students which forces them to conclude that the systems can't work. Do you think the system can work?

There's nothing wrong with the system.The system's only as good as the people who hold the power, who, in essence, run the system. This is one of the reasons I came to this country. The system is great. The trouble is, just like most systems, wherever they might be, and whatever ideology we always seem to put in mediocre people to run them. 

You were born in England. When did you come to the U.S?

1957

And why did you decide to leave England and come here?

England was getting too socialized. But the students are right,, I don't agree with them when they say the system is no good. There's nothing wrong with the system. When you have a constitution such as we have, and a Bill of Rights such as we have - which is the basic foundation of the system - what is wrong with that? Nothing, to my mind, The trouble is the people who wield it and swear to uphold it, and don't. 

Would you say that the Kent tragedy has changed your politics?

Well, not really, It's politics which has changed and I wonder how far we are going to go in embracing the law of force. 

Sometimes it takes a tragedy like this to get people involved in the political processes of this country, to move them off dead center - out of apathy and into action. 

I think that's one of the problems; the people aren't deeply enough interested in politics. I'm hoping that the students, with the vote, are going to be, but the average person doesn't really take a great interest in what is going on and what is being done. It strikes me too that American people generally are terribly impulsive. Unbelievable I realized this with Kent. Officials came out and said a couple of things in a few days and that's it. I've been up against that wall for a year and a half and no matter, what you produce that's it and they accept things like that. 

You say that judgments were made a couple of days after the Kent State shootings and that these are going to stand. Prior to Mitchell's announcement did you see the Justice Department as the court of last resort for the truth to be known about Kent State? 

No. 

You still see avenues open?

Right, I felt that the processes that we have should be implemented. and the obvious part of the process in the Kent incident is the Federal Grand Jury. So I still felt that everything had to be directed there until they said a flat public "no" I see Congress as the only solution now.

Are there efforts being made now to...

Senator Kennedy has said that he is going to investigate the Justice Department's handling of the case. Also, there are congressmmen like (William) Moorehead who is trying to get Congressman (Don) Edwards, chairman of the Subcommittee on the Oversight of Civil Rights of the House Judiciary Committee, to investigate But it needs much more than that, It needs a complete investigation where they have subpoena power to bring people like Canterbury, White, Del Corso, Rhodes... these men have to appear in public and answer to the statements they made back in the week following...

Very inflammatory statements?

Yes, but I mean they testified to the commission under oath. They have yet to be challenged for what I say are fabrications under oath. What I don't understand - maybe it's because I'm English, I don't know - is why the American people should object to having Canterbury go before a Congressional Committee and have a large blowup of these photos which were taken, according to the President's Commission, at the instant the shooting started. 
There is this area in front of the guards which spans a good 80 to 100 feet, and in it there are two students. There is Joseph Lewis at 60 feet, stand 

(Cont p, 21-S, Col 1)

Saving...

20-S AMERICAN REPORT, NOVEMBER 12, 1971 'Elevating the Uniform Above the Law' [Cont. from p. 19-S] That's when I first spoke to him How did you come to make contact and develop your friendship with Arthur Krause? That goes back to about May 8. The whole thing was finally too much for me and I wrote this two page letter to Nixon and early the next week I thought I'd send a copy to the Krauses with a note. Then he called me because he liked what I'd said in the letter to Nixon You conclude in your report that the shooting began as a result of a planned pre arranged act involving a certain number of guardsmen. Would you elaborate on this charge? As an individual. I approached it in a similar manner as the Justice Department approached it. Their lawyers wrote a summary of the F.B.I investigation, and in a sense I did a similar thing. I used all the materials that had been produced and I used the photographs. Putting all of this together - with what they say, combined with what the photographs show,k indicates to me that this is an explanation for the shooting which, at the very least, mandates a further investigation. How did you come to the decision to publish your report? You say more than a year had passed before you actually published it. If the Justice Department had called for a Federal Grand Jury would you have.... No , It was simply done to try and get the Federal Grand Jury. I felt that it would move Mitchell to act. What does the Attorney General's recent announcement that there will be no Federal Grand Jury do to your conclusion? Nothing. I think it's rather interesting that he doesn't dismiss it. He said he was unable to find any credible evidence of a conspiracy, yet he has not used the tool by which such evidence is obtained: a Federal Grand Jury with the power to grant immunity to witnesses. What do you think motivated Mr. Mitchell's decision, especially in light of your evidence that the truth has not yet been told about Kent State? What motivated his decision? Politics. I think there are many factors, but this thing has been inundated with politics from the beginning. Do you think it's why he waited for more than a year to even make an announcement? Especially in light of t he Justice Department's unusual speed in moving against the New York Times, Daniel Ellsberg and the Berrigans? I don't think he had any intention of making an announcement. I think he was just going to let it slide into oblivion. in a sense, it was my report and the interest shown in it by the news media which forced the decision. But he timed it beautifully. Congress was out that Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. Mind you, he was playing no different tactics than we. We released our report on Thursday so we had the coverage for Friday. Prior to the announcement, did the Justice Department make any kind of response to your report? No, That's why it was released. President Nixon, shortly before the Kent State tragedy, referred to student protesters as "bums" How valid do you think the young people's quarrel with Mr. Nixon and the Establishment is? There's been a lot of misinterpretation and distortion about this quote. There's no question he said it. It was a typical Nixon remark which he intended in a certain context and which was slightly altered in transmission to the people. I have no doubt in my mind that in my mind that when he used that phrase he was referring to a specific incident. I don't think he meant to call all students bums. I mean, there's a lot of Young Americans for Freedom who are students and I'm sure he's not talking about them, The point is that he has to understand that this is how the students, through the media, interpret what he said But the fact that he used the term "bum" is indicative of the general lack of what one would expect of someone holding his high office. The rhetoric is crude. It demeans the office. It's typical though. It fits the pattern with his statement that Charles Manson was guilty. It fits the statement he made after the Kent shooting. It fit the statement he made after a guard kills a hijacker and Nixon goes out of his way to personally congratulate hi. But he didn't phone any of the parents of the Kent dead and wounded to express his sympathy. And I think the students do have a valid complaint about this Administration because it strikes me that it's not humane Administration at all. Then do you see a general pattern in the way Nixon responds to crises in general? He had a pattern of responding to those outside his constituency, or what he considers his constituency. Speaking of patterns, do you see the events surrounding Attica and My Lai related to those surrounding Kent State? Very much so. Like I said in the report, the whole reaction of horror that anyone would even suggest that a number of guardsmen might have deliberately shot a student is ignoring reality They're all human individuals and just because they put on a uniform it doesn't change them one iota. Now there is an element in our society that hates students. One guardsman interviewed by C.B.S afterwards was asked how he felt about it and his response was , "It's time they got it like that." Well. the same thing happened in My Lai. Here you have unarmed civilians who are identifiable with the enemy, with the Viet Cong, and you had a few guys who are filled with hate and anger because somebody's been wounded or killed earlier. So suddenly it's time and, boom, they let loose. But it' murder, and whichever way you turn it around a uniform makes no difference. But that is the problem in this country. We're elevating the uniform above the law. Does this say anything to you about the general direction that our country is going? Is this a trend or just an aberration in time and history? It is a trend, and I suppose, in one sense, that everything we're doing on Kent represents an attempt to reverse the trend. Because if we don't reverse it, if the people don't wake up to the fact that this is a dangerous trend in this county, then every time these things happen and the people responsible are not held accountable, if we do nothing (thee way we did nothing at Kent, nothing at Jackson - we'll probably do nothing at Attica, nor with the F.B.I's indirect culpability in the recent killing of a pilot and a young woman at the Jacksonville airport in Florida), then we are just encouraging State officials and law enforcement officers to rely upon an easy solution to every kind of disturbance and situations such as the recent Jacksonville hijacking: arbitrary force. I want to say more about the Jacksonville tragedy. The Justice Department should immediately investigate into the circumstances whereby two F.B.I agents could arbitrarily ignore pilot Brent Downs' request to the control tower for a fuel truck so that he could continue on to Bermuda, the destination chosen by the hijacker. Downs and 25 year old Susan Giffe were held at gunpoint by her estranged husband, George. When the F.B.I told the pilot they would not allow him to refuel, Downs said, "You are endangering lives by doing this, and we have no other choice but to go along, and for the sake of some lives, we request some fuel out here please." One of the F.B.I agents callously replied, "The decision will be no fuel for that aircraft" Some minutes later F.B.I. agents opened fire on the plane and thereby triggered George Giffe to shoot and kill the pilot, Mrs. Giffe and himself. This is an even more horrifying example of official contempt for human life than Kent State and Jackson State.It convinces me there is a definite trend in this country toward Government by the law of force, rather than, as Dr . Glenn Olds recently advocated the force of law. You know, the F.A.A. transcript of the conversations between the control tower and the hijack plane contain a background remark by someone in the tower after the shooting was over and it symbolizes to me what is happening to America today: "You can't win them all," someone cracked. I think the students have been saying in their protests that we do need to turn things around that the country is headed in a wrong direction. I think that some of their actions indicate that they haven't been listened to by our national leaders and as a result there is a kind of despair and frustration among students which forces them to conclude that the systems can't work. Do you think the system can work? There's nothing wrong with the system.The system's only as good as the people who hold the power, who, in essence, run the system. This is one of the reasons I came to this country. The system is great. The trouble is, just like most systems, wherever they might be, and whatever ideology we always seem to put in mediocre people to run them. You were born in England. When did you come to the U.S? 1957 And why did you decide to leave England and come here? England was getting too socialized. But the students are right,, I don't agree with them when they say the system is no good. There's nothing wrong with the system. When you have a constitution such as we have, and a Bill of Rights such as we have - which is the basic foundation of the system - what is wrong with that? Nothing, to my mind, The trouble is the people who wield it and swear to uphold it, and don't. Would you say that the Kent tragedy has changed your politics? Well, not really, It's politics which has changed and I wonder how far we are going to go in embracing the law of force. Sometimes it takes a tragedy like this to get people involved in the political processes of this country, to move them off dead center - out of apathy and into action. I think that's one of the problems; the people aren't deeply enough interested in politics. I'm hoping that the students, with the vote, are going to be, but the average person doesn't really take a great interest in what is going on and what is being done. It strikes me too that American people generally are terribly impulsive. Unbelievable I realized this with Kent. Officials came out and said a couple of things in a few days and that's it. I've been up against that wall for a year and a half and no matter, what you produce that's it and they accept things like that. You say that judgments were made a couple of days after the Kent State shootings and that these are going to stand. Prior to Mitchell's announcement did you see the Justice Department as the court of last resort for the truth to be known about Kent State? No. You still see avenues open? Right, I felt that the processes that we have should be implemented. and the obvious part of the process in the Kent incident is the Federal Grand Jury. So I still felt that everything had to be directed there until they said a flat public "no" I see Congress as the only solution now. Are there efforts being made now to... Senator Kennedy has said that he is going to investigate the Justice Department's handling of the case. Also, there are congressmmen like (William) Moorehead who is trying to get Congressman (Don) Edwards, chairman of the Subcommittee on the Oversight of Civil Rights of the House Judiciary Committee, to investigate But it needs much more than that, It needs a complete investigation where they have subpoena power to bring people like Canterbury, White, Del Corso, Rhodes... these men have to appear in public and answer to the statements they made back in the week following... Very inflammatory statements? Yes, but I mean they testified to the commission under oath. They have yet to be challenged for what I say are fabrications under oath. What I don't understand - maybe it's because I'm English, I don't know - is why the American people should object to having Canterbury go before a Congressional Committee and have a large blowup of these photos which were taken, according to the President's Commission, at the instant the shooting started. There is this area in front of the guards which spans a good 80 to 100 feet, and in it there are two students. There is Joseph Lewis at 60 feet, stand (Cont p, 21-S, Col 1)