67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence

by Howard Means

Overview

At midday on May 4, 1970, after three days of protests, several thousand students and the Ohio National Guard faced off at opposite ends of the grassy campus Commons at Kent State University. At noon, the Guard moved out. Twenty-four minutes later, Guardsmen launched a 13-second, 67-shot barrage that left four students dead and nine wounded, one paralyzed for life. The story doesn't end there, though. A horror of far greater proportions was narrowly averted minutes later when the Guard and students reassembled on the Commons.

The Kent State shootings were both unavoidable and preventable: unavoidable in that all the discordant forces of a turbulent decade flowed together on May 4, 1970, on one Ohio campus; preventable in that every party to the tragedy made the wrong choices at the wrong time in the wrong place.

Using the university's recently available oral-history collection supplemented by extensive new interviewing, Means tells the story of this iconic American moment through the eyes and memories of those who were there, and skillfully situates it in the context of a tumultuous era.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306823794
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	04/12/2016
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	470,901
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Howard Means is the author or co-author of ten books, most recently 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence (Da Capo, 2016). Hailed by the Christian Science Monitor as "one of the most heartbreaking books in memory," 67 Shots is being developed as a feature length film by Everyman Pictures (Jay Roach) and Little Stranger Picture (Tina Fey & Jeff Richmond). Means' previous book, Johnny Appleseed: The Man, the Myth, the American Story (Simon & Schuster, 2011), was featured on NPR and in the weekend Wall Street Journal, and also optioned for TV and/or film.

Prior to turning full-time to book-length works, Means was senior editor at Washingtonian magazine, an op-ed columnist for King Features Syndicate, a daily journalist, and in the distant past, a schoolteacher. He began swimming competitively when he was five years old, continued through college, then coached for seven years. Swimming continues to define his life: Pools, rivers, lakes, quarries, oceans are his natural medium. Writing Splash! has been a labor of love.

Table of Contents

Kent State Campus, May 4, 1970 ix

Prologue: May 4, 1970-South Vietnam 1

1 "We Have to Say 'F-' Everywhere" 5

2 Burn, Baby-Burn 25

3 Night of the Helicopters 41

4 Danse Macabre 59

5 Blood Like a River 77

6 Once to Every Man and Nation 97

7 "Oh, My God! They've Killed the Guardsmen!" 113

8 The Age of Hate 125

9 An Unfortunate Incident 141

10 Blind Justice 159

11 Plan B 185

12 Paradise Lost 207

Afterword 225

Notes 229

Selected Bibliography 243

Acknowledgments 245

Index 247

Editorial Reviews

Praise for 67 Shots

“In Howard Means' fine hands, we discern how the terrible events at Kent State unfolded—relentlessly, ineluctably—like a Greek tragedy. Through dogged and imaginative reporting, 67 Shots shows us how the tragedy fed into, and was fed by, the larger maelstrom of the times. In this definitive account, Means has deftly extracted Kent State from the amber and exposed it to fresh air once again.”—Hampton Sides, author of In the Kingdom of Ice and Hellhound On His Trail

“Howard Means does a marvelous job of weaving together the many strands of memory and the records of the times to create a nuanced portrayal of a moment in American history too often reduced to the lyrics of a Neil Young song. This balanced account does justice to the perspectives of students, National Guardsmen, campus administrators, and local residents alike, both for and against the demonstrations.”—Kenneth Hammond, Chairman, Department of History, New Mexico State University, and Kent State student-protest leader (1970)

San Francisco Book Review, 4/4/16
“Howard Means' look at a horrible moment in US history is crucial to understanding the law, politics, basic rights and how occasionally all three clash, and how the former fail the latter.”

Library Journal, 4/15/16
“An intimate look at a tragedy that could not be predicted but was perhaps inevitable.”

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 4/22/16
“Means draws upon scores of interviews and a rich archival record to dispel numerous myths that have grown up around the events culminating on May 4, 1970, with four dead in Ohio.”

Columbus Dispatch, 4/24/16
“67 Shots is indispensable in understanding the sine-wave pattern of tension that began on the streets of Kent three nights before National Guardsmen fired on protesters.”

Washington Independent Review of Books, 4/26/16
“A fresh look at an era-defining U.S. tragedy.”

Christian Science Monitor, 5/10/16
“This isn't history writing at a distance. Means interviewed many of the players, major and minor, in this tragedy. Their personal stories give 67 Shots a deeply human feel and turn it into one of the most heartbreaking books in memory.”

PopMatters, 5/18/16
“Means weaves a precise and comprehensive narrative that paints an accurate and balanced retelling of events.”

Providence Journal, 6/2/16
“Means manages to grab Kent State from the murky recesses of our national memory. In so doing, he shows how the Vietnam War affected everything about our own sense of ourselves.”

"[Howard] Means provides the most careful examination of the tragedy that beset Kent State University and the US on May 4, 1970."
—Choice, December 2016

"[A] superb book...balanced, detailed and compellingly written."—Vietnam Magazine

From the Publisher

04/15/2016
On May 4, 1970, the growing tension between the antiwar movement and the "establishment" came to a head when members of the National Guard fired on students at Ohio's Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine. Means (Johnny Appleseed: The Man, the Myth, the American Story) places the event in national and local historical context by examining the escalation in Vietnam and the antiwar campaign as well as the history of the university and the town of Kent. The result is an intimate look at a tragedy that could not be predicted but was perhaps inevitable and signaled an end of innocence, as the title suggests. Making use of interviews and archival research, Means reveals the event as one that could have been prevented, but through failures of leadership on both sides, seemed destined to erupt in violence. The volume concludes by investigating the question of blame, one which the author argues may never be adequately resolved. VERDICT Although Means raises more inquiries than answers, he presents a solid account of a watershed moment in history. The inclusion of the remembrances of those involved that day (guardsmen, politicians, students, and victims) lends a personal voice to our understanding of the shootings and the aftermath.—Michael C. Miller, Austin P.L. & Austin History Ctr., TX

Library Journal

Narrator Alan Sklar uses his deep voice to lend gravitas to an emotional story. It’s been 46 years since the tragedy that left four students dead and a nation shaken during the depths of the Vietnam War. This audiobook uses the newly available Kent State oral history collection to examine the decisions that led to one of the most notorious actions of the 1960s era. It also provides a warning for us in our anxiety-ridden age to be vigilant and to think before we act on the public stage. Sklar reads at a steady pace and enunciates every word. He also builds tension as the story reaches its climax, pulling listeners along even even though they may already know the outcome. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2016 - AudioFile