Tag: Cambodia

Two weeks after Nixon’s 1970 invasion of Cambodia triggered the first and only national student strike this country had ever seen, battles continued to rage on campuses the length and breadth of the country.

Take the University of Maryland at College Park. Striking students and faculty had pretty much shut the place down during the early days of May. In fact, as the fourth installment of this series pointed out, thousands of them also invaded and shut down US Route 1, then the main artery between Baltimore and Washington.

Day after day, students poured onto Route 1, blocking it and the state cops mobilized to clear it. Day after day, the pigs attacked the campus, arresting scores, teargassing dorms and frats to the point where they were uninhabitable. and administering savage beatdowns as the students fled. This repression on top of rage at the Kent State murders swelled the ranks of protesters and keep the struggle hot.

The university was shut down by the strike but the administration hadn’t opted for the cancel-finals-and-pass-everybody trick being used at other schools, so the clashes continued. They peaked on May 14, 40 years ago tonight.

One grad who returned to campus to build the strike recalls http://www.route-one.org/facul…

There was a lot of teargas the night of May 14. I didn’t quite understand the campus politics, but a faculty vote had gone badly and several thousand students headed for Route One in protest.

Governor Mandel had mobilized the National Guard who moved on to campus after students were driven off of Route One. It was ironic, because we all knew that the reason many people joined the Guard was because they didn’t want to fight in the unpopular Viet Nam War. I was sorry to see them. They were probably even sorrier being there.

The exchanges of teargas bombs and rocks were the fiercest I had ever seen. People were determined to hold on to their piece of liberated Maryland even in the face of a military occupation. National Guard Commander Warfield’s helicopter flew overhead and added a further surreal menace to the whole scene.

We grouped on the hill in front of the Chapel. It was dark and hard to see how many people were holding out, but it seemed like thousands. The crowd ebbed and flowed depending on how many teargas bombs were fired by the National Guard and police from the base of the hill near Route 1.

That night, amid extensive trashing and the U of M Administration building very nearly went up in flames. The country’s campuses were still on fire with struggle!

On the day before the Kent State Shooting anniversary I placed a post on a few sites, this link goes to my site, with some reports about that tragic day. In the reports it was mentioned that an audio tape, recorded by a student, was being analyzed, that has taken place and the results are being reported. The question still remains, for me and many, why these National Guard weapons were loaded with live rounds, added to the many other questions!

40-Year-Old Audio Recording Reveals Ohio National Guardsmen Were Ordered to Fire at Kent State

While collecting some articles etc. on the Kent State University killings, 40 years ago 4 May 1970, I came across a link of live streaming broadcast of the Kent State Truth Tribunal that will be taking place today and tomorrow and decided to pass these on today rather then waiting till tomorrow. That link can be found at the bottom, it’s to Michael Moore’s site with a link to a facebook page with videos of Saturdays and Sundays tributes.

I won’t add much in commentary, the reports give all one needs, the CBS report from last night sheds light on a possible investigation opening up into the shootings, and there are many others being posted up and will be tomorrow on the Anniversary. But will say that on May 4th 1970 I was only a few weeks into my tour in country Vietnam of my last year in the U.S. Navy and having served all on shore duty.

(John Conyers is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which has before it House Resolution 333, calling for articles of impeachment to be drawn up against Vice President Dick Cheney.  In 1974, while a member of the Judiciary Committee, Conyers helped draft articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, articles that were about to be voted on by the full House when Nixon suddenly resigned. Conyers had been one of the most vocal and persistent proponents advocating for Nixon’s impeachment. In May 1972 he and others had taken out a two-page ad in the New York Times calling for impeachment in response to Nixon’s handling of the war in Vietnam; the Watergate burglary had not yet taken place.  The essay below appeared in the October 1974 issue of the journal, The Black Scholar. Nixon resigned in August 1974 and was pardoned the next month by President Gerald Ford.  To the best of my knowledge, this essay has never before appeared online. – o.h.)

WHY NIXON SHOULD HAVE

BEEN IMPEACHED

by John Conyers, Jr.

from The Black Scholar, Vol. 6, No. 2, October 1974

Reprinted by permission of The Black Scholar

RICHARD NIXON, like the President before him, was in a real sense a casualty of the Vietnam War, a war which I am ashamed to say was never declared. Since the hearings of the House Judiciary Committee began on May 9th, 1974, we have had a professional staff of some 89 men and women gather in great detail over 42 volumes of information that was considered throughout some 57 sessions. My analysis of the evidence clearly reveals an Administration so trapped by its own war policy and a desire to remain in office that it entered into an almost unending series of plans for spying, burglary and wiretapping, inside this country and against its own citizens, and without precedent in American history.