Did a sergeant trigger the May 4, 1970 Ohio National Guard killings at Kent State? That is what a book by historian Brian VanDeMark ("Kent State: An American Tragedy") claimed last year, but William A. Gordon, the author of "Four Dead in Ohio: Was There a Conspiracy at Kent State?", seriously doubts that the sergeant's order was the cause of Kent State tragedy and that there was "a one-person cover-up at Kent State."

      "I have several problems with VanDeMark's conclusion, starting with the fact the sergeant,Matthew McManus', admission that he gave an order to fire in the air does not begin to explain why a half dozen soldiers fired directly into the crowd and continued to fire 67 shots over a period of 13 seconds."

      "I have no doubt that McManus repeatedly lied under oath when he originally claimed the order came only after other Guardsmen started firing first. But most of the shooting was not done by McManus' men in Company A of the 145th Infantry. It was done by the men in Troop G, 107th Armored Cavalry. None of the "shooters" testified they heard McManus' order and they had already turned to fire, according to what McManus' own revised statement.

    Gordon also quoted a Paris Review interview with Ernest Hemingway, who was a journalist before he wrote novels. Hemingway said: "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector, and all the great writers have had it."

    Gordon feels that while VanDeMark is a gifted storyteller (he teaches history at the U.S. Naval Academy)  he lacked "a shit detector" and bought the soldiers'

claims of self-defense, even though those claims were contradicted by strong circumstantial evidence. Gordon felt VanDeMark made the shootings, which were criticized by the President's Commission on Campus Unrest, as being "unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable,"  appear to be necessary, warranted, and excusable by believing hook, line, and sinker everything the National Guard claimed.

        As Gordon sees it, "those shootings were very suspicious," noting that eight of the previous ten authors seemed to agree.

     Gordon was also skeptical that there might be a repeat of history--at least until President Donald Trump ordered troops into L. A. and Memphis, and threatened to send soldiers into Chicago and other cities. "Guardsmen are great in disaster relief, They even took my mother to the hospital to deliver me when Akron, Ohio was paralyzed by a blizzard. The streets were impassable. But they are ill-prepared and inadequately trained for riot control and they are not allowed to make arrests. In L.A., at least, this meant that the soldiers mostly sat around and twiddled their thumbs. 

There was no threat to public safety in L.A. that required the National Guard, just as there were weak reasons to mobilize the Guard at Kent State. Authorities would have been better off calling the Ohio Highway Patrol."

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William A. Gordon (KSU 1973) is the author of "Four Dead in Ohio" and 

three other books, His web site is http://www.kentstateshootingsexpert.com