REPLY TO NORMAN PARKS
George Benson

I am in receipt of a letter dated July 30, 1971 from Leroy Garrett offering me the privilege of replying to the Norman Parks’ article which appeared in the April issue: Were that article merely a matter of difference in judgment, I would not at this late date reply. However, since the article constitutes such a vicious attack and since it is based on misinformation, a reply still seems in order.

The Parks’ article is a criticism of me for publishing in my weekly column quotes from the Grand Jury report on the riot on the Kent State University campus.

In his opening sentence Mr. Parks refers to “Harding College’s National Education Program”. Two times later he refers to the “Harding article”. The fact of the matter is the National Education Program has for seventeen years been operating under a separate charter with a separate board and is entirely separated from Harding College and has its offices across the street from the main Harding College campus. Mr. Parks is totally uninformed in trying to blame Harding College with any of the activities of the National Education Program. The administration of the college neither sees in advance, nor concerns itself with what the National Education Program publishes. This is representative of the misinformation demonstrated throughout the Parks’ article.

Dr. Parks very severely condemns my publishing quotes from the Grand Jury report on the riot at Kent State University. His implications again imply severe lack of information.

The Kent State riot in which four persons were killed and nine wounded was first very widely aired by newspaper reporters, who aren’t noted for thorough investigation. A President’s Commission made a rather hasty report. The Justice Department ordered an investigation and a hurried FBI report was made, and all of them published.

In order to get a complete study of the whole matter, a Grand Jury was created in keeping with honored American tradition. It was composed of local men who called many witnesses and who made an exhaustive investigation. Their report is no doubt the most thorough and reliable of all the reports made. None of its critics have called it inaccurate.

In view of so much having already been said about this case in the papers and elsewhere the Grand Jury thought it proper to release their own complete report to the press which they did and it was carried in full or in part by papers in many parts of the country. It was some weeks later when I picked up one of the newspapers that had carried it in full and commented on it in my column. If Dr. Parks thought the Grand Jury report should not have been made public, his quarrel should be with the Grand Jury itself. He need not have vented his anger on me for commenting on it weeks after it had been made public and referred to in the press all over the country.

It is true that Judge William K. Thomas criticized some of the conclusions of the Grand Jury. But it must be remembered that the judge killed none of the indictments of the Grand Jury. Moreover, it must be recognized that even Federal Judges are not infallible. That is why appeals to higher courts are allowed. That is why President Nixon is now calling upon Congress to undo the work of some Federal Judges. In this case I prefer the report of the Grand Jury above the criticism of Judge Thomas.

Dr. Parks implies that Governor Rhodes may have been politically motivated in calling the Grand Jury. Isn’t that a low blow! The rioting had already gone on for many days. Fifty store fronts in Kent had been smashed. Looting had followed. The ROTC building on the campus had been burned to the ground. Firemen had been attacked. Their water hose had been cut and many people were petitioning the Governor to send in the National Guard. He would have been in a very indefensible position had he not done so. Why Dr. Parks should be so concerned in defending these criminal acts of violence that he wants to blame the Governor for calling out the National Guard under these critical circumstances is very strange coming from a former Christian college professor.

Dr. Parks seems quite disturbed at who may have taught these rioting students to shout “kill, kill, kill”. Unlike Dr. Parks who could only “wonder” who taught them, I made an investigation running through several weeks before writing that series of four columns. The record clearly reveals the history of the Communist motivated and frequently Communist directed two-year long assault on the administration at Kent State and on the city of Kent. I have the documentary photographs of the young Communists who were in the Kent SDS and other revolutionary groups busy on the campus two years ahead of the tragic shooting. Referring to the SDS, Dr. White, President of Kent State University, testifying before a Congressional Committee said: “It is an enemy of Democratic procedure, of academic freedom and of essential university characteristics of study, discussion and resolution.” Well known riot leaders who appeared on the Kent campus included Bernardino Doran, one of the leaders of the riot at Columbia University, who called upon a thousand Kent students to “murder for self-defense and force radical changes through revolution”. Mark Rudd, now a fugitive from justice and who was then SDS National Chairman also went to Kent State to agitate revolt. Another agitator there just ahead of the May riot was Jerry Rubin who brazenly told the students “kill your parents” as an act of faith in the violent overthrow of the United States. It was during the three days preceding the shooting that rioting mobs tore up downtown Kent, burned the ROTC building and set scores of fires, defied curfews and mobilized mobs in defiance of regulations. The Mayor and many of the town folk joined in petitioning the Governor to call out the National Guard. Had Dr. Parks been aware of all of these well-known riot leaders having been on the campus preceding the riot he probably wouldn’t be asking “who taught the students this language” and then implying it was possibly the “ROTC”.

Dr. Parks complains that I didn’t weep sufficiently over the four students killed and the nine wounded. That has a familiar ring too, doesn’t it? He wants sympathy expressed for the rioters and those whom they caused to get killed and criticism expressed for the National Guard, a law enforcing agency, whom the Grand Jury affirms fired because they believed they were definitely in danger and their lives threatened. Actually fifty-eight Guardsmen were injured by rocks and other objects hurled. You note Dr. Parks had no sympathy for those 58 injured while trying to contain a riot. But the Grand Jury who made the careful and thorough investigation said: “we find that those members of the National Guard who were present on the hill adjacent to Taylor Hall on May 4, 1970 fired their weapons in the honest and sincere belief and under circumstances which would have largely caused them to believe that they would suffer serious bodily injury had they not done so --- fifty-eight Guardsmen were injured by rocks and other objects hurled at them as they moved across the Taylor Hall hill.” I leaked no secrets through discussing this important Grand Jury report, which they had weeks before, submitted to the national news media.

My great concern and, I believe, the proper concern, is that the public be informed of who has really been stirring up and leading these riots and that we back up our law enforcement people in taking the necessary steps to stop the riots. I hope my four articles published in more than 1000 newspapers have had something to do with the fact that riots have become much fewer.

I welcome honorable criticism of anything that I write. I answer the Parks article only because of the immodest passion which led him to use such uncomplimentary terms and to arrive at such harsh judgments based upon unsupported suppositions. In spite of his likening me to a paranoiac, I feel sure that my record of love and concern for young people throughout my lifetime and my respect for justice, honor, and fair play, will not suffer from comparison with that of my critics. Anyone wanting to read the entire four articles on the Kent State affair may have them free for the asking. — National Education Association, Harding College Campus, Searcy, Arkansas 72143.