Kent State Tape Is Said to Reveal Orders

The New York Times reports:

An audio recording of the shootings 37 years ago at Kent State University includes the voices of Ohio National Guard leaders ordering troops to fire into a crowd of students, according to a man wounded in the shootings, who obtained a copy of the recording.

If confirmed as authentic, the recording could solve the central mystery of the shootings on May 4, 1970, which became a defining moment in the protests against the Vietnam War.

Alan Canfora, who was shot in the right wrist, played a copy of the recording at a news conference here on Tuesday.

Through grainy static and the high-pitched calls of protesters, it was possible to faintly hear someone shout “Point!” Mr. Canfora said the full command is recorded on the tape, with multiple voices shouting “Right here!” “Get Set!” Point!” and “Fire!”

The President’s Commission on Campus Unrest, which published its final report on the shootings in September 1970, never addressed whether commanders ordered troops to fire, saying only that the events immediately before the shooting “are in bitter dispute.” Based on the newly available recording, Mr. Canfora said he would call on Congress, the Justice Department and Ohio’s attorney general, Marc Dann, to open new investigations into the shootings.