April 30, 1970 Nixon Announces Invasion of Cambodia
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Forty-four years ago today President Richard Nixon told the American people that US troops, accompanied by the South Vietnamese People’s Army, had invaded Cambodia. The invasion was accomplished under the pretext of disrupting North Vietnamese supply lines by bombing Viet Cong base camps, that were said to be obstructing other operations in South Vietnam.
While Nixon officially declared the invasion on April 30, 1970, the US had been actively bombing Cambodia for well over a year. The image of Nixon appeared not only on television sets throughout the world, but in The New York Times and on the cover of Time magazine. A journalist from Time wrote:
“At one point during his television address to the nation last week, Richard Nixon lost his place in the typescript. For four or five seconds he shuffled pages, eyes darting through paragraphs to pick up the trail again. For the nation watching, it was an instant of complex psychology. There was the acute embarrassment and sympathy for the speaker who has fluffed his lines. There was also, for some, an eccentric half hope that if he could not continue, an absurdist, McLuhan logic would apply: ‘The U.S. was about to move into Cambodia, but the President lost his place in the script.’ The instant passed. Richard Nixon went on.”
The president had promised “Vietnamization” and many people felt betrayed by the leader they trusted. Americans were led to believe that their sons, brothers, husbands, and friends would be coming home from that far-off place called Vietnam. Unfortunately the news of the invasion dashed their hopes as this could only mean escalation of an unpopular war including an increase in the demands of the draft. It meant more brave young men and women would die.
Nixon’s reckless action marked the beginning of a national protest that began on college campuses, including and in particular Kent State University in Ohio, where, on May 4th, just days after the announcement of the invasion, the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of students, killing four and wounding nine. This singular event triggered a nationwide student walkout that forced hundreds of colleges and universities to close and changed the face of national politics for decades to come.
This is the first in a series of articles dealing with the Kent State massacre.
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The killing of four at Kent State is one of the most shameful chapters in American history and must never be forgotten. So much shame but never enough blame for those responsible.
Mr Scott thank you for this. I was a student at KSU back in the day, and although I wasn’t there on Monday, May 4th, due to sickness, I wonder what might have happened if I were because I’m pretty outspoken and I hated that war. My brother was in Vietnam when this happened.
I was a young man when his happened. And it forever changed the way I viewed the government. I’ve never trusted them since that day in May. A senseless act; a senseless waste of life.
Well yeah the NG was probably scared shitless, i know I would have been but that’s no reason to start shooting at unarmed kids.
Quite
Thanks Mickey. We certainly agree on that one, as no doubt, with the exception of Jimmy, will everyone on this thread.
Maybe if they hadn’t done that they wouldn’t have scared the Guards and they wouldn’t have been fired upon. And I meant to say “they” above.
Oh yes, guardsmen armed with loaded weapons and wearing gas masks had every reason to be afraid of the students. That’s always the excuse of some moron with a gun when all they really wanted was an excuse to shoot something, anything, anyone.
Right on James!
It’s like gay panic defense. Oh I had to kill him/her because he/she was coming onto me and I am straight, instead of just saying to the person doing the coming on, hey I am flattered but I don’t swing that way.
If the students had fired guns at the Guards then that’s a whole new ball game (note I’m trying to speak American here as an English man) but they didn’t have guns. They had rocks and, according to Jimmy James, tear gas cannisters they threw back at the Guards.
What the hell in that itinerary justifies shooting dead college kids?
I would really like to know.
There’s no justification whatsoever, and no one is even sure they were given orders to shoot.
I asked that question, too. As usual when someone has no rational answer and knows it, the question was ignored.
There you go a full on military assault team gets a bit askeered when students gather in groups same shit different decade. Look no further than UC Davis students being pepper sprayed for just sitting down. Funny how it still can happen, that a bunch of gun wielding sociopaths can hang out in Nevada and the big gubbmint does next to nothing as far as taking them into custody but a group of Occupy Protesters gets tear gassed, arrested and some have been severely injured by militarized police forces in our country these days. Wait though they were the same dirty fuckin hippies like Kent State students, so they deserve that right, but the baggers in Nevada don’t because they are all god fearing uber patriotic real Amrucans. Yeah we will attack you because what you are saying makes no real sense that students deserved to be killed for going about the business of studenting.
Are you a complete idiot Jimmy? National Guard troops with rifles vs students with rocks? Maybe we need to just handle things like Russia or China. Does Tenniman Square ring any bells? Next we use tanks to break up protests.
You can argue that the guardsmen were young and scared but so was I and a lot of others in Cuba in 1962, and in Nam from 1966 on but we had to keep our shit together. It goes with the territory and the Guard does not draft anyone.
You can all attack me if you want but just before noon, the Guard returned to the crowd and again ordered the crowd to disperse. When most of the crowd refused, the Guard used tear gas. Because of wind, the tear gas had little effect in dispersing the crowd, and some launched a second volley of rocks toward the Guard’s line, to chants of “Pigs off campus!” The students lobbed the tear gas canisters back at the National Guardsmen, who wore gas masks. They shouldn’t have done that should thee?
OK Jimmy nice little paraphrase of Wikipedia there, but it makes no difference. It’s a matter of using only the force necessary to either make an arrest or maintain order. The guard used excessive force and people died.
Tell us all, exactly what did they do to deserve being killed? Have you never thrown a rock? Have you never taunted anyone? Have you been a blameless angel all your life? If not, perhaps you should consider that it could have been you.
I doubt that you will because, in your mind, they were wrong and deserved to be killed. Please don’t ask me what’s in my mind because you would not like the truthful answer.
There was likely a time or two when I deserved to be killed. I was lucky.
I’ve got days like that monthly Mike where, I wake up next day thankful my hubs hasn’t suffocated me in my sleep.
Personally I’m not attacking you mate. We all have opinions and they will invariably differ. All I’m saying is ‘should troops shoot kids’?
“The students lobbed the tear gas canisters back at the National Guardsmen, who wore gas masks. They shouldn’t have done that should thee?” –
No, I’m sure they shouldn’t but shooting them dead is a correct response?
The KSU riots were a bunch of students who had too much to drink initially but as the weekend passed it became more serious, and then it was too late. The soldiers were scared and the kids were scared, a dangerous situation to say the least. terrible thing.
Drunk kids = shoot them? Well, it’s a point of view I suppose….
Being an Englishman I didn’t actually know about that.
College kids were shot and killed??????
Bloody hell.
Britain!! Stop copying America!!! NOW!
er…Mr Jimmy James…students mate…kids…you think kids should be shot? Oh dear…..
We are surrounded by fools Norman.
Those were scary days to be sure. I was a police officer in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (Home of the University of Alabama). There were 69 students arrested that night at UA but no injuries. Fortunately, I was out of town and did not have to take part in it. According to some of the police officers the football team had been organized by Coach Bryant to break up the student protest if the police had not gotten there when they did. I really wanted no part of it because I knew we were wrong to be where we were. I was a veteran and a student as well as a cop. Vietnam was one thing that never should have happened.
I visited the place where the shootings took place, and it’s a chilling feeling to look over that common and imagine being there on that day in May.
I was in the Army myself, stationed in Kankakee, Illinois. We heard it on the news and got a bulletin advising everyone to be ready for alerts due to expected riots on campuses. We thought the Guard did the right thing and were ready to do the same. How stupid we were way back then.
I was home sick from a bad cold when it came over the TV. Mom dropped a dish rushing to watch the news. It made us all sad about our country.
To my certain knowledge, Nixon was at least half a decade late in his announcement.
But the government has always ensured they were in a position to “disavow any knowledge of your actions.”
I heard those kids were burning shit and throwing shit at the troops so what did they expect flowers or something?
Jimmy clearly you don’t know your history. You see there were close to a thousand ARMED troops against about the same number of students, with the operative word here being ARMED, not the students but the troops. Now do you really think that was a fair fight?
WTF dude? Where did you go to school? Tea Bagger U?
Well Jimmy, I heard you fuck goats, go ahead prove me wrong about that. Seriously you are going with throwing things and burning shit. Seems like that has been the bagger go to deal for everything ranging from Nixon’s days to the Texas leg building just recently where women were supposedly bringing in jars of shit and used tampons. Get yer head out of your ass man and look at more than right wing sites for information regarding history.
Here! Here! You tell him Jess!
I’m just so fuckin tired of these nutjobs trying to rewrite a history that is still in the process of being lived. I’m guessing half of them don’t even know that a month before there was an uprising in Kansas where a bomb was put in the student union. There are plenty of great books and not so great ones about this event. I read a few of them for my AP classes in high school, even read one from a NG perspective so I could properly document it for the class.
It’s got me hooked Jess. I go to the memorial a couple of times a week, and it has had an influence on me. I do love Kent State University and am proud to be part of the faculty.
Me, I am just a dirty liberal hippie that hates injustice of any kind and I speak about it whether or not people want to hear. There are certain places that deaths should not occur, schools are right up there for me with a few other places.
I wasn’t always a liberal, on the contrary, although in my younger days I didn’t know about, or care about labels.
I would imagine being a police officer as long as you were, you were probably like many of them a tough on crime republican. It shows we can all change with wisdom for the good. Excepting of course that Joe Hagstrom fellow, he is just beyond redemption.
Jess
Well stated…and for context:
Substitute demonstrating students “throwing things and burning shit” (“But it’s really great shit, Mrs. Preske.”) with the impromptu militia assembled by Cliven Bundy. Now run that by me again??? The National Guard was RIGHT to shoot unarmed students, while Bundy was RIGHT (perhaps in a different sense) to mount an armed insurrection against Federal authorities so he didn’t have to pay his grazing fees? ‘Splain that “logic” to me, Jimmy boy.
The world. Damned Republicans act like they own the place.
(Yes….I know, I know…following dalliances by Ike, it was Democrats Kennedy and Johnson who did the in or a penny, in for a pound thing.) But Nixon was the one who pledged to get us out, and then amped it up to a whole new level.
But, he wasn’t a “crook,” right?
He did make that promise, and that wasn’t a wise thing for him to do. From that day forward the people viewed Nixon as not one to be trusted and as it turned out that was an understatement.
I’ve a friend whose son was in that demonstration and saw the girl get shot. She says he was never the same since that event and he still has nightmares. What a terrible day that was. Thanks Mr Scott for this article, because we should never forget should we?
No Poxie we must never forget, and I for one plan to make sure that people don’t. Thanks for stopping by.