A Loss of Faith

In May 1970, immediately after the killing of four students by National Guardsmen at Kent State University, the FBI began an extensive investigation that eventually filled some 8,000 pages. Last week Attorney General John Mitchell announced that the reports did not warrant "further action by the Department of Justice." Mitchell said that he agreed with the President's Commission on Campus Unrest that the shooting was "unnecessary, unwarranted and inexcusable." But he found no evidence of a conspiracy among National Guardsmen to shoot the students. Nor, he said, was there any "likelihood of successful prosecutions of individual Guardsmen. We can only hope that any type of recurrence can be avoided by this experience and that incidents like this will never again be a part of our national life."

Thus 15 months of repeated, detailed inquiry ended with only a pious wish. Robert White, president of Kent State, found Mitchell's decision acceptable. In Lorain, Ohio, Mr. and Mrs. Louis Schroeder, parents of one of the dead students, said bitterly: "Until now, we have had faith in our system of government." The four sets of parents also issued a joint statement. The decision not to convene a federal grand jury, they said, "is nearly as great a shock as that which came to us when our children were killed."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.