FBI Informant May Have Fired First Shots at Kent State

Evidence surfacing in a  40-year-old case involving the shooting of college students by Army National Guardsmen reminds us that not only is the FBI's meddling in the antiwar movement not new, but that it can be deadly --  and history changing, too.

Last week, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, asked for key documents related to the FBI's use of an informant, Terry Norman, who may have been responsible for firing the initial shots that triggered the infamous Kent State Massacre on May 4, 1970. Four students were killed in the resulting fusillade of bullets fired by guardsmen, who were on campus that day to disperse an angry crowd of Vietnam war protesters. Nine others were wounded.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which commissioned two researchers to analyze a recently unearthed audio tape of the events that took place that day, four pistol shots can be heard, as well as an altercation among the protesters, which seem to corroborate earlier charges that Norman had fired his gun moments before the National Guard fired upon the crowd.

The presidential commission responsible for the official investigation found that Norman had nothing to do with the Guard shootings, but a battery of conflicting police and witness reports, plus the fact that Norman himself changed his story at least once -- telling investigators he never fired his gun, but immediately after the shootings claiming to a TV reporter that he in fact shot in the air and into the ground to defend himself from protesters -- have called that finding into question.

The latest analysis seems to back up the story that the protesters had indeed turned on Norman, who was carrying a gas mask, held a press card from the Guard and was taking photos for the FBI. He later testified that he was packing the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver for protection. However, more questions remain as to whether the altercation triggered the shooting by the National Guard, which had just been told to prepare to fire  a moment before, according to an earlier analysis of the tape. An undergraduate had captured the entire event with a recorder placed on his windowsill.

Of the several looming big questions is whether Norman, who reportedly became an undercover drug agent for the Washington, D.C. police department after Kent State, and supposedly did some time in prison for fraud the 1990s, was sent into the protests as an agent-provocateur. Meanwhile, declassified files indicate that the FBI had developed its own theory that there was a "sniper" in the midst, readying all along to fire at Guardsmen. Rumors of the "sniper" had been circulating on campus for a day before, when the ROTC building on campus was torched by protesters. Again, there were conflicting accounts about the "sniper" muddying up the FBI's preferred narrative.

The FBI's use of Norman, who was armed not only with a camera, but with a gun, should raise questions. The Kent State killings turned the tide of public opinion further against the war (which would certainly not have been the FBI's intent if it were indeed behind the shootings), but deepened the polarization between young protesters and those sympathetic to their cause, and law enforcement and those who viewed the anti-war movement as destructive and anti-American. Those fissures have hardly subsided in the last 40 years. Furthermore, last month the FBI raided the homes of anti-war protesters in what critics have charged was a well-orchestrated attempt to harass and intimidate their movement.

Not much has changed -- except our ability to use mass communication to question and defend against state-sponsored tactics designed to squash dissent. With Norman a recluse and with so many different, often conflicting theories and eye-witness accounts, it may be difficult to piece together the events of May 4, 1970. Maybe Congressman Kucinich's request may yield new information. What we can safely say is, when it involves the FBI, nothing is ever what it seems.

Photo Credit: vaXzine