Group Oral History Project
History 213
11/8/00
"The Boddingtons"
Kathryn S*****
Morgan S****
Julien F*****
Nicki K*****
Carrie H******
Kristin F*****
Max A*****
Introduction
For our oral history project, we decided to interview Dr. Ron Hunt, a professor in the school of political science here at Ohio University. Dr. Hunt has been a faculty member at Ohio University for over thirty-two years. Through our group research we learned that he played an active role in student protests during the Vietnam War and has much knowledge about the history of Athens and Ohio University. He was also a member of the Athens 77, a protest group that sat-in protest against OU's ROTC in Lindley Hall.
Several members of our group had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Hunt on an October afternoon in his office in Bentley Hall. We were very happy to have had this chance to learn a little about the history of Ohio University and the community we live in. Included below in our oral history report is the transcript from this interview.
Interview
Were you a member of the Ohio University Faculty at the time of the protests?
"Uh, and the protests that you are referring to are?"
The protests that happened in 1970 at Ohio University.
"Oh, the ones that led to the closing of the University. Yeah, I came here in 1968."
And were you a member of the Political Science department at the time also?
"Yes, uh huh. I was part of the Political Science department."
Was there one single event that impacted you the most to make you get involved?
"Um no there really was not, Just the whole background of the antiwar protests and my feeling that the war was not only immoral but probably also illegal. So there was no one specific event."
So it was a gathering of your feelings and the different events that took place?
"You know it started off with Lyndon Johnson campaigning on a platform in which he said he would never involve American troops in a ground war in Asia, and was running against Barry Goldwater who was running on a platform that stated that we ought to get involved in Vietnam. It was also the fact that the national interest was at stake. Barry Goldwater lost the election by a few margins, but as soon as the election was over Lyndon Johnson turned right around and escalated our involvement in Vietnam. So, right from that point I was determined to do everything that I could to get him out of office."
Did the students here have the same opinion or the same feelings that you had about the war being immoral?
"Certainly a lot of students did. But opinion was very divided and the students were as much at war at one another as they were with the administration."
Did other faculty members also become involved in the fight against the war?
"Absolutely, uh, there were a lot of us at the time who were younger faculty members coming in to the political science department. We were all pretty much anti war and uh, we got involved in a wide range of activities on campus involved with the antiwar movements."
Can you describe the atmosphere of Athens? I know the students were involved and you just noted the faculty was also involved but what was the atmosphere of the town at the time?
"It was very different than it is now. It was really different, because first of all OU prior to the 1960 was a tiny little state college, almost like a private college. It was small, so it grew very rapidly in the 1960's, and I think the people who lived in the town found it quite a culture shock. All of a sudden they find their sleepy little town being over run by 20,000 students. And the town was all the sudden of course you're finding African Americans in large numbers coming in to Athens to go to school here, and all kinds of international students coming to go to school here. This was the height of not only the antiwar movement, but also the height of the women's movement, with the beginning of the gay and lesbian right movement. There were tons of drugs in Athens, so there was a big drug culture in Athens. So, you had all these things going on all at once and there was quite a town split. There were especially a lot of tensions between the student's and town's people."
You mentioned earlier that you were involved in different groups. Were there any specific groups that were organized to protest the war or were there just the general mass protests?
"Well, there were specific groups like the Students for a Democratic Society, um and of course there were all kinds of student groups that helped organize national, state and local antiwar protests. They were the groups that came into existence and out of existence real quick. Um but I wasn't involved in the sense that I wasn't a student, and I don't recall ever being a faculty advisor or any thing like that at any of these groups. So, I was involved as a faculty member in a variety of different things, but I was not directly involved in any student groups."
But they were on campus though?
"There were a number of student groups, sure."
How did the huge antiwar protest that happened in Washington in1969 effect things in Athens?
"I don't know, there were so many antiwar protests during that time; my only recollection is that it was an extremely large protest. In D.C. of course there were people from Athens there; there were people from all over the country there. They went to the protest and then came back to Athens, bringing some enthusiasm and some direction with them but it didn't probably have that much of an impact in comparison with all the other national, state and local demonstrations that were going on."
The Moratorium against the war that happened in Cleveland in 1972, do you remember anything about that or do you want tells us how that affected things in Athens?
"You've been studying this period?"
Yes, we're just studying it. We have been covering earlier parts of the century. Now we are just starting to study that whole period…starting with Kennedy, basically.
"So you haven't got to the point where you know what the moratorium was?
No. Um…and that's the problem I am having with that sort of question, I can't recall exactly what the moratorium was all about. I recognize the name, but I can't recall the specific agenda."
We really haven't…we just found this in our research. So, we haven't really learned about it yet, I guess we will learn about it soon though. As far as the protests, what means were used, were there violent protests, and were there sit ins?
"Everything was going on here. There were some marches; there were a lot teach- ins… a lot of teach-ins on the college green, and in various buildings in one sort or another. There were non-violent sit ins, and during the evening hours the protests were often quite large. They were also violent, you know, there were violent protests. I can recall for example, a group of people in front of Cutler Hall… and um, the President of the Ohio University coming out to quiet the crowd. It was President Sole, and he was greeted with a hail of bricks. You know, so high-level administrators didn't walk around the campus. They weren't just able to just walk across campus with out being confronted by students, because the objective after all, of the antiwar movement, was to shut the university down. It was highly debatable tactic in the sense that it's hard to tell if this had the impact it was intended to have. After all, the anti-Vietnam war movement was an attempt to shut the country down. You know, no business as usual, that was the basic idea. You don't go to class, you don't teach class, you don't go to work, busses don't run on time, trains don't run on time…the idea was to bring the country to a stand still and force the issue to a head. So of course, the people at the university like President Sole, in the middle of a predicament, saw it as their responsibility to be keeping the university open."
What led up to the closing of the university…what were the events that took place? I mean, I know the protests and everything played a big role, but was there any big event took place that caused the close in May of 1970? Or was it just everything added together?
"The rumor that you always heard at the time, and I think that it is true at least up to a certain extent, was that the President's office at the university continued to get threatening telephone calls, primarily from towns' people who said that if you don't clean up this mess in Athens, we're going to come into town and clean up the mess ourselves. So the police department on one hand was trying to keep the demonstrations under control…they were totally inept by the way they didn't know what the hell they were doing. But they did what they could, you know, as a small police department. But then they were getting threats from the towns people that the town's people were going to come into town and they were going to shoot the damn place up. I don't have personal evidence of this, but these remarks were made in effect by President Sole after it was all over that he was afraid that the police were not going to be able to maintain order. I was somewhat surprised. I can remember sitting on the steps of Bentley Hall at three o'clock in the morning with a colleague who happened to have a radio, and President Sole came on the radio and says, students you have, I think it was 48 hours to get out of town. Pack up your belongings and get out of town, if you're here beyond that, you are going to be arrested. In came the National Guard the whole town just shut down, just like that, right in the middle of spring quarter. And that was the end of that."
WOW! It was closed with how many weeks left?
"It closed…all I can remember is that it closed in mid-May. And so it would have been three or four weeks left in the quarter, something like that."
How were personally involved? Were you personally involved in the protests, or just supported them?
"Well, I was. You know you got different signals. For one thing the university administration, said that they wanted faculty out at night with the students. I don't know what they thought would be the consequence of it. I was not throwing bricks and I was not encouraging people to be violent, um.. But I was out talking to people and observing what was going on along with a lot of my other junior colleagues. Some faculty members were recruited actually, to defend buildings. I can remember big fights in the Political Science department. Some of the department was trying to coax the faculty into agreeing to defend Bentley Hall from being bombed, and I thought this is not in my job contract! I have absolutely no interest in that. If Bentley Hall gets burned to the ground, I'm not a firemen, it gets burned to the ground. I was not going to participate in that. I was not sympathetic to that, but I was sympathetic to the students who were against the war. A lot of the things that happened, of course, turned out to be somewhat childish. You know you get a crowd of people together that are unorganized and they start doing all sorts of things that you wouldn't anticipate. Nelson commons was burned to the ground during this period. The ROTC supply depot in Peden Stadium was fire bombed and there were bomb threats, virtually on a daily basis for Bentley, and after a while they didn't even bother to clear the building anymore. You know, you get one everyday or every week at least."
Like you just mentioned the ROTC, what prompted the many students to take over, obviously the ROTC but what exactly? How did that start?
"All I can remember is I knew some of those students who were active in the antiwar movement. Some of them came in my office one day and they said that they were planning a sit in Lindley Hall and the object of the sit in was the ROTC department and it was really more symbolic than anything. It was, the most visible presence of the defense department on campus. They were attempting to recruit people to go to Vietnam, so of course this was a target of antiwar activists. So, they approached me and basically asked me whether or not I would agree to be a liaison between them and the police and/or the university administration, if the protest came to a point where there was going to be some kind of a stand off. So I agreed to do that. There was a professor in the History Department and his wife and myself along with hundreds of other students who were in Lindley Hall at the time, and um…so I got kind of dragged into this in a sense, just by agreeing that I would um… facilitate communications between the students and the university if it were necessary or the police. So, as the evening wore on and on, it became apparent the students were not going to leave the building. And, so, John Burns, the legal director of university showed up in Lindley Hall, and he kind of read the riot act, that if you don't leave the building within the next half an hour, we're going to arrest you. And we're going to arrest you under the provisions of what is now known as the Campus Provisions Act or Ohio House Bill 1219. And when I heard that language I decided I was not moving because I knew deep in my heart that that statute was unconstitutional. I just knew it, and I was not going to move using a law that I thought was unconstitutional. I stayed, the history professor stayed, his wife stayed and then there were 77 students who ultimately decided that they weren't going to leave either. So that's how I got dragged into that."
I was wondering about that whole story and how you actually got involved. Did concerns of the protest spread to other issues of the university?
"Oh yeah. For example it wasn't just an anti-war movement going on, but there was an African American civil rights movement as well. The University created an entire college of African American studies in order to pass it by the students. It doesn't exist anymore, but a former faculty member in the political science department was the first dean of the African American studies college. Students were demanding more control over the education. Ohio University created a very novel experiment called the Residential Experimental College. At this time they took over an entire dorm, and called it a dormitory- it was the site of Residential Experimental College. Students were requested to take regular curriculum. But this college allowed them to design own courses, invite faculty members to teach it to them, and get credit for them. This went on for a while. That came out of this period because students were very active, and they had the university administration definitely on the defense of the students. In retrospect these looked like the activities engaged in by the university in order to pass it by some of the students."
Not many still exist?
"The Residential Experimental College only lasted a few years. The college of African American studies is now a department in the college of Arts and Sciences."
Did some of the actions help appease some of the students?
"It helped, it definitely helped. I think the only thing that appeased the students was Richard Nixon's brilliant maneuver to end the draft. That ended the antiwar movement."
After this happened?
"It just ended, and it was all over."
You basically covered a lot of my other questions through questions that I already asked.
But did anything else besides the protests take place in Athens at the time?
"Well, you know it was the beginning of a lot of things. It was the beginning of the lesbian/ gay rights movement at the time. Of course I was caught up with that. Right after the war was over, I became consumed with the lesbian/gay rights movement. Of course the women's movement was quite active at that time, and women were very much in your face. Like today, women are very much more in your face. Why aren't their any female authors in this war? Why don't you ever talk about women in this course?!?!? And you know coming out of a PhD program in political science, where you never talked about women, hardly ever talked about African Americans, never mentioned gays or lesbians. You are kind of thinking, woops, there might be something missing in my education. So, the women's studies program I think dates back to that period. So, it was an interesting period. I don't know if I would necessarily want to live through it again cause it was a very, very tense time. There was class warfare in class. And by class warfare I mean war between students and professors. I always walked into class everyday wondering, do I have control over this class or are they going to take control of this class."
Was there a big change in the students that you could tell?
"There is kind of a big change. I must say the students of the 1960's, on the whole in the sixties, and early seventies weren't the best students. I mean who had the time to study after all? We are finding that much more. Today's students are more proficient I would say, and less radical. But if you stop and think about it, the events that produce the radicalism of the students in the sixties and seventies don't exist. I don't think in a sense the students in essence are any different. But the external circumstances are so completely different that we don't see quiet as much over political activity as we use to."
Cause there is not something?
"There isn't something, cause you aren't getting drafted."
So it is something that everyone can relate to?
"There use to be a lottery, and people would turn on the television. The lottery would be your birth date, and they would spin the wheel. You would sit there, and would be like "Oh Shit!" It was a very bad evening for a lot of people."
Yeah, I can't believe that whole scenario! Why do you think that the war was illegal, or some people disagree…?
"Well, not in simple terms. There is a provision in the constitution. It says congress will have the right to declare war, and it never attempts on part of the administration to get a declaration through congress for a variety of reasons. But I don't think you would have gotten one through congress, there was so much opposition to congress in the war. So, this was a war prosecuted by the President, Lyndon B. Johnson, and of course subs sequentially Richard Nixon. There was almost a war executed by the chief executive and armed services. Congress folded under pressure at having to finance a war. Many congresspersons didn't agree with it. And after all the troops that were committed to congress felt you couldn't just cut off funding with 500,000 troops is Vietnam, and you can't just let them sit there with no material to fight war. It looked to me as a completely illegal or an immoral war fought by a president who lied through his teeth in the campaign. I think the thing is that so many people were against the war because first the Johnson Administration, and the Nixon scenarios about the war that turned out to be false. Trying to hide the bombing in Cambodia was denied over and over again. We're not bombing Cambodia; we're bombing the hell out of Cambodia. Clinton lied about having an affair, and these guys lied about killing hundreds of thousands of people."
What was made by their deal?
"Yea. So all that was going on, and plus the military had a misunderstanding of the war. And continued to say it would be over with in a year or two. And the Offensive took place, and it was apparent the military had no control over what was going on. And that was the big break, the Offensive. It was the North Vietnamese, but we were fighting the South Vietnamese, as well cause there was an up rise in South Vietnam against America. So, it was one of those unfortunate things that came out of the cold cut cold war politics. It was just because Ho Chi Min declared himself as a communist that dragged us into the war. It was a civil war cause at the end of WWII, Vietnam was divided into two by European occupying forces. This was an attempt to unify the country. Of course there were fascists in Vietnam that wanted Vietnam unified under a capitalist system, and there were elements in the South who wanted it unified by Capitalists. So, there was definitely a civil war going on there. And I think we misinterpreted it as an attempt on the part of China and Russia to try to gain some kind of a foothold on South East Asia."
You said the Administration encouraged you to go out and talk to students?
"Yeah.
And now days I have a hard time believing that... It was different back then. You could go to a bar, and sit down and have a beer with your professor...I did it many times. And now you can't. I mean you can, but it doesn't look good."
What do you think about today? Professors and Students are mostly a working relationship. It is you're my teacher and I am your student, and that's it. It seems a lot of the Administration doesn't want it, and I feel as a student that if I stand up for something, and we started a group, the teacher would help propel that if it was against the policy of the mainstream. It looks like they would look down upon that now.
"Well, I think for one thing… Yea, that kind of climate has changed in Athens. It isn't completely different, but at the time I first came here it was quite common to socially mix with students. And of course I was thirty years younger personally then I am now so social mixing was easier. But the alcohol thing these days make it a little more difficult. Now sexual harassment is also a problem because many professors dated students at the time regardless of all this stuff. So, you know I dated a student, and it wasn't even a woman. This still goes on, but it is less obvious, and less expectable. And a little more difficult to manage than it use to be."
Any last statements?
"Well, I wish in a way that the student body of Ohio University could be more politically active. It doesn't have to be burning buildings down, but there is so much at stake. I think students today are career oriented, and don't have time for community issues. At times I wish that would come back, cause those are some of my fondest memories of those years when I first came here. But you all have plenty going on, look around there are plenty of groups doing a lot of things just on a smaller scale. There aren't these extenuating circumstances that propel people to act on these things."
Conclusion
Overall, this oral history project was a great success. We were able to learn about something we really didn't have much knowledge about prior to the interview and research. It was able to give us an appreciation for the history of Ohio University and also Athens. By participating in this project we were also able to connect with a professor who was able to give us great incite into this vast history. We knew that students and professors at the university protested the war, but we didn't realize until this experience how many people the protests against the war really affected.
Our interview is a very strong example of a historical document. Although the protests here at Ohio University were local, Dr. Hunt gave great examples of how the protests in the bigger cities around the country affected the mood in Athens. It shows the great amounts that students took to get their voice heard. This interview is definitely a great historical document for Athens, Ohio.
By researching for this interview, we were able to find information to help form a background for the questions to ask Dr. Hunt, but his personal view gave much further detail into certain items found in research. We found the interview to greatly support the research found. The research was just a highlight tool compared to Dr. Hunt's first person point of view during the interview. We also gave Dr. Hunt a copy of some sample questions that we planned to ask several days prior to meeting so that he could prepare for the interview.
As it was just mentioned, our research helped us to ask the right questions for the time period.
As the interview continued, we were also able to think of more questions to ask Dr. Hunt that were sparked by his responses. We could have been there for hours asking questions, but he was pressed for time. I feel our interview was definitely able to portray Dr. Hunts experiences because he gave great incite into his life during that time period. The interview turned out to be the way we planned by having Dr. Hunt giving his point-of-view and his own personal experience.
Our group interview went pretty much according to our plan, although Dr. Hunt couldn't remember some of the details of the time period. Maybe having additional information readily available for Dr. Hunt would have helped to ease some of these questions about details. If we had to do this interview again, we would have to make sure that the interviewer had more time to answer more questions.
In general, this was a great learning experience for all of us. We were able to gain information about our university, the town we live in, and even the students that previously attended this school. Ohio University and Athens have vast histories that not many people are aware of. This project was even a fun way to learn about history!
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