Announcer: Prompted by the Kent State deaths and the deaths of two black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi, the President named a nine member commission to explore campus violence, and to recommend ways of resolving student grievances peacefully. When the report was finished, Commission head, William Scranton, revealed part of what had concluded.
William Scranton: "It is true that the amount of campus disruption and violence certainly was much less in the period when the war seemed to be going in the direction of terminating and people were beginning to come back to the United States, for example, late last fall, this last winter, and early spring. And certainly it got much stronger after the Cambodia. We all know that, after the Cambodian invasion. So the less extenuation there is of American participation and the more return of men, the more helpful it is, of course."
Announcer: Students weren't the only ones involved in demonstrations during 1970, many who call themselves the silent majority rallied around President Nixon to show their support for him, and at the same time to visually display their disgust with antiwar demonstrators.
In New York City, construction workers; some still wearing the bright yellow hard hats of their trade, confronted a line of antiwar demonstrators. While the students shouted peace now, the hard hats rallied with signs and slogans that said, 'All the way, USA,' and 'America, Love it or Leave it.'
Unknown Speaker: "To show the students that we care more than they do, and we'll stand up even stronger than they ever will. Because nobody is strong as the United States' citizen."
Unknown Speaker: "I am here to show that we are in support of America, not for peace. We want an equal pull-out, that's all; we want to get a settlement. I am proud to be an American, and I am glad to see once this country stood up the way it should have."
Unknown Speaker: "We want to say to the students that maybe today we can open the door for discussion and say to the students who have problems, we are willing to work with you. We are the fellows who built this country. We are the fellows who built the hospitals when everyone else is sick. We built the bridges and towns for them to get around it. We built the schools that they want to burn down, and we also built all of the other such places."
Announcer: There were other displays of support for the Nixon administration. In April, Reverend Carl McIntire, the fundamentalist preacher and anticommunist radio commentator, led a victory march in Washington.
Reverend Carl McIntire: "We are here for this whole purpose of bringing fair and bible reading back into the public school systems in the United States of America. We are here for an all-out victory of our war in Vietnam. We feel that 47,000 of our boys have died needlessly in Vietnam, where this war could have been won a long time ago. We feel that if we bomb Haiphong Harbor, we can make a mud puddle of this and do away with the armed armament that enemy is getting to kill our boys is fortunately over, and we can bring them home with an honorable date."
Announcer: On the 4th of July, a patriotic and nonpartisan observance of the 194th anniversary of the nation's birth was held in the nation's capital. The Honor America Day rally was conceived and organized by supporters of President Nixon. Comedian Bob Hope was a co-chairman and Billy Graham gave the keynote address.
Billy Graham: "But I want to tell you it's tremendously heartening to see these thousands of people from all over the country, and it proves one thing, the railroads are still running. And we have telegrams from thousands of others who wished they could be with us, but they are still stacked up over the airport. That's one nice thing about America, you can get a crowd like this together even without a football game, and what a gathering. President Nixon saw this crowd and said 'My God, what did Agnew say now.' And Spiro looked out of his window, saw this crowd and said, 'My God, what a great time to say something.'"
Announcer: The American court system was challenged and disrupted in a few instances in 1970. First, the trial of the Chicago Seven, which began in 1969 in Chicago, ended. The long trial had been marked be near pandemonium at times; frequent and bitter exchanges took place between the defendants, their attorneys and Judge Julius Hoffman.
In the final verdict, the jury found all seven innocent of conspiring to incite riots during the 1968 Democratic convention, but they convicted five of them of crossing state line with the intent to incite riot.
Coming up next on United Press International's 1970 In Review, the Middle East; a ceasefire and violations, a look for peace, airplane hijackings, the death of Nasser, and from France, another leader dies.
Unknown Speaker: (French).
Announcer: The death of Charles de Gaulle reported next, when 1970 In Review continues.
03 70
