KSU Students Meet With President Nixon

On May 6, 1970, President Richard Nixon met with six students from Kent State University, just a couple of days after the shootings at the university on May 4.

The six students, who later held a news conference on Capitol Hill, said they had driven to Washington, D.C., on their own initiative, with no expectation of seeing the president. All six said they favored complete withdrawal from Vietnam.

The six students were Thomas E. Brumbach, a Navy veteran and 24‐year‐old sophomore from Mantua, Ohio; Richard Cutler, 23, a senior from Kent, Ohio; Donald S. Grant, 22, a senior from Ridgewood, New Jersey; R. Dean Powell, an Army reservist and 24‐year‐old graduate student from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio; Samuel H. Trego, 24, a senior from North Hampton, Ohio; and Daniel G. Tretinik, 21, a senior from Wickliffe, Ohio.

This page contains both an audio file of the press conference that followed the meeting in the White House with President Nixon and a recent video interview with KSU alumnus Don Grant.

AUDIO OF 1970 PRESS CONFERENCE:

VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH DON GRANT
Below is a video interview with Don Grant, conducted by the Richard Nixon Foundation, where he recounts that meeting with President Richard Nixon and members of his staff.

Credits:

Top cover photo: Courtesy of the Nixon Library

Embedded audio: courtesy Special Collections and Archives.