By BETH PALMER
elizabeth@du2.byu.edu
During one of the most tumultuous eras on some college campuses in the United States, things at BYU managed to stay relatively calm.
On April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon ordered U.S. troops to invade Cambodia, extending the Vietnam war-zone and sparking a new round of protests on college campuses across the country.
One of those campuses was Kent State University in Ohio. On May 4, 1970, 28 members of the National Guard fired into an unarmed crowd of demonstrators who had, among other things, burned the school's ROTC building. The scene ended with four students dead and nine wounded.
That event, coupled with a similar scene 10 days later at Jackson State University in Mississippi, ignited student protests on 50 college campuses.
But BYU was not the site of any of those demonstrations.
David Pratt, a history professor and 1963 BYU graduate, said things during the tumultuous Vietnam era were relatively mild on BYU's campus.
'We were often discussing things that seemed trivial in comparison,' he said. 'It was the Happy Valley syndrome, perhaps. Maybe we were too isolated.'
And the first week of May in 1970 was no exception.
At BYU, the Kent State shootings weren't mentioned in The Daily Universe until two days after the event. An editorial ran May 5 that named the media as a key figure in campus riots, but it didn't mention the shootings.
While some campuses, such as Kent State, were actively protesting Nixon's actions in Cambodia, the Daily Universe editorial supported the Cambodian action and 'encourage(d) all to do likewise.'
An informal survey of BYU students ran that same day on the front page and gave voice to eight students in favor of Nixon's policy, two against it and one who felt too uninformed to cast a vote.
The Kent State shootings first received ink at BYU when The Daily Universe ran an Associated Press story May 6 about demonstrations and protests on college campuses in reaction to the students' deaths. That story reported that 'campuses were calm across most of Utah and Idaho' and also cited the May 5 Daily Universe editorial, providing a stark contrast to the climate at many other campuses in the United States.
Pratt said that while many students at other campuses were protesting authority figures, that wasn't something BYU students did easily.
'I would suspect the conflict was more one of those who felt a need to follow a conservative line or support the president because we always supported our leaders,' he said.
Part of that conflict may have stemmed from an April 21, 1970, Devotional address by President Ezra Taft Benson, who was then a member of The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
President Benson told students at that time that a person is either an American or not an American.
'One cannot ride two horses at the same time,' he was quoted as saying in the April 22, 1970, Daily Universe.
'America has a prophetic history and a spiritual foundation,' he said. 'But she is at the crossroads. ... We can never survive unless our young people appreciate the American system we have.'
And BYU students seemed to appreciate that system. Pratt said the only out-of-the-ordinary behavior he remembers during those protest-filled years was a panty raid.
That calm didn't go unnoticed by administration. BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson wrote the student body a letter May 10, 1970, saying he appreciated its peaceful conduct.
'At a time of national crisis and unparalleled campus disturbances, I congratulate you students at BYU for recognizing that demonstrations, rioting and unbridled conduct will not solve the important issues confronting America today,' he wrote in the letter, which ran in the May 11 edition of The Daily Universe.
President Wilkinson said he and the university were in no position to pass judgment on the National Guard or the students at Kent State and urged BYU students to 'retain (their) 'cool.''
'Demonstrations of the kind we are witnessing, even though they are in many cases labeled peaceful, will not resolve the question of the responsibility at Kent State, nor will they in any way determine the propriety of the much-larger question of the president's decision in ordering our troops into Cambodia,' he wrote.
But just because behavior didn't get out of hand doesn't mean every BYU student was pro-Vietnam.
A May 7, 1970, letter to the editor from Judith A. Yandon was published in The Daily Universe and decried Nixon's actions in extending the war into Cambodia.
'Once again the sweet perfume of swift victory has lured another president even deeper into the quagmire of Southeast Asia,' Yandon wrote.