13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings [Hardcover]

Philip Caputo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 26, 2005

Thirteen seconds passed. Sixty-seven shots were fired. One nation watched . . .

On May 4, 1970, Ohio's Kent State University was in chaos following President Richard Nixon's announcement that the U.S. bombing of Cambodia would continue, with student protesters on one side and the National Guard on the other. That day, young Chicago Tribune reporter Philip Caputo had been sent to the campus to cover what looked like just another student uprising. But by the time he arrived, things had erupted into one of the watershed moments of the antiwar movement, with four students dead and nine wounded in a hail of bullets fired by panicked guardsmen. Now, thirty-five years later, the author of A Rumor of War looks back on that terrible day, discussing his own emotions, the nature of political discourse and civil disobedience, and what happened to those who were there and how they still live with the pain and anger every day. It was a time when America turned upon itself and our nation's innocence was lost.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Philip Caputo, author of the classic Vietnam memoir A Rumor of War, returns to the turbulent era of the late 1960s with 13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings. Caputo carefully sets the stage for the tragedy--the gunning-down of students on the Kent State, Ohio, campus--as he shows the pressures slowly building: Richard Nixon's decision to invade Cambodia, the militaristic missives of the ultra-leftist Weathermen, and statements such as high-profile California governor Ronald Reagan's declaration about student protests, given three weeks before the shootings ("If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with").

While important events surge and roil throughout the book like massive currents, Caputo focuses primarily on the smaller stories of the students injured and killed by National Guard bullets. Caputo, a journalist then writing for the Chicago Tribune (and who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1972), was on the scene soon after the shootings took place. He writes with immediacy, clearly drawn back to the moment even after 35 years have passed. Some of the students who died that day were active in campus politics, while others were caught purely by misfortune, but all paid an incredible price. By allowing readers to understand more about the students and the circumstances that surrounded May 4, 1970, Caputo turns the story of Kent State into a kind of tragic novel. The book itself is short: under 200 pages, including summaries of court testimonies that make up the bulk of the index. But the poignancy of what America lost that day comes through clearly in Caputo's dense, no-nonsense writing. --Jennifer Buckendorff

From Publishers Weekly

Caputo, best known for his groundbreaking Vietnam memoir, A Rumor of War, uses his strong reporting skills to reconstruct the events of May 4, 1970, when National Guard troops in Ohio opened fire on Kent State University students during an antiwar rally, killing four and wounding nine. Caputo covered the aftermath as a 28-year-old Chicago Tribune reporter, three years removed from his tour of duty as a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam. After returning to Kent State in the fall of 2004, he produces an eloquent narrative sprinkled with his strongly voiced opinions on Vietnam, Richard Nixon ("that glowering man with the soul of Lear") and the tenor of the times ("Cops had become vandals, the forces of disorder and those of order had fused"). At Kent State, he writes, "the forces of authority had gotten away with murder." Caputo's retelling of the "massacre," as he calls it, and its aftermath is a worthy addition to the record. On the other hand, Caputo's reflections are relatively brief—an extended essay. An appendix with the 1970 report of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest, may complete the story but makes for dry reading. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Chamberlain Bros.; Har/DVD edition (April 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596090804
• ISBN-13: 978-1596090804
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,025,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Novelist and journalist Philip Caputo (1941 -- ) was born in Chicago and educated at Purdue and Loyola Universities. After graduating in 1964, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps for three years, including a 16-month tour of duty in Vietnam. He has written 14 books, including two memoirs, four books of general nonfiction, and eight novels. His acclaimed memoir of Vietnam, A Rumor of War, has been published in 15 languages, has sold over 1.5 million copies since its publication in 1977, and is widely regarded as a classic in the literature of war. His most recent novel, Crossers, is set against a backdrop of drug and illegal-immigrant smuggling on the Mexican border and is to be published in the Fall of 2009 by Alfred A. Knopf. In addition to books, Caputo has published dozens of major magazine articles, reviews, and op-ed pieces in publications ranging from the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post to Esquire, National Geographic, and the Virginia Quarterly Review. Topics included profiles of novelist William Styron and actor Robert Redford, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the turmoil on the Mexican border.

Caputo's professional writing career began in 1968, when he joined the staff of the Chicago Tribune, serving as a general assignment and team investigative reporter until 1972. For the next five years, he was a foreign correspondent for that newspaper, stationed in Rome, Beirut, Saigon, and Moscow. In 1977, he left the paper to devote himself to writing books and magazine articles.


Caputo has won 10 journalistic and literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 (shared for team investigative reporting on vote fraud in Chicago), the Overseas Press Club Award in 1973, the Sidney Hillman Foundation award in 1977 (for A Rumor of War), the Connecticut Book Award in 2006, and the Literary Lights Award in 2007. His first novel, Horn of Africa, was a National Book Award finalist in 1980, and his 2007 essay on illegal immigration won the Blackford Prize for nonfiction from the University of Virginia.

He and his wife, Leslie Ware, an editor for Consumer Reports magazine, divide their time between Connecticut and Arizona. Caputo has two sons from a previous marriage, Geoffrey, a jazz composer and music teacher, and Marc, a political reporter for the Miami Herald.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Appendix is the Best Part, May 13, 2006

By 

Jon Morgan (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings (Hardcover)

This book adds virtually nothing to the body of literature already out there on the Kent State Massacre. Though the criticism seemed petty when I first heard it, the fact that Caputo calls Portage County "Porter County" in the context of the book is really lame. It smacks of a lack of familiarity with the area (or a 10 second Google search), and a rush to publish this book in time to capitalize on the 35th anniversary of May 4th in 2005 (the book came out just before then).

The reason why I give this book 3 stars instead of 1 is its appendix. There are compiled, together in one convenient place, the original text of a number of relevant documents like the report of Nixon's Presidential Commision on Campus Unrest (1970), which I found surprisingly better than expected. But that was merely a pleasant surprise after a pretty disappointing book, and those documents could easily be obtained elsewhere for less money. The book is not worth buying for them; maybe borrowing from your public library.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Different Approach to the Topic, June 20, 2006

By 

Only-A-Child - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings (Hardcover)

An earlier post was probably correct, it appears that Philip Caputo's "13 Seconds-A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings" was written mostly to provide a book to accompany DVD Documentary "Kent State: The Day The War Came Home". The DVD is included inside the book and provides a good overview of what happened on May 4, 1970.

While Caputo's book could use some minor fact checking I don't see any need to be suspicious of any major facts. There are not major distortions or significant errors, just confused details from someone who obviously did little (if any )primary research and rushed the book to print.

About half the book is a detailed chronology of the events and the text from "The Report of The President's Commission on Campus Unrest" (Sept-1970).

Which leaves only 122 pages of Caputo's writing and this is not exactly in small print. Yet besides the DVD I recommend this book without reservation. Its contribution is not in the retelling of what has been told before but in Caputo's focus on both a historical context and his use of this perspective to help the reader make strides toward healing 35 years later.

Caputo begins with a simple description: "Suddenly, a line of guardsmen wheeled, and making no distinction among active demonstrators, bystanders, and students merely walking to class, knelt and fired, killing four, wounding nine". He then cites the Boston Massacre of 1770; pointing out the similarity between the atmosphere in the early 1770's and the late 1960's-early 1970's, and the military occupation of Boston and of the Kent State campus. Then he contrasts the two events, particularly the much closer proximity of the colonists to the British troops and the much more satisfactory disciplining of the troops involved in that incident.

Caputo is pretty objective in handing out blame for Kent State but ultimately finds it cannot be shared equally. He cites "Henry V": "The king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make....".

The healing comes from an assessment of the enduring historical impact as Caputo dismisses most of what is usually cited, pointing instead to lessons from Kent State applicable now that we are fighting another morally dubious war. That (even a democracy) when not led by wise and temperate leaders, and when those leaders are given reason to perceive that they are executing the popular will, will resort to virtually any means to silence those who disagree too vigorously with its policies. That in 1970 the Ohio governor was acting as an agent of the people's will; that a true democracy must tolerate opposing points of view or it is just a dictatorship of the majority. Finally, that a citizen who believes his or her government to be in the wrong has the right to protest through peaceful civil disobedience, when other means of redress have been exhausted.

Perhaps even more appropriate is the following from another source: "Anger and resentment can stop you in your tracks. That's what I know now. It needs nothing to burn but the air and the life that it swallows and smothers. It's real though, the fury, even when it isn't. It can change you, turn you, mold you and shape you into something you're not. The only upside of anger then, is the person you become, hopefully someone that wakes up one day and realizes they're not afraid of its journey. Someone that knows that the truth is, at best, a partially told story. That anger, like growth, comes in spurts and fits and in its wake leaves a new chance of acceptance and the promise of calm".

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Buy it for the DVD not the book, May 22, 2006

By 

Lesley WISCHMANN (Wyoming, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings (Hardcover)

s someone who has researched the Kent State shootings for thirty some years, I bought this to keep current with the literature on the topic. Having spent hundreds and hundreds of hours in archives and with the FBI files, I don't expect many new Kent State insights from popular literature. But, with almost all the books I really like on Kent State out of print, I was hoping for a book I could recommend to others. Being a great fan of "Rumor of War," I expected Caputo to use his excellent story-telling skills to bring people closer to the horrors of that day.

Unfortunately, on page 15, I discovered what would become a pattern with this book: sloppy research and/or a careless disregard for basic facts. On page 15, Caputo is discussing the Weatherman when he mentions "Bill Flanagan." Bill Flanagan? Caputo must mean the Weatherman Brian Flanagan, not Bill Flanagan. Maybe just one little error.

But on p. 32, Caputo tells us that the "Porter County coroner had opened an inquiry into the four deaths." Porter County? Where's Porter County? What Caputo meant was PORTAGE County.

On p. 68, Caputo tells us that Jeff Miller transferred to Kent State in January 1970 from the University of Michigan. But he didn't. Jeff transferred from Michigan State University. And don't tell any MSU grad that it's the same as U of M. (Or vice versa.)

Because of silly errors like the above, it's impossible to trust the information that Caputo presents. On p. 48, he says that "a couple of students suffered minor bayonet wounds" on Saturday night. If this is true, it is big news. But Caputo has given me no reason to believe it's true. Instead, I believe he's referencing the students who were bayoneted on Sunday, not Saturday, night. And that is not news at all.

Needless to say, I am very disappointed in this book. It appears to have been done quickly and haphazardly, solely to provide a book to accompany the "Kent State: The Day The War Came Home" DVD. This excellent DVD will give anyone interested in the shootings a good overview and understanding of what happened on May 4, 1970. I give the book two stars because the price of the book and DVD, combined, is more than reasonable for the DVD alone. But, if you read the book, be suspicious of facts contained therein. Until you have verified them with other sources, I would discourage you from citing them as truth.

Lastly, while I have not yet studied the chronology (which takes up about half the book), I expect it to be helpful in pinpointing dates of certain events. But my needs regarding Kent State materials differ dramatically from what most individuals will want. Anyone seriously interested in Kent State would have benefited from an index but, alas, Caputo has not provided one.