Kent State Shootings and Steven Sharoff

In April, I posted some information regarding the Kent State Shootings. For the privacy of certain individuals, I used only their initials in my postings.

Much to my surprise, I have been able to communicate with one of those individuals. Steven Sharoff. He has read Mr. Knopf's letters regarding himself and has sent me an email response regarding those letters. He has given me permission to post his response and I am quite grateful to him for his time and communication.

I will let you come to your own conclusions, but I believe Mr. Sharoff. He has been quite gracious and I hope you find his response enlightening.

I have read Prof. Knopf's material and am, frankly, astounded. It is filled with suppositions and inaccuracies. I never hid nor disappeared. My movements can be traced very accurately. I left KSU because my thesis topic on the May 4 incident was not approved by a split history department and for no other reason. (My advisor can prove that.) I did indeed finish many courses at KSU and have the transcripts to prove it (and several advanced degrees I might add!).

I never worked for the FBI or any other govt agency, unless you count being a probation officer in my tiny county in NY for a year or so before going back to grad school where I spent the next 3 years.

The truth is so simple that people like Dr. Knof are unable to believe it: I wandered into the middle of a situation and became heavily involved in it. (JG and TB were both great guys and didn't follow me. In fact it was one of their ideas to bury (not burn) the constitution.) You can call it destiny or fate or whatever. None of it was planned. I saw what I considered to be a miscarriage of justice when the U attempted to kick SDS off campus and I became, by accident I can assure you, the leader of CCC. I was never very radical nor, at the same time, was I very pleased with what was going on in Vietnam to put it mildly.

As far as the assistantship is concerned, Dr. Knof was right; it was unusual. That was due to Dr. Lou Harris, the Provost. My relationship with Dr. Harris was very interesting and began with an invitation and visit to his home. Basically he wanted to know how I became involved in all of what I was involved in. I had absolutely nothing to hide and so told him and he believed me. (Dr. Harold Kitner was also at that meeting.) When the next day it was reported by the VP of student affairs that I was seen at a regional SDS meeting the night before, the same night I spent the evening at Dr. Harris, I realized just what kind of people I was dealing with. I have alwasy thought very highly of Dr. Harris and believe to this day that has his council been sought, the incident at KSU may never have happened.

Last, if I was an "agent" do you think that I would have gone before the govt panel on KSU or let myself be interviewed by James Mitchner or appeared in the Time-Life series? I'm surprised that Dr. Knof, as a historian, didn't do better. (I did in fact spend 5 years in Europe working for the U of Maryland who had a contact with the military. So the tidbit about my being on a base in Germany for a brief time is probably true.)

There is lots more and I'd be happy to have a conversation with you and/or the other correspondents.

Sincerely,Steven Sharoff

Thank you and Best Wishes, Mr. Sharoff.

AKM