Mitchell Baughman, History 250: The Historian Craft, Spring 2023

After the end of the second World War, the United States had secured its position as the world's strongest economy and enjoyed large political influence across the world. That position, however, was contested by the Soviet Union, whom the US began to compete against for international prominence, resulting in the Cold War. In response to the enemy Soviet Union’s communist ideology, many American politicians attempted to purge the US of leftist forces. During this time, politicians were arrested, protest was discouraged, and education was controlled, making college campuses political battlegrounds. At the University of Nebraska Lincoln, investigation, the termination of faculty, and policing were used to limit student expression out of a fear of communism, and these efforts were often supported by vocal citizens and local institutions, resulting in the alienation of Americans from traditional left wing movements.

In May 1970, multiple student demonstrations took place that convinced the university to limit protester freedom and to begin the investigation of students. On May 4th, a peace march in protest of the Vietnam War was organized that ended with the arrests of twelve UNL students.[1] During this event, the students also occupied the Military and Naval building until the morning of the next day. Some of the demands of the attendees included amnesty for draft dodgers, to open school regent meetings to the public, and for campus police to not carry firearms on campus. A similar peace rally was held on May 9th that attracted 4,000 plus participants to the university’s campus to hear speeches by anti-war speakers.[2] The popularity of protests like these proved to Nebraskans that local left wing movements had the support necessary to challenge America’s status quo, and could not be allowed to go on unchallenged.

In response to these events, state senator C. W. Holmquist of Oakland proposed legislative inquiry into the demonstrations and the faculty who abetted them. Holmquist also went on to suggest that funding to UNL could be cut if it did not crack down on anti war movements, stating “Those people who are going to apply for money to run the university or any state college where there have been problems are going to have a most difficult time if they cannot assure the legislators they have full control.”[3] Holmquist’s probes were supported by local organizations that asserted anti-communism as one of their main interests. One such example is the American Legion, a veterans organization, in Kearney which voted unanimously in favor of governmental inquisition into state colleges during a June meeting in 1970. In a letter to the Nebraska Department of the American Legion, the Kearney Post declared “Tax supported schools…should not be permitted to become forums for the preaching of seditions and violent revolutionary actions. I need not remind you that there is little freedom and license for dissension in the communist nations whose leaders must be elated at the events occurring in our country.” The letter ends with the writer asking, “Do you really believe that our nation should be torn apart by a small minority with outside and possibly communist support?”[4] Throughout the Cold War, Nebraska authorities used the fear of local communist activity to bolster their support and delegitimize their political opponents by casting suspicion upon them.

These calls for investigation did produce results. In June 1970, UNL’s regents set up a lay investigation commission. In August the commission reported that, “although the commission acknowledged the patience with which the May disturbances had been dealt, however, it suggested that a prompt use of police force would have been preferable.”[5] Also involved in inspection of UNL at this time, and many campuses across America, was the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Throughout the 1960s and 70s the FBI was extremely active in monitoring college campuses for subversive activity. In memos from Omaha’s FBI office it is revealed that the Bureau kept lists of students at UNL who attended anti-war meetings and determined their “propensity for violence.” FBI headquarters also asked field offices like Omaha to look for “opportunities to disrupt activities” on campus.

When asked about what the Bureau was looking for at this time, FBI historian John Fox elaborates that, “On campuses, it was a combination of things. On the one hand, there was the very broad looking at what it considered to be subversive movements, starting with Students for Democratic Society…It was that combination of both a broad look at ideological groups but also at some of the illegal behaviors that fell under those.”[6] Efforts such as those to surveil UNL came under the broader scope of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, or COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO ran from 1956 to 1971 “to disrupt the activities of the Communist Party of the United States” and was broadened in the 1960s to include socialists and the Black Panthers, according to the FBI.[7] John Fox explains that COINTELPRO actions “also went against some of these smaller SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) type groups and New Left groups.”[6?] The FBI’s undertakings again show the link between increased repression in colleges and America’s larger anti-communist movement. Although groups like Kearney’s American Legion may argue that actions such as these are taken to uphold civil liberties because “there is little freedom and license for dissension in the communist nations,”[4?] in reality it meant violating students' freedom of speech and forcing them to accept America’s war policies. In order to win the ideological contest between itself and the Soviet Union, American institutions, like the FBI and UNL’s leadership, worked to monitor and crush dissenting opinions at home without regard to the rights they upheld as American principles.

Nebraska institutions also took action to quell resistance to America’s administration by routinely attacking the student newspaper The Daily Nebraskan as an implement of political agitation by the left. In 1963, the newspaper was attacked for “backing the campaign to dissolve the House Un-American Activities Committee” and an investigation of the paper was proposed.[8] The House Un-American Activities Committee was a commission formed in 1938 in order to investigate communist activity in America. The committee soon became a way for conservative politicians to investigate broader “subversion” within the country, such as when it investigated the movie industry in 1947 and 1951 causing the blacklisting of nearly 300 actors from hollywood. HUAC would become most prominent in 1953, when anti-communist crusader Joseph McCarthy led a huge number of new hearings within congress. McCarthy’s hearings “also investigated many who did not hold communist views, creating a climate of political intimidation that came to be called ‘red baiting’ or McCarthyism. The impact of these hearings was to ruin the careers of many individuals and to foster a political paranoia toward anyone suspected of holding contrary political views.”[9]

A similar case occurred in 1961 when an article appeared in The Daily Nebraskan advertising an essay contest from the New World Review on the topic of world peace and the danger of nuclear war. Fremont attorney Ray Simmons then gave a speech criticizing the article and calling for censorship, claiming that the New World Review had been identified by HUAC as a communist organization. Simmons went on to elaborate that programs like the contest are a “common and vicious feature of the Communist party. They seek our destruction by encouraging people to talk and think of the horrors of war.”[10] These attempts by Nebraskan institutions’ to discourage criticism of HUAC demonstrates and uphold the government’s official stance show how any ideas critical of America’s status quo, like the ones popular on UNL’s campus and in its newspaper, were linked to communism to portray them as inherently “Un-American” and dangerous.

However, the University did not just surveil and criticize left-wing students and staff, but also took direct action against them as well. After giving its report, the May 1970 lay investigation commission would go on to suggest that the chancellor take disciplinary action against protestors, and requested that another committee be called to impose sanctions on Stephen Rozman. Dr. Rozman was an assistant professor of political science who had attended the anti-war protests, and due to his involvement the college dismissed him. Although the group assembled later concluded that “Dr. Rozman was not guilty of inappropriate action during the week of May 4”, the Board of Regents refused to reappoint him.[5?] Rozman sued in federal court to have his contract renewed, but the judge ruled in favor of the university.

A similar event transpired in early 1968, after philosophy instructor Charles Marxer criticized America’s position in Vietnam and encouraged UNL students to dodge the draft. State senator Clifton Batchelder of Omaha stated that UNL’s lack of response to Marxer’s comments was an example of the “complete lack of control that voters have on government-operated institutions.”[12] Like many government officials in Nebraska at this time, Batchelder saw progressive values as a challenge to America’s stability. In April of 1965 he had put forward a motion to prevent the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from being incorporated into Nebraska law, although it failed.[13]

Pushback from conservative officials like Batchelder caused the University Board of Regents to issue a statement on April 10, 1968, saying that “The Board of Regents is in complete and unanimous disagreement with Mr. Marxer and his ill-advised remarks…His services will terminate June 1”. This termination is issued despite the fact that, as the statement itself goes on to explain, “Review by faculty members has not revealed abuse of his teaching responsibilities in the classroom. In a democratic society, Mr. Marxer as any citizen, has a right to express his personal views.”[14] Reactions like these exemplify Nebraska’s McCarthyist attitude towards political dissent, purging leftist faculty simply because of their criticisms of the US without any regard to actual wrongdoing. The University Board of Regents and its supporters equated any domestic opposition to US policy with the opposition it was facing in the Cold War from the Soviet Union or the People’s Republic of China, no matter the accused member’s ideology, and often ignored the freedom of speech that it espoused as a triumph of America’s political system.

In order to enforce their policy of surveillance and executive power, the university and Nebrska’s government escalated its police presence. After the occurrence of the first protests in May of 1970, Governor Norbert Tiemann announced “I pledge full support of state law enforcement personnel to the City of Lincoln and the officials at the University of Nebraska…we in authority will move rapidly to forcefully halt those participating in unlawful conduct.”[15] When later asked about how he would employ the national guard against protestors, Tiemann elaborated that, “if Nebraska national guardsmen are called to quell civil disturbances of any kind, they will carry live ammunition,” offering the justification that “They may be subject to sniper fire. As long as I’m responsible, I won’t order men in without proper equipment.”[16] These declarations came in the wake of the Kent State Shooting that took place on May 4, where “members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine Kent State students.”[17] During this time at UNL and across America, campus administration was willing to utilize intimidation and violence to stop left wing movements from gaining traction in an attempt to sustain American policy, specifically its war policy against communist nations like Vietnam.

Even though policing was immediately successful at upholding law, in order for the Cold War policies of the United States to be more generally accepted by the populace they needed to be rhetorically integrated into mainstream thought by organizations like UNL. This was often done by administrators taking a centrist position, allowing those in power to continue their operations but extending sympathy to students, as well as by linking progressive ideals to communism. One example of this happened in 1961, when the UNL Board of Regents published a public statement declaring an “Anti-Red” policy. In it, the Regents state that the Board “continues to uphold the American right of students to express themselves and their views,” while also stressing that “Communism is not present at the University of Nebraska. If it…should be found at the university, the Board of Regents would act promptly and effectively to eradicate it.”[19]

Another illustrative case of this intention is in Chancellor Clifford Hardin’s response to Ray Simmons' attack on the New World Review’s essay contest mentioned earlier. Although Hardin asserts that “the university stands for the American right of free expression”, he also goes on to say that “Nonetheless, if Mr. Simmons has a plan of censorship which he believes fair…I would be glad to hand it to members of the university’s student affairs committee.”[10?] More conservative figures would also work to rhetorically uphold the status quo by contending that surveillance and censorship were necessary for the students to fully appreciate college, such as John Mekota. Mekota wrote a letter to Richard Spelts of the Commission for Investigating Campus Chaos at UNL during 1970 which states, “The children of today are entitled to the blessing of the Wonderful System of Government that was founded by the Colonists. To save them from disaster, they and we, The People, must have the benefit of research and revision.”[20] The idea implied by these statements is that investigation and policing do not infringe on American civil liberties because they are legal and ordered from the top down, while protesting and criticism must be blocked because their progressive values are communist, therefore inherently infringing on American liberties. Although progressives across America were successfully able to bring civil rights issues to the public consciousness, leftists of the Cold War were ultimately stripped of their radical elements. America did eventually pull out of Vietnam and limit its anti-communism to more discreet actions. Despite this, the country’s policies of investigation, dismissal of suspected leftist sympathizers, and increased policing measures that local institutions, like UNL, implemented proved effective in alienating Americans from traditional left wing movements. This was especially true in areas like Nebraska where regional organizations held a large sway over public administration and made active rhetorical attacks. Past the Cold War, calls for structural economic and political change in America became intrinsically linked to an idea of communism that many citizens saw as inherently dangerous and unamerican, despite the real repression used by anti-communists in the pursuit of their goals.

Notes

1. “Protests” Nebraska U A Collaborative History, Accessed April 28, 2023, https://unlhistory.unl.edu/exhibits/show/1970-1979/students/protests.
2. "4,000-Plus Attend Peace Rally at NU” CBS News, May 13 1970, RG 52-03-003, Box 13, Demonstrations Student (May, 1970) articles March-July 1970 SSF Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
3. “Holmquist: ‘See Who’s Responsible’” The Omaha World Herald, May 17, 1970, RG 52-03-00, Box 13, Demonstrations Student (May, 1970) articles March-July 1970 SSF Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
4. American Legion Kearney letter to Nebraska Department of the American Legion, June 9, 1970, RG 52-03-00, Box 13, Demonstrations Student (1970) SSF May 19-July 1970 Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
5. Knoll, Robert E. Prairie University: A History of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE: Nebraska, 2022.
6. Tobias, Mike “UNL students were protesting the Vietnam War, and the FBI was watching” Nebraska Public Media. December 26, 2017. Accessed April 10, 2023. https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news/news-articles/unl-students-were-protesting-the-vietnam-war-and-the-fbi-was-watching/.
7. “COINTELPRO” FBI, Accessed April 28, 2023, https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro.
8. “The Nebraskan Hassle” Grand Island Independent, March 6, 1963, RG 52-03-00 Box 12, Daily Nebraskan Newspaper Clippings SSF Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
9. “House Un-American Activities Committee” Middle Tennessee State University Free Speech Center, Published 2009, Accessed April 28, 2023, https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/815/house-un-american-activities-committee.
10. “Hardin Wants ‘No Retreat’ At University” The Norfolk Daily News, July 13, 1961, RG 52-03-00, Box 12, Daily Nebraskan SSF Folder, Student Demonstrations Collection, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
11. Boycott the May 14 Draft Photograph, May 1970, RG 52-03-00, Box 13, Demonstrations Student (1970) SSF Oct.-Nov, 1970 and no date Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
12. “NU Regents Under Attack By Batchelder” Lincoln Journal Star, April 10, 1968, RG 52-03-00, Box 13, Draft Resistance Union March ‘68 - Nov ‘68 Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
13. “Bill on fair employment wins round”, Lincoln Journal Star, Published June 15, 1965, Accessed April 28, 2023.
14. University of Nebraska News Service UNL Board of Regents Marxer Statement, April 10, 1968, RG 52-03-00, Box 13, Draft Resistance Union March ‘68 - Nov ‘68 Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
15. “Tiemann: Lawless Dissenters Must Suffer Consequences” Lincoln Journal Star, May 5, 1970, RG 52-03-00, Box 13, Demonstrations Student (May, 1970) articles March-July 1970 SSF Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
16. “Guardsmen Will Be Armed For Any Major Disturbance” Lincoln Journal Star, May 12, 1970, RG 52-03-00, Box 13, Demonstrations Student (May, 1970) articles March-July 1970 SSF Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
17. Lewis, Jerry and Hensley, Thomas “The May 4 Shootings At Kent State University: The Search For Historical Accuracy” Kent State University, Published 1998 Accessed April 28, 2023, https://www.kent.edu/may-4-historical-accuracy.
18. NU Student Paper Urging Moderation Photograph, May 5, 1970, RG 52-03-00, Box 13, Demonstrations Student (May, 1970) articles March-July 1970 SSF Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
19. “Anti-Red N.U. Policy Is Stated By Regents” The Omaha World Herald, July 19, 1961, RG 52-03-00, Box 12, Daily Nebraskan Newspaper Clippings SSF Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
20. Mekota, John. Letter and Advertisement, September 22, 1970, RG 52-03-00 Box 13, Demonstrations Student (1970) SSF September 1970 Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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• American Legion Kearney letter to Nebraska Department of the American Legion, June 9, 1970, RG 52-03-00, Box 13, Demonstrations Student (1970) SSF May 19-July 1970 Folder, Student Demonstrations, Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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[Endnotes followed with ? were present in the original paper and did not appear connected to a specific citation.]