From Vietnam to Don Smith and Beyond : the Iowa State Daily and Its Portrayal of a Radical Decade, 1966-1975 Michael Lee Swan Iowa State University
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Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 1-1-1998 From Vietnam to Don Smith and beyond : the Iowa State Daily and its portrayal of a radical decade, 1966-1975 Michael Lee Swan Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Recommended Citation Swan, Michael Lee, "From Vietnam to Don Smith and beyond : the Iowa State Daily and its portrayal of a radical decade, 1966-1975" (1998). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 17795. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/17795 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. From Vietnam to Don Smith and beyond: The Iowa State Daily and its portrayal of a radical decade, 1966-1975 by Michael Lee Swan A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCI ENCE Major: Journalism and Mass Communication Major Professor: Dr. Tom Emmerson Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 1998 ii Graduate College Iowa State University This is to certify that the Master's thesis of Michael Lee Swan has met the thesis requirements of Iowa State University Signatures have been redacted for privacy - ii i TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER II. THE DAILY AND PROTEST AGAINST NATIONAL POLICIES: VIETNAM AND WATERGATE 11 CHAPTER Ill. THE DAILY AND PROTEST AGAINST CAMPUS POLICIES: RACE, HOURS AND GENDER 47 CHAPTER IV. THE DAILY AND STUDENT GOVERNMENT: THE DON SMITH PHENOMENON 76 CHAPTER V. THE DAILY AND STUDENT GOVERNMENT: SMITH'S BUBBLE BURSTS 1 00 CHAPTER VI. THE DAILY AS WATCHDOG : THE ATHLETIC COUNCIL AND CAMPUS ALLIANCE 132 CHAPTER VII. THE DAILY AND FREE EXPRESSION: WHO WATCHED THE WATCHDOG? 156 CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSIONS: THE LESSONS AND THE LEGACY 185 APPENDIX A. IOWA STATE DAILY FINANCIAL INFORMATION 193 APPENDIX B. SELECTED FRONT PAGES 199 BIBLIOGRAPHY 206 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 209 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION "... the changes in the campus press were pronounced, and perhaps seemed to be greater than they actually were." -Julius Duscha and Thomas Fischer "But what caused the most problems was language and changing student mores, including vigorous advocacy and editorial treatment of the news." - Julius Duscha and Thomas Fischer Iowa State University is a conservative, quiet place, located in a pleasant town in a bucolic state that still holds largely to rural values. The college, a land grant institution , even used to be separated from the town by a large field, now home of the Iowa State Center. With the opening of C. Y. Stephens Auditorium , part of the Center, in September, 1969, the town and university were on the way to being connected physically. Even though it is a school of 25,000 students in the middle of farm country, making up half the town's population, it is touched by national happenings. Sometimes it is even on the cutting edge. This happened during the years 1966- 75 - a decade described as the "nutty-violent period" by longtime ISU journalism professor and former student newspaper adviser Bill Kunerth. It flamed out just as fast as it ignited. But, for a time, Iowa State and Ames was as full of emotion, shock, anger, fear and grappling with ways to deal with all of it as any place in the country. In at least one case, with the election of a radical student president in 1967, it was way ahead of other campuses. In fact, as former President W. Robert Parks points out, there were only two student body presidents in the 1960s who belonged to the liberal Students for a Democratic Society (SOS) - and Stanford was the other one (Parks interview). The street in front of the Center would be traversed by Vietnam war protesters during this time period. There would be sit-downs at the Armory and confrontations between blacks and the administration - one of which ended with a vice president 2 being cold-cocked by a protester. And quiet downtown Ames wou ld be left gripping to make sense of a bomb that went off at city hall. City hall! The Iowa State Daily caught the happenings in words and photos. As will be shown time and again here, it was a college paper that was not under a heavy hand. It caught the good times and the bad times. Some were infruriated by the happenings at Iowa State. It was amazing to some that protest and such irreverance could happen here. Many of the participants in these activities were contacted ; most were happy to talk about those years. Some remembered their collegiate years clearly and fondly and talked as if it was only yesterday. Others had pushed these events into the recesses of their minds and still held mixed emotions that made them somewhat reluctant to discuss those years. Others could not remember some or most of the details. Some of the key players have died (such as Carl Hamilton) or otherwise disappeared and could not be tracked (including the reporter and photographer from Life magazine who triggered the final crisis for Don Smith). In most cases, however, those who helped to shape that decade from 1966-75 possessed both a storehouse of information and strong emotions in their memory banks. For several, including President Parks, the questions and interviews offered a time for reflection and introspection. One of the reasons for reflection among administrators, in particular, was the contrast to previous decades at Iowa State - and campuses across the country. What held true for administration and students was also reflected in the campus newspapers, which are ubiquitous in the United States. Virtually every post secondary institution had a newspaper in the Twentieth Century. Today there are well over 1,000 college and university newspapers and many of them are published at least five times a week (Duscha, 22). These papers provide, perhaps, the best record and perspective of collegiate life in the United States over the past 50 years - perhaps longer. College yearbooks offered something closer to a snapshot view, but nothing - certainly no commercial, local newspaper can match the student newspaper in this country - particularly because many, if not most, have enjoyed an atmosphere of freedom in which to operate. This has certainly been the case at Iowa State. 3 The Daily of the 1950s Thus, it is possible to set the scene for 1966 by leafing through the Iowa State Daily of the 1950s. Typical front page headlines and stories included: '"Y' Finance Drive To Get Underway Monday Evening," "Iowa State 100 Years Old Today!" and "Science Attracts Students Interested in Medicine." There were some big events, like "Live T-V Begins Today," "Crowds Line Lincoln Way To Greet President," referring to a visit by President Eisenhower. There was even coverage of a "riot" with a crowd of 2,000 ending up at the Knoll , home of President James H. Hilton. But, unlike the 1966-75 period, these demonstrators were calling for "No School Monday" because a less than inspiring Iowa State football team had upset Missouri in the homecoming game. The Daily captured the action, noting that the throng at the Knoll included the unusual phenomenon of 700 women. President Hilton, incidentally, promised a Saturday off if students were orderly and dispersed happily (The 100-Year Book). These campus trends extended into the early 1960s. Pinnings, initiates and engagements were still a big , page two, item in 1963. Surprisingly, marriages got much less attention in the Daily, but there was lots of coverage in 1960-64 of Pammel Court - the married student housing community that had been erected as a temporary facility until the glut of World War II veterans could complete their education . Nearly 20 years later, Pammel was still thriving and other units had been built so that in 1964 half of the married students lived there. And , of course, football and other sports were given considerable coverage - sometimes on the front page. But much of the gridiron story chronicled in the Daily in the 1960s was abysmal. That is, until 1968, when a new, 32-year-old head coach named Johnny Majors took over. His first two teams went 3-7; then 5-6 and then came a breakout season with an 8-3 record and a trip to the Sun Bowl. Iowa State lost that game, against the last all-white Lo uisiana State team. The next year they started 5-1 , but finished 5-5-1 and still squeaked into the Liberty Bowl game. However, that tie was one of the most memorable games in Iowa State history. ISU ended up deadlocked against mighty Nebraska, 23-23, in Ames. The Cyclones would have won that game but an extra point attempt in the final seconds sailed 4 just wide. Majors said during the late 1960s and early 1970s that he was able to use the conservative campus atmosphere of Iowa State as a selling point to recruits who were also looking at the University of Iowa or Wisconsin, where, of course, some of the most outspoken and violent events of the decade were taking place (Tribune, April 18, 1998). And, as this thesis will show, Majors himself succumbed to the unpredictability of the period by threatening to punch a political science professor in the face. The 1966-1975 time period, "the nutty-violent period," was chosen for this study because of the vast changes that took place in the campus press during that time.