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A force of more than 3,000 soldiers and guardsmen and 400 deputy United States marshals fired rifles and hurled tear-gas grenades to stop the violent demonstrations. Tonight a force approaching 5,000 soldiers and guardsmen, along with the Federal marshals, maintained an uneasy peace in this town of 6,500 in the northern Mississippi hills. There were two flareups tonight in which tear gas had to be used, United Press International reported. A small crowd of students began throwing bottles at marshals outside Baxter Hall where Mr Meredith was housed. Soldiers also broke up a minor demonstration at a downtown intersection. They were seated in the mobs of students and adults that besieged the university administration building last night and attacked troops on the town square this morning. Edwin A Walker, who resigned his commission after having been reprimanded for his ultra-right-wing political activity. The university's acceptance of Mr Meredith, a 29-year-old Air Force veteran, followed Gov. Ross R Barnett's retreat from his defiance of Federal court orders that the Negro be enrolled. The 64-year-old official, a member of the militantly segregationist citizens Councils, had vowed he would go to jail if necessary to prevent university desegregation. Mr Meredith's admission marked the first desegregation of a public educational institution in Mississippi. It reduced the Deep South bloc of massive-resistance states to two - Alabama and South Carolina. Although the step brought an apparent end to the most serious Federal-state conflict since the Civil War, its cost in human lives and bitterness was the greatest in any dispute over desegregation directives of the Federal courts. Two men were killed in the rioting, which broke out about 8 o'clock last night after Mr Meredith had been escorted onto the campus by the marshals. The victims were Paul Guihard, 30 years old, a correspondent for Agence France Presse, and Ray Gunter, 23, a jukebox repairman from nearby Abbeville, Miss. The number of injured could not be determined definitely. But Mr Guthman told newsmen 25 marshals had required medical treatment. One of them, shot through the neck, was reported in critical condition. A military spokesman said 20 soldiers and guardsmen had been injured, none of them seriously. Vernon B Harrison, director of the Student Health Service, said between 60 and 70 persons, including some marshals, had been treated at the university infirmary. Others who were wounded or were burned by exploding tear-gas grenades obtained aid from local physicians or from Army doctors who moved into the infirmary last night. Hamilton Howze, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps, arrived here from Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, to take over the field command. The corps includes the 82d and the 101st Airborne Divisions. Gordon Hill, Army public information officer here, said General Howze was accompanied by his corps command. There were reports that other units of the two famed airborne divisions were moving into the area. Charles Billingslea, assistant commander of the Second Infantry Division, Fort Benning, Ga. Mr Guthman said Federal forces were prepared to remain as long as necessary. Our mission is to see that the orders of the courts are enforced,'' he said. Garden Ripped Up Bricks, lumber and other building materials were stolen from a construction site and used as missiles or roadblocks. The rioters ripped up the garden of a home in their search for brickbats and commandeered a fire engine and a bulldozer. A hard core of 70 to 100 youths, most of whom appeared to be Ole Miss students, touched off the riot. They were soon joined by students from other universities and colleges in this area. Youths and men from Lafayette County, of which Oxford is the seat, and from surrounding counties joined the fray. Some members of the mob wore jackets from Mississippi State University, at Starkeville, and Memphis State College, in Memphis. Members of the Ku Klux Klan and similar racist groups in Alabama and northern Louisiana reportedly had threatened to join the opposition against Mr Meredith's enrollment. State Charge Denied In briefing newsmen, Mr Guthman flatly denied assertions by state officials that Chief United States Marshal James J P McShane had precipitated the riot by ordering use of tear gas prematurely. The Justice Department spokesman said tear gas had been used only after the students had showered the marshals with rocks and one deputy had been struck with an iron pipe, which left a deep dent in his helmet. A force of 200 state troopers, used by Governor Barnett to block one of Mr Meredith's three previous attempts to register, stood by on and around the campus last night. The troopers made no effort to break up the mob at the administration building, called the Lyceum. The troopers pulled back from the riot scene shortly after 9 o'clock, leaving the marshals to defend themselves. The action was authorized by State Senator George Yarborough of Red Banks, the President pro tem of the Senate and Governor Barnett's official representative on the campus. We had been assured by the Governor that the state police would assist us in maintaining law and order,'' Mr Guthman said. The besieged marshals, commanded by Chief Marshal McShane and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Deputy United States Attorney General, held their redoubt at the Lyceum until shortly after midnight. They got reinforcement then from Troop E Second Reconnaissance Squadron, 108th Armored Cavalry, of the Mississippi National Guard. The first unit of combat military policemen called up by the President did not arrive until 4:30 this morning. This was Company A of the 503d Military Police Battalion, from Fort Bragg, NC Other troops poured into Oxford by truck and by plane. They included the 716th Military Police Battalion, which came overland from Fort Dix, NJ; A detachment of the 70th Engineering Battalion from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, operated a tent city'' for the marshals 15 miles north of here, in the Holly Springs National Forest. The unit included medical and communications specialists from the 101st Airborne Division. The first military policeman to arrive helped the marshals and National Guardsmen repel a final assault on the Lyceum at 5 AM Barrage after barrage of tear gas and smoke grenades drove back the howling mob, whose strength had dwindled from a peak of 2,500 to 100. It was difficult to estimate the number of persons who actually took part in the riot. Acrid clouds of smoke and tear gas billowed across the front of a campus area called the Grove, a tree-shaded oval in front of the Lyceum. Virtually all the street lights were shot out or broken by rocks early in the evening. Observers edging as close to the action as the tear gas and prudence would permit got a view of shadowy forms racing back and forth behind Confederate battle flags. The rioters cranked up the bulldozer twice and sent it crashing driverless toward the marshals. Both times it hit trees and other obstructions that stopped it before it reached their ranks. Shouting members of the mob raced the fire engine back and forth through the trees and strewed links of hose across the Grove. At one point the engine careened down the asphalt drive only a few feet from the marshals, who peppered it with blasts from their tear-gas guns. Several persons were burned as canisters of tear gas struck them or exploded near them. Snipers Fire in Darkness Snipers operated under the cover of darkness, aiming blasts of birdshot and pistol and rifle fire at the marshals and others. A sniper fired three quick shots at Karl Fleming, a reporter in the Atlanta bureau of Newsweek magazine, but the bullet struck the doorway of the Lyceum. Gordon Yoder, a Telenews cameraman from Dallas, and Mrs Yoder were set upon by the mob. A group of teen-agers and a few men massed on the town square before the three-story Lafayette County Courthouse about 9:30 AM today. Many of them wore gray caps bearing Confederate battle flags. They took up positions on the southeast corner of the square, facing two platoons of military policemen on the southwest corner. The youths began h...
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