AH.com Challenge: Nixon Invades Woodstock

I searched, and there is so little about that event on here. It seems to me like an interesting idea; what if something had happened there? So, I decided to test you guys on it.

Today's challenge: come up with at least a semi-plausible reason for Nixon to send troops to break up Woodstock '69 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_Festival). What would be the butterflies of such an event? Would we get a civil war?
 
I've got no idea why he'd do this - Nixon was paranoid, not psychotic - but he's shot the GOP in the foot for the '70 midterms. Add in watergate and we're seeing a very screwed tricky Dick.
 

wormyguy

Banned
"The Woodstock Riot was one of the most calamitous events of the social unrest of the Sixties. The clash between drug-crazed hippies and members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, and the stampede caused by it, caused the deaths of over 186 people. Although only sporadic violence continued after the night of August 16, the Woodstock riots caused concurrent street fights and riots to erupt all over the country, which killed 13 and caused millions in damage. Believed to be inspired by the riots and possibly perpetrated by the Hell's Angels was the August 18 murder of Elliot Berger, a 17 year-old North Carolina teenager who was hung from a tree with a sign around his neck that said "Hippy [sic] Negro Lover." Over 25,000 rioters still fought in Woodstock on the 19th, drug-addled revelers, over 3000 Hell's Angels, and hastily wrung up citizen militias from the neighboring towns who, in the words of one militiaman "just want[ed] some f**king peace and quiet! They broke all the windows in my barn last night! Tried to set it on fire, too!" Faced with growing violence and pressure to stop the riots, Nixon issued Executive Order 11475, which directed the New York National Guard to break up the Woodstock Riots.

The Woodstock riots were but another example proving the necessity of the COINTELPRO programs . . . "

From The Sixties by David Halberstam (1993)
 
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