Date: Sept 03 1999
From: Antoni Wysocki au120@chebucto.ns.ca
To: Antoni's Wire Service
Subject: A complex matter of murder
As a rule, I wouldn't bother to cross the road to read any of the four
daily newspapers (two local, two national) in general circulation in
Halifax. However, another resident in my building takes The Globe &
Mail, which means that on those occasions when my fellow tenant
leaves her paper lying late in the foyer, I can peruse it and still stay
on my side of the street. I had such an opportunity of a recent Saturday -
and so it was that I discovered that the case of Anna Mae Aquash
(nee Pictou) was the top headline in the August 07/99 edition of
The Globe.
Aquash, a Mi'kmaw originally from Nova Scotia, relocated to the United
States in the late 1960s. There she became involved in the movement to
advance the rights of North American indigenes, distinguishing herself by
her courage, compassion and strategic foresight in the struggle. She
became known particularly for her work as an organizer with the American
Indian Movement (AIM), an association formed in the US in 1968 as a First
Nations advocacy and self-defence group. Sadly, Aquash became still better
known in March/76 when human remains found on the Pine Ridge reservation
in South Dakota were identified - under bizarre circumstances - as
hers.
Anna Mae Aquash has now been deceased for more than two decades. Since
that which isn't current, isn't news fit to print in the normal practice
of the establishment press, I was quite surprised to find The
Globe taking notice of her.
On reading the article ('A Badlands trail of secrets and murder', by Erin
Anderssen) I learned that after all the story does have some claim to
currency. It turns out that though the original Federal Bureau of
Investigation inquiry into Aquash's death was terminated twenty years ago,
the case was re-opened in 1994 by other law enforcement personnel.
Apparently, the new detectives may bring forward indictments this autumn.
Still, I wondered, why had The Globe not held off on the story
until arrests had actually been made?
By chance or design, 'Badlands trail' is neatly divided into two main
tranches (there are also ancillary "boxes") which are both physically and
stylistically distinct. The first segment - which accounts for more than
half of page one for August 07 - offers a capsule history of events
leading up to Aquash's death, and the judicial aftermath thereof. For the
most part, the tone in this section is terse and dramatic.
The second part is considerably larger; with graphics and three
supplemental boxes, it makes up a full two-page spread. This section
sketches in background detail, employing a slower pace and a more sober
voice than the page one material. Regrettably however, rather than
supplying information which would allow the reader to better understand
the pertinent history, author Anderssen wastes much of her column space on
otiose color commentary : "South Dakota, a land of clay hills and
hailstorms"; "a rickety house without plumbing or electricity"; "the first
door of a one-storey brick triplex at 4494 Pecos St. in Denver"; and so
on.
The first part of 'Badlands trail' indicates that Aquash linked up with
AIM in 1973; but that by '75, some people within the organization "said
she was a snitch." At the same time, supporters of Dick Wilson, chair of
the Pine Ridge tribal council, were feuding with AIM, so she was
endangered from this quarter as well. The FBI, meanwhile, "was hunting
her, intent on finding witnesses to the shooting [of two FBI agents on
Pine Ridge]"(1). When Aquash was found dead in
the winter of '76, it was supposed that any of these three groups might
have been responsible.
The inside spread in The Globe puts some discursive flesh on page
one's narrative bones. This section of 'Badlands trail' explains that
Aquash was moved to join AIM as an act of solidarity with the occupiers of
Wounded Knee. In February of1973, this hamlet - the site of a massacre of
approximately 300 unarmed Lakota by the US Army in 1890 - was taken over
by AIM. This action came at the behest of traditionalists on Pine Ridge,
who objected to their treatment by the US government and its gauleiter,
Dick Wilson. The immediate and massive response by Washington - investment
of the village by hundreds of military and law enforcement personnel -
fixed Wounded Knee as an international icon of aboriginal resistance.
Still, in the end, AIM and the traditionals were compelled to surrender.
Although ultimately acquitted of all charges, the leaders of the
resistance were effectively sidelined for some time by the legal
proceedings arising from the occupation. Further, "shootings became common
and scores of Indians" were killed on the Pine Ridge reservation. Matters
came to a head "after two federal agents...and one AIM member died in a
gunfight", on June 26/75, in the Pine Ridge community of Oglala.
Anna Mae Aquash was not in Oglala on the fatal day, but the FBI pursued
her nonetheless, believing that she knew who had shot the agents. In
September, and again in November of 1975, she was arrested. The unusually
lenient conditions of her release on these occasions is said to have added
to prior speculation by some within AIM that Aquash had cooperated with
the FBI. These rumors were unfounded but (according to Erin Anderssen)
Aquash was left in fear of her life, from both the enemies of AIM and
members of the organization itself.
As recounted in 'Badlands trail', on November 24/75, Aquash "fled to
Denver to hide out at a friend's house." In the second week of December,
three people - at least one being "someone Ms. Aquash knew from AIM" -
sought her out at her refuge. Anderssen quotes Troy Lynn Yellow Wood, who
had been harboring Aquash, as indicating that, "She did not want to go."
From Denver, Aquash was taken to the Rapid City, South Dakota offices of
WKLDOC (2) "where she was interrogated [by
AIM] about being an informant." Shortly thereafter, "it is believed that
she was driven out to the Badlands by the same people who took her from
Denver, and shot...."
As indicated above, in 1976-7 the FBI had looked into Aquash's death. The
results of that inquest were utterly inconclusive (deliberately so, it has
been said) and since then the prevailing view has been that Aquash was
murdered by forces opposed to AIM. However, as the preceding paragraph
indicates, an alternative theory - which appears to be the main motive
force behind 'Badlands trail' - has now come to the fore.
'Badlands trail' names Robert Ecoffey and Abe Alonzo as the main exponents
of the view that "the people who shot Ms. Aquash came from within the very
movement she left her family to join." Ecoffey, then with the US Marshals
Service, re-opened the Aquash file in 1994 and worked on it until his
retirement from police work in '96. Alonzo - a detective with the
"intelligence" division of the Denver police department, who specializes
in monitoring "extremists" - threw in with Ecoffey in 1995. He is still
active on the case.
Apparently, Ecoffey and Alonzo have taken statements from certain
individuals who had contact with Anna Mae Aquash in her final days -
including "one of the men believed to have been present at the shooting."
These reports have confirmed the duo in their supposition that the killers
were members of AIM. As Erin Anderssen tells it, the murder seems to have
been actuated by the belief that Aquash had intrigued with the FBI, and
that her revelations had badly compromised - and would continue to damage
- the movement.
Although the Ecoffey/Alonzo scenario underpins her feature, Anderssen also
gives some consideration to two competing hypotheses. In a box entitled
"Motives : three theories on who targeted Anna Mae", Anderssen notes that
both the FBI and "the goon squad" (3) were
thought to wish Aquash dead. Thus, "[a]mong AIM supporters," Anderssen
writes, "the prevailing theory was that she was killed by federal agents
as an act of revenge, or to disrupt the organization." For their part,
Dick Wilson's goons were "openly at war with AIM supporters" and "Ms.
Aquash, a foreigner who moved in and out of Pine Ridge, would have been an
obvious target."
Anderssen's unelaborated assumption that Aquash would have been unusually
tempting prey for the goon squads because of her alien status is dubious;
if anything, the reverse would be true. For all the invective that Dick
Wilson directed at the "outside interlopers" from AIM, he well knew that,
in the final analysis, the traditionals from his own reservation
represented the greatest threat to him.(4)
Moreover, as Wilson, during his tenure, controlled all aspects of the Pine
Ridge administration - including the court system - he could treat
residents with relative impunity. However, each time he moved against
outsiders he ran the risk of attracting external censure. In the case of
Anna Mae Aquash, a Canadian citizen, there was actually the possibility of
an international incident (though, in the event, Ottawa made few overtures
on her behalf.)
'Badlands trail' offers a sounder argument for suspecting the FBI of foul
play. Therein we learn that on February 25/76, an autopsy was performed on
the as-yet anonymous remains of Anna Mae Aquash. W.O. Brown, the coroner
retained by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (5),
determined that the casualty had died from exposure. According to Erin
Anderssen, Brown found "no signs of a violent death...[H]e noted that her
scalp and skull appeared normal". At the end of his examination, Brown
severed the hands from the cadaver. These members were then dispatched to
the FBI forensics laboratory in Washington for fingerprinting. On this
basis, the casualty was identified on March 03.
Apprised of this, 'Badlands trail' relates, Aquash's intimates immediately
became suspicious. For one thing, at least one FBI agent who had viewed
the body had known Aquash; why had he not identified the corpse? For
another, Aquash was an experienced outdoorswoman - it was inconceivable
that she would have been so rash as to venture off into the back country
alone and unprepared.
Spurred by these incongruities, a second autopsy was demanded. Gary
Peterson, the pathologist who conducted this examination, detected a
bullet in Aquash's head "almost immediately"; he soon determined that she
had died not from exposure, but from a gunshot. Anderssen adds : "It
seemed incredible that [the bullet] had been missed; hospital staff told
the FBI that they had noticed dried blood on the back of Ms. Aquash's neck
and even felt a wound...."
Naturally, the effect of this bizarre incident was to inculpate the FBI -
the more so as the bureau's subsequent inquiry was without result. Until
recently therefore the balance of opinion held the FBI responsible for the
killing of Anna Mae Aquash. 'Badlands trail', of course, offers a
challenge to this conventional wisdom - in Anderssen's words : "a new
investigation has developed a shocking theory about how - and why - Ms.
Aquash died."
Anderssen is evidently convinced that have the right answer. Outside the
"Motives" box, she gives no consideration at all to the possibility that
Aquash might have been gunned down by the goons. She pays a bit more
attention to the hypothesis that the killer(s) might have been with the
FBI, but only so as to show how people could have jumped to this mistaken
conclusion, absent the researches of Ecoffey and Alonzo.
In light of the "eyewitness" testimony generated by Robert Ecoffey and Abe
Alonzo, Anderssen seems to regard the matter as settled. She does not
present the other theses from her "Motives" box as viable alternatives to
the Ecoffey/Alonzo hypothesis, but instead cites them for the sake of
historical completeness. Apparently, Anderssen believes that her
detectives' professional credentials are a guarantee of the quality of
their work.
For my part, I see no reason to question these men's vocational
competence; for all I know, they can gumshoe with the best of them.
However, there are two points on which I take issue with Anderssen.
First, 'Badlands trail' abjectly fails to convey the scope of malversation
on Pine Ridge in the 1970s and, in particular, the highly suspect
behaviour of the FBI and their fellow travellers in relation to the
discovery of Anna Mae Aquash's body. Perhaps Anderssen deems such things
immaterial now that it is "known" that the FBI had no hand in Aquash's
demise. Be that as it may, I still think that this bizarrerie
demands an accounting.
Second, unlike Anderssen apparently, I find her principals in a conflict
of interest. I would guess that any police officer would find it hard not
to consider the "militants" of AIM more likely culprits than fellow law
enforcement agents, but the present duo likely have personal biases as
well. Pine Ridge resident Robert Ecoffey, as it happens, was himself a
friend of goons and FBI staff alike in the 1970s. Abe Alonzo, though not
known to have quite such intimate connections, can be presumed to be
suspicious of AIM on principle, in virtue of his preoccupation with
"extremists" (often a code word for political activists.)
For some, these cavils may smack of paranoia. However, I believe that the
information which follows will vindicate my expression of distrust.
Similarly, while I cannot of a certainty say that Ecoffey and Alonzo are
wrong, I will show that there is an adminicular basis for such oppugnance.
Lastly, I would suggest that finding out who put the bullet in Anna Mae
Aquash's head is not the end of the matter.
In Erin Anderssen's article 'A Badlands trail of secrets and murder', one
is given to understand that there was but a single major discrepancy in
the findings of the two examinations of Anna Mae Aquash's remains. No
doubt, it is remarkable that though signs of trauma were obvious even to
hospital personnel untrained in pathology, coroner W.O. Brown was unable
to observe any such indications, and ruled that Aquash had died from
natural causes. Still, knowing this much and no more, it seems there is
no need to impute nefarious intent to anyone - certainly not the FBI who
(contra Anderssen) had no contractual relationship with Brown.
One possibility is that the coroner was guilty of no more than accidie.
There is certainly reason to suppose that he had grown complacent in his
sinecure : when queried about his involvement in the Aquash affair, Brown
exclaimed impatiently, "Why all the interest in this case? It seems
awfully routine, you know. So they found an Indian body; so a body was
found."(6)
For all that this statement evinces great callousness and bigotry, it is
quite representative of the standard mindset amongst the authorities on
Pine Ridge. Scores of suspicious deaths of aboriginals occurred on the
reservation in the early and mid 1970s; not one was ever investigated.(7) Indeed, it is difficult to escape the
conclusion that if Brown had been in the habit of scrutinizing cadavers
closely he would not long have retained his post as coroner. As he himself
subsequently charged (8), his performance was
doubtless no different on this occasion than in many previous instances
when it had been judged acceptable by his employers in the Bureau of
Indian Affairs.(9) Unfortunately for Brown, an
unusual amount of attention came to be focussed on this case, and the
resulting controversy required the creation of a scapegoat.
Mind, Brown never admitted that he had intentionally ignored evidence of
foul play. To the contrary - "When questioned later about his autopsy, Dr.
Brown was defensive and aggressive: 'Everybody makes mistakes, haven't you
ever made mistakes?'"(10) He excused himself
with the rationalization that, "A little bullet isn't hard to overlook."(11) All the same, Brown brazenly maintained
that, Anna Mae Aquash had died from exposure : "The
bullet may have initiated the mechanism of death, the proximate cause of
which was frostbite."(12)
Brown's protestations notwithstanding, it is clear that there is more at
issue here than a "mistake." Brown reported that he had opened Aquash's
skull and removed her brain for tests (13),
but the examination conducted by Gary Peterson revealed "what was left of
the brain...in the chest cavity."(14) Brown
claimed that he had dissected Aquash's abdomen, and he made statements
about the condition of the associated organs. Peterson found the viscera
still intact - not surprisingly therefore, Brown's contentions about these
organs proved faulty. While noting that there were indications of coitus
from shortly before the woman died, Brown dismissed the possibility that
she had been raped; Peterson, however, said that sexual assault could not
be ruled out.(15) Brown concluded that Aquash
had died about eight days prior to the discovery of her body; Peterson
believed that she had been dead for a minimum of three weeks. He further
noted that due to the "fluctuating weather conditions" the exact date
could not be determined.(16)
It is obvious then that Brown's report was not only grossly inaccurate but
- at least in the instance of the supposed stomach dissection - distinctly
mendacious. This puts the lie to Brown's asseveration that he was guilty
only of having made "mistakes." On the other hand, it does not yet
challenge the thesis that the Aquash autopsy was no more than a typical
example (which happened to get exposed) of Pine Ridge officialdom's
indifference to aboriginal casualties.
Nonetheless, according to Erin Anderssen, "When Ms. Aquash was found dead,
the prevailing theory among AIM supporters was that she had been killed by
federal agents." Other than the erroneous description of W. O. Brown as an
"FBI pathologist", only one instance of FBI involvement in the
controversial posthumous treatment of Anna Mae Aquash is recorded in
'Badlands trail' : an agent who had interrogated Aquash "only a few months
before" failed to identity her body. Said datum does not sound especially
damning. Even allowing that the FBI seems to have harried Aquash,
arresting her twice in the months before her death, it is difficult to see
why "rumours of an FBI cover-up mushroomed on Pine Ridge" (as Anderssen
reports.)
As it turns out, the FBI - though nearly invisible in Anderssen's account
- were front and center throughout the Aquash affair. Nor, on examination,
was the conduct of the Bureau's agents a whit less controversial than that
of W.O. Brown.
On February 24, 1976, about sixteen kilometres outside of Wanblee, South
Dakota, a rancher came upon remains subsequently determined to be those of
Anna Mae Aquash. He notified the police forthwith. As related by Clarence
Kelley, then National Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation :
"Within 20 minutes of the receipt of the report, officers of the BIA,
accompanied by a special agent of the FBI...arrived on the scene."(17) Less than two hours later, perhaps a dozen
law enforcement personnel were at the site.(18)
While it is clear that the total complement of police was unusually large,
there is some confusion as to exactly how many officers were present - and
who they were. According to one source, six Bureau of Indian Affairs
lawmen turned out (including BIA police chief Ken Sayres), along with
"several FBI agents" and "Sheriff Helsell from nearby Jackson county and
his deputies."(19) Oddly enough, though, only
Helsell's party has not attempted to beg off this rota. Contradicting the
testimony of his subordinates, Chief Sayres later averred that he had not
been present, and that only three BIA police responded to the report.(20) The claims made about FBI participation
were more contradictious still.
Chief Sayres - for all that he maintained, against his own constables,
that he did not visit the site - felt confident enough in his knowledge of
the episode to assert that agent Donald Dealing was the sole FBI
representative on the scene.(21) Some
considerable time later, William Webster (who in 1977 succeeded Kelley as
head of the FBI) continued to maintain this version of events.(22) Norman Zigrossi, Assistant Special Agent in
Charge (ASAC) at the FBI office in Rapid City, South Dakota, likewise
asserted that only Dealing had been dispatched to view the body in situ.
However, "under repeated questioning", Zigrossi allowed that additional
agents might have shown up "out of curiosity."(23)
Evidently, one of the agents seized with this morbid curiosity was David
Price. First of all, BIA constables testified that Price was amongst those
who examined Aquash's remains where they were found.(24) Second, if Clarence Kelley is to be
believed, an FBI officer arrived on site less than half an hour after
notification was received of the discovery of the body. If this is
correct, the agent could not have been Dealing, since he is known to have
been well over 100 kilometres distant from Wanblee at the time of the
rancher's call.(25) Third (but foremost),
Price himself conceded that he had inspected the remains "on the day that
[Aquash's] body was discovered."(26)
Similar controversy exists with regard to who was present during the
autopsy conducted by W.O. Brown. In his report on the examination, Brown
indicated that BIA personnel were on hand, but made no mention of FBI
officers. Since then, he has in turn both affirmed and denied that FBI
agents were in attendance.
In testimony before the US Congress, an FBI representative stated that no
Bureau personnel witnessed the autopsy. However, this individual noted
that Dealing, Price and William Wood (Price's partner) viewed the body at
the Pine Ridge hospital prior to (and agent John Munis after) the
procedure.(27)
Once again, BIA constables tell a different story. By their account, two
FBI agents - Price and Wood - observed the autopsy.(28) Official Federal Bureau of Investigation
pronouncements can be seen to support this contention, in part : the FBI
admits that the determination that Aquash's hands should be amputated was
made by an officer of the Bureau; however, this agent is said to have been
neither Price nor Wood.(29)
In more ways than one, an element of logomachy is evident in all this. To
be sure, the exact tally of FBI agents who came out to view the corpse on
February 24 may be of little moment - for what is really at issue here is
whether the FBI's response was standard or inordinate. By agent count, we
may never be in a position to settle the matter; yet, the Bureau's
compulsion, in an effort to dampen speculation, to put forth one
dementi after another - without regard for mutual consistency,
leave alone conflicts with other testimony - has been such as to foster
the impression that the FBI has something to hide.
The FBI's insistence that none of its personnel "observed" Brown's autopsy
of Anna Mae Aquash appears to make rather more sense - for if any agent
could be shown to have monitored the procedure he would thereby be
implicated in the coroner's dubious performance. Then again, most of the
more outrageous aspects of Brown's autopsy arise from the false claims,
propounded in his report, about operations performed in the course of the
examination. Clearly, someone who had been a mere onlooker at the autopsy
could not be held liable for what W.O. Brown subsequently chose to enter
in his write-up on the proceedings.
Moreover, the admission by (amongst other officials) two FBI National
Directors, that Aquash's hands were severed on the initiative of one of
the Bureau's agents, seems to reduce to a technicality the question of
whether or not FBI staff attended the autopsy. By one account, an FBI
agent said to Brown, "I need her hands. Sever them at the wrists, would
ya, doc?"(30) Whether or not the exchange was
really this coldblooded, one is left with the problem of how it transpired
at all, if there were no FBI personnel in the examination chamber. Is one
to suppose that W.O. Brown - in the midst of his work, dripping gore and
potential contaminants from the corpse - absented himself from the morgue
to track down an FBI agent, with a view to discussing possible procedures
for identifying the body?
However that may be, the decision to amputate is noteworthy in itself. The
ostensible justification for this measure was that it was necessary to
permit fingerprinting, without which identification would be impossible.
Yet, this reasoning fails on several counts.
First, no prior attempt was made to identify the body by other means. Pine
Ridge is a small community where most of the inhabitants are acquainted,
and Anna Mae Aquash had numerous distinguishing features.(31) Yet the authorities did not allow people to
view the remains or pictures thereof (32)
before the expedient of mutilation was adopted : Brown's autopsy took
place a bare 24 hours after the body was found. Second, expert pathologist
Gary Peterson (who was able to examine Aquash's hands, by then returned
from Washington, in the course of his autopsy) judged that fingerprints
could have been secured locally, without violence to the cadaver.(33) Had this proved impossible, for whatever
reason, "normal procedure", Peterson noted, "would have been to sever the
fingertips only, placing each in the appropriate finger of a rubber
glove."(34)
In 'Badlands trail', Erin Anderssen languidly sets out the details of how
a rancher stumbled across the corpse of Anna Mae Aquash in February of
'76; but she is sparing in her account of the treatment accorded the body
thereafter. She jumps from February 25, when the W.O. Brown autopsy took
place; to March 02, when Aquash was interred for the first time; to March
11, when Gary Peterson performed a second autopsy on the newly exhumed
remains of Anna Mae Aquash.
This lean narrative misses a plethora of troubling occurences. Following
Brown's perfunctory check, the body remained at the Pine Ridge hospital
for a few days. Oddly enough, rather than encouraging visits in the hope
that someone would be able to identify the remains, hospital staff "tried
to keep people out of the morgue during that time."(35) The one exception made was for the
relatives of Myrtle Poor Bear, a Pine Ridge woman who had been missing for
some time and was feared dead; and there seem to have been additional
factors at work in this instance.(36) There
is also a story that the FBI spent this period shopping around for a
mortuary which would perform the illegal operation of burying the body
under a pseudonym.(37)
On or about February 29, Aquash's corpse was sent off-reservation and out
of state to Rushville, Nebraska, where it was entrusted to the care of
Thomas Chamberlain, mortician. Chamberlain had scarcely stowed the cadaver
in his garage (his standard repository) when he received orders from BIA
Chief Sayres to bury it. The mortician was flabbergasted : he had neither
death certificate nor burial permit for the body, and meanwhile its
condition was not such as to necessitate hurried inhumation. Chamberlain
later remarked : "It was the darndest [sic] thing I ever saw. I've been
doing this for fifty years and haven't run into a case like this yet."(38) It has also been alleged that the FBI told
the mortician to allow no one to view the corpse in the meantime.(39)
With some difficulty, Chamberlain was ultimately able to find a qualified
individual who, notwithstanding the absence of the proper paperwork, was
willing to perform the obsequies. The funeral is generally thought to have
taken place on March 02, though some say the date was March 03; due to the
aforementioned lack of documentation, the question cannot be conclusively
settled. Naturally, few attended the anonymous burial, but amongst those
who gathered were two FBI agents.(40)
Whichever date one accepts, the interment more or less coincided with the
identification of the dead woman as Anna Mae Aquash - the Federal Bureau
of Investigation laboratory in Washington matched her fingerprints on
March 03, 1976. The timing can be seen to suggest that the unseemly rush
to bury Aquash stemmed from a desire to see her corpse underground before
it could be publicly identified.
As previously noted, for those who had known Aquash, the story that she
had died from frostbite was simply unacceptable. Suspicions were further
aroused when word got round that FBI agent David Price had examined the
body - and even taken photographs - all the while giving no sign that he
recognized the features of a woman whom he had previously interrogated at
length.(41) It also emerged that injuries
which made it obvious that Aquash had not died from natural causes had
been detected by a nurse and a doctor from the Pine Ridge hospital; and
that the latter individual had passed this information along to the
police.(42)
In the face of all this, Aquash's family decided that there was a burke
afoot. Accordingly, WKLDOC attorney Bruce Ellison was authorized to
petition the court for an exhumation order, pursuant to a second autopsy.
However, before Ellison was able to file his motion, the FBI submitted a
judicial request to have the body disinterred. In this affidavit - which
was drawn up by William Wood - the court was advised that there was reason
to believe that Anna Mae Aquash might have been killed in a hit-and-run
accident; or murdered.
The first possibility mentioned - that of a hit-and-run - is basically
incoherent. Aquash's body was found some 33 metres from the nearest road,
swathed in a blanket.(43)
In support of the latter thesis, Wood attested that, on February 19, 1976,
a member of the American Indian Movement (44)
had told him that AIM believed Aquash to be an FBI informant.
Consequently, Wood wrote, "she may have met with foul play."(45)
The implication that AIM could have been expected to assasinate Aquash, if
it was decided that she had colluded with the FBI, is a sly but outrageous
calumny. To the contrary : when it was discovered, in March/75, that
Douglass Durham, a member of AIM's inner circle, was in reality an FBI
informant, the only action taken was to debrief and then expel him from
the movement. This notwithstanding conclusive evidence that Durham had
embezzled funds, passed vital secrets to the FBI, issued damaging
statements in the name of AIM, and spied on the defence team during the
Wounded Knee trials.(46) To the present day,
other than Aquash's case, there is only one known or suggested instance of
an AIM member being targeted from within the organization - and at that,
the attack seems to have been personal, not political, in nature.(47)
Arrestingly, Wood's affidavit noted that an agent who, on February 24, had
inspected Aquash's remains where they lay, had suggested "manslaughter" as
the possible cause of death.(48) No
indication is given of what gave rise to this speculation, or of why the
agent supposed that - if there had been a killing - it had been done at
chance-medley, and not prepense.
It will be recalled that - by the Bureau's own admission - William Wood
was one of the three agents who viewed Aquash's corpse in the Pine Ridge
morgue, prior to W.O. Brown's autopsy. Already armed with the knowledge
that foul play was suspected, how could Wood have failed to detect the
obvious marks of trauma?(49) Further - even
accepting the claim that neither Wood nor any of his colleagues
scrutinized Brown at his work - this does not explain why they
countenanced the coroner's decision to have only Aquash's dentition
X-rayed.
At any rate, an exhumation order was granted to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and the body of Anna Mae Aquash was extracted on March 11,
1976.(50) The FBI had agreed to allow a
physician designated by Aquash's family to observe the second autopsy, and
WKLDOC had retained pathologist Gary Peterson, St. Paul's Hospital,
Minnesota, for this purpose. In the event, the FBI decided not to engage a
pathologist of its own, but neglected to inform WKLDOC of the change in
plans. Peterson had to wait in the Pine Ridge hospital for some time
before it was eventually established that he was on his own. He then had
to scramble to locate surgical instruments - in the end, some had to
purchased - since he had come prepared to act solely as an observer.
Peterson's findings have already been discussed at length, so there is no
need to repeat them here. The Bureau has acknowledged that FBI agents Wood
and J. Gary Adams assisted at this autopsy; once again, David Price viewed
the body in the morgue, then absented himself for the duration of the
procedure.(51)
Aquash's hands had been brought back from the FBI laboratory for
Peterson's inspection, but the pathologist returned them to William Wood
after the autopsy. Hearing of this, Bruce Ellison approached Wood
afterwards. What transpired is described by Candy Hamilton, a WKLDOC legal
aide and a close friend of Anna Mae Aquash :
I was with attorney Bruce Ellison when he asked about Anna Mae's hands. Wood said, "Wait a minute." He walked to his car and came back holding a cardboard container. Wood was smiling. "Here," he said, "catch." He tossed the box, as though it were a ball or set of house keys or something. Bruce caught it. I could hear the hands rattling inside.(52)
According to Erin Anderssen's 'Badlands trail', there are three leading
theories of how Anna Mae Aquash met her end : she was murdered by the FBI;
or by the goons; or by AIM. In formal terms, this is likely correct;
substantively, this tabulation serves only to obscure the matter.
To treat the FBI and the goons as autonomous subjects is already to
distort observed reality. The record of the FBI on Pine Ridge is
absolutely transpicuous : the Bureau resolutely refused to take action
against the most flagrant crimes of Dick Wilson's men (see note #17 for an especially apalling exemplum) while
committing almost unlimited resources for pursuing AIM.(53) The bitter personal character of the FBI's
campaign against AIM is well illustrated by Candy Hamilton's anecdote,
related above. In such a climate, it is idle to give separate
consideration to goons and the FBI - they were complicit with one another
in all things.
Perhaps even more misleadingly, Anderssen presents Anna Mae Aquash's
murder as though a specimen of street crime, wherein the determination of
personal culpability is of central importance. Historical background is
offered only to add sapor to the tale, or as required to educe the
presumed motive of the individual(s) responsible for the deed. In short,
it forms no part of the haecceity of the thing.
Even if Aquash was executed by AIM associates (as 'Badlands trail' would
have it) this does not necessarily absolve the FBI; indeed, is hardly
likely to. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has routinely incited
internecine strife in dissident groups, with the express intent of
procuring members' deaths. There is also evidence that violence associated
with politically active organizations has often been perpetrated by FBI
infiltrators, rather than by legitimate members.(54) Yet, absent a thoroughgoing diachronic
analysis, these vital data are excluded from consideration.
Regardless of the institutional affiliation of the person who pulled the
trigger, Aquash herself would surely have maintained that she was a
casualty of the US government's war against indigenes.(55) Nor is it only supporters of the American
Indian Movement who cast the struggle in these terms. Norman Zigrossi, FBI
deputy commander in Rapid City, South Dakota, spoke of native Americans in
the following terms to David Weir and Lowell Bergmann of Rolling
Stone magazine :
They're a conquered nation. And when you are conquered, the people you are conquered by dictate your future. This is a basic philosophy of mine. If I'm part of a conquered nation, I've got to yield to authority...[The FBI] must function as a colonial police force.(56)
In fairness, Anderssen was of course constrained by space limitations, and
thus was not in a position to go into the subject to the extent that I
have here (although, at over two and a half pages, 'Badlands trail' is
more than twice as long as the average lead item in The Globe &
Mail). All the same - and I have noted this at various points in the
present text - it is clear that Anderssen preferred to devote her exiguous
column inches to such considerations as the creation of mood and the
building of suspense, rather than to the provision of a meaningful context
for the events described.
No doubt, in part this approach is borne of pragmatism. A "true crime"
story is typically thought to make for more compelling reading than the
intricacies of history, and so is likelier to meet with approbation from
managing editors (who must always be mindful that their primary task is to
sell newspapers.) Further considerations which may have influenced
Anderssen are the deference to authority and idealization of "journalistic
objectivity" endemic in mainstream newsmedia.
Establishment reporters accord great weight to official sources, state or
corporate. Government and big business command the resources to do
research (saving journalists the trouble); and likewise, the activity of
these "players" is always newsworthy in itself. Either way, it behooves
reporters to cultivate contacts in these sectors by assiduously and
uncritically covering alike the proclamations and doings of these major
actors.
As for the impartiality considered incumbent on journalists, I would
suggest that it is chimerical at the best of times. However, when the
comprehension of a given subject requires more of readers than an act of
apperception, a so-called balanced presentation actually deforms the
depiction of the phenomenon in question. This transpires because the more
an expressed viewpoint deviates from received opinion in the matter at
hand, the more its proponent is required to prove - yet, the stipulation
of balance means that the provision of such an opportunity is ipso
facto impermissible, since equal time must be afforded competing
sides.
These two processes merge in 'Badlands trail.' Inasmuch as Anderssen is
obliged, in order to give coherence to her narrative, to discuss the
plexus in which Anna Mae Aquash was fatally caught, the G & M
writer casts the matter as a feud between native people, into which the
FBI haplessly stumbled. In this way, Anderssen elides the root of the
internal strife on Pine Ridge - the tension between those who were content
to see First Nations wiped out by the dominant society, and those who
resisted this imperative - while clearing the way to place AIM and Dick
Wilson's thugs on all fours together.(57)
With regard to the acception of persons (predicated of establishment
journalists) : the belief that law enforcement agencies are politically
neutral entities which "serve and protect" the "public" is a 'sine qua
non' of the tale Erin Anderssen tells. Although Anderssen delineates three
theories of "who targeted Anna Mae," it is clear that she is really only
interested in what police officers have to say in the matter. Thus she
quotes an unsupported assertion from Norman Zigrossi, FBI deputy commander
in Rapid City, South Dakota - "We were sincerely looking to solve this
case" - as if this were an indubitable fact - blithely ignoring the very
extensive evidence of gross irregularities on the Bureau's part. The irony
of it all is that Zigrossi himself is on record as explicitly rejecting
the idea that the FBI is an impartial guardian of all members of society,
insisting instead that the Bureau's mandate is to impose the will of the
conquerors upon the conquered.
In another instance, in a box entitled "On the trail of a mysterious
death", Anderssen states that the June/75 Oglala gunfight developed from
the presence on Pine Ridge of two FBI agents who were "investigating a
minor theft". This formulation is not only inflammatory (one is left
wondering, what sort of people are these AIM operatives that they would
shoot down two men over a matter of petty theft?) but is also an outright
falsehood.(58)
Anderssen's faith in the constabulary is not limited to the FBI. In the
main body of 'Badlands trail' she recounts an incident resulting in the
apprehension of Anna Mae Aquash, and other AIM activists, in November/75.
As Anderssen tells it, one of Aquash's confederates fired "shots" at the
arresting officer. Apparently, Anderssen's zeal for law and order (or
taste for the dramatic?) here leads her to go the police one better; for
even said officer - Ken Griffiths of the Oregon State Police - did not
allege that more than one round was fired by anyone other than himself.
Some commentators have suggested that it is most unlikely that an AIM
member fired even the single shot that Griffiths believed he had heard. At
all events, charges were dropped by the prosecution before the matter was
brought to trial.(59)
Of course, the most pronounced example of Erin Anderssen's unswerving
belief in the Rhadamanthine quality of law enforcement personnel is her
endorsement of the researches of Robert Ecoffey and Abe Alonzo. Anderssen
gives no hint that she detects anything at all tendentious about Inspector
Alonzo (whose quotidian routine involves keeping tabs on "extremists")
involving himself in a case where the prime suspects (as determined by
Ecoffey) are past members of AIM - an organization frequently traduced in
just these terms.(60) Given that 'Badlands
trail' equates AIM with the goons, this is hardly surprising.
Perhaps more remarkable is Anderssen's confidence in Robert Ecoffey. She
admits that, "AIM activists tend to associate him with the GOONs : he was
friendly with FBI agents, was an officer with the Federal Bureau of
Indians [sic; Bureau of Indian Affairs]" and married Dick Wilson's
niece.
However, Anderssen is quick to indicate that, as a policeman, Ecoffey's
integrity is unimpeachable. Furthermore, his law enforcement credentials
mean that he is above partisan strife :
[Ecoffey] was a senior in high school when AIM followers protested at Wounded Knee. He did not agree with the violence back then, though at least, he said, "AIM made us proud to be Indians."
Note also how, in this passage, Anderssen subtly implies that "the
violence back then" was the fault of the American Indian Movement.
Lest any residual leeriness might remain, Anderssen establishes that
Ecoffey is also in touch with his Lakota spiritual heritage. It emerges
that his pursuit of those who murdered Anna Mae Aquash stems from a
mystical experience two decades before, interpreted for Ecoffey by a
medicine man ("one day he would be in a position to help a woman who was
terribly wronged.")
To show once for all that Ecoffey has risen above sectarian strife (and
therefore is not simply continuing his in-law's war on AIM) we are told
that the quondam BIA constable has carried a sign bearing the slogan
"Justice for Anna Mae" in a recent demonstration on Pine Ridge. This march
was one of a series uniting "former GOONs and AIM supporters" in a protest
against liquor stores built, in an attempt to attract custom from Pine
Ridge, just beyond the boundaries of the reservation (the sale of alcohol
is banned on the reservation itself.)
Ecoffey's ostensible consultation with the shaman in the late 1970s must
have led to considerable tension around the family dinner table - for only
a few years earlier, Dick Wilson had used his power as tribal chair to
attempt to extirpate the old religion, going so far as to ban the Sun
Dance, its most sacred ceremony.(61) As for
Ecoffey's support for prohibition, this marks a striking departure from
his practice in the mid-1970s, when he supplemented his income as a BIA
police officer by running a bootlegging operation on the Pine Ridge
reservation.(62)
The brutal reality of Ecoffey's activity should not be confused with any
romantic notions of rum-running or the like. To cite one relevant
statistic : in 1974, 1,224 aboriginals were arrested in the Nebraska
county of Sheridan, which is conterminous to Pine Ridge; of this total,
fully 957 cases were related to alcohol abuse.(63) Further, alcohol is said to be "the leading
cause of death on the reservation."(64) In
fairness, it must be conceded that Ecoffey may have come to resipiscence
in the time since; but Anderssen's failure to address this unsavory
matter - even where the context demands it - leaves great room for doubt
on this score.
It cannot be delicacy on Anderssen's part that she omits mention of
spectres from Ecoffey's past, for she is free with tidbits about Anna Mae
Aquash's personal life (no matter that the information is not germane to a
discussion of the subject at hand.) Nor does she shrink from tossing out
insulting (and erroneous) blanket assessments of "women on the
reservation."(65)
Most outrageous of all : writing of the chief suspect in the case,
Anderssen supplies more than enough detail - biographical data, physical
description, current place of residence - to identify the man to anyone
who cares to look into the matter. Obviously, this is a gross violation of
privacy and due process; but the individual in question is an AIM alumnus,
and presumably Anderssen feels he has waived his rights in virtue of his
association with "extremists."
As we have seen, 'Badlands trail' makes scant reference to the numerous
serious failings of the police agencies and officers involved in the Anna
Mae Aquash affair. It is a matter of speculation whether Erin Anderssen
chose to omit this information because her faith in the constabulary has a
metaphysical quality which renders it impervious to empirical challenge;
or because such information runs contrary to her agonistic purposes; or
for some other reason. However, there can be no doubt that the effect of
this decision is to create a portrayal which strips the American Indian
Movement of its political content while grotesquely tumefying the apparent
bellicosity of its members.
With the myth of police professionalism intact, Anderssen is free not only
to dismiss competing theories and inconvenient evidence, but also to
ignore unhelpful witnesses. For instance, the R. Ecoffey/A. Alonzo
hypothesis has Anna Mae Aquash "abducted" from Denver in "early December,
1975" and taken to WKLDOC headquarters in Rapid City for an
"interrogation," then shot 48 hours later.
One problem with this chronology is that on December 20 (at which point
she must have been dead for a week, at a minimum) Aquash is reported to
have spoken over the telephone with her friend Paula Giese, a WKLDOC legal
aide.(66) Granted, this may be no more than
one person's word against another (i.e. Giese vs. the Ecoffey/Alonzo
source) but what - other than a parti pris - can explain the
summary exclusion of Giese's testimony?
Simply put, it is impossible to provide a meaningful account of the
killing of Anna Mae Aquash without extensive examination of the
socio-political milieu in which the murder took place. To do otherwise is
first of all to demonstrate a profound disrespect for Aquash's own
feelings : she believed that conditions faced by First Nations demanded
that there be an American Indian Movement, and she was prepared to lay
down her life for this belief. In this light, the hypocrisy of Robert
Ecoffey and his "Justice for Anna Mae" rhetoric is appalling.
If this is truly what he desires - and if he honestly feels that he had
been called to "help a woman who had been terribly wronged" - Ecoffey
would be out chasing down his former goon cohorts. It was their murderous
conduct which brought Aquash to Pine Ridge in the first place, and scores
of slayings committed by them have never even be investigated (thanks in
large part to their FBI confederates.) If his promoter, Erin Anderssen,
does not see this, it is because she has neglected to inform herself (in
which case she is guilty of laches); but it is not difficult to suspect
that she has wilfully chosen this course.
Leaving aside its implications for the dead, the living are illserved by
the tack taken in 'Badlands trail' (which in turn is reflective of the
approach of Robert Ecoffey and Abe Alonzo.) As is shown by Anderssen's
ruthless handling of the chief suspect in the current investigation, those
whose names are connected with AIM will be deemed guilty until proven
innocent. The re-opening of the Aquash case shows that the police are
unwilling to let the matter rest. Since the credo (shared, of course, by
Erin Anderssen) that law enforcement agencies are above reproach precludes
the possibility that the Federal Bureau of Investigation or its cronies
might be at fault, only AIM associates will be targeted.
Anderssen does note that "witnesses are said to be inconsistent on certain
details" and "there seems to be little physical evidence linking the
suspects to the killing." Perhaps, she - or her detective friends - are
being a touch coy, but if these asseverations are substantially correct,
then criminal conviction appears rather unlikely. Assuming this to be
true, the question immediately arises as to why the sleuths are so intent
on pursuing the matter. If the events of the 1970s are any sort of guide,
the answer is that the police want to impart the message that political
dissidence carries a life sentence : even if the constabulary can't make
any charges stick, they can and will hound you till the day you die.
In another quote designed to communicate Anderssen's confidence in Robert
Ecoffey to her readers, the Bureau of Indian Affairs agent opines that,
"There has been some healing in Pine Ridge..." Just what sort of
instauration Ecoffey is talking about is not entirely clear, though it
seems to have something to do with the "one big happy family" image that
Anderssen seeks to promote with her image of "former GOONs and AIM
supporters" joined in a common cause. If there is any truth in Ecoffey's
assessment, the healing must be that of a recaptured prisoner who -
nursing her wounds after a punitive beating - decides that escape is
impossible and resigns herself to her fate.
The oppression which AIM contended with still holds the people of Pine
Ridge in its grip. Roughly 95% of the Lakota's land base, as guaranteed by
treaties, "is illegally occupied by the United States, even in the
estimation of its own courts."(67) Due to
intensive uranium mining - which, by federal fiat, is not under the
control of the Lakota - morbidity associated with radiation is high and
increasing on Pine Ridge.(68) The rate of
winter unemployment on the reservation runs to 90%.(69)
To top it all off, the crimes perpetrated by Dick Wilson's henchmen were
for the most part committed to enforce the policies which gave rise to or
perpetuated the aforementioned problems. Yet, these offences have gone
unpunished, and even unacknowledged. In this context, to speak of
"healing" must be something approaching blasphemy.
In the present work, I have been able to provide only the smallest glimpse
of how the baasskap was articulated on Pine Ridge in the 1970s. Yet, as I
have been at pains to demonstrate, detailed knowledge of the plexus of
these events is necessary to an understanding of any of their constituent
elements (e.g. Anna Mae Aquash's death.) Furthermore, as these occurrences
are so extraordinary - which is to say, so far beyond the pale of the
average citizen's conception of life in North America - a preponderance of
evidence is required for any specific allegations to be believed.
With these considerations in mind, I am in the process of drawing up a
second essay. I hope that when this latter work is completed it will lend
strength to the present one.
AIM - American Indian Movement
BIA - Bureau of Indian Affairs
FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation
WKLDOC - Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee
Erin Anderssen, 'A Badlands trail of secrets and murder', The Globe &
Mail (Toronto), August 07 1999, pp. A1, A8-9.
Johanna Brand, The Life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash (James
Lorimer and Company, Toronto,1993).
Robert Burnette and John Koster, The Road to Wounded Knee (Bantam
Books, New York, 1974).
Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall Agents of Repression : the FBI's
secret wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian
Movement (South End Press, Boston, 1990).
Donald L. Fixico, The Invasion of Indian Country in the Twentieth
Century: American capitalism and tribal resources (University Press
of Colorado, Niwot, 1998).
M. Annette Jaimes (ed.), The State of Native America : genocide,
colonization and resistance (South End Press, Boston, 1992).
Bruce Johansen and Roberto Maestas, Wasi'chu : the continuing Indian
Wars (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1979).
Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (Viking Press,
New York, 1983).
Jill Oakes et al. (eds.), Sacred Lands : aboriginal world views,
claims, and conflicts (Canadian Circumpolar Institute, University of
Alberta, 1998).
John William Sayer, Ghost Dancing the Law : the Wounded Knee
trials (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1997).
Kenneth Stern, Loud Hawk, (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman,
1994).
Sanford J. Ungar, FBI (Little, Brown & Company, Boston,1975).
(1) All quotations not otherwise attributed are from Erin
Anderssen's 'A Badlands trail of secrets and murder'.
(2) WKLDOC (pronounced "wickle-dock") is the rather clumsy
initialism derived from the even more ungainly "Wounded Knee Legal
Defense/Offense Committee" (eschewing both of these forms, Erin Anderssen
employs the incorrect "Wounded Knee Legal Defence Committee"). A volunteer
association formed in 1973 by a group of lawyers, legal aides and lay
people to provide support to those charged for their role in the Wounded
Knee occupation, WKLDOC ultimately became the principal source of legal
counsel for AIM members and associates. With some changes in personnel,
the committee remained active until 1977.
(3) "Goon squads" or "GOONs" are terms used to describe
the private militias raised and commanded by Dick Wilson, the chair of the
Pine Ridge tribal council. Originally a derisive epithet bestowed on them
by their opponents, "GOON" was later adopted by the squads themselves,
whose membership chose to interpret the sobriquet as an acronym for
"Guardians of the Oglala Nation."
(4) Indeed, while AIM leader Russell Means failed to
unseat Wilson in the 1973 election for tribal chair, Pine Ridge
traditional Al Trimble was successful in his bid in '76.
(5) In a box labelled "Cause of death : two autopsies, two
findings", Erin Anderssen wrongly refers to Brown as an "FBI pathologist".
While some might argue - given the close collaboration between the FBI and
the Bureau of Indian Affairs - that this designation is not wholly
inaccurate, it is formally incorrect (see e.g. Brand, Johanna, The
Life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash, p. 14; Johansen, Bruce/Maestas,
Roberto, Wasi'chu, p. 104.)
(6) Quoted in Brand, p. 21-2.
(7) Stern, Kenneth, Loud Hawk, p.324.
(8) Matthiessen, Peter, In the Spirit of Crazy
Horse, p.264.
(9) The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was created in
1824 as an office of the United States War Department. In 1849 it was
transferred to the Department of the Interior, with which it remains. In
1871, upon Washington's unilateral revocation of its treaty relationship
with aboriginals, the BIA was given a remit to administer all aspects of
the lives of native Americans (though there has been some downloading of
services to other agencies in the past decade.) The relationship is
paternalistic in the extreme : in US law, indigenes are deemed wards of
the BIA, as children are of their parents.
(10) Quoted in Brand, ibid.
(11) 'Washington Star', May 24,1976. Quoted in
Johansen/Maestas, p. 106.
(12) Quoted in Brand, p. 21.
(13) Matthiessen, p.263.
(14) Brand, p.20. The inconsistencies between the two
autopsies, as outlined in this paragraph, are discussed in Brand, pp.20-1.
(15) Matthiessen, p. 262.
(16) Brand, p.21.
(17) Quoted in ibid., p.22.
(18) The scale and celerity of the police reaction is of
particular note given that, less than a month earlier, the inhabitants of
the same Wanblee had been unable to elicit an effective response from
"peace officers" in a situation of far greater instancy. On January 30,
1976, the hamlet was invaded by 15 goons, who discharged automatic weapons
into the home of Guy Dull Knife, an elderly critic of Dick Wilson. The
gang then gave chase to and opened fire on a car driven by AIM activist
Byron DeSersa, who was mortally wounded in the attack. Thereupon the goons
returned to Wanblee and spent the night shooting up and fire-bombing the
residences of traditionals and AIM supporters. The BIA police observed
these events but made no attempt to intervene. On the following day, two
FBI agents came to Wanblee but - ignoring the numerous eyewitnesses
clamoring to supply the names of the culprits - arrested only one person :
Guy Dull Knife! (This summary is based on the descriptions in Matthiessen,
pp. 258-9; and Churchill, Ward/Vander Wall, Jim, Agents of
Repression, pp. 203-5.)
(19) Brand, p. 22. According to Stern (op. cit.,
p. 93) and Churchill/Vander Wall (op. cit., p. 206) the
FBI contingent was comprised of four agents.
(20) Brand, p. 23.
(21) Ibid.
(22) Matthiessen, p. 473.
(23) Brand, p. 23.
(24) Ibid.; Matthiessen, p. 260. Matthiessen
mentions BIA constables Nate Merrick and Doug Parisisan in this regard. In
yet another kink, Brand cites BIA Chief Sayres as saying that Merrick was
one of the BIA personnel present, but omits Parisian's name.
(25) Brand, p. 23. Brand further notes that BIA officers
give Dealing's time of arrival as approximately 16:30. This would mean
that a far more reasonable interval of two and a half hours passed between
the discovery of Aquash's remains and Dealing's appearance. Note also that
Brand quotes Clarence Kelley to the effect that the agent who got to the
body within twenty minutes had never before seen Aquash, nor any
photographs of her. As Price was previously acquainted with Anna Mae
Aquash, the first FBI officer to arrive could have been neither Dealing
nor Price (assuming Kelley's statement was correct.) This means that a
minimum of three agents were present.
(26) Matthiessen, p. 469.
(27) Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 207.
(28) Brand, p. 24. Stern also states that William Wood
attended the first autopsy (Stern, p. 95.)
(29) Ibid.; Matthiessen, p. 473; Churchill/Vander
Wall, p. 208. Brand quotes Clarence Kelley (who did not identify the agent
in question.) Matthiessen cites William Webster who (in an attempted
eclaircissement of FBI treatment of the American Indian Movement)
names Thomas Green. Churchill and Vander Wall quote from the deposition
of an anonymous FBI prolocutor before the US House of Representatives in
1981; here, the decision about Aquash's hands is attributed to the same
Thomas Green.
(30) Quoted in Stern, p. 93.
(31) Brand, p. 25. A number of sources (ibid.;
Johansen/Maestas, p. 103; Matthiessen, p. 265) refer to Aquash's
"trademark" turquoise jewellery. This jewellery was distinctive enough to
attract the notice of hospital staff who handled her remains (Matthiessen,
p. 260.)
(32) Johansen/Maestas, p. 104.
(33) Brand, p. 25.
(34) Ibid.
(35) Ibid., p. 15. The reconstruction presented
here is based on the account given in Brand, p. 15 ff.
(36) Ibid. As was later revealed, Myrtle Poor Bear
was at that same time being illegally held incommunicado by the FBI
(Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 313 ff.) It seems probable that the FBI feared
that her relatives might have created an uproar if denied access to the
anonymous remains in the Pine Ridge morgue, which could in turn have drawn
unwelcome attention to the Poor Bear case.
(37) Stern, ibid.
(38) Quoted in Brand, p. 16.
(39) Stern claims that Gladys Bissonette, "who knew Anna
Mae Aquash from Wounded Knee", was barred from viewing the corpse by order
of the FBI (Stern, p. 96.)
(40) Brand, p. 19.
(41) David Price has always maintained that he was unable
to identify Aquash due to the post mortem deterioration of her body (see
e.g. Matthiessen, p. 469.) However, pathologist Gary Peterson was of the
opinion that decomposition was not so severe as to have prevented
identification, even at the later date at which he inspected the cadaver
(Brand, p. 24.) The rancher who found Aquash's body, and the hospital
staff who handled it, concurred with this opinion (Matthiessen, p. 266;
Brand, ibid.) As matters turned out, acquaintances of Aquash were
able to identify her from the very photographs Price took of her
(Matthiessen, p. 265) while Myrtle Poor Bear's family were able to
ascertain that the remains were not those of their kinswoman (see note #36 above.) Finally, one might suppose that
Price, an experienced investigator, would have recalled that turquoise
jewellery was an Aquash "trademark"; certainly, these artefacts had not
been detrited beyond recognition.
(42) Brand, p. 14.
(43) Stern, p. 95.
(44) Wood attributed this statement to "Anna Mae
Tanagale" (also known as Ella Mae Tanegale; AKA Anna Mae Tanequodle; AKA
Anna Mae Tonaquodle.) In yet another of the myriad twists convolving this
whole affair, "Tanagale" herself is said to have "long been considered
[by AIM] to be a Bureau informant" (Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 216.) If AIM
was correct in this estimation, Wood's affidavit was patently ingenuous,
and clearly calculated to cast suspicion on AIM for Aquash's murder. For
her part, "Tanagale" denied that she had ever held such a conversation
with Wood (Johansen/Maestas, p. 105.)
(45) Matthiessen, p. 261.
(46) Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 220-9.
(47) In August, 1974, one AIM leader, Clyde Bellecourt,
was shot by another, Carter Camp. The shooting took place in broad
daylight, in the presence of witnesses, and took place the day after
Bellecourt ejected Camp from AIM premises because of the latter's rowdy
conduct. Bellecourt recovered from the assault and, for the sake of
movement solidrity, declined to press charges against Camp
(Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 213 ff.; Burnette/Koster, The Road to
Wounded Knee, p. 259 ff.)
(48) Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 208.
(49) When Gary Peterson examined Aquash's remains he
observed dried blood in her hair, powder burns on her neck, a bulge in the
left temple and an area of dark discoloration at the base of her neck
(Brand, p. 20.) All of this was apparent to the naked eye
subsequent to the burial and disinterment of the corpse.
Peterson further noted that the back of Aquash's head had been washed and
powdered (ibid.) Of a certainty, then, whoever performed these
functions must have found the entry wound caused by the bullet; did this
person not advise the police of the finding, or did law officers ignore
the information?
(50) The following account is based on Brand, p. 19 ff.;
Matthiessen, p. 261 ff.; Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 208 ff.
(51)(51) Matthiessen, p. 262.
(52) Quoted in Stern, p. 171.
(53) The FBI "ordered an investigation of every AIM
member and supporter in the entire United States" in the wake of the 1973
Wounded Knee occupation (Stern, p. 333.) In the course of the siege
itself, the FBI drew up 316,000 file classifications on those inside the
hamlet (Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 177.) As a consequence of these
investigations, 562 arrest warrants were served on AIM members
(Johansen/Maestas, p. 88.)
(54) See e.g. Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 199ff.; Ungar,
FBI, p. 417ff. I will elaborate on these tactics in a forthcoming
annex to the present text.
(55) In September, 1975, in a letter to her sister,
Aquash wrote : "My efforts to raise the consciousness of Whites who are so
against Indians in the States are bound to be stopped by the FBI sooner or
later" (quoted in Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 207.) Erin Anderssen offers a
slightly different version of this excerpt.
(55) Quoted in Johansen/Maestas, p. 78.
(57) In discussing the genesis of the 1973 Wounded Knee
occupation, Anderssen does mention that allegations of malfeasance were
brought against Dick Wilson, and that he had allowed "white [sic]
companies" to secure leases on Pine Ridge for dubious ends. However, the
very term "allegations" suggests that the validity of these charges is in
serious dispute; in fact, they were verified by the United States
Commission on Civil Rights, an advisory body to the US Congress
(Matthiessen, p. 130.) Anderssen goes on to impute an equivalency to Dick
Wilson and his adversaries through the use of such phrases as : "the
violence continued between the goon squads and AIM supporters". This
implies mutuality, in contradiction of overwhelming evidence that the
goons were invariably the aggressors (details will be provided in a
supplementary paper.) Anderssen cements this impression by, wherever
possible, posing AIM members with weapons (the Oglala gunfight of June/75;
Aquash's arrest in September/75 amidst "grenades, dynamite and a sawed-off
shotgun"; etc.) while largely ignoring the conditions which had led AIM
supporters to arm themselves in this way.
(58) The FBI claimed that its agents came to the Jumping
Bull property in Oglala to serve a warrant on a teenager accused of
stealing a pair of used cowboy boots. Without going into all the details
here (these will be covered in a forthcoming essay) the heart of the
matter is that in fact the FBI did not possess a writ for anyone's arrest
(Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 436); therefore they were not only
not investigating a crime, they were actually committing
one themselves (trespassing on private land.)
(59) Stern, p. 6; pp. 16-7. For the dropping of charges
see ibid., p.167.
(60) A notable instance of such defamation was the
publication by the FBI of the "dog soldiers" teletypes of 1976. These
documents purported to detail plans for a campaign of terror to be waged
by AIM across the United States. Not only did none of these events ever
come to pass, but FBI National Director Clarence Kelley admitted under
oath that there was not "one shred of evidence to support the allegations"
(Churchill/Vander Wall, p. 285.)
(61) Sayer,Ghost Dancing the Law, p. 95. In
taking this action Dick Wilson showed how well he had internalized the
ideology of "the conquerors" (to use Norman Zigrossi's terminology) : the
Sun Dance was banned until the 1950s by the US government, which deemed it
a "relic of barbarism" (ibid., p. 23.)
(62) Matthiessen, p. 434.
(63) Johansen/Maestas, p. 68.
(64) Matthiessen, ibid.
(65) For instance, Anderssen asserts that women at
Wounded Knee (other than Aquash) "spent their time rolling cigarettes for
the men." While it is true that Anna Mae Aquash was exceptional by any
measure, numerous women were active in and influential in amongst the Pine
Ridge traditionals, and in both AIM and WKLDOC, before Aquash became
involved (see e.g. Jaimes, M. Annette/Halsey, Theresa, 'American Indian
Women: At the Center of Indigenous Resistance in Contemporary North
America' in M. A. Jaimes (ed.), The State of Native America, p.
328 ff; Sayer, p. 11, p. 99 ff., p.224 ff., etc.)
(66) Brand, p. 138.
(67) Churchill, Ward, 'Yellow Thunder : forging a
strategy', in Oakes et al. (eds.), Sacred Lands, p.
235.
(68) Fixico, Donald L., The Invasion of Indian
Country in the Twentieth Century, p. 200; Churchill, Ward/LaDuke,
Winona, 'Native North America : the political economy of radioactive
colonialism' in Jaimes (ed.), p. 253.
(69) Churchill, Ward/LaDuke, Winona, in Jaimes (ed.), p.
245.