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Attica riots
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7/18/2019 September 9, 1971
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ter at Attisa
One of the convicts in the maximum security “correc-
tional facility” at Attica, N.Y. addressed the ad
hoc
com-
mittee of observers assembled within theprison walls:
“We do not want to rule; we only want to live
.
. but if
any of you gentlemen own dogs, you’re treating them
better than we’re treated here.” On that basic fac t there
is general agreement. Only twelve days before the uprising,
State Correction Commissioner Russell
G.
Oswald sent a
taped message to the 2,000 inmates outlning the steps he
was working on to make conditions more nearly bearable.
“What
I’m
asking for is time,” he told the prisoners, but
time ran out on hi,m. Abouthalf the )prisoners rose n
what amounted ,to tan insurrection which, prudent foresight
suggests, is a harbinger
of
worse to come. They had no
firearms. The assault force, also numbering about 1 000
was heavily armed. When they had done theicwork, thirty-
nine men were dead-nine hostages out of the thirty-eight
that the convicts had seized, and thirty convicts.
Could hisbloody outcome have been avoided? One
can only conjecture, but the consensus among enlightened
observers
is
that t could, Mayor Kenneth A. Gibson
of
Newark termed the suppression “one of the most callous
and b1,atantly repressive actsevercarriedout by a sup-
posedly civilized society on itsownpeople.” Now Gov-
ernor Rockefeller is, calling’ for the formation of a five-
member panel to investigate what happened. It
is
to con-
sist of “some top people in he correctional field.” In
Commissioner Oswald he had a top m’an, who negotiated
with the inm,ates and seems to have made a good impres-
sion on he committee
of
observers. But theGovernor
refused to come to Attica, although his mere presence
in
the town-no one expected him to go inside the prison
walls-might have cooled things
off
sufficiently to enable
an agreement o be reached. And, knowing nothing of
the circumstances, President Nixon expressed his support
of the Rockefeller hard line,
There was undoubtedly a lunatic fringe among the in-
mates-those who demandedheir release to a “non-
imperialist power”-but the great majority of those who
took part in the nsurrectionwere ationalmen. Some
were r a t h a 1 in the sense that all they wanted was better
living conditions nd the respectdue them as human
beings. Otherswere ational n evolutionary sense:
they were ready to die rather than continue to submit to
society’s treatment of them,They died, and hey won.
America’s im’age s further tarnished before the world and,
as Senator Muskie said, “the Attica tragedy is more stark
proof that something is terribly wrong in America.” Thlat
view contrasts with Rockefeller’s statement that he
up-
rising was broughton by “the revolutioncar) tactics of
militants,” and hat he nvestigation would incpde the
role that “outside
forces
would appear to have played.”
Whatever outside forces were involved could not have
moved a thousand men to such desperation.
The Atticamassacre, in one aspect, was a TictoT of
the 6ctough” school of penologists and he reactionary
elements in American society over the modernists. Oswald
never had the support of the Attioa staff, nor
Of
the
tOWnS-
258
people, most
of
whop make their living from the priso
They fayored the former commissioner, who had come
through the ranks and was noted for his toughness. It w
the reactionnary elements that circulateda eport that h
nine hostages had had their throats cut by the convic
and that one had been castrated. This
lie was
nailed
Dr.John F. Edland, the county medical examiner, w
made an impressive appearance on TV.He examined eig
of the bodies and found that all had died from gunsh
wounds. Another medical examiner came to theame
conclusion with regard tQ the ninth victim. The insurre
tionists appearo have been responsible for only ne
death-that of a guard who. was thrown out o a wind
and who died before theattle
in
the prison began.
Canards of his virulent type usually mark unjustifi
action by the guardians
of
law andorder.
At
KentSta
sniper firewasalleged to hmave impelled theGuardsme
to fire on the students. The commanding general fell ba
proved.
Several hundred ‘thousand Americans are nmates
American prisons. At Attioa, 85 percent were Negro
shouted on TV, hated “niggers.” Society locks them
to get rid of them-the “correctional” label is a arce
Even eparatedas they areby incarceration in numero
state and federal penitentiaries, they constitute, mora
and even physically, a. formidable orce. To return o
Senator Muskie’s evaluation: the rebellion shows that “
have reached he point where men would rather die th
live another day in America.” The only solution, he sa
was “a genuine commitment of our vast resources to t
human needs of all the people.”
humane but stupid. The observers invited into the pris
by the insurrectionary inmates see Tom Wicker’s supe
ly evocative dispatches to The New YorkTimes
September
14
and
15)
were imlpressed y the tacti
on this excuse and clung to it long after it had been d
or Puerto Ricans; in the custody of guards who, as o
Failure o heed such words would benot only
skill, the poise and the single-mindedness of thedefian
men.’ These prisoners were politicalized, using the er
here not primarily with respect to whatever ideologi
convictions they may have held,
b u t
in he sense that th
were aware of themselves ,as a considerable group shari
common experiences and goals. The uprising atAttica
very little resembles prison riots of the past, when goad
men suddenly began beating
on
their cell bars,hurlin
their food to the mess hall floor and screaming obscenit
at their jailers. This was group action, not mass hyster
It is the latest, but not in all probability the last, ma
festation within a penitentiary offlhat for lack of a bet
term is called today black nationalism. But Attica was n
aracist movement; blacksandPuertoRicans were p
dominant in the resistance,
as
they predominate n he
prison, but many whites stood with them. It was a cl
action-the class of the disinherited.
When men who have nothing discover that they ha
oneanother, they combine nto units thatare incalculab
sionate men must be heeded. American prisons have nev
been institutions; they have always been receptacles. B
prisoners are not garbage. It
is
bad enough-indeed, it
probably wicked-that
we
deprive them of their freedom
formidable. That
is
why the words
of
sane land comp
TEE
NATION/Sepiernber
27 I9
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on if
we also take from them all hope of
future, we may expect Attica to become the name for
new kind
of
war. CommissionerOswaldknew that
Nixon
no doubt, fade into the recesses of history with their
Public Relations
The death of Nikita Khrushchevcalls attention once
in
which news
is
handled
the ,Soviet Union. The Russian leadership seems intent
sabotaging its
own
nterests in the public-relations field.
ternal'public relations have,
of
course, different objec-
ih one
is
largely in privatehands.However,
to
the degree to which the affairs of
a
be capitalist or , Communist, can be
of
the world. As a rule, the less
is known, the more will be fabricated by foreign
not expect candor from any govern-
nt-we did not,need the Pentagon Papers to prove that
secrecyanddeceit can be carried to he point of
and that seems to be the Soviet way of managing
There is,
first
the factor of speed. Everybody races to
news in print and on the air. Everybody, that is, except
over the
some forty-eight hours before the Soviet authorities
h i s
death. Many Russians isten to foreign
and they learned there what heirown radio did
is
as if the Soviet Government were
on building up as big a Russian audience as possi-
or Radio Liberty, Radio Free 'Europeand other
By his contempt for the tempo of modern cornmunicai
whichgoes back almost to the founding of the
communism has thrown away a great many of its
It does not need the dregs of Madison
i t certainly could make use of some of the
of American journalistic and
relations echniques.
Then, the funeral. State funerals are one form of
whereby the masses are dazzled and persuaded
is not only necessary but beneficent, and
of a sacramental character, It was not to be
t Brezhnev, Kosygin and the others who had
hchev into a nonperson (though one com-
bly situated) would use him for one of these mortuary
and though he wasquietly buried, it was
assomeAmerican commentators said,
in
a second-
e cemetery-he just didn't rate a niche in the Kremlin
Still,his treatment by the Central Committee and
of Ministerswas on the shabby side.They
was not signedbyhis former colleagues, as
icial obituaries usually are, nor was the government
a t
the services.
The trouble withSoviet public relations
is
that every-
is that
As
Harry
news.
NAmoWSepiernber
27,
1971
IN
THIS
ISSUE
September 27
197Z
EDITORIALS
258
ARTICLES
262 Capitol Hill:
The
Big
Rock-Candy Mountain
Tristram
Coffin
264 The Presidency:
Why
a
Black Man Should Run
268 Pugliese vs. Jones
Laughlin:
Howard Romaine
Conscience of
a
Steelworker
Barbara and John Ehrenreich
271 Defying
the ,
Dollar:
Latin America Slams the Door
Penny Lernoux
BOOKS 0
THE ARTS
276 Bulgakov: The Last Year of
Leo Tolstoy Tiugh McLean
277
Svevo: Further Confessions of
Zen0 Charles
am
Markmann
.
278 Bloom:TheRingers
in the
Tower Martinebowitz
279 Letter from a
Dog
with
Mange (poem) Thomas Rabbitt
280 Hamburger:
The
Truth of
Poetry Grace Schulman
281 Grier and
Cobbs:
The esus Bag Paul Roazen
282
Theatre Haro ld Clurman
284
Music Davidamilton
285 Art
-
Lawrence Alloway
JAMES J STORROW Jr.
Publisher
Editor
CAREY McWlLLlAMS
Executive Editor
ROBERT H A T C H
Associate Publishor
GIFFORD PHILLIPS
LiteraryEditor
EMlLECAPO UYA
Copy Editor MA RI ON HESS- Poetry EditorLLENLANZ:
Theatre,
HAROLD
CL UR MANj Ar t, L AWRkNCELLOWAY'
Music DAVIDAMIL T O N; Sclo nce CARL DREHER. A d v e r t h i
Manaber,MARY SIMON; ClrculationManager,
ROSE
d. GREEN.
,
Editorial Asroclate. ERNEST GRUENING
Washington ROBERT SHERRILL- London RA YM ON D WILLIAMS:
Paris CLkhlD E BOURDET; Borh
C.
LMERY;anberra, C.
P.
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indem d n Readers' Guide to
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the Public Affairs In/ormat,on Service.
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NATION
Vol u me 213
No.
9
259
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” Schwattz said in
The
New York Times with all his faults
Khrushchev was a giant of a man ut fame is fleeting,
and people
in
the streets of Moscow were indifferent when
they were told of his death. As to the judgment of history,
Kosygin and his colleagues can do little about that. Proba-
bly all their efforts’ o keep Khrushchev out of the limelight
will come to naught, and theywill be forgotten long
before he is.
Fopked
Tongue
’
American Indians‘ hought hey had a good thing going
‘ with the
Nixon
Administration. Nearly every Indian leader
in the country applauded when, in’July 1970, the Presi-
dent spelled out his Indian policy to the Congress. Mr.
Nixon pledged that he would make every effort to achieve
greater self-determination for American Indians and to
involve them more significantly in their own affairs.
To Indian leaders, fettered since their people fell under
federal trusteeship by
a
bureaucratic and paternalistic
Bureau
of
Indian Affairs, it was about time. Mr. Nixon’s
new Commissioner of Indian Affairs, -Louis Bruce, strode
forth briskly in pursuit of the new mandate, lacing the
BIA with a cadre of Indians-many of them young. And
as
Indian involvement quickened, Indian approval
deepened.
However, skepticism based
on
decades of broken white
promises did not vanish instantly, and most Indian lead-
ers, even though they saw the makings of a‘ new order in
Indian affairs, stood by to see whether at testing time Mr.
Nixon really meant it.
Testing time is here and many Indians are concluding
he didn’t-or that, if he did, his policy
is
being undercut
and sabotaged by his own Department of the Interior.
The Nixon Administration began really to tumble out of
Indian favor in late July, but the disenchantment began
before that. Early this year, when Interior Secretary Rogers
C.
B.
Morton took office,he brought in an old friend,
Wilma Victor, as his special adviser
on
Indian affairs.. At
abopt the same time,he made William Rogers special
Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs
m
the Department
of the Interior. Neither appointment was popular, and
Wilma Victor in particular is anathema to Indian leaders.
She is considered bymost Indian tribal chairmen to be
an “old, old, old line bureaucrat,” the veryepitome of
the paternalism that has enraged Indians for years.
When John 0 Crow,
a
veteran of thirty years in the
BIA,
was
then appointed Deputy Commissioner of Indian
Affairs,withpowersof veto over the commissionerhim-
self, Indians on the reservations were convinced that the
policy
of
self-determination was dead,
As
one of his first
acts,
Mr.
Crow announced the transfer
of
William H.
Veeder, the BIA expert on ndian water rights, from
Washington to Phoenix, Ariz. At, hat point, patience
snapped. Mr. Veeder is unpopular with Interior officials
for his sharp criticism of government water policy; and for
the same reason he
is
a special favorite with Indian leaders.
His transfer, which he has refused to obey, was interpreted
as a certain threat to Indian water and land rights.
No less than ten Indian organizations, including the
National Congress of American Indians and the new
National Tribal Chairmen’s Association, passed esolu-
26
COMING NEXT WEEK
“Juror No. 4” by Edwin Kennebeck
A young editor, one of the twelve jurors who
found the NewYork Black Panthers innocent on
all counts, describes the atmosphere
of
the court
room, the quality of the evidenceand the state o
mind
in
America that combined to produce thi
months-long trial of a phantom conspiracy.
,
I
tions condemning Crow and upholding Veeder. They
a letter to President Nixondemanding an audience
the matter. The issue became red hot earlier this mont
Window Rock, A r k , the capital of the Navajo Nat
The National Tribal Chairmen’sAssociationmet
launched a major assault on the Department of the
terior and on the Administration’s departure from it5a
nounlced policy.
Peter MacDonald, theyoung chairman of the Nav
Nation, led the assault. He charged that the Departmen
the Interior-and particularly Rogers, Victor and Crow
were bent on destroying Indian rights. “Do we need
be told more explicitly who the enemy is? It is the Dep
ment of the Interior. We can never survive
so
long
as
remain the captive of a hostile department. . .Right n
we are prisoners of war and the Department of the Inte
is holding us, Commissioner Bruce and his entire B
ashostages until we turn over
our
remaining land
resources.”
Mr. MacDonald proposed that the BIA be remo
immediatelyrom the Department
of
the Interior
put into receivership n the Executive office of the Pr
dent himself. The tribal leaders present passed a un
mous resolution backing the MacDonald proposal. It
gone out o all 230 American Indian tribes, They h
thirty days to respond, If-a majority of the tribes appro
a full-scale Indian revolt will be in progress.
Interior Department officials have only added to Ind
unanimousbjectionso John Crownd the pleas
keep Veeder in Washington, The Interior Departm
could have forestalled the Indian uprising if
it
had quie
removed Crow and retained Veeder, as Indians had
peatedlyasked. It wouldhave eassured Indians that
government cared about whatheyhought. But
Rogers himselfhas aidhe thinks John Crow is
hell of a man” and “just what is needed at the BIA no
suspicions by their stiff-necked refusal to heed the alm
Bugs
for
Rent
In many cities across he country, if you want someo
tele#one tapped, or a microphone installed to pick up
conversations at home or n his office, all
you
need d
look in the classified telephone directory. Among
services offered, such as polygraph tests, “expert shad
ing,”“witnesses for all purposes,” bodyguards (inclu
man-and-dog teams), you may find “sophisticated e
tronic audio detection,” “surveillancespecialistsutilizin
the latest electronic aids,” etc. In
some
cities the of
are more discreet:
a
mere mention of “electronic devic
is deemed sufficient-and safer.
THE
NATION/September 27 1
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Apparently n ot all he telephone companies’ lawyers
are aware of the fact, but such advertising is in violation
f Section 18
of
the Omnibus Crime ControlandSafe
Streets Ac t of 1968. This section makes it a crime, punish-
ble ‘b y a fine
of
10 000 and/or imprisonment for five
other device, where such advertisement
the use of su ch device for hepurposeof the
urreptitious interception of wire or oral communications.”
t
is necessary that the person placing the advertisement
hould know or have reason to
know
that such advertise-
gn comm erce. Th e advertising of such devices is not
itself llegal: wha t the statute forbids is the advertising
f espionage services employing them.
Obviously, if a detective agency mentions bugging and
ire-tapping devices
in
its advertising, itsntent is to
equipm ent or its client’s purposes, whether
industrial spying, matrimonial cases or whatever. The
on the
d hat it is a violation of federal law, or simply
t is contrary to company policy. B ut so far most of
if not reckless,
n this respect, and probably
will
continue to be permissive
sent through the mails or n nterstate or
i
Meanness
I, ,According to the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of
969 miners disabled by black lung are entitled to Social
. A ccording to the- Social Security Ad-
to find out whether a man does
from the disease is to take ‘an X-ray of his
,alon g with a breathing test; but experts on black
h g outside the government-including Dr. Donald L.
asmussen, director
of
the Cardiopulmonary Laboratory
Appalachian R egional Hospital in Beckley,
W.
Va.,
e inadequate for disclosing the presence
severity of the malady. “Many, many miners have
of compensation,” says Dr. Ras-
simplest
and
least costly ,testing procedures
approach to this complicated problem.”
Now a group of twelve disabled miners from Harlan,
and Floyd Counties in eastern Kentucky have filed
Washington, D.C. against the Secretary of Health,
an attempt to eliminate the
as the test of whether or not a man has black lung.
of
these men have been given blood gas tests, with
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS
Because of
postal
regulations,
The
Nation’s mail-
ing list must be arranged according to Zip Codes.
Therefore-with any correspondence about address
changes, renewals, etc.-please enclose the address
label from your Nation.
If
you don’t have a label, be
,sure to include your Zip number, and
be sure it
s
’correct.
Without it , we cannot h d our name plate .
1
m
NAmoN/Sepiember
27 1971 I
results showing that they are totally disabled. In eastern
Kentucky, where Social Security designates which institu-
tions and doctors m ay examine miners who claim to have
black lung, 78 per cent of the applications are denied.
In
Pennsylvania, where the state gives free medical tests
to ailing miners, Social Security has urned down only
33 per cent of the claims. There is something inexpressi-
bly mean about
a
government that
will
force men sick of
an incurable &seas-ontracted because that governm ent ~
does not enforce its own health standa rds in the mines-
to
sue
for the money the law
says
they have earned with
their ruined lungs.
Church and
‘Defense’
Church State the monthly magazine published by
Americans United for the Separation
of
Church and State,
has made a serious charge in its September issue against
the Defense Intelligence A gency (D IA ) ‘,graduate school.
This school trains middle-level miIitary intelligence officers
for service in Vietnam and elsewhere. According to
Church State, more than half the faculty of DIA are
Roman Catholics.
This might notbe
so
serious if the war in Vietnam,
did not have religious overtones and origins. Upper-class
Vietnamese are largely Catholic, and American interven-
tion after theFrench urrender was arranged through
Cardinal Spellman, Joseph P. Kennedy , and other prorni-
nent Catholics-although of course non-Catholics were
also instrumental in getting us into that disastrous venture.
T he first President of Vietnam under American auspices
wasNgo Dinh Diem, a RomanCath olic previously re-
siding in a Catholic institution and later assassinated when
the Americans no longer foundhim useful. Evennow,
Buddhist and Rom an CathoIic viewpoints are sharply at
variance
in
Vietnam. Thus indoctrinating American
in-
telligence personnel with a Catholic viewpoint is a very
serious matter.
This situation came to light when two DIA faculty
members, Gilbert
P.
Richardson, a Protestant, and Abra-
ham H. Kalish, a Jew, complained to the inspector general
in charge of DIA. affairs, that information
on
religious
affiliations of staff members was solicited and held by the
agency. Even the religion of an offic eis parents was re-
corded. The complaint was made nMay1969,and in
November the Civil Service Commission ordered DI A to
stop recording this type of information. Investigation re-
vealed that not only w ere) more th an
50
per cen t of the
D IA staff Catholics b ut hat 100 per cent
of
the In-
formation Service Center personnel were
-
of thesame
denomination.
Predictably, R ichardson ‘a n d Kalish were fired, i n
September 19 70 and April 1971 respectively. Richardson
has been fighting his dismissal, and he
Church Q
State
article says that at a closed Civil Service Commission
hearin g in Jun e of this year i t came out’that both of the
officers who signed Richardson’s dismissal form, and the
DIA appeals examiner who ruled against him, are Roman
Catholics.
I t would seem that, in the interest of the Church as
well
as
that of DM this unsavory situation should be
cleared
up
without further delay.
261