Sam Deloria e-mailed me recently saying that he didn’t realize I was the Office of Economic Opportunity’s ”bag man” in the infamous buy-out of AIM and the occupiers of the BIA building during the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington, back in 1972. It seems he read it in a review of a book recounting those times. It got me to reminiscing.
The occupation of the BIA building occurred in November 1972, during my very first weeks in office as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians. Prior to the arrival of the TBT caravan in Washington, NCAI and other Indian organizations had convened meetings to facilitate the TBT activities when they did arrive. We had hoped to help avert any violent confrontations, but were pretty much ignored by AIM, and disdainfully declined by the National Council on Indian Opportunity, the administration’s Indian outlet, under the leadership of Vice President Spiro Agnew. So we decided to sit by and see how things played out.
Several days into the occupation, I was contacted by a staff member in the Nixon White House, and was asked if NCAI would serve as a go-between in an arrangement the administration made with the AIM occupiers of the building. We would serve as a pass-through to AIM of federal funds and they would in turn vacate the building. The funds, at first estimated in the amount of $45,000, would be used ostensibly to help the Indian people who came in with the TBT caravan return to their homes across the country.
The occupation had become a stand-off situation in which both parties – AIM and the administration – wanted to extricate themselves without bloodshed and/or embarrassment.
Franklin Ducheneaux, Cheyenne River Sioux, was serving as our in-house legal adviser at the time, as I recall, and we at first declined to become involved. Although we were assured the entire arrangement was worked out with AIM, and that we would only serve as the conduit, we still declined, knowing that we would be painted as sell-outs, and nothing good could come of it.
However, in a later call that evening, we were advised by the White House that the U.S. Marshals, the D.C. Police, the Parks Police, and other forces could not be stalled much longer from forcibly removing the occupiers, and that it was urgent to end the occupation immediately.
When I visited the building at the outset of the occupation, I could smell gasoline, and was informed that on the second or third floor of the building were crates of pop bottles filled with gasoline and fixed with fuses – firebombs to discourage any attack on the part of the police. There were children in the building, as well as women, some very old, and we knew that their lives would be endangered in a violent confrontation. Considering this, we agreed to meet with the White House and AIM representatives over in the New Executive Office Building of the White House complex.
When we arrived in the meeting, we were derided by AIM as we had expected: ”Here come the sell-outs to buy us out,” or words to that effect. We told them that we were not there to buy anybody out, but that we understood that AIM and the White House had already agreed to terms. Then, as we turned around to leave, AIM members called us back, and asked all white people to leave the meeting, because they wanted to talk with us alone. (It occurred to me later that every word we said alone there with them was likely monitored by well placed FBI bugs.) We were assured by AIM that they didn’t consider us sell-outs, but had to act recalcitrant in order to negotiate the best deal.
In that meeting, the occupiers’ figures were over the $45,000 they first estimated, and the amount was still increasing. We informed the White House that we had only $35,000 in the OEO program funds that we were asked to use. Other funds, from tribal dues and such, were not to be touched. The White House assured us that replacing the funds would be no problem. Then we demanded assurance that Indian funds in OEO would not be used at the expense of other Indian programs in order to buy out the occupiers. We were assured of that as well. When we left the meeting, it was by then quite late in the evening.
The next morning we met at the Riggs National Bank on Dupont Circle, where NCAI accounts were held. The bank’s conference room was soon filled with bank officers, White House representatives, me, Ducheneaux and a couple others representing NCAI and several AIM representatives. By then the negotiated amount was $66,500. The White House reps assured quick replacement, and the bank agreed to an overdraft to cover the entire $66,500.
The check was drafted and signed by me and, as I recall, by several others in the room. The cash, in neat bundles, was brought and set on the conference table. It struck me strange how small the stacks were for a five-figured amount. Perhaps enough to fill a large briefcase. AIM was asked if they wanted to count it, and declined. They were then asked if they wanted canvas bags provided by the bank, and a bank guard to escort them. This they declined heartily. The money was placed by them in bags they had brought. They left and that concluded the transfer.
It was suggested that NCAI and OEO see to the dispensing of the funds to the occupiers to assure that they would get the money they needed to get home. AIM and NCAI refused that suggestion. We felt we were in deep enough.
Howard Phillips, one of Nixon’s more conservative operatives in charge of the Office of Economic Opportunity, was directed by the White House to replenish our program account, which was depleted by the AIM payment. I had heard that he refused, saying that he would be no part of paying AIM for breaking the law. He was placed on leave, I had heard, and replaced temporarily by an official who had no problem with the payment.
The OEO money was replaced in our account, and we declined to request or accept ”carrying charges,” as we were urged to do for bailing out both sides in what might have been a tragic fiasco. NCAI was criticized from various quarters about our role in this strange episode, but we were always satisfied that what we did probably saved lives of women and children who were part of the demonstration as serious people demanding rights and justice.
This is as I recall the events of that time in November 1972, over 35 years ago. My own personal files are in archives at the University of South Dakota, so I have no ready reference. However, at the behest of NCAI, the American Indian Press Association and the Institute for Development of Indian Law collaborated to give the TBT full coverage for historical purposes, and their records and publications would provide facts for any scholar wishing to research that historic time. And NCAI files, presumably in the Smithsonian, would fill in the entire story.
Very soon after the TBT, a book by Robert Burnette was released which included his own version of how the transfer of funds took place, with me delivering two suitcases stuffed with cash to AIM. Yet another account had John Dean of Watergate fame, in the dark of night, delivering the money in paper bags from McDonald’s. When I confronted Burnette on it, he yelled, ”Don’t tell me what happened, I WAS THERE!” He may have been in Washington, but he wasn’t in the bank where the transaction took place.
In the end, there were OEO papers to be signed justifying the additional $35,000 that replenished our program fund. Whoever the OEO official was that wrote out the justification obviously had some sense of humor, for the narrative began ”It seems some Indians came to town …”
Charles E. Trimble, Oglala Lakota, was principal founder of the American Indian Press Association in 1970, and served as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians from 1972 – ’78. He is president of Red Willow Institute in Omaha, Neb., and a columnist for Indian Country Today.