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SPEAKER 1: The following program, Shootout at Oglala, was broadcast over Minnesota Public Radio stations on July 28th, 1975. The program, which runs slightly longer than an hour, details some of the issues involved during and after the gun battle on the Pine Ridge Reservation on June 26th, a month before the broadcast. The gun battle claimed the lives of two FBI agents and one Indian.

It created a rash of distorted and controversial news accounts. And it threw Pine Ridge, the second largest Indian Reservation in the country, into a state of turmoil which lasted for months following the killings. It also brought that violence-plagued area in South Dakota back to the attention of Americans, some of whom learned for the first time that Pine Ridge has the highest crime rate of anywhere in the nation.

NPR reporter Kevin McKiernan was on a road within view of the site where the shootings took place when they occurred. He prepared this program, including the opening segments which carry no narration. And now, Shootout at Oglala.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Now, you can hear the fire. The BIA agents are going behind their trucks.

SPEAKER 2: Except for a weapons, explosives, and a large quantity of ammunition were recovered from the site of the shootout, indicating that the farmhouse was well fortified.

SPEAKER 3: At one time, I had faith in these FBIs, and I respected them. I thought they were honest people, but I found out they're nothing but crooks.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: I'm at the BIA roadblock. I can see the house. It's surrounded by the FBI. This is as far as I've been allowed to go. I've been able to get through two roadblocks. I'm here at the BIA roadblock. The ambulance is here. There are several ambulances.

One of them just took off in the direction of the final FBI outpost around the surrounded house. There are shots in the distance. This is the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation near Oglala. It's a very hot summer afternoon. There are at least several Indians holding the building.

The distance between here and Wounded Knee, where the occupation took place in 1973, is as the crow flies, perhaps only 20 miles. But by road, having to go through the tribal headquarters village of Pine Ridge, it's probably about 35.

SPEAKER 2: 25 additional FBI agents have been brought in to aid in the search for some 16 Indians who engaged in a gun battle Thursday, killing two FBI agents. There are now nearly 150 agents searching the sprawling hills of the reservation. The investigation is now also spread outside the reservation into several states. Spokesman for the FBI says they have a pretty good idea as to the identity of the 16, although no warrants have yet been issued.

SPEAKER 4: I think as you talk to the residents on the reservation, they too are concerned about what the FBI agents experienced, the murder of the two agents.

SPEAKER 5: We, the undersigned members, and supporters of the Whiteclay district, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, do hereby request the removal of all alien law enforcement personnel, the South Dakota highway patrol, the US marshals, the special weapons and tactics team, the FBI and the US Army from our district.

SPEAKER 6: I'm not familiar with the petition, other than as it was reported in the media. And as far as getting along in the community of the entire reservation, we have functioned here. We are functioning here, and we will continue to function here. And the point, of course, is to make the law work for the residents.

SPEAKER 7: 1974, there were 23 murders of Indians committed on the Pine Ridge Reservation. So far in 1975, not including the two FBI agents and the one Indian, there were 14 murders committed, and most of those were Indians. All of them are unsolved, to my knowledge. I don't know of any that's been solved nor investigated. Perhaps they have been, but I haven't heard of the investigation.

SPEAKER 8: AIM organized-- the organization itself, American Indian Movement, and they want to look into the wrongs-- all the wrongs that government is doing to the reservations include the Treaty of 1868.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Sometimes in the distance, I can hear a little snitches and snaps of BIA radio transmissions. And it appears that the current tactic is to try to get close enough to the house to assault it with gas.

SPEAKER 9: Violence on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in particular has increased since 1972.

SPEAKER 7: In my opinion, the top-level BIA leadership has no interest in anything except themselves and perpetuating themselves, which means that that's in direct conflict with what's in the interest of the Indian people.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: High caliber bullets. There it is again. Ricochets, it sounds like automatic fire.

SPEAKER 2: A source close to the investigation told me that the FBI knew that AIM factions were looking to, quote, "get an FBI agent." In addition, according to the official, there have been recent attempts on the lives of reservation law officers.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: There goes a car with an Indian family in the area temporarily leaving it. A very heavy volley of shots just before that. I didn't have the tape recorder turned on. I'm a little worried about the strength of the batteries out here in the middle of the reservation range.

There were a great number of cars here at the third of four roadblocks, the one that I'm at currently. But now, the only vehicle outside of three BIA police cars is mine. And I'm behind that at the moment. Here they go again.

SPEAKER 10: There's no law and order on this reservation. There's no respect for any law enforcement agency here.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: The BIA has told me I better move back. They're still behind their car.

SPEAKER 11: At first, I seen those two FBIs come to that other place, June Little's place. I seen them go down a hill. So we went back inside. I didn't know what was going on at first, so I went back inside. And we were sitting there for a while, and then I heard the shooting going on.

SPEAKER 12: Everybody's been using serving a warrant, serving a warrant. That's technical terminology. If a warrant is outstanding, you talk about to try and get an arrest warrant and a search warrant clarified. If you go to search a house, sure, you issue the search warrant or you serve the search warrant.

If you are affecting an arrest warrant, that means there is an arrest warrant outstanding. And it's very, very rare that an agent has a piece of paper in his pocket, which is an arrest warrant. All they have to do is say there is an arrest warrant outstanding for you. You are under arrest.

SPEAKER 11: I have one girl. She's four years old. And the little boy, he's two. And another little boy, he's nine months old. So I told my husband that there's shooting. He heard it, too. So we just grabbed our kids, and we ran out. I was so scared. I just grabbed my kids, and I just left.

And we just start running real fast. Then we just went down the hill. And we got to the highway, and one of my husband's uncles gave us a ride to Oglala.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Federal cars continue to race up and down the roads over the ridges, rolling plains. Outside of that, it's quiet. But from where I am, I can see little Indian children playing by these tar paper shacks. Horses continue to play in the meadows all around.

There's a stream here and a small little fishing pond. The FBI plane has moved out of gunshot range. Actually, it's a police plane. It's difficult to say which division of the government owns it. In fact, I just heard a transmission over the BIA radio that said that there appears to be some problem already between the BIA and the FBI and the US Marshal Service.

There's some firing now. Some problem as to who has command here. This was one of the problems at Wounded Knee. And Wounded Knee is only a relatively few miles from here. It's the same problem on Indian reservations of jurisdiction and the hierarchy of government command off the reservation. When it comes on to the reservation, simply has always been a boondoggle. There's more firing.

SPEAKER 13: Violent crimes on the reservation increased dramatically after 1972. I think we're just now getting into the position where we're equipped from the standpoint of a number of law enforcement personnel and investigators and prosecutors that we're going to be able to bring the situation under control.

SPEAKER 14: Situation is that two FBI officers were killed when they went in with warrants early today. And quite a group of people holed up in some houses and in the brush along the stream. And we went in, talked to them. We found that the FBI agents were dead.

And then later, we gave them a deadline, at which time, we were going to move in. And firing broke out and attack started, and they cleared them out. At this point, they've left the area. One is dead, one of the ones that was firing on the group of combination of FBI, Bureau of Indian Affairs officers state people.

SPEAKER 15: There are murders here every week on the reservation. And nobody ever seemed-- nobody from the outside ever seemed to worry about that until the FBI got kind of involved. How do you feel about that?

SPEAKER 16: It is that because of the activities of the American Indian Movement or was the American Indian Movement only reacting to other types of problems that already existed on the reservation.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Some of the shots sound like firecrackers. There are a couple now. Those are more than firecrackers.

SPEAKER 2: The official says Thursday's incident was well planned, and the farmhouse occupants were waiting to execute the FBI agents.

KENDALL CUMMING: The concern was to get a temporary truce so that we could get the bodies out and stop an assault that might have been imminent to give us a little bit of time. The word came down that it was up to me to make the final decision. I made the decision that we would assault.

SPEAKER 18: What they were doing at the time they were killed, they were going in to see if Jimmy Eagle was anywhere in the area. And if he was, they were going to arrest him.

SPEAKER 19: I don't know why the violence has escalated in the last two years. Perhaps it is due to the Wounded Knee thing and the growth of the AIM movement, which is a militant movement in which some of its members are determined not to be peaceful anymore.

SPEAKER 20: It looks like they're trying to kill us, all Indians, because the other day, some girls were sitting there in this marshals or FBIs-- I don't know which ones they are. And I don't know, they mentioned something. And this guy turned around and said, we're going to kill some more Indians before we leave. See, he's threatening them. So they took his license number down.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Despite it being rather tense here, the-- there's a shot in the background. Horses continue to Lollapalooza through the meadows. And cows are mooing, even through the gunfire, reminiscent of Wounded Knee when several heifers got caught in the crossfire. There's some firing now.

SPEAKER 21: We still have the same force that we had a week or so ago, over 150 special agents conducting investigation to develop the necessary evidence to obtain warrants. We as yet do not have arrest warrants for those involved in the murder of the two agents.

SPEAKER 22: FBI agents that grew up watching John Wayne and Cowboys and Indians come out there and want to play Cowboys and Indians. Then they got to suffer the consequences, just as we do. They are the aggressors, and we will make no apologies for the deaths of two pigs that did not belong there in the first place.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Those sound like high caliber bullets. I'm down behind the back bumper of my truck. At this rate, there's surely going to be some blood spilled here.

Well, as almost everyone now knows, there was blood spilled, two federal agents, Ronald Williams and Jack Kohler, both 28, and an Indian, Joseph Stuntz, aged 24, were slain in that June 26 shootout near the village of Oglala on the northwest corner of the Pine Ridge Reservation. All three were family men. They are survived by their wives and children.

What few people know, if anyone, is what happened to provoke the gun battle, what happened during it, and what has happened since. Both government and Indian reports have been severely self-contradictory. The media have printed and aired false and irresponsible accounts, and the public has been shortchanged.

Some examples. Authorities first said that the two FBI agents were killed when seeking to serve warrants on four Indians wanted for kidnapping. Later, this was corrected to mean that one of the four, Jimmy Eagle, was being sought at what came to be the site of the gun battle. As for the kidnapping, later, when all four either surrendered or were apprehended, they were charged with assault and robbery, not kidnapping.

Two weeks after the June 26 shootout, United Press International reported that only three Indians were wanted for the, quote, "kidnapping," unquote. And the UPI report said that the dead Indian was killed after the agents had already been slain. But no indication of proof in that regard has ever been established, nor has there been any proof, as the American Indian Movement contends, that he was killed before the agents, thus causing the deaths of the federal men.

The fact that Stuntz was wearing an FBI fatigue jacket when this reporter saw him lying dead on the ground after the FBI had assaulted the buildings is inconclusive in either case. He could have taken it from one of the dead agents or it could have been put on him before outsiders were permitted into the shootout area. Additionally, reports that he was shot in the front of the head also were false. The only blood I saw was underneath the FBI jacket coming down his arm and wrist.

And there's more. Toby Moran, the BIA public information officer in Pine Ridge, was quoted widely in the press to the effect that the area was an armed camp with bunkers and trenches that had been dug. The fact is that there were no trenches. The so-called bunkers were 30-year-old root cellars, which the Jumping Bull family used to preserve food.

And some reports said that AIM leader, Russell Means, lived with the Jumping Bulls. Actually, it was Dennis Banks. And Banks was on trial 100 miles away in the Black Hills village of Custer, where he was convicted a month later on charges stemming from a disturbance two and a half years ago.

As for the, quote, "16 Indian males," unquote, sought in the ensuing manhunt, that figure since the gun battle has been increased to 30 and then lowered to half the original estimate and then back to 16 again. At this time, the press is still reporting that the, quote, "16," unquote, are known AIM sympathizers, but yet, there has been no proof or firm indication of that. Almost every news account for two weeks reported that the FBI men had driven to Oglala in one car.

They were dragged, these reports said, from the vehicle and quote, "riddled with 20 to 25 bullets," unquote, execution style. But a week after the shootings, FBI director Clarence Kelley told reporters that each man had suffered only three gunshot wounds. And one of the agents, he said, had been shot in the foot in the hand as well as the head.

On July 9, The Washington Post reported that the two men were killed while chasing a pickup truck, which matched the description of a vehicle wanted in the so-called kidnapping. The Post listed South Dakota attorney General William Janklow as the source for the story, the story that the two agents were in two cars radioing messages to each other at the time of the incident. And the article said that Janklow's state troopers had taped and monitored the FBI transmissions.

And so very few facts have uniform agreement. What seems to be known is that Kohler and Williams entered the Jumping Bulls land shortly before noon on June 26 and died soon after. When the area was taken by the police six to seven hours later, the agents were dead and Joe Stuntz was dead.

An undetermined number of individuals had escaped, and the most massive manhunt in South Dakota history was underway. Whether the fugitives were a band of paramilitary guerrillas, as some authorities have said, or whether the FBI backfired its plans to raid the area, as many local residents contend, simply cannot be known. The full truth may well lie with the three victims of the confrontation and with those who got away.

During the height of the FBI manhunt right after the shootings, Acting Pine Ridge Superintendent Kendall Cumming told reporters what he knew of the shootout. Cumming said that he and an Indian intermediary had tried in mid-afternoon on the 26th to establish a ceasefire.

KENDALL CUMMING: I was out on the perimeter. And a young Indian by the name of Edgar-- I think it was Edgar Bear Runner came to me and indicated he'd been in touch with our area office and said that he felt that the shooting should cease, and there should be negotiations. At that time, the situation was rather tense because most of the people didn't know that the agents were-- no one knew of-- our people or FBI, that the agents were dead at that time.

It was thought they might be alive and wounded. And they were very much concerned about them lying out there in the sun and suffering. And so the possibility of an assault was imminent. I mentioned this to Mr. Bear Runner and suggested he go down and talk to them about an immediate ceasefire so that we could get out the agents.

He went down. I don't know who he talked to or if he talked to anyone. He came back after going down in the area of the houses and indicated that the men were dead. He thought they were dead. And so there was no rush, that there would be plenty of time, and there should be negotiations.

And he talked about what would happen if there was an assault and large groups of people would come in from other places, this type of thing. I felt that it was important that I confirm whether the agents were dead or not. And I asked Mr. Bear Runner to go with me down to the site of the shooting.

We walked together down the road and dropped off of the hill into the little valley where the car was, and the two agents were lying dead beside it. It was obvious that they were dead at the time. And we observed it, the situation. And shortly after that, we went back up the hill to the perimeter.

And I had told him that when we came down that I would contact our area office. He wanted them to be contacted. I got back. I went to the trading post, Oglala, and tried to call. I couldn't get through. Time was moving, so we tried to do it through radio back here and a call from here.

And word came back that the decision would be mine. By that time, it was beginning to get late. I was concerned that something would have to be done. So I made the decision that we would assault the houses at 5:30. Now, I had no control over the FBI. This was just Bureau.

I notified our superior-- this office and our area office of this, what the plan was. And I asked Mr. Bear Runner to go back down and tell them, tell the people that this was going to occur and that he had 20 minutes to get down. And part of the intent here was, is that they could come out or if they wanted to send women and children out, they could.

At 5:30, I notified, of course, the area office. A call came in to hold on any assault. And about that time, people started moving up across the valley. And firing broke out, and this touched off an assault at that time. And that's what generated the assault. So then the houses were taken, and the people escaped. And that's, I think, about the end of that part of the--

SPEAKER 26: Am I correct in assuming what you said is that the assault itself took place almost by accident at the point where it broke down.

KENDALL CUMMING: Well, what happened was we were on hold at the time since I had notified our very office, and they'd asked me to hold. I don't know for what, but it was-- they'd asked me to hold on this. And the assault broke out as a result of the firing while we were holding.

SPEAKER 25: Assault by who, the FBI agents or the Bureau?

KENDALL CUMMING: All of our groups. Firing broke out, and the--

SPEAKER 25: On the groups or by the groups?

KENDALL CUMMING: Well, different places in the perimeter firing broke out. And then the assault to take the houses occurred at that time.

SPEAKER 24: Individuals within your troops or the FBI troops firing broke. They fired shoots--

KENDALL CUMMING: I don't know who fired first. I would assume that-- I wouldn't know, but I would assume that the firing came from the groups that were breaking out, but I don't know.

SPEAKER 24: Which bullets kill the Indian? Was it the BIA bullets or FBI bullets? Or aren't they distinguishable?

KENDALL CUMMING: I don't know.

SPEAKER 26: Can you explain how these people escaped with this large contingent of law enforcement people around them? And how did that happen physically? Do they go into the woods? How did it happen?

KENDALL CUMMING: Yeah, they crossed the woods. I think that perhaps-- I don't know, but it's perhaps they knew the assault was coming. And they felt-- and this is pure speculation. They felt that it would be time to move out. And they moved out through the woods.

And there was an area in the line, apparently, that wasn't covered. And they were able to move up the hills. And it would rather difficult to stop them at that point. Attempts apparently were made.

SPEAKER 24: They retreated toward the troops?

KENDALL CUMMING: There was a line on the south side, which was rather thin. And they went through a place which wasn't covered.

SPEAKER 26: They did retreat toward the troops through and opening in the troops line.

SPEAKER 24: Was it daytime?

KENDALL CUMMING: Yeah, it was getting late in the evening.

SPEAKER 26: Do you believe 16 people actually fired at the two dead agents?

KENDALL CUMMING: I think so. I heard quite a bit of the-- oh, at the dead agents?

SPEAKER 26: Yes.

KENDALL CUMMING: I don't know. I couldn't speculate on that.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Acting Reservation Superintendent Kendall Cumming. The owners of one of the houses involved in the shootout, the Jumping Bulls, had left their home in the morning before the arrival of the FBI agents. 73-year-old Mrs. Jumping Bull and 78-year-old Mr. Jumping Bull had gone to a cattle sale.

When they returned in the early evening, their house had been riddled with bullets. It had been tear gassed, and the interior had been ransacked from room to room by the FBI. Three days later, I spoke with Mrs. Jumping Bull and with her 43-year-old son, Calvin Jumping Bull, who is the principal of the well known Red Cloud Indian School near Oglala.

The FBI has described the deaths of the two agents as a planned execution, as an ambush. They said this was a heavily fortified camp with many guns and much ammunition and many outlaws and fugitives. Mrs. Jumping Bull, you are saying that you and your husband have lived there for 40 years. How do you respond to the FBI's accusations?

MRS. JUMPING BULL: [NON-ENGLISH]

SPEAKER 27: It is not true, what are the accusations that the FBI made about what you have just stated.

[NON-ENGLISH]

SPEAKER 28: Early in the morning [NON-ENGLISH].

SPEAKER 26: I think they were the ones that instigate the whole thing. They planned it, because he was saying that on the east side there, up in the hill somewhere, some of those people came there and the FBI or federal officers or whatever. And I think they planned this all along.

And I think what they're trying to do is they're trying to turn the whole story over, because I think they plan to raid the place. And, in fact, I think it backfired on them. So naturally, they just trying to cover everything up. I think the bunkers that they call down there, the FBI, and whoever came in-- Mr. Janklow, I think he himself said there were a couple of bunkers there.

And these bunkers are actually root cellars that have been there 30-- or around 30 years.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: This is William Janklow, the attorney general of the state of South Dakota.

SPEAKER 26: Yeah, I think he made some statements about-- that it was a planned thing where these people are more or less being drawn in and ambushed. But I think the federal government or the FBI, more or less, instigated the whole thing. And I think they start the whole problem. Now, they're trying to blame on to somebody else.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Mr. Janklow also said that the problems on the Pine Ridge Reservation are criminal, not racial.

SPEAKER 26: He doesn't really understand that there a difference here on the reservation. Most of the people who live out in the country are more or less traditional or full bloods. And they're always-- this has been going on a long time. The people that live in Pine Ridge, they're all halfbreeds.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: In the village of Pine Ridge?

SPEAKER 26: Yes, and they're the ones always causing the problem. Some of the things that have happened the last three or four years, like there's quite a number of Indian people-- district people were killed, not just this district alone, but other districts. But nobody cares because it's an Indian. So nobody ever said anything about--

Now, two FBI agents were killed. So everybody is concerned, even the president of the United States. But they never said anything about that Indian boy that was killed at the same place, same site. So I think what they did there is illegal trespassing. And they don't have any search warrant in the first place to go there to look for anyone.

And I think the-- right from the start, I think it's the government's mistake, I believe, to start a problem. It's a kind of a unfortunate to have two FBI men killed. But I think they start the whole problem. And I hate to say this, but I think they deserve what they got.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Mrs. Jumping Bull, you say that many things were destroyed in your house during the search which followed the shootout on Thursday between the FBI agents and those in and around the house. Can you tell me about that?

MRS. JUMPING BULL: I want to say something to the government that the government don't have respect for me. So that's why I'm really worried about that, because he don't even care for me.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: He, meaning the government.

MRS. JUMPING BULL: Yes, I meant government.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: You mentioned that there were two pictures, and you showed me one of them. The two pictures showed-- they were in frames behind glass and showed the pictures of your two nephews who died in the Armed Services and your son who died in the Armed Services.

MRS. JUMPING BULL: Three pictures. Well, they are killed in a war. Those three boys got killed in a war.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Which of the pictures has the bullet hole through it from the shooting that took place a few days ago at your house?

MRS. JUMPING BULL: Those two, my nephews. And one other picture that got a bullet hole, that's my sister's boy, got killed in action in a Korean War in 1943, I guess.

SPEAKER 26: 1950.

MRS. JUMPING BULL: 1950. And one of my nephews got killed in France in 1944 in September. So I want to give it back-- I want to return those flag to the government.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: These are the flags which were given to you by the government when your son died?

MRS. JUMPING BULL: Yes, because the government don't have respect for me. So now, I don't want to keep this United States flag and those--

SPEAKER 27: Plus the purple hearts, she says.

MRS. JUMPING BULL: Purple heart and Gold Star.

SPEAKER 27: She wants to return them.

MRS. JUMPING BULL: So I want to return those to the government. I'm going to send back to the president for I feel sorry because the government shoot me about three days ago and damaged all my house and property. And I don't know why he done that for me, because I don't do anything wrong. And I don't do anything wrong to the government and the law.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Mrs. Jumping Bull was hospitalized with a nervous breakdown the day following this interview. Her son Calvin told me the family had no plans to return to their home. The reservation is still tense today, but nothing compared to the atmosphere in the days immediately following the shootings.

Battle-fatigued FBI agents carrying automatic weapons, helicopters, airplanes, jeeps, dogs, armored personnel carriers, Pine Ridge was in a state of siege. And the reservation funeral of the dead Indian did not diminish the tensions. The FBI agents had been buried in Los Angeles.

The Indian burial was held near Oglala on the 320-acre ranch of Wallace Little. The burial followed what Little said was an harassing visit by the FBI. It was a visit, he said, that caused him to choose sides in what only can be described over the past few years of reservation life as a climate of civil war.

WALLACE LITTLE: I was neutral. I was neutral until the FBIs came to my place and run my name down.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: How did they do that?

WALLACE LITTLE: They came up here with a dozen police cars and vans. They all lined each other up along west of my place across the creek. We're just me and my son, my grandson, and my daughter in-laws and little kids. And we didn't have nothing, no protection, no guns. So we just stayed out in the open, so they can shoot us.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Were they armed?

WALLACE LITTLE: Yeah, all of them were armed. Hard, powerful guns, they said. Some had machine guns. Cut us in two. My grandson said, Grandpa, these men come to see you. I got kind of mad then. So I get out of my pickup and go see them policemen.

Well, both of them had guns. One had six shooter, and one had a high-powered rifle ready to shoot. So I goes and tells them, you boys, I don't know who you are-- or they introduced me their names, but I forgot who they are. So I tell them, you hurt my feelings today. What did I do?

So he brings all his policemen around him. They surrounded my place, about 60 of them. And I'm an old man, 75, going 75 years old now. And I can't do nothing. But I can at least protect my granddaughters and my grandchildren. So I shows myself up along the pickup and let them shoot me.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Why were they here, Mr. Little?

WALLACE LITTLE: He was looking for a fellow by the name of Eagle. And I don't know that boy. And he never did come around here.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Did they come with a search warrant?

WALLACE LITTLE: No, no search warrant. And they had one big rifle and the other had a pistol on his hip.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Did the agents go into your home?

WALLACE LITTLE: They looked around, but they couldn't find nothing. And I told them already. I said, I don't know that boy. He never comes around here. But they didn't believe me. But after he looked, they started walking up the hill. Then got his squad all together. It's all packed up, and they left.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: The FBI has not come around during the funeral?

WALLACE LITTLE: No, no, because I got a red little piece of paper already, which explains.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: This is the one in which you ask that no aircraft or helicopters or FBI men or anything--

WALLACE LITTLE: Stay away from our wake. Stay away from our wake.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Do you feel that you were harassed or [INAUDIBLE]

WALLACE LITTLE: Yeah, I feel awful bad. Put my name down, give me a black eye. How can I get my name back up there like I had?

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Wallace Little. Little and other Oglala residents signed a petition for the removal of FBI forces from the reservation. In Pine Ridge, the FBI denied Little's charges of harassment. FBI spokesman Tom Coll then discussed FBI intentions with newsmen.

TOM COLL: We intend to stay here as long as it takes us to do our assigned task.

SPEAKER 28: Do You think your posture here will be modified at all because of the feeling of community residents in Oglala?

TOM COLL: I couldn't comment on that. I don't think so at the present time.

SPEAKER 29: Isn't there a way to conceal your weapons a little better or maybe go into different clothing or something like that?

TOM COLL: Well, it would be real nice going up in those hills in suits and all that, but there's just no way that you can in an operation such as this.

SPEAKER 30: If you haven't listed individuals, specific individuals for other law enforcement agencies to seek, did you tell them to stop all Indians?

TOM COLL: No, we have not. No, ma'am.

SPEAKER 30: So how do you hope to catch them?

TOM COLL: We are investigating, and we do hope to catch them.

SPEAKER 31: Do you think your mere presence is inflammatory at all? I mean, people seeing people with weapons, armed.

TOM COLL: I don't feel that way.

SPEAKER 31: How would you characterize that as an effect on the community, people walking around with--

TOM COLL: Well, it's hard for me to judge because I have no idea of how the community operated before. There's been certainly no animosity shown towards me and I don't think towards any of the other agents.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: FBI spokesman Tom Coll. Ironically, to many reservation Indians, the Oglala shootings came as no surprise. Many said that the death of the FBI agents was an inevitable consequence of animosity, which has been building on the reservation for several years, animosity between Indians and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Two Indians had been killed at Wounded Knee two years earlier.

In the reservation, civil strife which followed dozens of other Indians had met their deaths. And the entire state of South Dakota had been plagued by racial struggles for several years. The gun battle in Oglala, if it has any perspective, can only be understood in a context of a continuum of violence that has followed what Indian activists have termed a climate of racism and oppression in South Dakota. That Indians are treated differently in South Dakota from white people was attested to last year by US District Judge Fred Nichol.

FRED NICHOL: I think the Black man-- really, when you come right down to it, the Black man has been accorded more justice in this country. And even with the discrimination that he obviously has, there's been less discrimination against the Black man as a result of what has happened since Martin Luther King started his movement. There's been less discrimination now than there is against the Indians.

Now, I will admit that I come from a state like South Dakota where you see more Indians. And I really think that in many ways, the Indians are worse off than the Black man.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Federal Judge Nichol's observations have been borne out in scores of interviews, which I have conducted over the past few years. And the following voice is that of a Rapid City businessman whose sentiments are not atypical of feelings about Indians, especially in Western South Dakota.

SPEAKER 32: Well, there's two classifications of Indians here in Rapid City. There's the ones that work, and there's the ones that are drunk. And I mean, that's just the way they've classified them. And so there's a lot of Indians here in town that have very good credit. Can come in and charge anything, and they'll step a little over their normal boundaries for a lot of them, because they just the same as-- treat them same as everybody else.

All I can say is anybody that has any trouble with an Indian, it's kind of a running joke amongst people. If you've got a bad check from someone with an Indian name, I mean like Fire Thunder or something like that, you automatically associate that with an Indian. Of course, there is prejudice here, definitely. But of course, it's the bad ones that caused it.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Could you speculate, as a South Dakota citizen, on the causes of Indian poverty?

SPEAKER 32: A lot of it's their own foolishness. Dad was a drunk, and I grew up to be a drunk. And my son will probably be a drunk, too. And that's just, like I say, kind of the same thing. A lot of parts of the reservation is just like a big city ghetto, only scattered out and more [INAUDIBLE].

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: So would you be saying, in other words, that you would associate the poverty with the alcoholism?

SPEAKER 32: Well, definitely. I've seen-- well, as a fact, my uncle is a bulk dealer. He lives just off the reservation, delivers gas. And now, a lot of them would trade like their food commodities for fuel oil to him, which he actually isn't supposed to do.

So I'm not going to say who it is because it's illegal for him to do that. But none of them would ever blow the whistle on him due to the fact that that's the only way they kept warm, and he has done this.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Do you feel that you're prejudiced against Indian people?

SPEAKER 32: Well, I'm prejudiced against what I classify in my own mind as the bad Indian. And that's like the drunks and the people I have to put up with down here. And there is here-- there is a lot of Indian people that are in here drunk. Of course, there's a lot of white people that come in here. And I am definitely prejudiced against them.

Now, I can't say I'd marry an Indian girl. I've went out with Indian girls before and everything, but, I really can't say-- maybe that was the reason I didn't ever decide to marry one. But my father is a little more prejudiced, I think, than I am. In fact, by far more. Of course, I would rather sit next to a clean Indian or a clean Negro any day than sit next to a dirty white person.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Not everyone in South Dakota emphasizes the importance of the racial question. Governor Richard F Kneip.

RICHARD F KNEIP: The problem right now in South Dakota on the reservations is an Indian problem with Indian people. It's an inward clash, and most people don't see it for that. And so nationally, the country is being told that the Indian person is being stepped on and that all kinds of injustices are being pushed upon their people, when in effect, the real fight is between Indian people themselves, the Russell Means and the Dick Wilsons or whoever. And that is a very key main point to make.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Overall, Governor, you would reject the notion that in 1975, the South Dakota treatment of Indian people parallels that, say, of Mississippi against Black people in the '60s and the '50s?

RICHARD F KNEIP: Oh, boy, whatever-- if there's anything I'd like to reject, it's the one thought I heard placed throughout this country at one point, and that is that South Dakota was a Mississippi of the North. That is so inaccurate and so wrong that I can't even make a proper correlation or parallel. I'm not sure what they-- I've heard stories about the South and maybe that's what they are.

Maybe they're not quite as bad as what we heard either or maybe the people in the South and the North and the West and the East that are hearing stories about our people-- I hope they don't believe it because I don't believe it's that bad. And while I recognize racial prejudice and racial injustice as a part of society everywhere, not to that extent, and I can't buy it. I think we've got a bad mark and a black eye by certain news releases given as being, in my estimation, inaccurate.

And those that I remember were many of those given by the AIM people and the AIM leadership. And so while some people saw it as just that, a black eye, the fact is I hold it was to a great extent inaccurate. And that was an injustice perpetrated on the people of this state.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: You don't feel that racism here with respect to Indian people is any greater than any other state?

RICHARD F KNEIP: No, I think it's perhaps less. I think that the average person in this state would-- take white people, if you want to classify it that way, dealing with Indians, I think that while there are people that do hold prejudice in their hearts, that to the greatest extent, our people are perhaps more permissive and more warm and friendly, one towards the other than most states.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: While most observers would place heavy emphasis on the white versus Indian question, Governor Kneip raises a significant problem of the struggle on the Pine Ridge Reservation itself. Tribal Chairman Dick Wilson and reservation supporters of the American Indian Movement have been arch foes for three years. But from the standpoint of news access, it usually has been more difficult to get an interview from Wilson than from AIM's spokesman.

During the height of the current FBI manhunt on Pine Ridge, Wilson prohibited NBC and CBS television from filming anywhere on the 4,000 square mile reservation. Earlier, a network crew on location at Wounded Knee producing a story on reservation violence was fired upon from a speeding car. Fortunately, no one was hit.

There were other incidents. Rick Smolan, a photographer on assignment from Time Magazine, met with a less than favorable welcome when he drove to Pine Ridge to photograph Chairman Wilson.

RICK SMOLAN: He sort of seemed to react very hostilely. He said that I couldn't take pictures. And he suggested I get back in my car and get out of town. It comes across as being that he has something to hide. He seemed very afraid that if I were to talk to him, that he would somehow inadvertently tell me something he didn't mean to, and therefore, he didn't want to tell me anything, period.

He didn't raise his fist to me, but his body language-- he sort of pushed himself into my face. And I noticed he was very flushed. And I didn't know if it was because he had been drinking or because he was mad at me. And I said, look, I didn't mean to get you upset. I just wanted to tell you that I was around and that I thought perhaps you'd want to share some of your viewpoint with me.

And he said, just get in your car and get out of here. So I just kind of put my hands up and said, OK. Got back in the car and took a deep breath and drove away. And he got in his car, and he followed me for about a block. And then I made a left turn and nothing came of it.

And I went on shooting. I didn't really pay any attention to his suggestion to leave town. Somewhat more paranoid after that about, all of a sudden, the village seemed to be a little more hostile than it had been before that experience.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Time Magazine photographer Rick Smolan. The closest I personally came to getting an interview with the tribal chairman was a conversation on the telephone. And Chairman Wilson challenged me to air his comments about the media.

DICK WILSON: You can twist my statements around to sell copies. Every damn one of you do it.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Well, I don't twist anything. I won't. It's not a printed medium. Of course, it's electronic.

DICK WILSON: Forget it. Forget it.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Is there any possible way that I could speak with you? I'll do just about anything you'd like to have--

DICK WILSON: I'm sure you will here on the scene. But when it gets back to be reproduced and in broadcast, it'll be altogether different. I'm just sick of it. I had a fuss with NBC and CBS right on the goddamn street yesterday morning filming three of my local drunks. And I thought that was ridiculous. They said I'm violating the freedom of the press. Well, by golly, you guys all try me. See if I can't violate it.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Well, it would be unfair for me to have interviewed anyone else, Mr. Wilson, and not to interview you.

Dick Wilson: Obviously, you're all going to tell it like you want to anyway. So what good is an interview?

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: That's not my job, Mr. Wilson. My job is to listen to people, and I have control over what goes on in the air. I don't have--

DICK WILSON: That sure as hell a change. That's why I can't believe it. I can't believe it.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Well, I'm wondering if we can make some sort of compromise of what would you recommend.

DICK WILSON: I'm recommending forget it.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Could we do this? Could I call you back tomorrow sometime? And perhaps you'd have a chance to think about it, and I could, too. And there might be some resolution to it. I feel very badly going--

DICK WILSON: I feel damn badly about it, too. But I've put up with this shit for three and a half years, and you guys tell it the way you want to anyway.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Well, you can tell it in your own words. In fact--

DICK WILSON: Big deal, big deal. I can tell it in my own words. It don't get told that way when you print it.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Well, I'm airing it, Mr. Wilson, and I'd like to have you tell it in your own way. That's all I can say. In fact--

DICK WILSON: Let me tell you something real quickly here, and you can let it sink in over the night. I think that you people from the news media precipitate all of these murders that's happening around here.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Precipitate the murders?

DICK WILSON: God damn right.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Could you elaborate a little bit on that?

DICK WILSON: Yeah, because you don't tell things like they are. There ain't a goddamn one of you said anything about 500 houses being built here. Ain't none of you said anything about three new factories. Ain't none of you said anything about 55% unemployment rate. All you're worried about is death and violence.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Well, I'm interested. I haven't said anything about the factories because I'm not aware of that. But I have said something about the unemployment.

DICK WILSON: You see, you don't give a shit about them.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Well, the unemployment you mentioned, I have spoken about that. I can't say that honestly that I have about the other. No, because I don't have enough information on that. And that's one thing I think that you could help to provide in the interview. In fact, if it would help, I could submit the questions, written questions in advance to you and come back in an hour or so and--

DICK WILSON: Big deal. I'm telling you. Big deal. Damn it. I can write it up the most elaborate way, and it won't get told that way. I've been through this for three and a half years.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Well, if I go back, my editor, the only thing he'll say to me is-- not that he's going to cut my material, but he's going to say, how could you possibly go to that reservation and not talk to the tribal chairman?

DICK WILSON: Yeah, well, tell him you talked to me, and I told you to go jump.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: I don't know how the he'll by that, to tell you the truth.

DICK WILSON: Yeah, well, that's what I'm telling you in effect.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: To go jump?

DICK WILSON: Right. You're going to tell it the way you want to anyway. So why interview me?

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Not if I have you telling what people say-- you say in your own words, instead of having people tell me what you say. That seems to be the greatest problem, that everyone has an idea of what Dick Wilson says. I'd like to hear it from Dick Wilson.

DICK WILSON: Well, you're hearing it right now. I think you guys are a bunch of shit.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Well, one of the advantages that we have is that I can use your voice. I don't quote you in the newspaper. I use your voice. You're speaking, and I think this is one of the advantages of radio.

DICK WILSON: Well, you wouldn't tell that if I told you in an interview that you were a bunch of shit. You wouldn't tell that.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: If you'd say that in an interview that I'm a bunch of shit, I promise you I will put that on the air, FCC or no FCC.

DICK WILSON: What'd you say your name was?

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: McKiernan.

DICK WILSON: First name.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Kevin.

DICK WILSON: Kevin.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Tribal Chairman Richard Wilson. As the federal manhunt stretched from days into weeks on the Pine Ridge Reservation, attorneys representing many Indian residents sought to obtain an injunction in federal court against continued FBI presence. Roger Frenzel of the ongoing Wounded Knee Legal Offense/Defense Committee explained the reasons for the injunction.

ROGER FRENZEL: Since the killing of the FBI agent, they have been engaging in the arrests of people that they deemed-- that they wanted to find out information about. They arrested five people in Porcupine, South Dakota, and trumped up charges of disorderly conduct when the people were nowhere near an alleged shooting incident and had no weapons. And then they charged one of the people under federal law with assault with a dangerous weapon, gun, because they wanted to get that particular person out of circulation.

They have been walking into people's homes in the day and the night and been shown letters from attorneys saying that the people do not want to be questioned and to leave, and they have refused to leave. They have been arresting people on any charge that they can find in collusion with the BIA police in order to photograph them, to engage in lengthy interrogations, to trick them into waiving their rights so that they can submit-- force the people to take polygraph exams. They took the grandson of Wallace Little, and they held him for four days incommunicado in the Pine Ridge jail.

They tricked, forced, and threatened him into signing a waiver of his rights, compelled him to take polygraph examinations, and then finally held him on $50,000 bond as a material witness when there is no likelihood at all that he was going to flee anywhere and would appear if he were given a subpoena. Invading the privacy of the Oglala people and seeking information and associations about law abiding people in order to identify, classify, isolate, and eventually pen up and control and eventually eliminate the Oglala people from the face of the Earth. They have not grown up from the mentality of 100 years ago, and they still wish to destroy the Indian people.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: As of this date, the sought for FBI injunction has not been granted. But one reservation resident, Selo Black Crow, says that he is going to sue the FBI on his own. Black Crow, a medicine man who lives 80 miles from the site of the Oglala shootout and who runs a spiritual camp for students and teenage boys, said that the camp was assaulted in July by 24 FBI agents who landed there in two helicopters without a warrant.

SELO BLACK CROW: I urged the FBI men not to have fear in this camp. This is spiritual camp. I told them to stack arms outside the gate there to have respect for this camp. But FBI won't listen. There's still fear. They point a gun at everybody.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: You've indicated that you feel you have a very strong complaint against the FBI for coming here and searching without a warrant, for scaring the young people, and for intimidating and harassing you.

SELO BLACK CROW: I hope to go to court with them in a future or near future. After the FBI come, I told the people here FBI visit the place. So now, we have to expect Dick Wilson's auxiliary force or goons, they call them. So I said, now, we have to expect the goons to come in now.

They'll come in strong because they think the FBIs are helping them. But the goons haven't showed up today. They haven't showed up. So we have to expect them.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: At the FBI command post in Pine Ridge, I asked Bureau Spokesman Clay Brady about the Black Crow incident. The media reported that the helicopters were used in what a man on the far side of the reservation from Oglala termed an assault on his home and his property, Sylvester Black Crow.

CLAY BRADY: There was a situation. I don't have my notes here to recall exactly which day when we did have a report that several fugitives might be located at a residence near Wanblee. And based on the report, we did go there, searched the area with the permission of the owner, and the fugitives were not located. If we haven't a warrant for an arrest and information that an individual is somewhere, then it's our responsibility to determine if he is.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: But in that case, you did have a warrant. And Mr. Black Crow did give you permission to search the area.

CLAY BRADY: The residents we went to, we had warrants for the men we were looking for. And the owner did give us permission to conduct the search. That's right.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Mr. Black Crow said that he and his students in the camp were very afraid when the two helicopters landed and the FBI men ran through the grass with rifles or apparently M16s and then would jump in the grass and get up again and run forward. And some of the students apparently expressed fear as well. And inasmuch as no fugitives were found by the FBI at that location, how would the Federal Bureau of Investigation respond to Mr. Black Crow's allegation that this was harassment by law enforcement personnel?

CLAY BRADY: This is a situation that does come up from time to time as we seek to arrest fugitives, that is individuals with warrants outstanding to bring them before the court. And unfortunately, we have demonstrated here with the death of our agents, that at least some of the individuals whom we are seeking-- have been seeking on the reservation have chosen to use violence. And the best response that I know we can give is to use a force certain enough to, if at all possible, preclude the use of firearms by the others and certainly by ourselves.

And so in a situation like this, as it does come up throughout the country from time to time with law enforcement agencies, when you have information and its fairly immediate and the warrant is outstanding, well, you first must take the necessary precaution to do your very best to preclude the use of physical force, either by those you are seeking to arrest and consequently the law enforcement officer in response. And this is one of the things that does come up from time to time with law enforcement officers.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: You would not characterize that as harassment?

CLAY BRADY: Certainly, I'm trying to explain to you that it is not pointed as harassment, that it is something that does come up. And its certainly-- to anyone involved in a confrontation with law enforcement officers, particularly where they themselves are innocent, you can understand that they're uncomfortable. And so it's our responsibility to do the very best we can to have good information. And then when the information does not prove out, to make sure that the individuals where we have been understand what the situation is.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: The owner has told reporters that there was no warrant to search the buildings.

CLAY BRADY: The arrest warrant itself carries with it certain legal ability. Where you have information and the information is immediate, then an individual being sought really by the court is there, that warrant entitles you to make the necessary search. This warrant differs from a search warrant where you have time to obtain a search warrant. In that kind of a situation, certainly, you still do it. If it's property involved in the search warrant is involved, that's-- we're talking about two different legal instruments.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: FBI Spokesman Clay Brady denied that his agents were acting outside of the law. And in mid-July, he told the Rapid City journal, quote, "we're not going to harass anybody. Our business is to find the killers. I don't see how we can respond to each and every allegation," unquote. And so the manhunt goes on.

On July 26, Jimmy Eagle, the Indian wanted prior to the shootout, became the first individual charged in the death of the agents. Eagle had voluntarily surrendered to authorities earlier in July on the so-called kidnapping charge. His relationship, if any, to those being sought in the manhunt, has not been established publicly.

The living conditions on the reservation also go on, many of them with or without the dragnet. The federal grand jury investigating the Oglala shootings recessed in mid-July after a number of Pine Ridge Indians refused to testify. That grand jury will reconvene August 25.

As for the overall turmoil on the reservation, we now hear from South Dakota Assistant US Attorney RD Hurd, who was the chief government attorney in the unsuccessful Wounded Knee prosecution of Dennis Banks and Russell Means.

RD HURD: I have a strong feeling that militant movements sometimes go out and seek issues which cause emotional strain on underlying problems, and this erupts into violence. In other words, the underlying problems on the reservation have been there for a long time. They were there before the American Indian Movement came onto the scene.

The militancy of the American Indian movement, I think, caused an eruption of violence, eruption at the approach that people take to those problems. I wouldn't want to put the blame on any one group or any group of people for the violence. It's there. It's unfortunate.

Our job is to prosecute those who commit the crime, regardless of whether they're American Indian Movement, non-American Indian Movement. We don't really think of it in terms of the American Indian Movement.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Are you saying, in effect, that AIM does not create problems, but in these instances has exposed underlying problems?

RD HURD: Well, what I think I'm saying is this, is that acts of violence and criminal acts are committed by individuals. Now, why an individual might commit a criminal act might be because of the activity of an organization or because of underlying problems. And it's awfully hard to look into individual acts of violence.

Most of the violence on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is not the organized kind. It's not a movement type. It's not a demonstration type. It's not like the situation of Wounded Knee itself. It's individual acts of violence between individuals. It's awfully hard to look at those and say this is because of a particular organization or a particular idea.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: That conversation with South Dakota Prosecutor RD Hurd recorded a few days before the Oglala shootings. Another view of life on Pine Ridge and perhaps the context in which the recent shootings took place is provided by South Dakota US Senator James Abourezk.

JAMES ABOUREZK: The Oglala people down at Pine Ridge have been forced onto the reservation. Their method of making a living has been taken away from them. That is, hunting. They've been made to depend on government rations on clothing, on government shelter, which has only reached them part of the time.

And at any time that an Indian leader began to emerge, the Bureau of Indian affairs, of course, wanting to keep the Indians politically weak, then became very adept at factionalizing the Indians. All of that planting has come to harvest now in the mid-1970s, when you see factions down at Pine Ridge, the outlying full blood villages fighting the mixed blood village of Pine Ridge.

The mixed bloods control, of course, the reservation and the tribal government and are not responsive in any way to the outlying districts. And that is all caused by the grinding poverty, the resulting factionalism, and so on.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Would you say as well that besides the mixed bloods, full bloods, that it breaks down along economic lines as well on Pine Ridge?

JAMES ABOUREZK: Well, that's where the economic lines come from. The government money that is put onto Pine Ridge, that part of it that even gets to the Indian people is swallowed up for the most part by those in control of the government at Pine Ridge, and that is the mixed blood faction.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: And this would be Tribal Chairman Dick Wilson.

JAMES ABOUREZK: And his people. That's right.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: What is the answer at this point? There has been recently a terrible rash of violence which culminated in June with the shooting of two FBI agents and the shooting of an Indian, all three of whom died.

JAMES ABOUREZK: Well, for example, in 1974, there were 23 murders of Indians committed on the Pine Ridge Reservation. So far in 1975, not including the two FBI agents and the one Indian, there were 14 murders committed, and most of those were Indians.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Are most of these also unsolved?

JAMES ABOUREZK: All of them are unsolved, to my knowledge. I don't know of any that's been solved, nor investigated. Perhaps they have been, but I haven't heard of the investigation. But at any rate, you ask-- I guess, what your question is, what is the answer to it? I'm not sure that I know.

There were some Indian people who just met with me just before you came along who suggested partitioning the Pine Ridge Reservation along the lines of full blood versus mixed blood so that they could at least run their own government in the way that they want to do it. I don't know if that's the answer, but it's one thing to explore.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Senator Abourezk also told me that he has appealed to President Gerald Ford for intervention to help stem the ongoing reservation violence. Whatever happens now on Pine Ridge is anyone's guess. But many of the residents have already begun to accept the sometimes warzone atmosphere with an air of fatalism, a fatalism expressed here by Hugh Blacksmith, a coach and guidance counselor at a BIA school in Oglala.

HUGH BLACKSMITH: Sooner or later, I think I'm afraid something might happen to the Sioux people as a whole. Not either side getting hurt or anything, but the people themselves will eventually probably hurt themselves as a nation. I don't know, they just might lose everything in it.

We're having a hard time trying to keep our culture. We're having a hard time trying to get the students-- the children to see that they must have an education to get along in this world. But it's quite a fight because of all the-- it's quite a task to do that because of all these trouble that's going on.

I mean, the people will be here, but pretty soon, we won't be able to do anything. We'll be so probably afraid of each side that nobody would want to go to tribal meetings or so on. And it'll just decay, and people will just be people and not a nation.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Do you expect more violence on the reservation in 1975?

HUGH BLACKSMITH: Looking around in the world, seemed like there's nothing but violence. In the foreign countries, there's violence. In the cities, there's violence. And I don't see why this area would be so different.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: There's almost a resignation in your voice.

HUGH BLACKSMITH: It's just-- well, like the old saying, united, we stand, and divided, we fall. I think that's probably what will happen.

KEVIN MCKIERNAN: Hugh Blacksmith. And with hopefully some insight into the Shootout at Oglala, this is Kevin McKiernan.