Employees of BIA To Resume Work
Employees of BIA To Resume Work
The new acting director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs said yesterday that he expects all BIA employees to be back at their desks Wednesday, ending more than a month of paid leave for many of the bureau's 450 employees.
Richard S. Bodman, named by Interior Secretary Rogers C. B. Morton to reorganize the strife-torn bureau, said that he met yesterday with about a dozen BIA officials and "established a chain of command."
The reorganization came on the eve of a House investigation into the government's handling of nearly 1,000 demonstrators who occupied the BIA building for six days last month.
Bodman said department heads ranking just below the bureau's two top administrators "gave me an expression of confidence." Bodman, who is assistant secretary of Interier for management and budget, was picked Saturday to "put Indian operations back to work" after the three federal officials primarily responsible for Indian affairs were relieved of their duties by Morton.
Two of those officials, Harrison Loesch, assistant secretary of Interior for land management and Indian affairs, and Louis R. Bruce Jr., BIA commissioner, are scheduled to testify today before the House Subcommittee on Indian Affairs. The official relieved was John O. Crow, deputy commissioner of the BIA.
Rep. James Haley (D-Fla.) has set aside three days to hear testimony about the protest and resulting damage. Haley's inquiry will deal only with the government's role in handling the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan.
Participants said they came here from across the country to meet peacefully with federal officials on 20 specific grievances, but when negotiations over housing broke down, caravan members refused to leave the BIA building.
Before they finally left it on Nov. 8, every office in the four-story building at 19th Street and Constitution Avenue NW was vandalized. Damage originally was calculated at more than $2 million.