BIA Smugglers Tricked the Police
BIA Smugglers Tricked the Police
The startling story can now be told how Indian activists used a police escort to help smuggle stolen government documents out of Washington.
With motorcycles roaring, the police rushed a 40-car Indian caravan through the city. The ceremonial escort was eagerly provided by the harassed officials at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, whose building had been occupied and ransacked by the Indians.
The police, as they whistled traffic to a stop to make way for the Indians, had no idea that they were the unwitting accomplices in the biggest document heist in history.
For the Indians had discovered in the BIA’s files documentary evidence of bureaucratic bungling, neglect and outright chiseling. Angrily, they bundled the documents in cardboard boxes and loaded them on a truck in the dead of night; wrapped others in sleeping bags and packed them in car trunks, spirited still other documents aboard a chartered bus.
Not until the Broken Treaty Papers, as the Indians call them, were safely out of town did the authorities fully realize what had happened. Then the FBI organized a nationwide dragnet to retrieve the incriminating documents.
It's unlikely, however, that the federal bloodhounds will ever be able to track down all the papers, which are now dispersed around the country in hidden caches. We are the only outsiders who have been taken to some of the hiding places and have been permitted to examine thousands of documents.
The story of the Broken Treaties Papers began after some 1,000 protesters, in the most audacious Indian Uprising since Sitting Bull overwhelmed Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Little Big Horn, seized the BIA building. On the fourth floor, they found row on row of filing cabinets. The more curious began to check into the paperwork affecting their tribes.
Incensed over what they had found, they decided that the several tribes had the right to read how the BIA had mishandled their affairs. So they began sneaking documents out of the building at night in coats, sleeping bags, and suitcases.
Sudden Breakdown
The White House, meanwhile, was preparing to use force to oust the Indians from the building. Russ Means, a college educated Oglala Sioux, the tribe of the fierce Crazy Horse, got on the pone to Indian Commissioner Louis Bruce. Means bluntly informed the commissioner that the Indians had been rummaging through the files and had found incriminating data on officials.
Within an hour, the White House suddenly changed its unyielding attitude and sent aides Len Garment and Frank Carlucci to negotiate with the Indians over grievances. This reaffirmed to the Indian leaders the importance of the documents.
Immediately, they began the wholesale removal of documents from the files. The night before they evacuated the building, they crammed several cardboard boxes full of documents and stacked them into a truck. But the truck returned again after circling the block, because the driver had spotted two police cars behind him. A more audacious driver took the wheel and lumbered past the police into the night.
The remaining documents were escorted out of town the next day by the police. At the head of the 40-car caravan was a green van, which was the command post of the leaders. Aboard were the articulate Russ Means and an ex-paratrooper named Sid Mills, who had been wounded in Vietnam.
They were protected by two security chiefs – Larry Hand Boy, a ham-fisted Cheyenne River Sioux whose forefathers fought alongside the great Sitting Bull, and Steve Robideau, a Chippewa-Sioux built like a six-foot-three defensive end.
After the authorities discovered the documents were missing, the FBI began surveillance of the caravan and watched it rumble through Cleveland. Then some of the cars began to peel off.
The FBI was also tipped off by an Indian informant that the “stuff stolen from the Bureau of Indian Affairs building” was stashed in the van.
In St. Paul, the FBI finally made its move. Reinforced by police scout cars and paddy wagons, the G-men swooped down on the green van. Agent William Lais, tough but courteous, ordered the occupants out. The total loot consisted of one BIA typewriter, an Indian school application, and a note pad.
The agents neglected to check the trunks of other cars, where thousands of documents were hidden in sleeping bags. Still another vehicle, carrying a major stash, had left the caravan a few hours earlier.
The FBI subsequently scored one small success. A raid in Oklahoma recovered a few unimportant papers.
In future columns, we'll tell what the Indians discovered in the hidden papers.
Footnote: While the government files were being emptied, the Indians' mild-mannered spokesman, Hank Adams, was purposely kept in the dark as he negotiated with the White House.