2 Asked To Talk By Jury
Indian Activist, Writer Called In BIA Probe
Source: Washington Post, p. C1
Date: February 12, 1973
Author(s): Donald Baker
A federal grand jury here, investigating the theft of documents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has asked reporter Leslie H. Whitten Jr. and Indian activist Henry L. (Hank) Adams to testify before it Wednesday
Whitten, Adams and Anita Collins are scheduled to appear as a preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court on Thursday on charges of possessing stolen government documents.
They were arrested Jan. 31, while carrying cartons of items that had been stolen from the Bureau of Indian Affairs during the occupation of that government building last Nov. 2 to 8.
The grand jury heard testimony Friday from two young Indians who have been granted immunity from prosecution by the government.
Adams, an Assiniboine-Sioux from Frank's Landing, Wash., has been the chief negotiator between the federal government and the coalition of Indian organizations that came here last November to protest federal treatment of Indian. The Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan erupted into a violent demonstration and documents, artifacts and equipment were stolen at the end of a six-day siege of the BIA building.
Adams contended at the time of their arrest that he was attempting to return the documents and that Whitten was along to cover the story. Whitten is an investigative reporter for syndicated columnist Jack Anderson.
The two men were arrested as they carried two cartons of government documents from Adams' apartment, at 1464 Rhode Island Ave., NW, to Whitten's car. A third carton was recovered in the building lobby. Miss Collins was not with them, but she also was charged.
The two Indians who appeared before the grand jury on Friday, Allison Cerri and Daniel J. Pigeon, earlier had invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify. They were asleep in Adams' apartment when Adams and Whitten were arrested.
FBI agents also arrested them but the charges were dropped later that same day.
Miss Cerri, who is also knwon by the Indian name Puma Jackson, said that after testifying she was convinced that prosecutors "apparently realize they can't pin Hank with the documents, because of all his public statements that he planned to return them, so now they want to get him for something else."
Pigeon said the grand jury questioned him about 30 minutes, "mostly about Hank, Anita, and Les Whitten."
Both said prosecutors directed questions to them about Whitten, columnist Anderson and a typewriter that FBI agents seized in a search of Adams' apartment following the arrests.
"They asked me if I knew Whitten on sight," Pigeon said. "I said that I didn't even know his name, or that he was a reporter for Jack Anderson. Of course, I do now."
Pigeon said no questions were asked about undercover policeman John G. Arellano, who posed as an Apache Indian for four months and provided the FBI with information that led to the arrests. "But I mentioned Johnny in some of my answers," Pigeon said.
He said he testified that Adams at one time told him he was going to return some documents to the BIA building, but that he was unaware that the cartons were being transported on Jan. 31 "until after I was arrested."
Pigeon said he was asked to describe the confiscated typewriter, and also testified that he had seen Adams use it at different times over a period of weeks. (Adams contends the typewriter was given to him several years ago in Olympia, Wash.)
Miss Cerri said she testified that she first saw the three cartons of documents when she and Pigeon returned from a shopping trip the afternoon before the arrests.
"They asked me if I had ever seen Les Whitten in Hank's apartment (to which she answered no) and if Jack Anderson's name was ever mentioned," Miss Cerri said.
"I told them that was really absurd (asking about Anderson)," sie said, "because a name like that is going to be mentioned."
She said she had asked FBI agents the morning of their arrest, "Who was that guy (Whitten) who got busted with our group."
Whitten, who has supplied Anderson with columns about alleged injustices to Indians by the government, said he had offered the use of his car to Adams in exchange for an exclusive story on the return of the documents.
"I even had a lead written in my head," Whitten said yesterday. "It would go something like 'Hank Adams, derided by the White House for his efforts, has quietly returned the largest stash of stolen documents to the FBI.' It would have been a neat trick, what with the FBI looking all over the country for the stuff."
Whitten said that "the only reason to arrest a reporter with documents is to keep the information away from the public, because a reporter has no use for the documents except for his stories."
Whitten said he could not say whether he would appear before the grand jury because his attorney has told him not to discuss the matter. Whitten and Adams were not subpoenaed but were asked to appear by letter.
Miss Collins has said that she and Arellano picked up the cartons at the bus station the day before her arrest and took them to Adams' apartment. Adams said the documents had been sent to him from South Dakota, for return to the BIA.
Adams and Miss Collins contend that Arellano knew they planned to return the documents to the government and that the FBI moved in before they could accomplish it.
Shortly before their arrest, Adams and Whitten said they wrote on the cartons the name and telephone of Dennis Hyten, a special agent assigned to the Washington field office of the BIA. Adams said he previously had returned other BIA material to Hyten, at a meeting in his apartment and even got a receipt from Hyten listing the recovered items.
Adams said the plan on the day of the arrest was to transport the cartons to the BIA building and show them to an investigator for the House Appropriations Committee and then call agent Hyten.
Adams frequently had been quoted as saying he was working for the return of the documents. Adams contended the thefts had obscured the valid complaints that had brought the Indians to Washington.
In an interview filmed by an ABC television crew in Adams' apartment on Jan. 18, undercover agent Arellano sat four feet from Adams and listened as Adams promised that the documents would be returned "in a short period of time," according to ABC staff members.
The interview was taped for a "The Harry Reasoner Report" but has not been shown. Producer Aram Boyajian said Arellano can be seen in the film.
Boyajian said the transcript shows Adams saying: "We have some information on the nature of the documents that were taken and know that these documents will be returned in a short period of time. And then the government will continue to lie. They'll say, you know, they weren't returned or some were still missing."
After the White House officially rejected the 20 proposals of the Trail of Broken Treaties, in a note to Adams on Jan. 10, Adams revealed that he already had returned "several thousand dollars worth of documents and paintings." He then set a date of Feb. 10 for return of the other property, allowing 30 days to gather them from across the U.S.
Bradley H. Patterson Jr., executive assistant to Leonard Garment, the presidential assistant who was cochairman of a task force studying Indian complaints, recalled yesterday that he told Adams: "Hank, if you know where any of these documents and other things are, or if you have any yourself, I encourage you to return them to the Washington field office of the FBI."
There is other evidence that government officials suggested that documents be returned in the manner Adams said he was attempting to do.
On Nov. 14, a BIA spokesman said he had told several anonymous callers that stolen items could be returned to the FBI.
On Nov. 22, Adams wrote to President Nixon to complain about the failure of the government to clean up the BIA building. Adams noted that he had "acted through all forms available to me for the protection of such materials during all the days of this month"
After the White House officially rejected the 20 proposals of the Trail of Broken Treaties, in a note to Adams on Jan. 10, Adams revealed that he already had returned "several thousand dollars worth of documents and paintings." He then set a date of Feb. 10 for return of the other property, allowing 30 days to gather them from across the U.S.[sic]