by Joseph H. Trimbach

Lately, there’s been much discussion about Pine Ridge history of the 1970s, or the version of it that militant members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) would have us believe. Most historical texts follow suit: AIM was essentially an altruistic group of folks somehow badgered into committing acts of mayhem and murder. Few have challenged the fiction largely because books which promote the myths are usually well received; the more fraudulent the better. At the top of the heap is Peter Matthiessen’s In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, best known for breathing life into the Leonard Peltier legend.

Spirit slimed its way into mainstream acceptability, so that it is now considered common knowledge that the FBI defeated AIM with a secret undermining operation, while it railroaded Peltier into prison. About the only fact not in dispute is Peltier’s 1977 conviction for aiding and abetting the cold-blooded execution of FBI Agents Ron Williams and Jack Coler. If you believe Peltier’s boast, he shot Agent Williams in the face as he pleaded for his life.

Shortly after meeting Peltier, Matthiessen proceeded to swallow just about every whopper Peltier and his prison buddies conjured up. Spirit opens with claims of a vast government conspiracy to orchestrate Peltier’s prison escape, to effectuate an FBI assassination. Why? Well, after apparently changing its mind about the permanency of two consecutive life sentences, the Bureau needed to eliminate the political threat posed by America’s “Nelson Mandela.”

Matthiessen’s gullibility grew. On national television, he informed news anchor Tom Brokaw that Peltier’s alibi, the mysterious Mr. X – who had appeared wearing a hood over his head – was just too familiar with the crime scene not to be the real deal. “I don’t believe the guy could possibly be faking it,” assured Matthiessen. But – as we later learned – faking it he was, and the only newsworthy item at NBC was how easily Peltier and friends managed this trainable myth chaser.

Now comes young Steve Hendricks, Matthiessen’s heir apparent to conspiracy theory and shoddy research. Hendricks’s book, The Unquiet Grave, enlarges the government plot against AIM with new falsehoods deemed necessary to protect the legacy. Think Matthiessen lite: all the attitude, zero gravitas.

Grave’s war against the FBI follows Spirit’s same damned-if-they do/don’t reasoning. If the FBI investigated serious crimes on the reservation, it was interference and harassment. If the FBI failed to investigate, it was callous indifference or, as Hendricks often suggests, a cover-up. Rather than show new insight into AIM’s well-kept secrets, Hendricks shows only that he is another partisan who dares not look at the takeover of Wounded Knee village or any other AIM-led disaster with a critical eye. The politics just won’t allow it.

I should know, because I was there. While Hendricks was still learning to walk, I made the fateful decision to cordon off Wounded Knee, after AIM members and reservation outsiders looted the store, ousted the residents, and began posing as aggrieved villagers. The media bought it, and eventually, so did the history books. Hendricks informs that, earlier, U.S. Marshals had converged on the nearby BIA building in order to subvert an attempted impeachment of the tribal chairman. He either does not know or does not care to know that Marshals were sent to protect the building, after AIM threatened to do to that structure what they had done to BIA Headquarters in Washington.

Grave is rife with similar falsehoods, owing to a persistent failure to reference informed sources. At the center of Grave’s mistakes, the Aquash murder investigation. Anna Mae Aquash was executed after AIM leaders found her “guilty” of being an FBI informant. As it turned out, AIM murdered the wrong person. Until her dying breath, Anna Mae remained a loyal member.

Hendricks asserts the FBI did as much to cover up the murder as did AIM. For this, our first-time author must not only find proof but also motive. No problem. Hendricks relies on old FBI memos that show an investigation in progress, with Agents engrossed in formulating possible subjects. Evidence of conspiratorial mischief? How suspicious indeed, that more than one investigator visited the crime scene – at different times, no less.

To be judged worthy of vindication, FBI Agents, not AIMers, must prove with documents and photographs and who knows what else, that their hands are clean. And of course, no investigator associated with the case meets the criteria of innocence. Hence, they must all be guilty, the rascals. Setting aside the imbecility of murderous AIMers somehow in cahoots with Federal Agents tasked with investigating them, Hendricks’s smoking gun of complicity is limited to report semantics, a few perceived statement inconsistencies, and horror of horrors, an assumed date discrepancy.

That Hendricks had to pry some of these documents loose – vis-à-vis a lawsuit – only pricks him into more suspicions. What is not fully considered is why the government resists sharing details of a still active murder investigation with a pretentious upstart. Hendricks has no idea he is handing the guilty a new raft of alibis of the sort that has enabled them to escape justice for the better part of 30 years. If Grave is an indication of how thoroughly one book can muddle a murder investigation, officials are rightfully concerned.

In the ultimate tale of good intentions run amok, Hendricks has become a de-facto accomplice to murder cover-up. Like Matthiessen before him, he sustains conspiracy enthusiasts with the same paltry journalistic standards that have lured readers into believing in Peltier’s innocence. But then, why should we expect anything better from a book Hendricks acknowledges Matthiessen helped him manufacture?

Recently, Hendricks got into trouble because he reported a truthful aspect to the saga: the AIM murder of Wounded Knee’s Ray Robinson. AIM blowhard Russell Means reacted by knocking the peepers off Hendricks at a recent book signing. If he were true to his logic, Hendricks would have to attribute Russell’s bad manners to FBI undermining. This is, after all, the same reasoning he uses to excuse AIM’s sordid past.

Interestingly, when Hendricks had the chance to ask me about topics he obviously needed help with, he passed – no sense ruining a good book idea. In any event, he ought to consider himself lucky. All he got was a shove. In the 1970s, many innocent people fared far worse.

Joseph H. Trimbach, author of the forthcoming book, American Indian Mafia, was the FBI Special Agent in Charge – Minneapolis Division, from 1973 to mid-1975.