128 Wilson, Pamela.

"Disputable Truths: The American Stranger, Television Documentary and Native American Cultural Politics in the 1950s." Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1996.

CHAPTER THREE: CONSTRUCTING THE AMERICAN STRANGER

PREPARING FOR THE STORM In the summer of 1958, journalist Robert McCormick, who was State Department correspondent for NBC's Washington News Bureau, began researching what he thought would be a routine political story about a "feud" developing between two Washington bureaucrats--Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn Emmons (whose agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, fell under the jurisdiction of the Interior Department). However, during the course of investigating the tensions within the Interior Department, McCormick soon realized that the "story" was actually one of a much larger scale which concerned not only national policies and practices but which involved the complex history of political and ideological struggle surrounding what was often, in white circles, called "the Indian problem." This "story" represented deep tensions between local, regional and national interests which were manifested and circulated in cultural, racial and politico-economic discourses. These tensions had been coming to a head for several years in the political maneuvering surrounding Congressional termination legislation. 1 To understand the complexities of the government, it is important to distinguish the perspectives, missions and accompanying discourses which separate the policy-making factions of the federal government from those directly responsible

129 for implementing those policies. The Department of the Interior and its subsidiary Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) were the agencies which implemented the policies set by Congress in the areas of land and resource management, as well as the complex administration of Indian reservations. The BIA was set up in a series of regional Areas, with Agencies at each major reservation. As in any other national organization with regional and local branches, the implementation of policies slowly filtered down through the ranks, and the politics of each locality differed according to the dynamics of the personalities involved and the particular relationship between the Agency personnel and the tribes within the jurisdiction. As Vine Deloria has explained, In Indian affairs, . . . policy occurs at two levels of involvement. High-level pronouncements deal with the theory and ideology of social responsibility, and here the pendulum swings back and forth between accepting an onerous and continuing financial responsibility for providing services to Indian communities and abruptly casting Indians into the American mainstream where they can be slowly digested at the bottom of the industrial economic pyramid. This arena is defined by newspapers, politicians and legislators. It is usually phrased in pious but well-intentioned ideas that seek spiritual comfort and direction rather than on . . . the implementation of policy. Deloria continues: At a much lower level of policy we find the nebulous arena of implementation. Here personal whims, misunderstandings, the security of federal employment, the informal networks of political bureaucracy, and the guerilla tactics of political activism play an important role. . . . The lower-level bureaucracy largely determines what the policy of the government will be. . . . Traditionally, we have sought to analyze federal Indian policy in a linear fashion, pretending that one line of ideology is dominant at both levels of policy-making. . . . While this line of thought helps us to interpret the heroes and villains of the piece, it rarely accounts for the important changes in the configuration of Indian country.

130 Thus, Deloria views federal Indian policy discourses as a sometimes-connected bunch of topical interests that have considerable interplay and that all demand our attention. 2 Even though the termination policies were made official with the 1953 passage of HCR 108, which ambiguously expressed the sense of Congress in these matters, there was a great deal of debate as to its appropriate interpretation in practice: specifically, the degree to which the Resolutions mandate dictated immediate and continued implementation by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The argument frequently came down to a general distrust of the judgement of federal administrators, particularly the civil servants in the administrative echelons of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As one resident of Montanas Fort Peck reservation expressed, Too long Indians have been at the mercy of one man, the Secretary of the Interior. This man is human, and, therefore, must have assistants. Indian people have for the past 150 years been the victims of underlings of the Secretary of the Interior. The underlings in turn depend upon the recommendation of lesser underlings of the Indian Bureau field personnel to make decisions on important matters. . . . [italics in original] 3 As Max Gubatayao, a non-Indian Montana activist, wrote about the crisis on the reservations in 1958: Termination is . . . the guiding principle of the [Interior] Department. We must try to get through to the public about this dangerous fact and ask for a new policy directive in the next Congress. Every Agency is still operating on the 1955 memorandum from the Commissioner for "programming" termination. The Bureau was told to withdraw its services and its support from the tribes in order to make the tribes carry the whole load of subsistence and reservation development. I think the crises of the reservations in 1958 are directly due to efforts of field personnel to accomplish these objectives. . . . This seems to be the key to demoralization and unmet needs running riot on every reservation. 4

131 "Every day here in Great Falls," he continued, "I see evidence that the tribes are coming apart at the seams, and unless something happens but quick there are going to be wholesale casualties, not only among the Indians physically through starvation, but through the disastrous death of tribal organization." Gubatayao criticized termination as the "negative approach" to the Indian question, "an approach of abandonment that solves nothing but creates a new wave of problems of want and misery." 5 Any binary explanatory model conceiving of conflicts between local and national levels, between tribes and the federal government, or between dominant (by virtue of race/class/ethnicity) and subordinate groups must be complicated by the existence at the local/regional level of, on the one hand, liberal white non-Indian grassroots activists (such as the many citizens' groups of Great Falls), whose progressive social reform interests often overlapped with those of the tribes, and, on the other hand, of wealthy corporate landowners and entrepreneurs in natural resource exploitation, whose local interests in tribal land were behind the legislative drive for "termination." At a political level, these opposing camps generally were affiliated with Democratic and Republican perspectives, respectively. Also at the regional level, state and county governments and agencies such as departments of Indian Affairs, Public Health and Public Instruction were generally anti-terminationist because under the terms of the proposed policies, the responsibilities for most social services to Indian communities previously handled federally government would fall to them. Western Montana's Congressional delegation was heavily Democratic at this time, and stood "united in the matter of Federal responsibilities and obligations, united

132 in the defense of Indian rights and the welfare of Montana, where the special status and services to Indians must be maintained." 6 Local tribal groups and interest groups were also affiliated to varying degrees with national organizations and coalitions, which played significant roles in working with national media, rallying support in other regions, connecting local/regional issues to broader national ones, and lobbying for policy changes in Congress. These include the NCAI, the AAIA, Indian Rights Association, and more regional clusters such as the Montana Intertribal Policy Board and the Governor's Interstate Indian Council. Many religious denominations and interdenominational groups (such as the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.) had Indian Affairs Committees, and were primarily dedicated to altruistic and benevolent goals. Catholic, particularly Jesuit, missionary orders were engaged in "ministries for justice," which involved securing basic human rights and cultural dignity for oppressed groups. Also strongly anti-terminationist were national conservation associations such as the National Forestry Association, the National Wildlife Federation and Resources for the Future, all of which saw termination efforts as environmental threats. These national groups, however, were not free of internal ideological and political conflicts, and their alliances with local and tribal movements were frequently viewed with suspicion. 7

DOCUMENTARY AND THE TELEVISION INDUSTRY When McCormick began independently researching the story for his investigative documentary on American Indian politics in the summer of 1958, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) television network was in a state of major

133 transition. Always the dominant broadcasting network during the radio years, the network had begun to face stiff competition from CBS, particularly in the field of news and public affairs. NBC had in 1956 acquired a national signal through their coaxial network, so the stage was set for a new vision of programming for a national audience. 8 A number of factors within the industry contributed to the fertile soil in which the seed which was to become The American Stranger could take root and be nourished. Foremost among these favorable conditions was the new attitude about news and public affairs taking hold at NBC. Just a few months earlier, Robert Kintner had taken the helm as President of the network after a turnover following the departure of Sylvester Pat Weaver, during which time RCA Chairman David Sarnoffs son Robert had presided over the network operations. Once at NBC, Kintner, a newspaperman and columnist prior to working his way to the Presidency of NBCs rival network the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), fused his passion for journalistic excellence and his zeal for high entertainment ratings into a highly successful formula which shaped network programming trends for the next several decades. Kintner was lauded within the industry and the press for applying the doctrine of common sense to many a ticklish problem and for his refreshing cold realism. He spearheaded the move to make television a respectable journalistic medium by dedicating unprecedented network resources and air time to news and documentary programming. As the first journalist to head a network, Kintner took pride in the informational potential of broadcasting, and believed that television could fulfill its mission to society

134 through news programming. He possessed a keen understanding and clear vision of televisions potential as a journalistic medium. Known affectionately as the managing editor of the NBC news division because of his hands-on approach, President Kintner was directly responsible for the development of a strong news component at NBC. By increasing budget allocations and air time for the news division, and hiring top news executives and journalists (often from CBS, with whom NBC was in ferocious competition), Kintner had by the end of the decade built a high-prestige, unequaled news division at NBC which reigned throughout the early 1960s. The major components of Kintners three-pronged public affairs initiative were the nightly network newscasts, the development of strong prime-time documentary series, and the preemption of regular programs to provide live coverage of breaking news events. The anchor team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley dominated news during this period, and by 1963 both NBC and CBS would extend their evening newscasts from fifteen to thirty minutes, a move which many critics credited as making television a serious information medium comparable to newspapers. Kintners vision of the medium as a way to educate and inform citizens about social issues was enabled by public and government pressures, especially heightened in the wake of the quiz show scandals which would shake the industry in 1959, to increase the prestige of the industry by increasing prime-time public affairs programming by the networks. In the years following The American Stranger, Kintner would revitalize NBCs network documentary units, which had focused mainly on cultural programming, to begin to take on serious social and political issues in series such as NBC White Paper. By 1962, Kintner would be claiming that the networks were

135 proving whats right with television--bringing space flights, civil rights riots, election coverage and swiftly breaking events into Americas living rooms. Although often gently criticized for micro-managing the NBC news division, Kintner hosted the transformation of news/informational programming from a peripheral aspect of television programming to the prestige end of broadcasting. When Kintner came aboard the network in 1958, however, the mandate under which he was to operate involved operations with low budgets and aimed at high ratings and the attraction of consistent and habitual viewers. Programming produced by outside packagers, such as filmed westerns and action shows as well as the trendy quiz shows (which were at their peak in the 1958-59 season, just prior to their downfall due to scandal), dominated the schedule. However, Kintner's support for journalistic programming altered the administrative perception of the role of the network's news division, which had previously been undersupported since it was not a lucrative programming division. According to Kepley, [Kintner] looked to news specials to secure viewership for NBC's regular evening news broadcasts. . . . Rather than lots of educational or cultural specials, . . . Kintner's news division organized their specials around timely events, "hot topics" for which there was much immediate, and sometimes perhaps ephemeral, interest among the population. . . . Those who tuned in for these topical programs were also expected to . . . decide to become loyal watchers of NBC's evening news report. 9 The financing of television news documentaries was apparently not a problem during the Kintner era, according to Kepley, since up to 40% of the cost was absorbed into the division's prior budget in salaries and materials: An hour-long news special could actually be produced at less cost to the network than the license fee for an hour-long entertainment program. When NBC ran a news documentary, they scheduled it in their weakest

136 slots, usually up against a CBS ratings leader. . . . Then NBC would sell commercial time to specialized or institutional advertisers, hoping to counter-program CBS's presumably middle-brow fare. NBC had a standing arrangement with Gulf Oil, for example, giving them first refusal on commercial time in news documentaries, a plan that banked on the oil company's interest in image advertising. 10 Little information is available in the archival materials about the conditions under which the Kaleidoscope series originated or was funded. Unlike other new public affairs series, such as Wide, Wide World, there seems to have been no regular corporate sponsor of the series, which began airing in the Sunday afternoon time slot occupied by the well-received Omnibus (which was underwritten by the Ford Foundation with spots sold to commercial advertisers). 11 There is no indication in the archival materials on The American Stranger regarding sponsorship, if any, of the documentary. However, Boddy has noted that in 1958 corporate image advertising was down sharply, partly due to an economic recession. 12 NBCs promotional materials indicate that NBC spent $55,000 on the net program costs of The American Stranger. A slick brochure about the documentary, distributed by NBCs sales department to try to attract potential advertisers, lists a total of seven minutes of commercial time available, in four positions, plus a ten-second opening and closing billboard for each sponsor. (In the kinescope, there is indication of one station break halfway through the hour-long script.) It is apparent that NBC was targeting the same demographic group with this show that it had been able to successfully attract with Wide Wide World (which had been aired from 4:00 to 5:30 on Sundays the previous season). The sales brochure provides an economic rationale for the purchase of advertising spots by emphasizing that the 5:00-6:00 p.m. Sunday

137 time period is Sunday afternoons peak viewing hour, with 42 percent of all television homes (approximately 18,732,000) having sets turned on at that time. In addition, this time slot offers the characteristically high Sunday afternoon availability of men which last year enabled Wide Wide World to deliver 89 men viewers per 100 homes (nine percent more than the average evening program). With NBA Pro Basketball providing the lead-in audience, the Kaleidoscope series was projected to attract perhaps an ever larger percentage of men, since NBA basketball had been known to draw 99 men per 100 sets. 13 Records indicate that NBC made The American Stranger available for sponsorship either as a full hour telecast or for joint presentation by two advertisers. The per-telecast sponsorship cost, based on November 1, 1958 rates for a typical lineup of 125 top NBC-TV stations with an estimated NTI coverage of 97.5% of U.S. TV homes was $119,266 for sponsorship of the full hour, or $65,120 for each half hour. The brochure adds that, As a filmed report on a little-known aspect of the contemporary scene, assembled and narrated by a veteran newsman, THE AMERICAN STRANGER offers the same type of informative, challenging approach that has made Omnibus (now alternating with NBC Kaleidoscope in the 5:00-6:00 p.m. time period) a favorite with the late Sunday afternoon TV audience. A special dividend, the marketers added, was the sponsorship of a conversation-piece series backed by the full resources and authority of NBC News, the oldest, most experienced and best-known news-gathering organization in the broadcast industry. 14

138 Since the kinescope did not contain any indication of sponsorship, and no other records with any such indications are available, it is unclear if national sponsorship was ever acquired for this particular broadcast. It is interesting to note, however, that there is no correspondence in the files indicating any desire by either a sponsor or the network to amend any of the controversial editorial positions voiced by McCormick, even those critical of major corporate interests and government policies. This particular documentary seems to be a solitary effort pushed through based primarily on the interests of an individual producer who was a respected journalist and network employee, and who was given the freedom to pretty much do what he wanted from his Washington headquarters without much supervision from the New York offices of NBC. A Kentucky native, McCormick, like Kintner, had started his career as a newspaper journalist. He had climbed the career ladder at the Washington News during the Depression years, moving from copy boy to reporter to city editor and columnist during the heyday of Roosevelts New Deal, when Washington politics was awash in a sea of liberal reform. He spent six years as the Washington correspondent for Colliers Magazine prior to joining NBC during World War II, where he served as war correspondent and chief of NBC News Central Pacific Bureau, covering action for radio which included the battle of Iwo Jima. Following the war, he became head of NBCs Washington TV News Bureau in 1949, on the ground floor of the TV news industry. In this role, he was reported (in 1958 literature) to have introduced and pioneered many innovations in TV news presentation which have since been universally adopted. In 1951, NBC sent McCormick to Europe as coordinator of NBC News television films, and also headed the Bonn News Bureau for the network,

139 returning to Washington in 1955. He covered both national political conventions for NBC in 1956, and became a fixture in reporting government, particularly State Department, matters for NBC-TV as well as appearing on NBC News Specials. In addition to his television work, McCormick continued to pursue his original calling in broadcasting--radio news announcing--appearing on NBCs Monitor, Nightline and News on the Hour radio programs. In its historical context as an investigative documentary of contemporary social concerns, The American Stranger aired in a gap in which very little else of its type was seen on television. It follows the reign of Edward R. Murrow and See It Now, which ended its run earlier the same year on CBS, and is a precursor to the investigative social documentaries of the early 1960's epitomized by Harvest of Shame and broadcast in what became institutionalized series such as CBS Reports, NBC White Paper and ABC's Closeup. Precedents in documentary programming at NBC prior to this time had been set by series such as Victory at Sea and Project 20, which focused on non-controversial cultural, arts and historical information.

A GATHERING OF REGIONAL VOICES Intrigued by the complex regional and intercultural politics of the termination situation--a political conflict of which most white Americans were unaware and which had never before been explicated to the public on national television--McCormick

140 sought the permission of his NBC superiors to prepare an extended news documentary. He had many choices as to how to proceed, since the perspectives of competing interest groups converged around these issues; he chose to investigate localized reservation conditions to search for an angle that would be both visually captivating and politically riveting. Through an inside connection (Helen McMillan Meyers, the public information officer for the Association for American Indian Affairs, who was married to NBC's News Director Joe Meyers), he gained a great deal of information about the inside politics of the Indian Affairs subculture, as demonstrated in a letter from Helen Meyers dating from June, 1958: As Joe says you are snooping around the Bureau of Indian Affairs these days, I am hastening to send you a couple of things from our Association files which may be useful to you. . . . I hope I am not overwhelming you with information you don't want or need. . . . There is a good deal more to the Indian story than Klamath or Menominee, but it is so complex that no one person has ever tried to put it together, before this. The Indians certainly are stirring--the other day we had another of several phone calls from an Algonquian leader of a prosperous Indian group up in Bennington, Vermont where they have a dairy and timber tract that was ceded to them by the crown and deeded to them later by the state. Alarmed at the possibility of future attacks by Government even on their safe property, they are asking, 350 strong, to join our Association and want to bring in 450 Penobscots with them. This is absolutely unprecedented, as we have never had group Indian membership before. It appears to us to be an evidence of how much the wind is up in these Indians over what they think is going to be wholesale termination of all the reservations in the

141 end, without regard for the Indians' preference to preserve their own culture and their own land. People like the Omahas up in Macy, Nebraska, who have been about the most downtrodden and sick and despairing of all the tribes, have recently risen from their lethargy to try to start a community development plan which will help them to be self-sufficient. They were refused this chance once, by the Interior Department, but are stubborn and are continuing, trying to enlist the help of the University of Nebraska for specialist in agriculture, education and political government so that they can learn to manage their own affairs. They are afraid they will be terminated before they can get to the point of standing on their own feet. If you show any interest in this, Meyers continued, I shall send you a report, just to be published this month, on the Omahas, which reads like a good novel. Our Executive Director, who works out on the reservations with these Indians, wrote it and did a remarkable job of simplifying for the layman just exactly what problems the Indians are up against under present BIA policies. [italics added] 15 The pro-Indian interest group provided the television journalist with copies of correspondence and literature relevant to the issues at hand. One such item was a letter from the Chief of the Choctaw Tribe of Oklahoma, who was engaged in a power struggle with the Indian Bureau over who had the authority to appoint or elect the Chief; the letter also refers to the broader political context of termination issues and contestation over control of tribal land: Our experience with the powers in Washington through the last ten years has been most unhappy and has been devastating to Choctaw confidence. . . . We know, by galling experience, how

142 conniving the politicians are, and how easily a defenseless people can become victimized by those of mercenary mind. The Chiefs letter continued: The Choctaws are taking off the kid gloves, and if Mr. Ernst really wishes to receive some letters from the interested Choctaw, he will certainly get his wish. We have tried to handle this thing without a fight and the attendant uproar that is concomitant of a public fight. . . . This should give us time to get our plea before the people of this country and to point up the ignominy with which the smug bureaucrats disregard the pleadings of a people already reduced to plebianism through the ruthless greed that has marked the dealings of these bureaucrats through the centuries in the unending struggle for possession of the Indians birthright--[our] land. 16 Encouraging the journalist to go into the field and talk with Indian people on their own turf, AAIA leaders also supplied McCormick with letters of introduction to several tribal leaders, such as this one addressed to Lloyd Eaglebull of the Pine Ridge (South Dakota) Tribal Council: A National Broadcasting Company (New York and Washington) radio and television news reporter is touring some of the Indian reservations during his vacation in mid-July and has asked us for a letter of introduction to the tribal council at Pine Ridge in the hope of talking quietly to a few of the key Indian leaders on land sales, termination, and other government policies. He is Mr. Robert McCormick, he is a good friend of ours, and sincerely anxious to get at the truth of how well Indians are being served by present legislation on their behalf. The letter of introduction continued: This is just to tell you that you may be frank with him, and that if you request it, he will respect any confidences you may make to him. The

143 broadcasting company is exploring material for a news report on both television and radio that will give a faithful picture of just what is happening to the Indians today. 17 With these letters of introduction in hand, but no camera, McCormick traveled throughout Western reservations the summer of 1958 to talk face-to-face with local tribal leaders, whose voices rarely reached a national audience, and to get a first-hand view of socioeconomic conditions. LaFarge later characterized McCormicks process of information-gathering: Mr. McCormick spent weeks of his vacation on reservations in the Plains and North Central States to find out how Indian citizens were doing in the year 1958 in the United States. Before he went he prowled Washington for Congressional opinion; read official documents; lent ear to the "official" administration line about federal Indian policy; and weighed all this against what Indian interest organizations like our own had to say. On location in the West, he talked to Indian leaders, tribesmen, churchmen, politicians, and others, and came back with more material than he could possibly use. 18 The conditions and issues McCormick confronted in the field were overwhelming, and his story took shape around the existing debates about the economic aspects of termination, framed by tribal perspectives as they were presented to him. Based on his extensive on-site interviews with tribal leaders and their allies around the nation, McCormick prepared a series of extended memoranda, which were actually in-depth assessments and status reports regarding the history of a number of tribal groups affected by threats of termination: an overview of their social and economic conditions, and their feelings about the threat of termination and their relationship with the federal government. These reports for his superiors at NBC summarized the situations he encountered and observed in his travels through Indian country and in his interviews with tribal and local leaders. They consisted of lengthy

144 detailed overviews of the termination saga of the Klamath Tribe of Oregon and the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin (both in the process of being terminated), the Flathead Tribe of Wisconsin, and the Colville Tribe of Washington State. He also prepared an overview concerning the land pressures being felt by the tribes of the northern Plains states (the Dakotas, Wyoming, Nebraska and Montana), including the Three Affiliated Tribes, the Sioux, the Omaha, the Chippewa, the Winnebago, the Northern Cheyenne, the Crow, the Arapaho and Cheyenne, the Flathead and the Blackfeet Nations. In many cases, he asked tribal leaders and other experts to read over and revise his reports to ensure accuracy in interpretation and presentation. From these reports, he culled what he considered the major issues and constructed a 15-page overview which would form the basis for his broadcast commentary. 19 McCormick decided to focus his television report primarily on the contrasting conditions of two Montana tribes, whose reservations were geographically separated only by the range of the Northern Rockies but which were culturally distinguished by extreme differences in cultural history, modes of economic production, degrees of prosperity and adaptation to "mainstream" American cultural life. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes occupied the lush Flathead Valley, between Kalispell and Missoula, with fertile farmlands, thick pine forests, the abundant Flathead Lake, and an economy built around agriculture, forestry and tourism. A group of Northern Montana tribes had been confederated as the Flathead Nation under the provisions of the 1855 Hell Gate Treaty, which established a reservation in the Bitter Root Valley south of Missoula prior to the forced removal northward into the Flathead Valley south of Kalispell in 1889. This land was subject to allotment and non-Indian settlement

145 starting in 1904, resulting in approximately half of the original reservation land being owned by non-Indians by the 1950s. 20 The most economically-viable natural resources were the water resources (hydroelectric power sites) and timber stands, especially the Christmas tree farming industry (which netted the Tribe over half a million dollars in income in 1952). A hundred miles away, sandwiching Glacier National Park on the east, was the Blackfeet reservation, occupying the more arid and harshly desolate northern plains--land more amenable to grazing than to agriculture, with hidden stores of oil beneath its rolling, windswept hills. The Blackfeet Indians had been dependent upon buffalo culture until the abrupt decimation of the buffalo by white hunters in the late 19th century; the tribe in the 1950s was still seeking to find and adapt to a new economic and cultural lifestyle. The land of the Blackfeet Reservation was coveted by the oil and gas industry, which desired to control oil and gas rights should the land be taken out of federal control. 21 Both reservations had BIA Agencies which boasted programs "to aid in developing natural resources, such as land management, ranching, irrigation, forestry, etc., as well as others to provide educational opportunities, law and order, relocation services . . . and welfare services." 22 Both reservations had been heavily influenced by Catholic missionaries, and the St. Ignatius mission on the Flathead reservation housed a school and a resident Jesuit priest, Father Cornelius Byrne.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes on the Flathead reservation had been scheduled for termination in the first wave of bills in response the 1953 passage of HCR 108 by the 83rd Congress. Letters to tribal members in the Fall of 1953 from

146 the BIA Area Director and Superintendent had notified them of the impending bill to terminate federal supervision over the property (644,015 acres of trust lands, including the Flathead Forest, one developed hydropower dam site, and two potential dam sites) and individual members (4,213) of the Confederated Tribes, noting that plans to comply with Congressional policy should determine the manner in which both the interests of the Tribe can best be served and protected as well as the special needs of individual Indians can most satisfactorily be met. A meeting was held with the Tribal Council in early October, and responses and reactions were requested by the first of November, 1953. This bill provided for the issuance of fee patents for individual interests in lands (thereby losing trust status), the transfer to the Tribe/corporation of all trust land, the disposal (at the discretion of the Interior Department, with costs deducted from tribal funds) of federally-owned or administered property, and the transfer of the supervision of the Flathead Irrigation Project to an irrigation district organized under state law. Tribal members would also be given an opportunity to decide whether Tribal assets should be transferred to a corporate organization which would be established under state laws or should be converted into cash to be distributed on a per-capita basis. The distribution of property would not be taxed; however, the property and any subsequent income would be fully taxable upon removal of federal restrictions. Finally, the provisions of all other statutes of the U.S. applicable to Indians because of their status as Indians shall no longer apply to the members of the tribe; and thereafter such Indians shall have all the rights, privileges, immunities, and obligations possessed by all other citizens. 23

147 The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes had fired back a resolution that a unanimous Tribal Council voted that they were totally and wholly opposed to the liquidation plan, and found themselves hard pressed for friends and advice as to procedure in opposition to this proposed bill. 24 BIA field officials had held individual and group conferences with tribal members, state and local officials, and other interested parties; a report notes that the sentiment expressed by tribal members and local missionaries was decidedly in opposition to the proposed bill, although there was a small reservation group favoring termination. However, the agency found that the majority of off-reservation members (who compose about 50% of the tribal enrollment) favored termination. 25 Tribal Chairman Walt McDonald said the bill was meant to destroy the sacred rights of our reservation as they were set out in our Treaty of 1855 that we would never again be molested by white men. . . . We know that 70% of the people on this reservation want things the way they are now. The rest of them think of the money from the liquidation [estimated at approximately $15,000 per capita]. A principal spokesman for the traditional Kootenai branch of theTribe spoke his version of the truth as well: God made this North American island. He put the Indians here and gave us this land. Then the white men came and kept pushing us back and back. Finally we had only this reservation. Now they want to sell us out. What does this all mean? We want to know. We had a meeting on liquidation. Only one woman got up to speak for it. . . [and] she said, I want to be like the white people. The white people got big wages and I got nothing. It was easy to see she was rumorized. 26

148 The fight against termination of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the first Montana tribe to be affected by termination legislation, engaged many of the Montana civic and intertribal groups in the campaign, and records indicate that it was this original skirmish which strongly vitalized the pro-Indian, anti-termination advocacy efforts of groups throughout the state such as the Montana Farmers Union, the Cascade County Community Council and the Business and Professional Womens Clubs. 27 The Flathead termination crisis also forged coalitions between Indian and non-Indian interests working toward a common goal--or rather, united in unison against a common enemy. Crow tribal leader Robert Yellowtail wrote to Oliver LaFarge that in February of 1954, the fireworks of liquidation for the Flatheads begins. We--that is, many of the Indian leaders from all over the West--will be there. I hope to see you sitting among us when that struggle begins. I wish to ask that you arrange for a wide coverage by the press so that people will know what is being attempted and how. 28 A spokesman for the Montana Farmers Union testified at the hearing about the Kerr Dam site, which the Confederated Tribes leased to Montana Power Company, an asset which brought them an annual income of about $200,000: If the tribal properties should be liquidated and sold, there would be only one bidder. Under what terms would a value be placed on Kerr Dam. . . ? The proposed legislation provides for no protection whatsoever but leaves the Indians of the Flathead Reservation entirely on their own. In effect, it instructs them to form themselves into a corporation under Montana State law or be liquidated. The best corporation the Flathead Indians could devise will never be an even match for the Montana Power Company. He continued: As far as the Flathead Indians are concerned, sudden removal of these protective features will be the whistle signal for chaos. The golden ball

149 will have been thrown into the air, and the free-for-all grab will begin. Indians will be pitted against Indians by shrewd whites. . . . The end result will be poverty and degradation. 29 After extensive and fiery hearings, efforts to terminate the Flathead reservation tribes were successfully stalled in Congressional committee in 1954. McCormick had also been provided with a letter of introduction to Sister Providencia, well-known for her outspoken regional activism. A member of the Montreal-based Sisters of Providence order, Sister Providencia was a professor of sociology and anthropology at the College of Great Falls and a self-proclaimed rabble-rouser on behalf of human rights and political self-determination for Indian tribes. In her many letters, circulars, and other documentations (which she willingly shared with McCormick), Sister Providencia articulated in written form many of the concerns and discourses which circulated among the pro-Indian reformers in Montana, including one possible rationale for the intensity of the regional grassroots political involvement in the anti-termination movement: The local Montanans want to see a halt to land sales, not only because they are ashamed of the pressures that are forcing Indians to sell for food, but because of reasons important to the eventual assimilation of these people. Out West an Indian without land is nothing. The old-time chiefs made sure that the young tribesmen were impressed with this lesson, and I think that it carried over to the white men who lived in Indian country. Even today, a landless Indian has no status, no place, no future. 30 Sister Providencia was well-connected with many of the Montana tribes, and was intimately involved with a number of Great Falls citizens groups, especially the Friends of Hill 57. Hill 57 was a barren hillside on the margins of the city which had been occupied for over a generation by a group of several hundred "landless" Indians.

150 Although there was some transiency and migratory labor, Hill 57 also had a core of long-term resident families, who at this time were living in desperate conditions, and were the subject of continuing controversy between local, state and federal agencies about who had responsibility for providing social services to them. As with Indians in many urban areas, the Bureau of Indian Affairs disclaimed responsibility since they were not affiliated with any reservation. 31 The residents of Hill 57 were members of several tribes, including the Rocky Boy Cree and the Little Shell Band of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa, who had been separated from their land by various means. By early Fall, McCormick was satisfied that his research was adequate, and he was ready to begin thinking about how he could use the medium of television to convey the message he wanted to express on behalf of the tribal peoples he had encountered. In a long letter written in September of 1958, McCormick candidly filled in his supervisor, Joe Meyers, on the progress made toward the show, including some preliminary ideas for visualization: Here is the last of these memos--and in many ways, the most interesting. I'm not doing one on the Navajos and other Four Corners tribes but I did want to explain to you that they are excellent examples of tribes that will not be terminated. Too many people are making too much money from their reservations now; also, while the individual Indians are poor, the tribes are rich (as a result of oil, uranium, coal, etc) and can fight any termination attempt. The Tribes have been smart enough to save many millions of dollars for war-chests, to defend their holdings. The situation thus is such that the more powerful politicians in the area--Senators. Anderson, Chavez and

151 Goldwater, particularly--won't let the Indian Bureau or anybody else lay a hand on the Navajos, the Lagunas or the Jicarillos. If anybody is interested in this whole mess, I would like to try to describe in person the television possibilities. I do think Sister Providencia would be a star. She is the sister of former Rep. Jack Tolan of California; she is a handsome, bright, tough gal who spent part of her life in Washington politics. 32 She is a fanatic on the subject of her poor Indians--but she knows the subject. Not only does she work at the Columbus Hospital in Great Falls, but she teaches Indian history, sociology etc at the University of Great Falls. She is simply adored by the Indians themselves, and has been made an honorary member of number of tribes. Some of what she says must be discounted--but not as much as I had been led to believe. As a matter of fact, the deeper I got into the matter, the more convinced I became that she was 95% right in her rather violent views. I believe she would be willing to tour the Blackfeet reservation for our cameras, interviewing Indians if we wish. And the Blackfeet area now seems to me to be one of the best for television, if we decide to do anything. Otherwise, I have informal permission to film Tribal Council meetings. I have the minutes of a number of such meetings, if you'd like samples. They discuss everything from the technical problems of water flooding dormant oil wells, to the question of whether Mrs. Elk Two Horns should get $15 from the Tribe for doctors' expenses in connection with her broken arm. Some of the talk is very impressive--the Indians are smart as hell, so far as the leaders are concerned--and some of the discussion is just pathetic.

152 I did not get permission to film any of the real rituals, including dances. With negotiation and some money, we probably could get such permission but I didn't see where it fit particularly, and I didn't want to push the issue until I knew whether anybody would be interested. We could, however, cover one of the political campaigns in a tribe, for the election of tribal councilmen. The Navajos especially have real dirty campaigns. Most of it is in the Navajo language, but we would also get it in English. Many times the politics ties-in with the rituals. The Navajos, for example, start talking campaign politics during the Squaw Dances this fall. The Squaw Dances are highly sacred, though somewhat informal. We might conceivably find a Medicine Man who would let us film at least part of one of the dances, although the technical problems would be formidable. Anything more than truly in conspicuous lights would be taboo--and the dances are held in the evenings. Tri-X, campfire light, and a few additional lights might do it, however. The Tribe would be in favor of it, because it is trying to make a tape-and-film record of the ceremonial rituals. Even the Tribe hasn't got much of anywhere, however, because the Medicine Men won't permit pictures. For a couple of hundred bucks, or maybe even less, they might be persuaded. In conclusion, McCormick wrote to his boss, I think I have enough additional information to write perhaps another forty pages of notes, but I'm sure you're not that interested. Indians, schmindians, have they got the H-bomb? 33 In this letter, McCormick drew upon those things with which he himself had been most fascinated as he began to think about images which might be powerful and appealing to the non-Indian audience. His discourses reveal his own ambivalent positioning, as a non-Indian male journalist who is culturally sensitive to a point--but who still has

153 deeply-rooted preconceived notions and cynicisms about ways of representing Indianness. Such personal ambivalences were also expressed in one of his summary reports to Meyers, as he grappled to come to terms with issues of cultural and racial difference: Under the New Deal, John Collier--as Commissioner of Indian Affairs--thought he had finally made the Red Man secure in his small-but-rich holdings; Collier thought the Indian culture should be preserved, and that the only way to do it was to put the Indians back into their reservation-lands and insulate them from the outside world. His methods seem fuzzy approaches to the problem of what we should do to give the Indians a break. Actually, their cultural contributions (and they are greater than most people realize) should not be lost--but neither should the Indians. The Indians should be absorbed into normal society. Not integrated, but absorbed. They absorb much more easily than the Negro. There is general agreement on this point, so the present Administration, as represented by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has used it as an excuse for a whooping drive to force the Indians to sell their valuable lands--the only assets they have--for the best prices that can be found in a hurry; individual Indians will get small amounts of money, sometimes just a few hundred bucks--they will be turned loose in a society they dont understand, to do work theyre not equipped to do, to fight prejudices that are often every bit as strong as those against the Negro. The Indians are inadequately educated; they have been under a severe forced-protection by the Government for many years--forbidden to handle their own affairs except in very narrow areas. They are generally childish in their approach to money. Given even a little, they will buy

154 cars, women, booze and clothes, usually getting took in each deal. They have no idea of intelligent investment, largely because theyve never been allowed to learn. Thanks partly to Colliers well-meaning but misty-eyed approach, they are even more remote from the unpleasant realities of a booming economy than they formerly were. This applies only to the Indian masses. The Tribal leaders are, for the most part, as smart a bunch of operators as Ive ever seen. Most of them are also honest, and proud. . . . They do defend and protect their people, which is more than can be said for men that are badly needed around the White House. Anyhow, if the efforts to separate the Indians from their lands are successful, these people will become terrible drains upon society. Various studies show that most of them become relief charges; they add enormously to social problems of an area, once they are abruptly removed from the traditional restraints imposed upon them by tribal atmosphere. [italics added] 34 I present such lengthy segments to provide insights into the private, internal discourses within the network about these issues--discourses which McCormick apparently realized were (what today would be termed) politically incorrect or culturally insensitive, but which were at that time acceptable behind closed doors and in private correspondences between white men of privilege in certain professions. As evidenced by the occasional slips in the rhetoric of McCormick, Collier, LaFarge and even Sister Providencia, well-meaning white liberals could still be racist, paternalistic and condescending, if not misty-eyed or angrily cynical, in their discourses about those of a different race, class or ethnicity from themselves--even as they eloquently defended their rights and their common humanity.

155

During the final stages of the documentarys pre-production phase, however, an indication of a possible policy shift by the Department of the Interior gave temporary pause to McCormick as he prepared his brief against the federal agency. In a radio broadcast from Window Rock, Arizona, on September 13, Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton made a speech which was heralded as a possible "sea change" in Indian policy. Many skeptics interpreted Seatons strategy as a mere softening of the termination rhetoric while stumping on the campaign trail for Barry Goldwater in Goldwaters home state of Arizona, heavily populated by Indian people. Seaton attempted to reinterpret the termination mandate of the 1953 Congressional termination bill, HCR 108, which had been directed at ending the wardship status of Indian tribes as rapidly as possible; the Interior Secretary felt that the press and media had twisted their interpretation of this bill to ascribe its intention as an abandonment of Indian groups. Seaton confirmed that, in his opinion, the stated intentions of the Congress to free the Indian tribes from Federal supervision, and to eliminate the need for the special services should be understood as merely "an objective, not an immediate goal." After a discussion with Senator Goldwater, he explained, Seatons own position was that no Indian tribe would be terminated unless the tribe demonstrated that it understood the plan, concurred in and supported the plan. He quoted the rhetoric of Glenn Emmons regarding the desire of the federal government to foster the advancement of, and the attainment of equal opportunities for freedom and responsibility by, American Indian citizens so that they would be on equal footing with other American citizens:

156 True enough, Indian groups can continue to exist as cultural islands in the midst of our national population, isolated from the main group by language and custom, and living at standards far below those of the average American citizen. They can do this. In fact, many of them have done so for many years. But . . . does the majority of the population of such tribes prefer to live in that manner, or does it do so because there seems to be no other choice, . . . there is no general awareness of the alternatives? Seaton continued: I believe the majority of our Indian citizens are as desirous and capable of exercising all the duties and responsibilities of citizenship as are the rest of us, provided they have equal opportunities with their fellow citizens. . . . [However, ] it is the intention of the Federal Government to fulfill its complete responsibility toward the Indian people throughout the nation. No Indian, of whatever tribe, need have any fear about that. 35 Responses to Seatons speech were generally cautious and cynical. Handwritten in the margins of a copy of the speech she sent to Senator Mike Mansfield, Sister Providencia wrote, Bunk! It is the John Q. Public limitation of alternatives that must be reckoned with! She also emphasized to Mansfield the problem of the immediate implementation of the Congressional termination directives by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 36 Helen Meyers of the AAIA commented in a handwritten note to NBC journalists McCormick and Meyers that even though it "looks as though the Interior Dept has suffered a sea-change in policy" since "miraculously, it seems to be modifying its policy, . . . past experience has proven that local interpretation by Area BIA's, covertly or otherwise, seeks to push the Indians into termination action against their will. Don't think this affects your story, for the Interior Department's reform will not stick unless public attention is called to past performance." 37 After a local speech by Assistant Interior Secretary Roger Ernst,

157 Friends of Hill 57 activist Max Gubatayao wrote Father Byrne regarding the "change in the tone of Indian policy": This change is a cause for rejoicing among Indians over here and their hard-working friends. It is perhaps significant that this change was revealed in Montana, which, as you know, has been hard hit by the termination beach head. From the beginning Montana has been at the forefront with its protest and its warning. . . . Yet he noted with caution that such policy shifts at the national level would take time to be implemented locally. This sentiment of bureaucratic lag was later reinforced by a Congressman Berry of South Dakota, who commented that Seaton and Ernst "have very little chance of getting [changes] accomplished with what seems to be a vast body of Civil Service employees down below." In a memorandum to their tribal clients, the law firm which represented the AAIA and many tribes remarked: These words constitute a clear endorsement of the Indian consent principle. Heretofore the Interior Department has taken a position that it would agree to legislation providing for Indian consultation but not for Indian consent. Secretary Seatons statement can certainly not be squared with this Departmental policy. It remains to be seen whether future Departmental reports on legislation will demonstrate that a policy change has actually been carried into effect. 38 Because of continuing doubts about the local effects of this proposed reform, McCormick continued with the documentary project as planned. 39 In mid-September, tribal representatives from over fifty tribes across the United States gathered in Missoula, Montana for the 15th annual week-long convention of the National Congress of American Indians. The central focus of this convention was the rallying of tribes and their allies against termination, and keynote speakers included Father Byrne, who urged the Indians to say no to the federal government until the time they had something to say yes to, and U.S. Representative from Montana Lee

158 Metcalf, who pledged war on the Bureau of Indian Affairs and on HCR 108 and to put an end to the subtle and devious ways that the Eisenhower Administration has applied termination pressure. Tribal delegates, such as Dr. Paschal Sherman of the Colville Tribe, expressed the sentiment that Indians are tired of being policy and are fighting, through NCAI, for their very survival as a distinct ethnic group in this nation. 40 The speaker garnering the most avid attention, however, was Assistant Interior Secretary Roger Ernst, noted by NCAI President Joseph Garry as the first ranking Interior Department representative to ever address the convention, who reiterated the sentiments expressed earlier in the week by Interior Secretary Fred Seaton pledging full federal responsibility to the Indian people. These words were cautiously hailed by NCAI members and leaders, who collectively wondered if the indications of a policy change by the federal government would be carried out. As one observer put it: The Indian delegates applauded the announcement of policy change uneasily; they were like tired front-line soldiers, grenades in hand, suddenly hearing that an armistice has been declared and fearful of being taken in my an enemy rumor. 41 Garry in turn expressed the earnest pleading of this organization that the Department move with all possible speed to make this [change in policy] clear throughout the Bureau of Indian Affairs and to the last employee of the Bureau, and asked that Ernst personally convey to Seaton our respectful urging that your personnel . . . cease direct and indirect pressures on the Indian people to agree to termination by administrative actions, land sales, press releases, circulars--persuasions of any kind whatever to agree to termination or to ask for it, to stop telling the Indian tribes that the handwriting for termination is on the wall. In their first resolution, convention delegates charged:

159 The Congress of the United States and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs have repeatedly indicated a desire not to bring about termination for any group of Indians until the people in such group were prepared to take their place in American society, but . . . in spite of such indications, the Congress and the Commissioner have moved rapidly to terminate Indian groups whose people are in dire and desperate straits from the standpoint of health, education and economic opportunity. . . . Such movement toward termination has been carried on not only directly but indirectly through regulations and administration practices designed to divest the Indian people of their lands, thereby aggravating further their economic status. . . . The resolution concluded, Such premature termination can only lead to tremendous suffering by the Indian people and will result in substantial and continued expense to the various states and counties which will be required to assist such people. . . . Delegates adopted this resolution urging increased Indian involvement, advising and consent in policymaking and that a concentrated effort be made to retain, rather than dispose of, Indian lands so that tribal groups could have a sufficient resource base for economic development. 42 Such was the political atmosphere in which McCormick found himself as he headed back to Montana a few weeks later to begin shooting the documentary. In early October, a Metcalf staffer wrote key regional tribal leaders and other contacts--Walt McDonald (Tribal Chairman of the Salish and Kootenai Tribes on the Flathead reservation), Iliff McKay (Tribal Secretary, Blackfeet Tribe), Sister Providencia and Knute Bergen (head of Indian Affairs for Montanas Department of Public Education)--to encourage them to participate in the NBC project: Bob McCormick just checked in. NBC has approved his Indian show. . . . His crew--camera man, sound man and engineer, coming from Chicago; producer, his assistant and McCormick from here--are tentatively to meet in Great Falls Sunday. They plan to see Lee in

160 Helena Monday. . . . As you know from having met him, he is out to do a job. I know you'll help him all you can. [italics added] 43 On the Flathead reservation, the crew filmed panoramic landscapes, shots of Kerr and Hungry Horse Dams (a major source of tribal income from fees paid by Montana Power Company) and interviews with Father Byrne of St. Ignatius Mission and with Tribal Chairman Walter McDonald and others on his ranch. 44 A crew had also gone to Wisconsin to shoot some footage of the timber and sawmill industry on the Menominee Reservation, but no interviews were conducted there, and this footage was later edited into a visual montage, as was the Flathead reservation footage. However, the interview with the outspoken Jesuit anti-terminationist Father Byrne became a rhetorical centerpiece of the program, as did the interview with Metcalf, who represented Western Montana. 45 In the communities of Heart Butte and Browning on the Blackfeet reservation, the NBC crew filmed scenes of rural poverty in family living conditions, scenes of children at a rural government-run Indian school, Indian cowboys herding cattle at a roundup, and a tribal council meeting in which tribal leaders discussed their need for funding for welfare programs. McCormick also conducted an interview with tribal administrator Meade Swingley on his cattle ranch and extended interviews with two tribal leaders, Iliff McKay and Walter Wetzel, about the reservation's oil potential and the history of federal relations with the tribe. Records indicate that McCormicks perspective was strongly influenced by the rhetoric of the national pro-Indian interest groups, especially the AAIA. However, in

161 light of later charges that he was only a mouthpiece for the organization, the AAIA explained: Although Mr. McCormick obtained and used all his initial interest arousing material from the Association, which regularly sends Indian information to radio-television news commentators and desk men, he made it a point to remain detached from both the Indian-interest organizations' and the Bureau of Indian Affairs' point of view, and to draw his own conclusions from his own extensive reading and from what he saw and heard. The Association, however, was invited to the rough-cut film showing and saw much, though not all, of the script finally used. The organization also reported that, contrary to later charges, McCormick did approach Interior Department personnel in his final stages of production: Toward the end of the work of putting the story together, Mr. McCormick called on Commissioner Emmons in Washington and was received by him and his staff. He told them what he had learned on his field survey, and in general how it would be handled. He believed the story to be of sufficient importance to merit a statement coming from an official of cabinet rank, and offered Secretary Fred A. Seaton the opportunity to make a statement which would be worked into the finished script. Secretary Seaton refused. 46 The air date was set for November 16, and The American Stranger was scheduled as part of the Kaleidoscope series, a Sunday afternoon variety showcase based upon the concept of Robert Saudek's critically-acclaimed Omnibus (and alternating in its time slot). The description of the upcoming documentary to potential advertisers by NBCs publicists provides insights into the perception of the show by the network. Subtitled Portrait of a Forgotten People, the program was described through an invocation of the stereotypical discourses about the fall of the once-noble savage: Even when the American Indian roamed the vast prairies and forests of this continent, free and proud possessor of all the lands his eyes

162 surveyed, he had to fight hunger, disease . . . and the encroachments of the white man upon tribal hunting grounds. His battle to hold these lands against overwhelming odds constitutes one of the grimmest chapters in American history. When the war drums finally fell silent, the red man found himself a virtual ward by treaty of the United States, temporarily saved from annihilation by the establishment of federal Indian reservations. The description continued: This is the story of how the descendants of this once mighty race of warriors and hunters are living in the age of atomic fission and the turbo-jet. Appropriately titled THE AMERICAN STRANGER, it was filmed by the veteran NBC News reporter-camera team of Robert McCormick and Tom Priestly, who spent two weeks on location in the Blackfoot and Flathead reservations in Montana, and by NBC News teams who visited Menominee, Navaho and Pechange reservations in Wisconsin, New Mexico and California. In the course of putting this filmed report together, McCormick interviewed Indians and their tribal chiefs; missionaries, doctors and businessmen who work or deal with the Indians; and government officials close to the Indian situation. Out of the 45,000 feet of film he and his NBC News teams shot has emerged a revealing portrait of the contemporary American Indian and the reservation system under which he lives. Another section, subtitled The Indian Way of Life, describes the process of research through which McCormick conducted his inquiry. To bring today's red man into perspective for the television audience, the promotion explained, a series of questions was formulated based upon research conducted by reporter-editor McCormick prior to going on location. These questions were designed to cover all aspects of Indian life on the reservations. The first inquiry was, "How do reservation Indians earn their livelihood?": This question has a variety of answers depending on the principal natural resources available on or near the reservations. The Blackfeet, for example, are located on rich, oil-producing lands, and the

163 Menominees hold some of the most valuable timber land in the nation. Some of the other tribes are less fortunate. Next, the NBC News team concerned itself with the question, "What is the status of the reservation Indians' health, religion and education?" Again, the answers elicited by the skillful interviewing of newsman McCormick varied according to locale. Because of government- supported medical assistance, bolstered by important contributions from medical missionaries, the Indians' health is, in general, improving. It is still, however, well below national standards, and malnutrition is a factor in some instances. The issue of religion entered into even the promotion of the documentary, even though the information provided was not directly relevant to the content of the broadcast: In the matter of religion, the majority of the Indians have been converted to Christianity. The Menominees, for example, are almost solidly Catholic. The old Indian beliefs have not disappeared, however. The Dream Dance cult, now known as the Native American Church, has gained new favor among some of the tribes. This sect, which originated with the plains Indians during the time of the Indian wars, is built around a ceremony which involves the consumption of a harmless, vision-inducing drug found in the "button" of the peyote cactus. The promotion also discussed aspects of Indian education, blindly invoking discourses of infantilization and paternalism even while seeming to criticize the history of federal paternalism: The educational facilities available to reservation Indians are, in far too many cases, less than adequate. Under the paternalistic attitude which the government has maintained toward the red man over the years, the majority of Indians appear to be poorly equipped for assimilation into the off-reservation population. Forbidden to handle their own affairs except in very limited areas, they are generally childish in their approach to money, often squandering it on such items as fancy automobiles and clothing. Yet the promotion also indicted white society:

164 Despite this situation, McCormick's inquiries disclose that the federal government, through congressional termination of reservations, continues to push toward the absorption of the reservation Indian into a society which appears to be as poorly prepared to assimilate him as he is to cope with the complexities of modern life. The Indians present protected status is further threatened by the shrinkage of reservation areas as a result of federal court decisions permitting state governments to acquire valuable tribal lands for power projects and other public developments through condemnation proceedings. The promotion continued: Thought of by many as a relic of the bygone past, the American Indian is placed in true contemporary perspective in Robert McCormicks filmed report. From it he emerges as a real-life person with real-life problems which deserve the attention of those who now occupy the once trackless forests and plains that served as hunting grounds for his forebears. 47 Through the use of such standard and stereotypical modes of conceptualizing American Indians in the promotional literature, NBC prepared its advertisers and its potential audience for a profile of contemporary Indian issues which would be safely anchored in the imperialist discourses and attitudes through which middle America had long conceived of their noble but downtrodden and childlike wards, with only a hint of a progressive approach which promised to personalize the Indians and make them seem real to the presumably white audience.

Two weeks prior to the air date, the BIAs Information Officer distributed a memorandum to all Bureau employees alerting them to the upcoming television program: On Sunday, Nov 16, the new television program Kaleidoscope will take a look at the present Indian situation, particularly on the Flathead and Blackfeet Reservations in Montana." 48 The Great Falls-based Friends of Hill 57 distributed a circular to its supporters, entitled "Indian Information," also announcing the broadcast:

165 Recently Edward R. Murrow gave an address [to the Association of Radio and Television News Directors] . . . [in which] he said: "If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done--and are still doing--to the Indians in this country. But that would be unpleasant. And we must at all costs shield the sensitive citizens from anything that is unpleasant." Building their promotion upon Murrow's cynical charge, the regionally-distributed circular continued, Such a courageous soul exists--Robert McCormick of NBC--and such a fine documentary TV film has been done right here in Montana before our eyes. . . . If your TV station has not scheduled [the show] on Sunday, then write immediately to the National Broadcasting Company in New York requesting a kinescope permanent film for the program so that it may be scheduled at another date. We know that you are a courageous viewer of TV, able and willing not only to take raw facts, but to do something about them in the coming year. 49 At the Blackfeet Tribal Council meeting the week before the broadcast, Tribal Chairman Wetzel officially informed theTribe about the scheduling of the upcoming profile in which they had participated, and endorsed the documentary on behalf of the Tribe. 50 The controversy over The American Stranger began before the show was even broadcast. Less than a week before the scheduled air date, Sister Providencia wrote Mansfield: We are not getting the program in Great Falls right now. A call from you to NBCs New York office might help us get a kinescope copy. It is a terrific job! Copies of this notice [Friends of Hill 57's Indian Information, dated 10 November] went to all your languid Democrats in Congress. Maybe a dose of victory will energize them come 1959. 51

166 A few days before the air date, McCormick discovered that no Montana TV stations planned to carry it on their schedules. On November 12, he sent an urgent telegram to Sister Providencia: WE FIND THAT NO STATION IN MONTANA IS CARRYING THE AMERICAN STRANGER. ANY HELP YOU CAN GIVE US TO GET IT BEFORE THE PEOPLE OF MONTANA WILL BE DEEPLY APPRECIATED. 52 The following day, AAIA Director Madigan received a telegram in New York from Leo Graybill of Great Falls, an Indian attorney who worked on behalf of the landless Indians of Hill 57, which read: KFBB LOCAL COLUMBIA SHOWING AMERICAN STRANGER 16TH. KXLK LOCAL NBC HAS NO T-V. KXLF BUTTE AND KXLJ HELENA HAVE T-V BUT DONT KNOW WHETHER SHOWING STRANGER OR NOT. 53 That same day, Madigan sent a Western Union Day Letter Telegram to the managing editor of the Great Falls Tribune: CONCERNED ABOUT APPARENT REFUSAL BY NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY MONTANA TV AFFILIATES FIVE CITIES TO BOOK FOR SUNDAY SHOWING ONE HOUR DOCUMENTARY NEWS SHOW ON KALEIDOSCOPE SERIES OF NETWORK STOP SHOW TITLED THE AMERICAN STRANGER SHOWING NATIONALLY FOUR TO FIVE PM EST NOVEMBER SIXTEENTH AND FEATURING INTERVIEWS WITH TRIBAL OFFICERS BLACKFEET ALSO WITH FATHER C. E. BYRNE ST IGNATIUS MISSION AND MISSION HOSPITAL DOCTORS ON GENERAL INDIAN SITUATION IN MONTANA STOP SUBJECT UNDOUBTEDLY CONTROVERSIAL BUT NBC REPORTER ROBERT MCCORMICK SCRUPULOUSLY LAST WEEK INFORMED INDIAN BUREAU WASHINGTON OF CONTENTS. NBC NEWSROOM HERE ADMITS NO MONTANA TV AFFILIATE ACCEPTING SHOW STOP THIS ASSOCIATION GREATLY CONCERNED OVER POSSIBLE FAILURE OF FINE NEWS STORY TO BE SEEN AND HEARD IN STATE MOST CONCERNED. ASKS YOU TO FOLLOW FOR STORY PURPOSES. 54

167 Records indicate that Madigan also sent the same letter to the managing editors of the Billings Gazette and The Missoulian. Hours later, she received a reply from R. D. Warden of the Great Falls Tribune: PLEASE FORWARD SCRIPT OR MAIL STORY ON NBC NOV 16 MONTANA INDIAN PROGRAM FOR SUCH USE AS WE MAY BE ABLE TO DEVELOP. THANKS. 55 It is unclear from the existing records exactly how the American Civil Liberties Union became involved, though it is likely that they were contacted by a representative from one of the pro-Indian advocacy groups. Helen Meyers later hinted at the AAIAs involvement in alerting the ACLU, in a letter she wrote to Walter Wetzel a few weeks after the broadcast: Perhaps you did not know that some of the pressure which was put on the local stations to carry the network show came from the American Civil Liberties Union which has about 100 members out your way. Jeffrey Fuller went to a great deal of trouble to send out special letters asking these people to kick up a fuss on behalf of hearing the show locally. He is sure they did so, as they have been effective on other occasions. As he will soon want to make a year-end report to his Board of Directors, he will want to include this incident, and I have told him that I shall try to find out from you something about the general response. I understand from my husband at NBC news that some four local stations carried the show. Do you know of any other developments which Mr. Fuller might find useful in his report? 56 In any account, the same day that the telegrams were burning up the wires between New York and Montana, Jeffrey Fuller of the ACLUs Indian Civil Rights Committee distributed the following letter to ACLU members in Montana: This Sunday afternoon, November 16, at 4:00 P.M. E.S.T. (presumably 6:00 P.M. Mountain Time) the National Broadcasting Company will present an hour-long documentary entitled The American Stranger, the third in its new Kaleidoscope series. This program deals with American Indians, and most of it was filmed on the Blackfeet Reservation in

168 Montana. In the course of it, Indian tribal leaders will discuss some of their problems, Father C.E. Byrne of the St. Ignatius Mission will present his views, and a Mission doctor will talk about polio among Indian children. Charles van Doren will be the narrator, and Bob McCormick of NBC's Washington news staff will report. Fullers letter continued: This program has been offered to NBC affiliates across the country, but for some reason not one of NBC's six stations in Montana now plans to show it. While the ACLU is not prepared to charge any of these stations with an act of censorship (generally we encourage local stations to present local programs in place of the usual fare offered by networks) and cannot rule on the merits of this particular program as opposed to whatever the Montana stations offer in its place, we do feel that this documentary will constitute an important contribution to public understanding of a problem vital to all Montana citizens. Fuller added: Each ACLU member in Montana can help in this situation by phoning his local NBC affiliate to ask whether it plans to show this program--and if not--urge lt to do so. The stations involved, we understand, are: KGHL, Billings; KXLQ, Bozeman; KXLF, Butte; KXLX, Great Falls; KXLJ, Helena; and KXLL, Missoula. 57 The next day, a follow-up telegram from McCormick to Sister Providencia indicated that efforts were beginning to paying off in terms of coverage: INDIAN STORY SCHEDULED KFBB GREAT FALLS AND KXLF BUTTE SUNDAY FIVE PM EST. WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR COMMENT ON IT AND THANKS FOR ASSISTANCE IN ARRANGING MONTANA BROADCASTS. 58 Also, the AAIA reported that In the meantime, the Blackfeet officials, learning that their show was not to be seen locally, were able to drum up a great deal of community pressure through their non-Indian friends, and later sent out a

169 triumphant report that their pressure campaign had "pushed over the showing of The American Stranger." 59 In a letter to McCormick following the broadcast, Sister Providencia speculated: It is still an unresolved puzzle why KFBB here [a CBS affiliate] consented to order the program. Three weeks ago they were adamant: "We don't have the time." Then Tuesday the Friends of Hill 57 sent out . . . 200 letters putting the pressure upon New York NBC to make a kinescope. Wednesday night, KFBB phoned me and said crossly, "We are putting on your Indian show--had to cancel two programs. Idaho Falls canceled programs." Then unexpectedly the Great Falls Tribune consented to run a news item and Billings TV came in so that with Butte and Helena all Montana saw it. Idaho saw it too, thanks to Great Falls--and so did Wyoming. 60 A regional pressure blitz by the Montana ACLU, local Catholic activists, the AAIA, and Great Falls citizens groups had resulted in four of the five Montana television stations agreeing to carry the broadcast signal, even though not all were NBC affiliates. Almost simultaneously with the broadcast, and perhaps strategically timed to coincide with it as well as following upon the recent Democratic-dominated elections, the NCAI mailed letters to leading Congressional Democrats (such as Senator Lyndon Johnson) and sent press releases to 300 newspapers as well as tribal publications across the nation. In the letters, the NCAI urged that the new overwhelmingly Democratic majority press for a new statement of Indian policy to supersede HCR 108 on the grounds that it directs, authorizes or permits the abrogation of treaties, abandonment of Federal responsibilities, alienation of Indian lands, and destruction of tribal governments and the Indian way of life. Time has proven the Indians fears about

170 HCR 108 justified. The letter also reminded legislators of the Indian plank in the 1956 Democratic Platform, which had pledged: Prompt adoption of a federal program to assist Indian tribes in the full development of their human and natural resources, to advance the health, education and economic well-being of Indian citizens, all preserving their traditions without impairing their cultural heritage; No alteration of any treaty or other federal-Indian contractual relationships without the free consent of the tribes involved; Reversal of the present policies, which are tending toward erosion of Indian rights, reduction of their economic base through alienation of their lands, and repudiation of federal responsibility. . . . 61 The letter and press release from the all-Indian organization were timed to hit the attention of the public on Monday, November 17--the day following the broadcast of The American Stranger. A few days prior to the documentarys air date, the Blackfeet Tribal Council held a special session, at which Wetzel announced the upcoming television special which featured the tribe. According to the minutes: Mr. Wetzel informed the Council that the TV program recently made on the Blackfeet Indian reservation will be telecast over a national hook-up November 16th at 3:00 P.M., MST. He said, "This will be the first time that people all over the United States can see for themselves the actual conditions that exist on our reservation. It will deal with the Bureau of Indian Affairs's attempt to liquidate other reservations as well as to show how they are forcing the Blackfeet to liquidate themselves. . . . The program also brings out that the Blackfeet Indian reservation Indian farmers need increased wheat acreage allotments in order to stay on the farm and be able to farm profitably. The program also shows that some of the school children of our reservation actually receive one good meal a day thru the hot-lunch program during the school terms." Mr. Wetzel further stated that the telecast would be made over KFBB-TV in Great Falls, Montana and that this station was being picked up in the Cut Bank area and he urged every one to see it if they possibly could. 62 Through the mobilization of grassroots publicity movements and political forces by local groups, a regional audience for the broadcast was swiftly and effectively

171 created. To gain additional viewership, NBC also advertised the show in television sections of Sunday newspapers across the country, with a bold close-up portrait of the weathered face of an elderly Native American man of indeterminate tribal affiliation, wearing a full feathered headdress. Beneath the large photograph, the ads copy read: "A mighty race of warriors and hunters has become a stranger in its own land. This grim paradox--the result of one of the most violent chapters in our history--is the story of the "American Stranger." 63

172 BROADCASTING THE AMERICAN STRANGER (see full transcript of broadcast in Appendix A)

Stylistically, The American Stranger was constructed as a hosted news report, introduced by the reporter live on-camera, followed by a pre-produced filmed insert which was the core of the broadcast. Unlike the previous documentaries (the observational Whole Town's Talking and the apolitical and celebratory Wide Wide World), this 1958 broadcast directly confronted both the politics of Indian affairs and the socioeconomic conditions of Indian communities through the mediating presence of a polemical white journalist-advocate. McCormick positioned himself implicitly as an anthropological ethnographer: listening to, learning from and, ultimately, speaking "on behalf" of the tribal subjects he represented and interpreted to the (white) television audience. Yet, in contrast to other white advocates of Indian rights, such as LaFarge, McCormick created a space in his rhetorical argument through which he allowed and encouraged tribal leaders to speak for themselves. The broadcast is structured as a sandwich--an inner piece bracketed by the Kaleidoscope series opening and closing segments and by series host Charles Van Dorens introductory and closing remarks, which serve to situate this issue of the series within the series at large. The Kaleidoscope series, an umbrella cultural series which featured a number of topics and genres ranging from serious documentaries to theatrical plays to light backstage with the Rockettes features, was signified by an awkwardly-turning gyroscope-type open metal structure, vaguely scientific-seeming and invocative of discourses of the atomic age. The series musical theme likewise

173 signaled modernity, with harshly dissonant chords. Van Doren was NBCs golden boy of the hour--reigning hero of the quiz shows and American icon of both common sense and scholarly knowledge (prior to his demise less than a year later, when his role in the quiz show scandals came to light). Representing erudition and thoughtfulness, Van Dorens role on the series included welcoming viewers, introducing the topic of this episodes feature, explaining its relevance, then in closing providing a brief last word (in this case, quoting--and awkwardly mangling--a Biblical scripture upon which the films title was based), then turning to series housekeeping matters such as promotion of the next episodes featured event. The series closing (revolving gyroscope image) and closing credits followed Van Dorens closing remarks. The inner piece here, which I will call the filmed segment, is a discrete pre-edited film with the exception of two inserted segments which narrator McCormick provides live from the studio at the time of broadcast. Rather than opening and closing the film with McCormicks on-camera studio narration, the editors left time after a preliminary filmed segment for McCormicks opening statement, and just prior to the filmed closing for McCormicks summary statement. This provides a symmetrical structure for the sandwiching of the film, as seen in the illustration below. The outermost frames are the series opening and closing, which includes remarks by the series host (Van Doren). Within this frame is the special event, The American Stranger itself, structured with opening and closing filmed segments, both of which include Indian schoolchildren reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. These segments bracket, and provide dramatic illustration for, narrator Robert McCormicks main polemic, which is

174 initially set forth in his live-on-camera opening remarks from the studio, supported by the main body of the film, and summarized in his live-on-camera closing remarks. ************************************************************************************************
SERIES INTRO, LIVE: Host Van Dorens remarks LIVE: McCormicks opening BODY OF on-camera FILM: remarks footage and interviews (pre-edited) LIVE: McCormicks summary FILM: on-camera Closing remarks scenes (pre-edited) SERIES CLOSING, LIVE: Host Van Dorens remarks

FILM: Opening scenes (pre-edited)

************************************************************************************************ The symmetry is skewed a bit by the placement of titles and credits. The opening title for the film itself is superimposed over the first opening scene of the film itself, with no credits accompanying this. The credits are listed at the very end of the broadcast, superimposed over the Kaleidoscope series logo as it closes. Because of the single commercial break in the middle, the two halves are also labeled Part I and II by the network announcer (who announces the station break). As one can see, the patchwork nature of this production problematizes a classification of it as simply live or filmed, as news report or documentary film. In this study, I have decided it is most properly considered a live broadcast, documentary in nature, which, although composed of some live components and some filmed components, was broadcast live in its entirety to the American public, and experienced as a live broadcast, on November 16, 1958. However, I will occasionally refer to the film as the body of work prepared as an almost free-standing documentary by McCormick and his editors, lacking only a few minutes of

175 McCormicks on-camera narration to be complete as a film. As a researcher, I have been fortunate enough to have two versions on film to study--a kinescope of the original broadcast, in its entirety (except for the commercial break in the middle), and a copy of the originally-prepared film which was actually rolling the day of the broadcast, pre-edited to include blank space in which to insert McCormicks on-camera remarks. 64 The two halves of the documentary vary significantly in tone and style. In contrast to the visual dominance of today's television, The American Stranger alternates between primarily visual segments and those which are primarily expository verbal arguments, the latter reflecting a radio tradition of literary and information-heavy narration. The opening filmed segment, which precedes McCormicks on-camera introduction, begins with a wide shot which tracks a lone Indian man walking across a vast grassy prairie on Montanas Blackfeet Indian Reservation. This shot creates a sense of vast open space, desolation and solitude. With somber and dramatic non-diegetic music added for effect, the camera follows this man as he walks toward a small, weathered frame house, as the title THE AMERICAN STRANGER appears superimposed on the screen. We then hear, in off-camera voiceover, a male narrators voice providing an introduction to the place (This is Indian Country--Heart Butte, Montana, on the Blackfeet Reservation...) and we follow the man inside the small house, where we see the rest of the family, as the narration continues: The Vielle family lives here--Richard and Stella Vielle and nine children. Richard was away at the moment, hunting elk. The meat is dried for winter use. Mr. Vielle cant work much because of a crippled leg,

176 mashed when a horse stepped on it. But the family is fortunate; it gets a pension of $265 a month--about 5 dollars and a half a week for each person, slightly better off than most of the remnants of the Indian tribe once famed and feared for its fighting ability and arrogance. 65 These images, accompanied by music, portray a family living in conditions in stark contrast to those of 1950s suburban middle America in its consumerist glory. We see images of children, solemn and perhaps even melancholy. The camera dwells on one young girl, who sits and looks wistfully out a window only to see the vast prairie beyond. Under the narration, this segment is purely visual and lacks any synchronized sound, although it is supported by a melancholic musical score. Leaving the Vielle home, the camera takes us to see other houses--what McCormick in his production notes termed the hovels at Heart Butte--and the ironic, tongue-in-cheek narration underscores the contrast with the images of suburban America that otherwise pervaded the television screen: These are AVERAGE Blackfeet Indian homes in suburban Heart Butte. Close-up shots of features of this desolate ghost-town include a rusty license plate hanging on a weathered exterior wall, and a padlocked door: The Vielles neighbor, to the south, isnt quite so well-heeled. He too has gone fishing--not for fun but for dinner. These images of poverty with which the film opened are reminiscent of the still photographic images of farmers and sharecroppers during the Depression captured by FSA photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. They served as a reminder to the American viewers, many of whom were enjoying their share in Americas postwar prosperity, that for some Americans--particularly those on Indian reservation--the conditions of poverty were not in the past, but squarely in the present

177 tense. This opening scene in Heart Butte, Montana, establishes the existence of family poverty on the Blackfeet Reservation--and notes that these conditions are not among the worst which might be found--and also implicitly establishes a primary theme of the film, that of the vulnerability of Indian children and the need for public involvement on their behalf. This montage of the textures of reservation poverty is followed by a segment which opens in a schoolyard in Heart Butte, on the Blackfeet Reservation, with a closeup of the American flag on the flagpole flying over the playground. In contrast to the earlier scene, here we hear the sounds of children playing outdoors on the playground, and as the bell rings signaling the beginning of the school day, the students enter the school. This segment lacks any voiceover narration. Our perspective cuts to an interior classroom where students are filing in, where we listen as they are greeted by name by their female teacher. Teacher and students all appear to be of Native American descent. Once in their seats, the schoolchildren begin to recite the pledge that echoed in schoolrooms across the nation, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and the republic for which it stands--one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The camera pans the class as the children recite the Pledge, pausing to focus upon one particular child with hand over heart as she invokes this mantra for democracy, unity and justice. The film will return to this classroom scene several times throughout the hour; it serves as a thematic anchor for the documentary. This scene becomes one of the defining moments of The American Stranger.

178 The opening montage visually contrasts the poverty of living conditions in a Blackfeet family home to the promise of a better life for the young generation of Native Americans (represented by the Montana schoolroom in which Indian children recite the Pledge of Allegiance). The broadcast thus opens, visually, on the themes of desolation and rural poverty juxtaposed with the images of Indian children appearing to aspire to what some might consider a more normative American life. This is the next generation of American Indians, the ones most vulnerable to the assimilationist forces of dominant white society. They represent the future of, and the hope for, the continuation of their tribes heritage. As will be demonstrated throughout the film, both their physical and their mental well-being and nurturance is considered essential for the survival of their tribe, yet they must also learn to become modern Americans as well as Blackfeet. This enigma of dual citizenship and dual cultures is implicitly put forth, though never resolved, by the documentary. Following these introductory segments, McCormick provides his opening on-camera commentary, which sets the tone for the first half of the documentary as strongly polemic. Sitting in a chair in the television studio, McCormick turns from watching the images we have just seen on a large-screen studio monitor, and speaks directly to the viewers. He introduces the issue of termination from an historical perspective, framed to some degree from a Native American viewpoint. McCormick's narration quickly takes on a partisan and emotionally-loaded tone, using colloquial language rather than academic or bureaucratic jargon: Ever since the white man came to this country--and incidentally, we now call him the non-Indian--but ever since the non-Indian came to this country, . . . he's been trying to shove the Indian out of the way. The

179 Indian has something he wants, and, history says, he usually gets it. For years, it was done simply by violence. And then, as we ourselves became more "civilized," by trickery. Now, by inaction, by bureaucratic regulation and by act of Congress. House Concurrent Resolution #108 says it was the opinion of Congress that various Indian tribal lands should be quickly terminated. Termination means that our pious treaties with the Indians, guaranteeing them land on which to live as long as the grasses grow and the waters flow, should be summarily junked. McCormicks narration continued: The land itself, now held in federal trust for the Indians, would be removed from trust and made subject to taxes. Since, in most cases, the Indians . . . can't pay the taxes, the land must then be sold. . . . It's an intricate business involving timber and water resources, great stores of oil and minerals and unspoiled grazing and farmlands worth an incalculable amount of money, perhaps several billion dollars. And it is these resources that make the Indian land so desirable to the non-Indians. In the segments which follow, concerning the Menominee and Flathead reservations, McCormick's intellectualized voiced-over narration about the politics of the termination movement dominates, supported by visual images of Indian country and examples of "successful" (in capitalist terms) tribal economic development of natural resources. A romantic classical musical score runs on and off throughout the film, except in the interview segments. McCormick's first case study is that of the Menominee Indians of Wisconsin, one of the first tribes scheduled for termination by Congressional action. Turning away from the audience and back to the large projection screen, McCormick and the audience, together momentarily during the transition, watch images of trees crashing in a Menominee tribal logging operation. As the visual montage begins, McCormicks

180 voiceover narration is blunt, straightforward and anything but diplomatic in its attribution of crimes committed against indigenous cultures and the environment: A separate termination act must be passed by Congress for each reservation. One such law, now on the books, affects more than thirty million dollars worth of timber . . . owned by the Menominee Indians. . . . Beginning in the middle of the last century the white man has wanted this forest so badly that he's tried to steal it. He's committed mass murder. He has persecuted, brutalized and debauched the Indians as well as the forest. As the visual montage of logging and sawmill operations in the Menominee forest continues, McCormick tells the story about the political struggle over the use of the Menominees forest land: After years of litigation and suffering, the Menominees in 1951 were awarded $8.5 million dollars for the damage done their forests by federal mismanagement. The money was put in trust: couldn't be touched without Congressional approval. This is important because when the Menominee Indians wanted that money, they were told bluntly that Congress would let them have it only if they agreed to termination . . . , that if the Indians were to get the money . . . they must in return surrender their only capital asset, the tax-free status of their forest, which was guaranteed by the most solemn promise this government could give--a treaty. The visual montage segment on the logging and sawmill industries is reminiscent of documentaries of the 1930s, particularly the logging segments of Pare Lorentz' The River (1937). The camera leaves the logging industry to visually point out other aspects of life on the Menominee Reservation: tourist signs, indicating the recreational potential for economic development, and views of the homes, tribal buildings and civic monuments of the reservation community of Neopit. In a prophetic statement, the narrator stresses the contradictory nature of termination philosophies: "Some would profit handsomely, but many more Americans, including the Indians,

181 would lose--lose everything from their self-respect to critical reservoirs of swiftly disappearing natural resources." The narration pauses, as a young Menominee girl playing with a hoola hoop turns her gaze directly into the camera, with dramatic musical accompaniment. "These children and their children would lose their heritage," McCormick continues, as the camera follows a group of children and their puppy walking down a rural road. For more politically-legitimated ammunition, McCormick moves next to "Last Chance Gulch" in Helena, Montana, where he interviews Democratic Representative Lee Metcalf, a leading Congressional opponent of termination. The visually boring interview takes place in Metcalfs Helena office, where both men are dressed in the business clothing of the era--dark suits and ties with white shirts, very trimmed hair and heavy dark glasses. Opening with a two-shot, the camera generally maintains a medium shot of Metcalf, with an occasional cutaway response shot of McCormick. Metcalf claims that federal policies "are calculated to sandbag the Indians into selling their land and their other resources. Whether these are intentional or inadvertent, they're working for the benefit of outside pressures to force the Indians to get rid of their resources." On a fiscal note, Metcalf emphasizes that when the Indians lose their land and tribal assets, they also lose their tribal identity and source of income, often becoming a financial burden on the state. Metcalf describes pressures from power companies and grazing operators who want access to Indian lands and resources, and who see termination as a way to achieve this access. Metcalf is obviously quite knowledgeable about the issues, though he speaks haltingly, appearing

182 self-conscious about the presence of the camera and perhaps having tried to memorize or rehearse portions of his speech. Following the Metcalf interview, we turn our attention to the hydraulic, agricultural and tourism resources of the Flathead Reservation in Western Montana, home of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes (called the Flathead Indians in the film). With light classical music playing over a visual montage of the Mission Range, Flathead Lake and Hungry Horse Dam, McCormicks voiced-over commentary tells the viewers something of a success story--about a termination effort that ultimately failed. Pointing out the power development site at Hungry Horse Dam (coveted by Montana Power Company) and the reservation timber resources, together estimated to be worth seventy million dollars, as well as the tribally-owned Blue Bay Resort and bath houses, the narration emphasizes the huge financial stake at risk in termination, as well as the rewards of wise financial management by a tribe. In a comment simultaneously expressing admiration and patronizing condescension, McCormick's rhetoric reveals an implicit racism, speaking to a complicit white audience: "The Flatheads (sic) are an advanced tribe, the people well-educated--and shrewd in business." He points out their success at running a hot springs resort ("modern and clean"), a resort lodge, a Christmas tree farm and lumbering operations, and leasing dam sites: ". . . The tribe, collectively, and its individuals, are doing far better than most." A photo montage of real estate developments in the town of Polson, on Flathead Lake, visually illustrates the accompanying narration about the historic dispossession of tribal trust land through policies which divided tribal land into

183 allotments for individual property ownership: "Piece by piece, as the individual owners became hard up, they sold their lakeside holdings--and the Indians have also lost, the same way, most of the better farm land." A montage of real estate signs and close-ups of lot descriptions in downtown realty windows, juxtaposed to an image of an elderly Indian man sitting despondently on a street bench, is accompanied by the ironic commentary: "There's quite a business in land around the Flathead Lake now, now that the Indians no longer own it. The tribe has been buying back what it could. . . but when it does, the land remains taxable. Once it's taken out of trust, it stays out of trust. And this is the way termination is accomplished, in little chunks. It's slower than mass termination, but just as effective." This section also includes a brief segment on Kerr Dam, the only dam site leased by Montana Power from the tribe, which would have been automatically sold to the power company had termination gone through: a forced sale with only one bidder. This segues into talk about the irrigation system on the reservation which uses tribal water although 90 percent of the land it irrigates is owned by non-Indians. McCormick's commentary informs us that the tribe was shocked when termination proceedings were initiated in 1954, and although the bill died in committee, he reports that Indian Bureau officials are still pressuring the tribe to expect and plan for eventual termination: "As a matter of plain fact, the pressures on all Indians to accept termination are pervasive. They aren't always specific, but they're there, sometimes expressed by the attitude of Indian Bureau officials, sometimes by propaganda, sometimes by downright threats. And sometimes the Indians are afraid to fight back."

184 The images in these visual segments of the Menominee and Flathead land and its industries are of the type found in commercial travelogue and industrial development public relations films. Neither segment includes any synchronized sound or diegetic interviews or commentary; in fact, people are noticeably scarce in these segments. This first half of the documentary keeps the viewer detached and distant, objectifying the tribes and their land in a positivist style. For the final segment of Part I, McCormick interviews Father Cornelius Byrne of St. Ignatius, Montana, a Jesuit missionary who has worked among the Salish and Kootenai Indians for twenty years. The cinematography in the opening montage of still shots is notable, photographed with an aesthetic of the historic West similar to Low's City of Gold (1957). The opening wide shot includes the steepled St. Ignatius church and a large dormitory-style building framing another flagpole with an American flag. A subsequent series of shots are exterior details of archaic machinery and dust-covered glass windows in the weatherworn building, cutting to interior details such as wall calendars and a white enamel water pitcher, from which the camera slowly pans across to the priest's desk at which the interview is taking place. Father Byrne emphasizes the unethical aspects of termination: "I believe the government has committed itself to the development of the Indians, and that does not have within its proper scope a termination." Byrne embodies an ambiguous and somewhat paradoxical ideological position, reflecting the juxtaposed ideologies of a Catholic/Christian evangelical theology, often associated with assimilationist attitudes, and a humanitarian liberal political philosophy respecting cultural difference and political self-determination. The Jesuit priest stresses the government's

185 responsibility to "develop" the Indians rather than to liquidate the tribes, and advocates termination from federal relationships only if initiated by the tribe, not by the government. He also brings up an important paradox for the tribes--that their relationship with the federal government is so complex and there is so little trust, that tribes are afraid of appearing to be too successful in their economic development: And what is holding them back is the fear that their development will end in their own liquidation--and consequently. . . they wont help in that development unless the government completely forgets about termination. Byrne points out the crisis and fear facing tribes looking in the face of termination--they desired self-determination, but not if by taking strides in that direction they risked being totally cut off from federal services and left to float without a life raft, so to speak. Both interviews which are inserted in Part I are with white men in positions of institutional authority who are sympathetic to indigenous causes. Both take place indoors, in offices, in formal suit and tie (Father Byrne in clerical collar), and both men speak rather stiffly and haltingly, though their rhetoric is strongly anti-terminationist and left-leaning. This half of the documentary validates the anti-termination rhetoric as coming from within the realm of accepted political debate in American politics, and marks it as distinctively partisan (Democratic) and liberal, though not too radical to be supported by agents of the liberal Church in America. After the station break, McCormick returns with Part II to elaborate the case study of the impoverished conditions among the Blackfeet tribe of Montana to which, he claims, the government has not responded with sufficient relief assistance. The entire second half of the documentary was filmed on the Blackfeet Reservation near

186 Browning, Montana, and in urban Great Falls, Montana. Midway through this half, McCormick accedes much of the authority, or "voice" of the documentary (following Nichols' usage), to Blackfeet leaders, a strategy which gives the second half of the film a very different feel, and which also alters its ideological positioning to some degree. Part II opens with a return to the Heart Butte classroom, where the children are singing a well-known Euro-American nursery song with hand motions ("Three Little Ducks"). This is followed by a visit to the school cafeteria while the children eat lunch. It is here that the Blackfeet tribe is officially introduced into the narration: Less than two hundred miles from the Flathead we find the Blackfeet. There's been no Congressional move toward terminating the Blackfeet, but a steady squeeze of economic pressures is having the same effect. The Blackfeet are desperately poor, and getting poorer. The Indian Bureau has not as yet seen fit to do more than ask the tribe to audit its books. No audit will alter the fact that, for many children in the Heart Butte school, the hot lunches they get are often their only meals. Nor will an audit supply them with shoes and warm clothing for the bitter Montana winter that's just about upon them. Much of this segment is photographed in close-up, with the camera lingering on details of the childrens' faces, their food, and their plates scraped clean. The final shot is a closeup of plates being stacked atop one another, ending with a loud crash as one slips off and shatters on the floor offscreen. After a transitional visual bridge from the reservation's prairie to the city of Great Falls, McCormick takes the viewer inside the Columbus Hospital. To compound the socioeconomic problems among the Blackfeet in 1958, there has recently been a polio epidemic among Blackfeet children, he reports, and he interviews the physical therapist handling these cases, Joseph Luckman, who attests to general malnutrition and lack of funding for medical care. Again, the camera lingers on the faces of the

187 children. In a couple of rare, uncalculated cinema verit-type moments, a polio-stricken toddler rises up to look directly into the camera, and smiles at the viewers with a curious and beguiling innocence. The camera tours the beds of the pediatric ward, while McCormick recites a litany of symptoms related to malnutrition. Stopping at the bed of one young polio victim, McCormick unabashedly works to exploit the viewers' emotions. The camera slowly pans the length of the young patient from head to toes, resting upon the two small feet. As McCormick teases us with "And like a non-Indian child, an Indian baby with a paralyzed left leg can't wiggle his left toes," we see the right toes begin to wriggle playfully, while the left foot remains still. The camera lingers, to draw as much sympathy as possible. Supported by striking close-up shots of schoolchildren hungrily eating their lunches, and later by a visit to pediatric polio victims, this tactic is presumably to gain the sympathy and support of viewers not swayed by the strident political rhetoric. Between the mental attention demanded by the first half and the shameless emotional manipulation of the second, this documentary strategically targeted both the hearts and the minds of the television audience. The next segment is a powerful cinematic essay about the living conditions on Hill 57, Great Falls' urban Indian ghetto: Just outside Great Falls is a monumental example of what happens to Indians deprived of their lands. . . . They are called landless' Indians. Obviously, they once had land. They lost it at different points in modern Indian history. They come from different tribes, from different places. They have, however, two things in common: they have no real homes, and they exist--but no more.

188 Here, more than in earlier visual essays, the voiceover narration frames a montage in which powerful cinematic images and rousing music predominate. Viewers are never privileged to "meet" any of the residents of this community (who are only photographed from a distance), and the material aspects of the culture dominate the human. However, the cinematic juxtaposition of shacks framed by the rusted carcasses of junked cars, cut together with similarly rusted and overturned toy cars and tricycles of the children who play in a muddy ditch, represents what may be the climactic dramatic moment of the documentary. If the polemical arguments of the first half present the cause--current federal policies and practices, compounded by a history of genocide and oppression--then this scene presents the ultimate effect. These are the landless, dislocated Indians of the 1950s, dispossessed of their land, their tribe, their culture, who have ended up in urban shanty towns across the West such as Hill 57. This is the dystopian, nightmarish vision of life for Native Americans alienated from kin, community and sacred land. In this scene, the music and the images dominate. Here, McCormick's understated narration implicates the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and the assimilationist attitudes of the terminationists: There are many other communities like Hill 57 scattered around the West. And this is what I kept thinking of as I read speeches about giving Indians their "freedom," giving them the "right" to sell their lands. And as I listened to the philosophical dissertations of Glenn Emmons, a former banker at Gallup, New Mexico, now head of the Indian Bureau. This, less than two hundred miles from Glacier National Park, once part of the Blackfeet reservation, but long ago given to the United States. On this last sentence, the scene cuts with irony from a shack on Hill 57 to a close-up of clear waves lapping upon a beach, and the camera pulls out and tilts up to reveal a

189 spectacular postcard-like scene of a snow-capped mountain peak and a resort lodge, a major destination for middle-class family tourism. The segment which follows the solemn Hill 57 segment marks a shift in musical and dramatic mood as well as a shift in stylistic approach. In contrast to the somber tone of the Hill 57 scene, a lighter, faster music accompanies visuals and narrated explanation of cattle ranching on the Blackfeet reservation, and the contestations with non-Indians over forced sales of "key tracts" of grazing land and water supplies. Sandwiched into an extended cattle roundup scene (without narration), replete with sounds of very vocal cattle, McCormick interviews Meade Swingley, a Blackfeet tribal administrator. McCormick notes that Swingley is college-educated, a veteran of World War II, and a former civil servant for the state. He acknowledges Swingley's expertise regarding the irrigation system and the issues of water rights, farming and taxation of Indian land. Swingley is the first Native American to be interviewed, to be given a voice, on this national network documentary. The interview takes place with the two men, both dressed informally, sitting atop a split rail fence near a cattle corral. Swingley seems comfortable and articulate (noticeably more relaxed than the Senator and the priest), and McCormick elicits from him a narrative of his personal struggle with the U.S. government over the ownership, use and status of his land. He tells a story about how the government wouldn't allow him to farm his land, since it had been officially labeled as grazing land, unless he acquired a patent-in-fee for it (a legal action which removed it from tribal trust status and placed it in taxable, individual ownership). McCormick concludes: "Swingley can now farm his land. He also pays taxes on it. His land has, in a real sense, been terminated."

190 The next segment deals with the potential for oil as a primary financial resource for the Blackfeet. McCormick interviews Tribal Secretary Iliff McKay regarding government restrictions on oil and gas development by Indians on the Blackfeet reservation. The two men stand at an oil well, with sounds of oil pumping in the background throughout the interview. McKay explains government regulations which discourage leasing of Indian land to oil developers, and the pressures upon Blackfeet landowners to sell the land to non-Indian entrepreneurs. The momentum of native voices is building now, and McCormick allows them to tell their story with very little narration on his part (not unlike Birnhauer's strategy in The Whole Town's Talking). The next scene is a Blackfeet tribal council meeting, chaired by Tribal Chairman Walter Wetzel. Though staged for the camera, this appears to be indigenous government at work, and the council of eleven men (with one female recording clerk) discusses in an expository fashion their ongoing conflict with federal, state and county governments over the source of funds to provide assistance and social services to 2500 of its needy tribal members. The discussion highlights the bureaucratic stumbling blocks involved in the use and allocation of tribal funds held by the government. After the meeting, McCormick leads Wetzel and McKay outside to the porch of the council meetinghouse, and interviews them jointly, asking for historical background from their perspective. During the course of this long and informative segment, McKay provides a stunningly elegant unedited two-minute monologue, an interpretation of the economic history of the Blackfeet relationship with non-Indians since the 1880's. He clarifies the ideological conflict over land ownership:

191 [When] the so-called allotment system began, . . . the entire reservation was divided up into individual land allotments. Each individual was given a per-capita share in the ownership of the reservation. Well, that was something that was entirely new to Indians. They didn't--it was something they didn't comprehend. They didn't understand that land could be owned and could be traded, could be sold and could be put up as collateral and the like. When a person stops to think about that, that's only been 51 years ago that this land concept came into being. McKay claimed the government adopted a "policy of inaction" which effectively encouraged Indians to dispose of their land, since it became their only collateral. "So, in order to live, in order to get an existence, they have to dispose of their land to get some immediate cash to live on." In contrast to the stumbling verbal style of the Congressman interviewed earlier, McKay comes across as a wise seer/statesman whose political and cultural concerns are credible and deserve immediate attention. This persuasive expression of Blackfeet tribal leaders' perspectives on history and their concerns about their relationship with the government is followed by an extraordinary scene in which three Indian elders (Juniper Old Person, Theodore Last Star and Charlie Revis, but not identified to viewers), in traditional Blackfeet clothing and hairstyle, express their feelings about termination. Two of the elders speak only in their native Blackfeet language, and the statements are left untranslated. In broken English, the third speaker says, "Now, what these old timers say is all true. . . they have to sell their lands to get along." 66 This unconventional documentary tactic provides the ultimate affirmation that in spite of a shared national American citizenship, these tribal members maintain a distinct culture and language. The refusal to provide translation by the filmmakers was in fact a strong but subtle statement

192 against assimilation, against the inevitability of a melting pot approach to language, culture or nationhood. In his summation, McCormick notes the political nature of all Indian policy-making, referring to Secretary Seaton's recent vow against forced termination, which McCormick claims was made in support of Goldwater's re-election (Goldwater was also on the Senate Subcommittee on Indian Affairs): Goldwater is now safely re-elected, and whether Seaton's declarations represented a change in approach or not, we shall soon see whether the gentle policy he announced will be carried out or whether the heckling, the threatening, the economic bullying of the Indian will continue. The final interview is a return to Father Byrne, who reframes the political conflict in Christian rhetoric, validating any doubts viewers might have about how to reconcile the paradox of Christian evangelism with an anti-terminationist political stance. He states that There is no conflict between the Indian's ancestral heritage . . . and his Christian faith; on the contrary, faith elevates and ennobles his culture. . . . We maintain that the Indian's advancement . . . should not be thwarted, and [that] everything--modern education, modern facilities--should be offered to him, as far and as rapidly as circumstances permit. We only ask that, as he does go forward, he does not cast behind him as an antiquated encumbrance the priceless heirloom of his culture and his art. Now, if termination were the objective, that would be destroyed. The broadcast ends with Heart Butte schoolchildren again reciting the American Pledge of Allegiance. However, this time, in a delicious irony, the child the camera is focused upon stumbles and pauses over the word "indivisible" in the Pledge, until one of the documentary crew supplies the word: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the

193 United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one nation, indi. . . indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This is the end of the film itself. Charles Van Doren, host of the Kaleidoscope series, reads his scripted closing remarks prior to advertising the next episode. Adding a double dose of Christian rhetoric, he quotes from the 39th Biblical Psalm: "For I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Oh, spare me a little that I may recover my strength.' This has been the story of the American Indian, the American stranger." In the following weeks and months, as the next chapters will demonstrate, this NBC broadcast generated a great deal of national political controversy, arousing the unprecedented indignation of the national viewing audience and mobilizing many viewers into political and humanitarian action, which ranged from calls and letters (to the Department of the Interior, the White House, Congressional leaders, interest groups, the network and the tribes) to the organization of charitable relief efforts for the impoverished Blackfeet. The irate Department of the Interior responded defensively to a massive letter-writing campaign from the general public, grassroots civic organizations, Indian tribes, and professional Indian lobbies which expressed concern over government practices and praised NBC's coverage. The controversy became a newsworthy topic in itself, with coverage on national television network news as well as in the press across the nation. The broadcast became the focus of Congressional subcommittee hearings, and was used as a tool in grassroots activism on behalf of Native American causes. Many accounts credit the television show for mobilizing the

194 national support needed to effect eventual changes in federal policies and practices regarding Native Americans. Why and how, we might ask, did this one particular show--and not any other--so arouse and galvanize the interest of the public in Native American cultural politics? There are many possible explanations. Textually, the broadcast used all available cinematic techniques in the direct service of political goals. The American Stranger might be likened to the most powerful propaganda in its command of the poetic potential of cinematic aesthetics put to the service of a cultural and political argument. The second half of the documentary, in particular, exhibits masterful cinematographic techniques and a rousing musical score to grab the viewers and engage them in the real-life dramas being presented. The speaking characters are all sympathetic, likeable and compelling; the villains are alluded to but remain faceless through lack of direct representation (a major criticism of the broadcast by federal agencies). The silent characters, mostly children in poverty, aroused intense nurturing emotions in many viewers and were perhaps the single most important factor which incited viewers to humanitarian action. The political rhetoric of The American Stranger was direct, hard-hitting and persuasive, and in tandem with the manipulative visual and emotional rhetoric, constructed a strong argument for immediate political and humanitarian action on the part of the viewers.

195 NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

1. Knutzen, Robert Max, "A Case History of a Television Documentary: The American Stranger" (Master's Thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1961). 2. Vine Deloria, Jr., "Introduction," in American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century (Norman, U Oklahoma P, 1985) 5. 3. Letter to the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs dated 28 February 1954 from Dolly C. Akers of Fort Peck, Wolf Point, Montana. AAIA Papers. 4. Letter to Father Cornelius Byrne dated 19 October 1958 from Max Gubatayao. McCormick Papers. 5. Letter to Byrne dated 19 October 1958 from Max Gubatayao. McCormick Papers. 6. Local and regional interest groups which were predominantly white and anti-terminationist were the Friends of Hill 57, the Cascade County Community Council, Great Falls Democratic Women's Club, Great Falls Business and Professional Women's Club, Montana Citizens Against Termination, the Montana State Farmer's Union, and various church groups and religious figures. Montana's Senators were James Murray and Mike Mansfield, and the Congressmen from Western Montana were Lee Metcalf and LeRoy Anderson. Quote from "A Note For 1958--2nd Session," Circular distributed by Friends of Hill 57, Great Falls, Montana. AAIA Papers. 7. In a candid letter dated 11 July 1954 to Metcalf regarding the pending Flathead termination, Sister Providencia wrote: Of course, the [NCAI] does not have the money to wire to every little country newspaper, and it is the Indians' own fault that their one recognized organization is so badly crippled in its public relations job. . . . The Indians are not too friendly to NCAI because they know in the beginning that its formation originated in the Bureau, and that its promoters among the Indians have been present or former Bureau employees. One of the most active boys at the last convention was a top "programming" (withdrawal department in the Bureau) boy from D.C. . . . Here we are with Indian Defense problem No. 1 at the national level. Wobbly about standing on their own two feet, financially unsupported. . . . All the leaders [on the Montana Intertribal Board] are Republicans before they are Indians, . . . led around at the State Capitol by the Governor's own pro-termination, pro-Company group. Sister Providencia Papers (Cheney Cowles) 5/19.

196 8. However, the connections were often poor. Since NBC had limited affiliates in western states at the time, communities such as those in Montana wishing to broadcast the documentary simultaneously with the network apparently arranged for kinescopes to be sent to local television stations, regardless of network affiliation. Montana had only five television stations, according to a 1957 Television Factbook. Sister Providencia reported that, in Great Falls, "the viewing out here was not too successful because of the telephone relay, but the sound effects were perfect. We could not see Hill 57 and its macabre props but we heard more than enough. . . ." Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958. McCormick Papers. 9. Vance Kepley, Jr., "From Frontal Lobes to the Bob-and-Bob' Show: NBC Management and Programming Strategies, 1949-65," in Hollywood in the Age of Television, ed. Tino Balio (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990) 41-62. 10. Kepley, 57. 11. Alex McNeil, Total Television (New York: Penguin, 1991) 561. 12. William Boddy, Fifties Television (Urbana: U Illinois P, 1990) 158. 13. Sales brochure for The American Stranger (Second News Special in the New NBC Kaleidoscope Series), dated 3 November 1958. Metcalf Papers 604/5. 14. Sales brochure for The American Stranger. 15. Letter to McCormick dated 14 June 1958 from Helen McMillan Meyers of the AAIA. McCormick Papers. 16. Letter to Oliver LaFarge, AAIA President, dated 6 November 1958 from Harry J. W. Belvin, Chief, Choctaw Tribe, Durant, Oklahoma. McCormick Papers. 17. Letter to Lloyd Eaglebull, Sr., Secretary of the Pine Ridge Tribal Council, Pine Ridge, South Dakota dated 18 July 1958 from La Verne Madigan, Executive Director of the AAIA. Other correspondence indicates that the organization sent similar letters, signed either by Madigan or AAIA Counsel Arthur Lazarus, to Iliff McKay of the Blackfeet Tribal Council, Leo Vocu of the Pine Ridge Tribal Council, Joseph Thorpe of the Shoshone Bannock Tribe of Fort Hall, Idaho, and Sister Providencia. McCormick Papers and AAIA Papers. 18. Speech by LaFarge entitled Citation of Robert McCormick and NBC News, presented 27 April 1959 at the AAIA Annual Membership Meeting. AAIA Papers. 19. McCormicks background research reports are in Box 9 of the McCormick Papers.

197 20. Letter to President of the Senate Richard M. Nixon, dated 4 January 1954, from Orme Lewis, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, accompanying the draft of the bill to terminate the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation of Montana, and supporting materials. National Archives, RG 48, Office of the Secretary of the Interior, Classified Central Files, Box 295. 21. Transcript of Statement by Richard Shipman, of Lewiston, Montana, Vice-President of Montana Farmers Union, at the Congressional hearings on the Flathead Termination Bill (undated [1954]). AAIA Papers. 22. Letter dated 25 November 1958 from Reinhold Brust, Assistant Area BIA Director, Billings, Montana, to Mrs. John E. Dobos of Casper, Wyoming. Iliff McKay Papers. The Bureau also noted, however, that the Blackfeet Tribal Council and the Glacier County Welfare Department operated their own tribally-financed general assistance program; the responsibility for public assistance was a topic of longstanding disagreement between the tribe, the county and the government, and was the topic of the tribal council meeting filmed for the NBC documentary. 23. Letter to Members of the Flathead Tribe dated 2 October 1953 from Forrest R. Stone, Superintendent, and Paul L. Fickinger, Area Director, Flathead Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior, Dixon, Montana. Also included rough draft of the bill, dated 14 September 1953. 24. Resolution dated 14 November 1953 of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Flathead Tribal Council; Walter McDonald, Chairman. NCAI Papers. 25. Letter to Nixon from Lewis (4 January 1954). 26. Indian Information circular distributed by concerned citizens of Great Falls, Montana, dated 3 December 1953. AAIA Papers. 27. Flathead Indians are Opposed to Governments New Policy, clipping from Glacier Reporter (Browning, Montana) (27 November 1953). AAIA Papers 28. Letter to LaFarge dated 12 February 1954 from Robert Yellowtail of Billings, Montana. AAIA Papers. 29. Statement by Richard Shipman, 1954. 30. Letter from Sister Providencia to M.C. Betwee, Michigan District of Kiwanis International, dated 5 January 1959. Sister Providencia Papers (Cheney Cowles) 1/21. 31. See "Hill 57 Indians Wards of U.S., Mansfield Says" (18 October 1955) and "Can Interior Department End Wardship at Will?" Great Falls (Montana) Tribune (20

198 October 1955). 32. On a personal copy of an excerpt of this letter, Sister Providencia herself corrected a few inaccuracies and terminological usages: . . . the daughter of former Rep. John H. Tolan of California; she is a handsome, bright woman who spent 30 years of her life in Montana. . . Sister Providencia Papers. 33. Letter to Joe Meyers, NBC News Director, dated 16 September 1958 from McCormick. Skilling Papers. 34. McCormick Papers. 35. A number of copies exist of the transcript of this speech, dated 13 September 1958 and published on Department of the Interior Press Release letterhead. One copy is in the McCormick Papers. 36. Handwritten notes on a copy of Seatons 13 September 1958 speech sent to Senator Mike Mansfield. Mansfield Papers Box X, File 133d. 37. Handwritten notes on a copy of Seatons 13 September 1958 speech sent to NBC from Helen McMillan Meyers, Public Information Officer, Association on American Indian Affairs. McCormick Papers. 38. Memorandum to Clients re. Remarks by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton dated 22 September 1958 from Strasser, Spiegelberg, Fried and Frank law firm, Washington, D.C. AAIA Papers. 39. Seaton statement issued as Interior Department Press release, along with Meyers' handwritten note, in McCormick Papers. Sister Providencia letter to Father Byrne, dated 19 October, 1958, in McCormick Papers. Berry comment from transcript of Hearings of the House Subcommittee on Indian Affairs on the Kaleidoscope Television Program, May 15, 1959, page 19, in Metcalf Papers 604/5. 40. National Indian Group Meets in Missoula, Char-Koosta (Publication of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Montana), September 1958, 1; A New U.S. Indian Policy?, Convention Adopts 50 Resolutions, Metcalf Promises Fight to Wipe Out HCR 108, The NCAI Bulletin (1 November 1958) 1-3. Report of 1957 NCAI Convention, McCormick papers. 41. Madigan, Executive Directors Report (AAIA), August 14-October 8, 1958, 15. 42. A New U.S. Indian Policy?, Convention Adopts 50 Resolutions, Metcalf Promises Fight to Wipe Out HCR 108, The NCAI Bulletin (1 November 1958) 1-3. Also, typed copy of Resolutions. McCormick Papers.

199 43. Letter to Walter McDonald dated 8 October 1958 from Metcalf staff, with indications that copies of the letter were also sent to Iliff McKay, Sister Providencia and Knute Bergan (Montana Department of Public Education). McKay Papers. 44. This footage was not used in the final cut of the documentary. 45. "Metcalf Promises Fight to Wipe Out HCR 108," NCAI Bulletin IV/4 (1 November 1958) 2. 46. AAIA Annual Report on Public Education, dated 17 December 1958, attached to Executive Committee Minutes. AAIA Papers. 47. Sales brochure for The American Stranger. 48. Memo to "All Central Office Employees, Area Directors, Superintendents and Field Relocation Officers" dated 3 November 1958 from M.M. Tozier, Information Officer, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. McKay Papers. 49. Papers of Senator Mike Mansfield, Box X, file 133d. 50. Blackfeet Tribal Council Minutes dated 12 November 1958. Sister Providencia Papers (Cheney Cowles) 2/24. 51. Letter to Mansfield dated 11 November 1958 from Sister Providencia. Mansfield Papers, Box X, file 133d. 52. Telegram to Sister Providencia dated 12 November 1958 from McCormick. Sister Providencia Papers (Cheney Cowles) 1/21. 53. Telegram to Madigan dated 13 November 1958 from Leo C. Graybill of Great Falls, Montana. AAIA Papers. 54. Western Union Day Letter dated 13 November 1958 to R. D. Warden, Managing Editor of Great Falls (Montana) Tribune from Madigan. AAIA Papers. 55. Telegram to Madigan dated 13 November 1958 from R. D. Warden, Executive Director, Great Falls Tribune. AAIA Papers. 56. Letter dated 2 December 1958 to Walter Wetzel, Chairman of Blackfeet Tribal Council, from Helen McMillan Meyers, AAIA Public Information Officer. McKay Papers. 57. Letter, entitled Action Request to All ACLU Members in Montana, to ACLU

200 members dated 13 November 1958 from Jeffrey E. Fuller, Assistant Director Secretary, ACLU Indian Civil Rights Committee, American Civil Liberties Union, New York, New York. NCAI Papers. 58. Telegram to Sister Providencia dated 13 November 1958 from McCormick. Sister Providencia Papers. 59. AAIA Annual Report on Public Education, dated 17 December 1958, attached to Executive Committee Minutes. AAIA Papers. 60. Letter to McCormick dated 17 November 1958 from Sister Providencia. McCormick Papers. 61. Letter to the Honorable Lyndon Johnson, U.S. Senate, dated 12 November 1958, from Joseph Garry, President, NCAI. Also, press release For release Nov. 17, 1958: American Indian Leaders Call on Democrats to Enact Progressive Indian Plank of 1956 Democratic Platform, from Sontheimer, Runkle and Associates, Inc, Washington, D.C., for NCAI. NCAI Papers. 62. Blackfeet Tribal Council Minutes, Special Session, 12 November 1958. Sister Providencia
Papers (Cheney Cowles) 2/24.

63. The New York Times (16 November 1958). Clipping in McCormick Papers. 64. Both film versions, which were located in McCormicks personal estate effects by his daughter Karen Skilling, are now part of the Robert K. McCormick Collection at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 65. All quotations from the narration or interviews are from the NBC transcript in conjunction with my own notes from viewing the film versions. Transcripts can be found in the NBC Papers 293/1, as well as in the Metcalf Papers 604/ 5. The reader will be warned, however, that some inaccuracies are contained in the NBC transcript, as noted by McCormick himself in a handwritten note in the McCormick Papers. See updated transcript in Appendix. 66. The elders are identified from production notes as Juniper Old Person, Theodore Last Star and Charlie Revis.