The Richard Nixon foundation. Mr. Johnson president s ands president nixons administration is regarded as one of the most proindian of the 20th century and one that restored lands to tribes and ushered in a new era of selfgovernment. Native americans found a champion in president nixon. A stance that resulted from his personal history and his consultation with indian leaders who helped shape his view of Indian Affairs. This policy breakthrough took place in an atmosphere of indian activism and even militancy. And in a famous incident, a group of native american activists took over Alcatraz Island in 1969,reclaiming it as indian land during their 18 month occupation. Amidst this assertion of cultural identity and land claims, president nixon advanced a successful proposal to repeal termination,and congress acted on nixons reform proposals. In his special message to congress on july 8, 1970, both as aixon said, matter of justice and as a matter of enlightened social policy, we must begin to act on the basis of what the indians themselves have long been telling us. The time has come to break decisively with the past and to create conditions for a new era in which the indian future is determined by indian acts and indian decisions. When president nixon returned the sacred site of new mexico to eblopeople of taos pu in a ceremony, it symbolized the fundamental shift in u. S. Government policy towards American Indian people. At the signing of the legislation, an taos elder said a new day begins not only for the American Indian but for all the americans in this country. And indeed, from Richard Nixons administration through the present day, american president s have been disposed to view full citizenship and tribal selfdetermination as a foundation of u. S. Indian policy. We will hear today from our panelists about the key role president nixon and members of his administration, contemporary contemporaneous leaders and others played in implementing this historic move to what president nixon called a new and balanced relationship between the United States government and the first americans. It is the individuals involved, their motivations, and their points of view that make this material particularly rich and absorbing. For history is not just about ideas, but about particular people and perspectives. Our speakers, especially those who helped formulate and implement this transformation of the federal governments relationship with tribal governments, are uniquely situated to explore this fascinating and important story and bring it vividly to life for us this morning. Now it is my privilege to introduce the moderator of this mornings forum. Wallace johnson served as assistant attorney general for land and Natural Resources in the Nixon Administration. During his tenure there, he created the indian rights litigation section. Previously, he served as special assistant to president nixon and on several committee assignments. Johnson also serves as a trustee of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in cody, wyoming, which houses the plains indian museum. Please join me in welcoming mr. Johnson. [applause] mr. Johnson i will tell you, it is cold in cody. I talked to my wife out there this morning and she said it is 14 degrees at my ranch. I said, im not coming home. [applause] [laughter] my job is to provide an overview for this conversation and introduce the panelists and moderate the conversation. The fact is i am sure that our panelists will engage in an active conversation in such a way that you will forget i am around. But i do want to provide an overview of what this is all about. This is the third panel discussing essentially the same issue. We had two previous panels at the Gilcrease Museum in tulsa last spring. Basically, what we are doing is looking at those president ial papers like historians, but we have got people who were active in developing the concepts of those documents, who actually worked on them, and or who are able to sit back and interpret what they have meant as we examine the last 40 years looking at the very question that we have posited on the board. 1968 was a turning point. I am now talking a little bit as a historian, even though i am a lawyer. A turning point because lots of things came together in a very positive way and lots of things that came together in a positive way made a real difference. And it is that real difference we want to identify for historians in the future. Now, very much what we are doing is like pulling a tulip apart. Because as we get into this further, we learn more about what we know and what we dont know. And lots of what we dont know will be brought into better focus this morning, but in a way that future historians can examine the tapes of these conversations, the documents that will be developed as part of a research guide, and begin to get a better sense of the significance of actions that were initiated during president nixons time. Here is sort of a real short explanation of what happened in those first four hours of taping in tulsa. We know that we know that president nixon grew up in a very small, quaker enclave in california. And then he went to whittier. And at whittier, there was a person that influenced him significantly called chief newman. Now, can we point to the specific actions the president took because of his background, his education, his family upbringing . No. Anybody that can do that is way better than we are yet today. We have to intuit some of these things. And we know that he oversaw a process with people that developed a pretty meaningful change in historic direction with respect to the former policy of terminating reservations and the future policy of establishing selfdetermination. Now, and im going to be challenging some of the lawyers, they are all lawyers, on our panel, to talk about the nature of sovereignty in the constitutional context because the tribes are sovereign and yet they are dependent. What does that mean . How has that played out in history . What did it mean back then, 40 years ago, as this was all under development . So, that is what this panel is all about. There is the foundation from those two discussions. First some of these panels all three of these panelists are the same, but other people have contributed. All distinguished scholars and public servants. And essentially, we are building on that foundation, but we will talk a little bit about it too because we need to bring this panel into perspective because we have learned a lot since then. I am honored to be part of this conversation because i am dealing with three panelists who are extremely distinguished in their career, and i will briefly introduce them. And then turn it over to them and their preliminary remarks, i will ask them to explain in greater detail their backgrounds because their resumes are so long you cannot read them. Atll sta i will start the far end, with Professor Bob anderson. Im only going to say about bob that he is a young scholar who is embedded in the Indian Movement and basically has the ability to look at the elaboration of history in a very positive way, in a nonpartisan way, even though he was part of a previous democratic administration. I cannot describe reid chambers. He calls himself a subaltern to me when we were working together back in the 1970s. Well, thank you, but the fact of the matter is that this guy is a scholar, hes a lawyer, and he has devoted his entire career to representing tribal interests. He is a giant in his field. And i am leading up i wont say this is the best or that the last is best, but i will guarantee you that i have never seen a person with such passion as bobbie kilberg. She started as a white house fellow. And grabbed this issue when she was working with john ehrlich go and has never let it has had a very distinguished career in government to this very day. But she has also done other things in the Technology Field as i said, i am challenging each of them to begin their remarks with explaining how they got into this area, what they have been doing since, and it will give us a context for our conversation. Dr. Lee huebner is not with us. Flu and winter have taken their toll. And there is another fellow who is very instrumental in these panels, jeff shepherd. He is the person that has organized them for the nixon foundation. He has a cold and could not come. He lost his voice. So, we are not limited in we wont be limited in our discussion, but i want to thank those two people who are both not feeling well and cannot be with us this morning. Now, use the podium if you want, but when we get to the conversation, we will just sit over here and talk. I would like to call on bobbie, who will start. [applause] ms. Kilberg good morning. Before i start, there is one more person actually more , three people in the audience that need to be recognized. One is sitting over there, cd ward, who was chief of staff and for Vice President agnew, had a Critical Role in developing the indian message. The second is president nixons brother. You will please stand up if you will please stand up . [applause] ms. Kilberg he is here to keep us all grounded. Can you all hear me . Yes. And the third is tom. Will you please stand up and be recognized . [applause] ms. Kilberg i will, i promise you, get to how i got interested in this as i go through my remarks. But my role here is really to set the stage on the development of the indian message, and give you a flavor for what went on at the white house because i think that is very interesting and relevant to how the message came out in the end. President nixons july 8, 1970 message on indian policy was historic. In a definitive break from the past and forcefully committed the United States to a policy of selfdetermination without termination, and it provided the Building Blocks to make that policy a reality. Two initial important observations. First, i have literally been asked over and over again in the last 42 years, what was the origin and genesis of president nixons interest . On september 27, 1968, as a president ial candidate, nixon issued a statement to the National Congress of American Indians convention in omaha, and that laid out significant points that appeared in his july 8, 1970 message. His july message was much stronger and more comprehensive than the nci statement, but many of the elements were in that statement. Some commentators say president nixon was influenced by an earlier message from president 1968 johnson that started a review in indian policy. Something he read alvin josephys memorandum but i think, and this was alluded to, i think there is a simpler and more accurate answer, which is that president nixon personally held a very strong moral belief that federal native american policy was destructive, it was discriminatory, it was debilitating, and it simply was not right. Forced assimilation and termination ran against everything in his moral core. As a young white house fellow, i obviously did not know the president well, but i did get sufficient glimpses of his thought processes to say with some confidence that he did personalize his beliefs. And in this case, that personalization related to coach wallace norman. His football coach at whittier college. Coach Wallace Newman was a member of the la jolla band of the Mission Indian tribe. The president said on more than one occasion that the coach had a profound influence on his life and had inspired him and his teammates to be confident, competitive, and to never give up. If you go back to those days, that was a long time ago, the president felt that coach newman had never given up, even though he was very much discriminated against. That was a time when native americans and other minorities simply were not selected as coaches for a major football programs. Rather than, with all due program,o whittiers nor were they selected to be major coaches or players. The president believed that coach newman wouldve been an allamerican if it had been a different time, and then he wouldve been a coach at a Big Ten School if it had been a different time but that was not possible in those days. Nixon thought it was terribly unfair and i heard him say more than once that he promised that if he ever had a chance, he would correct the wrongs against native americans on behalf of coach newman. I think the july 8 indian message was just part payback for coach newman. It is also consistent with the president s belief that you provide opportunity for everyone but you dont force everyone into the same mold. His strong federal Financial Support for historically black colleges for that same pattern. Selfdetermination and opportunity without forced assimilation. President johnsons 1968 indian message did mention the concept of selfdetermination. The establishment of a National Indian council opportunity was National Council for indian opportunity was important. The views on the trust responsibility. The Senate Subcommittee on indian education. And the new open approach to working with Indian Tribes and communities all provided a context within this framework for the president s message. The second important observation, and this was very important, president nixon had a very topdown management style and John Ehrlichman was head of domestic policy. Period. End of conversation. Everything went up from john and everything came down from john. We will never know how much of this specific policy was really of it wereow much the president s personally. But it did not matter because John Ehrlichman had the authority to speak for the president and he did so. We need to give John Ehrlichman major credit for the president s indian message and policy because he was integral to it, he was central to it, he was a central decisionmaker. Let us turn to how that message came about. It was october 1969, and it was 7 30 a. M. As ron walker knows, that was the white house senior staff meeting. I attended that not because i was a member of the white house senior staff. I was a 23yearold white house fellow. But because i was a white house fellow, i was given that privilege. The senior staffers were at the table. That morning, john opened the meeting by saying the president had talked with him and wanted a thorough review of federal indian policy, and he was not pleased with the present state of affairs. John also noted that the Vice President had attended ncis october it convention october 8 convention in albuquerque to set the stage. John looked at everyone in the room and said, does anyone have expertise in this area . There was an eerie silence. When no one else volunteered, i raised my hand and said, i went to Yale Law School. That explains all you need to know. I went to gail law school, and my thesis at Yale Law School had been on Community Control and indian education. I had spent about three weeks on the navajo reservation my senior year with some of my colleagues from ale who had already graduated, working on an education lawsuit against the bia, which was brought by the First Program on the reservation. We had done that on behalf of the navajo chapter. That was about all anybody needed, so i was drafted. John asked another to work on the project and instructed all of us to work with sidi ward and the Vice President. They assigned Brad Patterson as executive assistant to work with me. One of the first steps we took was to consult with bob robertson, director of the and cio, which reported to Vice President agnew. Ncio had been established by the executive order by president johnson in his march 6, 1968 message. It was chaired by the Vice President and this is an interesting list of people on the council. The secretaries of interior, agriculture, commerce, labor. The director of oeo and six indian leaders. In august 1970, president nixon expanded the council by executive order to include the attorney general, who should have been on it from the beginning, and two other additional indian leaders for a total of eight. Ncio had already started a series of age forums on indian issues and programs around the country, taking reservation and urban indian input and building on president johnsons message. Their goal was to prepare the their goal was to prepare a set of recommendations for consideration by the president and we welcomed that input vehicle. On january 26, 1970, Vice President agnew held a Cabinet Meeting in the west wing of the white house. In attendance were, and this is very relevant, the Vice President , the six indian members of the council, finch, labor secretary schulz, the agriculture secretary, the commerce secretary, hud secretary romney. As well as bob robertson, sidi ward, Brad Patterson, and me. The six indian members were appointed by president johnson. Bob robertson and the members of the Indian Council presented their findings and the set of recommendations for consideration by the council. Harris, a comanche from oklahoma , had been chosen to speak on behalf of the indian members and when she spoke, it literally was so moving and powerful and charismatic that the room was literally spellbound. It was really something to see. We took the nci draft recommendations and we circulated them formally to each member, which was standard white house procedure, as well as the attorney general and the director of the new office of management and budget. These officials sent recommendations to their Senior Department executives for review and comment. The Vice President through sidi ward was a big supporter of the many proposed initiatives. A lot of them. We held many subsequent meetings , especially with interior, omb, and oeo, to massage and finalize the recommendations. In these recommendations, selfdetermination took enteral stage as did rejecting termination. And further recommendations included the right to control and operate federal programs through contracts, education reform, including the right of indian communities to control their own schools, economic legislation, including broadening loans, providing loan Additional Resources for Indian Health and urban indian programs, the establishment of an independent indian trust Council Authority, which in the long term did not pass the congress. The creation of an interior Department Assistant secretary for Indian Affairs and the return of blue lake to the taos pueblo people. We had major confrontations with justice and omb. We had support on most issues from the interior secretary who was particularly strong for the need for an independent counsel, while the Vice President preferred a council within the interior department. We also worked closely with don rumsfeld and his deputy, who were very supportive. On occasion, we had helpful input from pat monahan. President nixon had approved support for the return of blue lake in late january, and we separated out the alaska native lands claim issue, which was the other big land issue from the message because of its complexity and sensitivity and it was not ready for prime time. However, please note that when president nixon made this decision in 1971, he supported the settlement of 40 million acres of land. Almost 1 billion in cash and the creation of 13 native regional corporations. I give credit for this both to the president and John Ehrlichman, who controlled access to the president. No cabinet member challenged johns conclusion. After three months of negotiating within the federal branch and having discussions with the Indian Community, both through ncio and other organizations, we presented the decision memorandum to the president in late april. It was signed by Vice President agnew. The process was interesting. John ehrlichman wanted to make be sure that when something was ready to go to the president , it was really ready to go to the president. John reviewed the memo with me and sent it back with many comments. He sent it back for Better Development of major proposals , including the indian right to control or operate federal programs, through contracting, as well as the authority and control of indian schools. After additional review, patterson, ward, and i redrafted a memorandum for the president. John ehrlichman again reviewed the memorandum with me and sent it back again for a numbe anothr round of discussions. About a week later, a final memorandum for the president was prepared. It received johns final approval and was sent to president nixon. Remember, the initial memo was done under the Vice President s but it was a cumulative effort. As the above scenario indicates, John Ehrlichman had been the decision broker of every aspect of policy with len garment and sidi ward providing advice and counsel. I had the privilege of being the facilitator. The memo went into the oval office, john basically knew it would come out intact, and indeed, it did. To my knowledge, there never was an actual meeting between president nixon and all the federal government stakeholders on our indian policies proposals. Resident nixon worked solely through John Ehrlichman, who conveyed back to the working group the president s ideas and concerns. I remember vividly john telling me that the president was adamant that we would be certain that no one in the Indian Community would view selfdetermination as a disguise for termination, or would worry that somehow Tribal Authority would be turned over to the state. One of the hallmarks of the nixon presidency was the new federalism. But the president made it very clear that any application of federalism had to fit within the overarching rubric of adherence to the nations treaty and trust responsibilities and respect for indian sovereignty. There still remained a great deal of work to be done once president nixon approved the concepts and specific negotiations. Arguments over specifics continued right up until the release of the president s message on july 8. For example, and this may be addressed later, we released the message without having an indian trust Council Authority bill actually approved. Omb opposed the measure and they convinced assistant secretary don rice that it was a bad idea. We had similar problems with the contracting legislation. That gives you a flavor of where we were and how we got to the message, but how it was presented to the American Public is also important. I cannot conclude without spending a few minutes to describe the president s blue lake decision to you, and how much he was emotionally invested in it. It is a side of Richard Nixon rarely reported on or chronicled. It is a very human and caring side of the president s nature, and i think it is our duty to have it recorded for history. Also, the way the blue lake decision unfolded impacted the president ial message, changing it from a fact sheet to a message, presenting it at a cabinet room events, and above thefirst page full coverage in the New York Times with the full message printed inside the paper. The senior white house staff other than John Ehrlichman and others who understood, the rest of the staff was totally surprised. They were actually floored. President nixon had never received such favorable press. The focus by the media and the American Public would never have happened but for some drama relating to blue lake in the white house. In restoring the sacred blue lake and the surrounding watershed lands to the taos pueblo people, president nixon righted a wrong that was 64 years old. It was a defining moment in relations with the federal government. As i noted earlier, in march, the president decided to support the return of blue lake and make it part of his indian policy, which would be announced at a later date. Thus, no prior notification of his support had been made. It is now late june. Due to a pressing schedule, the indian message is scheduled to be released as a fact sheet but not with an accompanying event. There i i am carrying about 100 am. Copies. In those days, there was no email, etc. You literally almost mimeographed on these big machines copies of stuff. I remember spending all fourth of july weekend to my husbands distress sitting there xeroxing these things. I am carrying 100 copies down an incline from the west wing into the press Briefing Room to give to reporters. Out of nowhere, i get tackled by the white house director of Senate Relations named ken blue. I got tackled with such force that i was knocked down, and all these messages go flying around outside the press room. Ken helps me up. He declares the indian message cannot and will not be released. I was incredulous and a bit hurt, and i said, why . And he said the new mexico senator Clinton Anderson opposed the return of the lake and was threatening to vote against the antiballistic missile treaty if the president does not remove blue lake from the message. So i took a deep breath and my response was, lets go upstairs and meet with John Ehrlichman. John listened to him and called the secretary of the president and said he needed to come to the oval office to discuss an important matter. They proceeded to the oval office. I was not permitted to go into the oval office so i waited very anxiously in the anteroom. What seemed like literally forever but eventually the oval office door opened, and honest, i thought the president winked at me. That was very unusual, to say the least. I looked at John Ehrlichman and ken and asked what happened. John was smiling broadly and ken looked like a bus had run over him. The president had instructed ken to tell senator anderson that his decision stands. And if anderson did not like it, he could vote against the abm and he could go and i cant say this in mixed company the four letter word himself. [laughter] honest, he did. He said, we are going to invite the taos pueblo people to the white house to present the message in front of the delegation and declare the president s strong and firm support for the return of blue lake. On july 8, president nixon did meet with the delegation with the Vice President , the interior secretary, and John Ehrlichman. Also included were the president and Vice President of ncai. Meeting in the cabinet room was really a unique honor. It is almost exclusively reserved for meetings with a cabinet, governors, congressional leaders, and delegations of foreign heads of state. This was the first time in the Nixon White House that anyone other than those designated folks had been invited to me in that room with the president. It was recognition by the president of tribal sovereignty and his respect. After president nixons indian message received widespread and featured coverage in the press, the blue lake effort really came front and center with a bipartisan effort led by senator fred harris, a democrat from oklahoma, his wife, and the republican president. What an odd but effective trio they were, and they found help in Democratic Senators Edward Kennedy and george mcgovern, and republican senators. President nixon personally lobbied selected members of the senate, including the key vote, which was arizona senator Barry Caldwell are barry goldwater, as did John Ehrlichman and others. On december 2, 1970, the Senate Approved blue lake legislation by a 7012 vote. This vote was amazing and the vote spread was a surprise because legislation had been rejected by the Senate Interior affairs committee. This was a first time that a Senate Committee vote had been overturned by the full senate. Those of you spending time in the senate know that it used to be a place of great decorum. Sitting in the u. S. Senate gallery to watch the vote were the taos, the pueblo governor, the tribal secretary, other tribal leaders including harris, patterson, ward, and me. In the Senate Gallery, visitors are never supposed to stand up , never supposed to make noise, and never supposed to applaud. I still cry when i think about this. They brought two canes. One was a cane president had given to the pueblo, and the other president nixon had given us when we went out to the pueblo as a white house delegation. Both canes were to honor the taos pueblo people. They stood up in the Senate Gallery and he held the two canes aloft and the entire gallery stood up. And then all the senators stood up from their chairs and look at the gallery. And they started to applaud. The gallery started to applaud. The entire Senate Chamber erupted. Nobody had seen anything like that. It was an extraordinarily moving moment. Finally on december 15, 1970, as a 24yearold young lawyer, i was in charge of the blue lake bill signing ceremony in the east room of the white house. President nixon sat at the signing table. The room was overflowing with attendees. The president asked him to start with a prayer and the room which was beautifully decorated for the Christmas Holidays became exquisitely silent. And paul bernal translated the prayer, and then he thanked the president for his support and paul translated again. And this went on and on. Both their own marks went on for a very long time. And then the president stood and he spoke and he finally sat down. He took his pen in hand and the return of law blue lake to taos pueblo. I had never spent any personal time with the president. But after the event, the president invited me to walk with him to his motorcade. The ceremony had gone on way over schedule. He was late for a speech in front of the employees of hud. He seemed to be in a real rush to get to his car. So i apologized for the ceremony taking so long. The president turned and he stared directly at me and he put his hand on my shoulder, and he said, young lady, this ceremony was one of the highlights of my presidency. It was absolutely a beautiful time, and i wish it could have continued longer. Im very proud of what we did today. And i want you to know that i am very proud of president Richard Nixon. Thank you for allowing us to share our reminisces with you today. [applause] mr. Chambers bobbie, you are always a hard act to follow, but particularly today. I am reid chambers. I served as the chief indian lawyer at the interior department between 1973 and 1976. Since then, i have been practicing law here with a Small Law Firm in washington, d. C. My partner, doug anderson, a navajo indian, is here today at this meeting. And my whole career has been basically involved in indian law and representing tribal interests. Before i joined the interior department, i had been a professor at ucla law school, and in that capacity i talked i taught federal indian law. With the Legal Service organizations, particularly the californian Legal Services and the native americans rights funds and bringing some of the initial reform cases that were brought pretty much at the same time as the nixon message. To you abouto talk i guess i should say, let me say one other thing. Wally, i remarked last week that i had been a subaltern to wally johnson, and what i meant by that is that wally was the assistant attorney general in the division of the Justice Department handling indian cases. He had been appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. Associate solicitors did not have to go through that, and also my boss at the interior department, the solicitor, the general counsel of the department, Kent Frizzell was a president ial appointment and confirmed by the senate. And i guess together i saw them as the real giants in implementing the nixonindian policy as a legal matter and in that sense i was an assistant to kent. In practicing law in washington, i have noticed over the years a lot of policies announced. And a certain amount of fanfare, perhaps almost nothing as dramatic as what bobbie described in this one, and then they wither on the vine because they are not implemented. But where i want to give credit to wally and Kent Frizzell , who was in our tulsa meeting but not here today, is that they really were determined to implement the nixon indian policy. And i think one reason it has become the standard for all administrations since, republican and democratic, bipartisan indian policy that has been really sometimes more robustly, sometimes less robustly implemented, but has been the basic policy of other president ial orders since then. , is that it was so actively implemented. One thing perhaps in the discussion period there will be a chance for wally to give a personal reflection on why this was an important thing for him. Because you could imagine it is quite frequent that the president announces a policy. But down at the assistant secretary level or solicitor level, the person in that job is more interested in other things. They dont get in the way of the policy. They do not go out and actively implement it. Wally did, kent did in hiring me and directing me. I was to go out and serve exclusively as the lawyer advocate for reasonable indian legal claims within both in terms of bringing litigation and referring cases over to justice, and in terms of all of the conflicts within the interior department. Because there are a lot of agencies and president nixon recognized this in his message. That there are a lot of conflicts between the trust responsibility of the United States to protect the rights to resources of Indian Tribes, to water, to land, to rights to hunt and fish, and the programs and responsibilities of other bureaus within the interior department. The fish and wildlife service. Protecting and conserving fish and wildlife. The bureau of reclamation, which for decades had been building water projects to provide Irrigation Water and municipal water to nonindians. Really, what are that the really, water that the indians had a reasonable claim to. The major landholding agencies often having conflicts with indian claims to land. And president nixons message recognized that the indians were frequently the losers when these conflicts arose. Kent charged me with only representing indian interests and not taking into account other issues. Or responsibilities in the department. And also to bring to his attention and the secretary of the interior by that time was rogers morton, the secretarys attention situations where there was conflict and to advocate the indian position. We did that, and we began to bring a number of cases protecting indian fishing rights in the state of washington, which went to the u. S. Supreme court, where the rights were vindicated. Oregon, where among other things we supported the hunting and fishing rights of the tribe that had been terminated in the 1950s. And later, it was restored to federal indian tribal status. Cases in minnesota and michigan, particularly, and wisconsin, where we were supporting off reservation fishing rights and the rights of indians to exercise hunting and fishing rights without being subject to state regulation. Those cases were largely successful. We sent an increasing number of cases over to wallys division. Two things happened. Wally generally there may have been one or two, we did not file, but i cannot recall as i am sitting here now. Wally accepted our recommendations. Some of these cases were politically controversial. We were suing thousands of nonindian water users in the pyramid lake case or in the pueblo case in new mexico. We were suing on the other side of the fishing cases were state agencies and thousands of sports fishermen and major commercial fishery interests. Wally, you invariably filed those cases and not just filed them, but prosecuted them energetically. About a year after i was in the job, wally called me and said he was going to establish a separate section in the Justice Department to try those cases where the lawyers would be experts in Indian Affairs and where they would only handle cases where the United States was suing as a trustee for Indian Tribes. And that section still exists today. It is a Lasting Legacy nearly four decades later. Bobbie mentioned the indian trust council proposal. In thee idea had been nixon message to take these issues out of the interior and Justice Departments, and set up a separate agency that would represent the trust responsibility of the United States. It would be outside the interior or Justice Departments. And that legislation was never enacted, i think in part because indian leaders became concerned about whether relieving justice and interior of any trust responsibilities was a wise thing to do, and worried about setting up a separate agency. So that was not established but wallys section in the justice the indian rights section, that still exists and kents mandate to me to serve within the interior department exclusively as a trustee were major accomplishments, i think, institutionally, and i think sets a template for future attorney generals. Bob served in the Clinton Administration, in the chair i sat in as the chief indian lawyer. And i think he will bring forward in his comments the longevity of the nixon policy. Certainly, future solicitors had a model that kent and greg austin, his successor, followed. I think it does serve as a template for future administrations and has served that way. I want to talk about two other things on the aspects of this. Well, i guess i have mentioned the separate section in the Justice Department. I want to talk a little about the extraordinarily strong support i had in the three years i served in government from the white house. John ehrlichman was no longer at the white house when i joined the government, so i did not get to work with him. I am pleased his son is here today, and bobbie has certainly talked about the enormous influence he had on the indian policy, and that is what i had understood also from my friends who were tribal attorneys in the knew johnea who ehrlichman before he joined the government. He had supported out there what of what had been very controversial fishing rights issues. But Brad Patterson and len garment and bobbie kilberg, particularly when you came back and became more active in the Ford Administration, and dr. Ted mars also were high level officials at the white house len garment as i recall was one of the top officials at the white house at that time. They were interested in Indian Affairs and had been involved in doing the indian policy. And when tensions came up, when other agencies of the government did not want to follow the indian policy, they would call meetings and coordinate the policy to make sure it was followed. I think it was somewhat unique in the nixon and ford white houses that people at the white at that level of the white house senior staff and with the stature that bobbie had in being involved in putting the message together, we had some issues in the Ford Administration about whether it would continue to be adhered to. And i can remember particularly on the split brief policy it was a policy that was unique in the nixon and Ford Administrations but it was not followed afterwards. Griffin bell cut it out when he was attorney general. But the policy was that if there was an indian trust issue in a case and the Justice Department was filing a brief on behalf of of the corps of engineers or the Internal Revenue service on that issue going against the resolved issue the interior department could file a section in the brief stating the separate views of the solicitor. We filed six split briefs a few of them were done before my time. And we won all six cases. So, it was a strong support of indian rights. But there came a time when the assistant attorney did not want to file a split brief in the case and took the matter up with the white house, i think it was with the council with president ford. Bobbie and brad were very supportive of continuing the split brief policy and it was continue to. I think i will close now. That gives the idea of a broad sense of how the policy was implemented during the nixon and the Ford Administrations. And bob, i hope you can bring it up today. Thank you. [applause] mr. Anderson thank you, reid. Bobbie, wally. And thanks to the museum for having us here. It is great to be here. I want to bring some of these themes that have been brought out up to the current time. Many of these issues are still in play and will be for many years. And it is going to be people like me and others who will follow me as well who will have to continue to grapple with some of these issues that fortunately received excellent treatment in the Nixon Administration and really got off to a good start. It really is a legacy to be proud of. As reid mentioned, i served in the Clinton Administration as the associate solicitor for Indian Affairs. I got into indian law through my work at the native American Rights Fund back in the early or mid 80s. I had grown up in northern minnesota as a member of a band of the chippewa tribe up at the canadian border. And i was interested in Indian Affairs as i observed the event that bobbie was involved in in the early 1970s. When i met Charles Wilkerson in law school, he encouraged me to go to work at narf where reid had worked. I went there as a law clerk, met doug anderson, who is in the audience here, and had the privilege of working with him and other great lawyers there. I spent about a dozen years there and then got into the alaskan issue when we opened the alaskan office. I will talk a little bit about what a good settlement that was in terms of land and money, but the shortcomings that have been revealed in the modern era. There is always more work to be done. And so, after six years working for secretary abbott, i found myself teaching at the university of washington and i every year traipse out to harvard for one term to teach indian law. I find i am teaching it a couple of times a year. And looking at it a new from a broader perspective. I cannot say enough about this new federalism idea of selfdetermination and selfgovernance, and what a tremendous impact it has had in terms of tribal governments taking over programs operated previously by the bureau of Indian Affairs and administering them at the tribal level. Sometimes individual tribes exclusively. Sometimes regional consortia. But it has really empowered tribal political leaders to have a real sayso in terms of how these programs are administered, the selfdetermination policy announced by president nixon has grown into a Block Grant Program in many respects with the selfgovernance program in place today so tribes like states receive federal funds and allocate them as they see fit in accordance with tribal needs and political priorities. And that is a critical and positive component of modern Indian Affairs. Remember that in 1968, 1969, we were just coming out of the determination era. There were Many Supreme Court cases from the 19th century and 20th centuries, recognizing that preconstitutional sovereign status of indian nations. But most of the work that congress had done during that time was about asserting control over Indian Affairs and achieving sessions of indian lands. In the 50s, determination of the federal tribal relationship. We had a brief respite with the indian reorganization act in the 1930s and 1940s but the most significant aspect of the federal indian policy up until the 1960s had been the suppression of indian tribal governments and efforts at assimilation, as well as federal acquisition of tribal lands for dispersal among the states and those that moved to the west. And so this reversal and policy was really dramatic, and i mentioned the selfdetermination and selfgovernance aspects of it. The notion of returning tribal lands that comes out of the blue lake action has really been tremendous as well and has not been followed consistently as many tribes would like, but it has been a major part of legislation involving settlement of water rights cases, for example, many of which were commenced during the nixon and Ford Administrations. And aggressive patterns for federal litigation on behalf of developed inere that era hold to this day. I think of reids mention of the pyramid lake case, where the government asserted water rights for fisheries and habitat protection in the 1970s. That legal theory has maintained a status as a centerpiece of every administration that has come since then. Republican and democratic. The United States has filed lawsuits on behalf of tribes and will continue to do so, i have no doubt, because of the fact that lawyers for Indian Tribes that have now represented them for many years can point to the fact that this is not a controversial position. This was developed in the nixon years and was adhered to in the reagan years and the carter years, under both bushes and with the clinton and obama administrations. These sorts of things were really solid decisions that have maintained great importance coming forward. This notion that reid mentioned of a trust counsel and the conflicts of interest within the department persist to this day. The landmark koval litigation involving claims by individual indian groups against the united a 3. 4has resulted in billion settlement for past accounting claims. The settlement is nearly finalized
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