Blood in the Water

by Thompson, Heather Ann

  As soon as he left the yard that afternoon, Oswald attended another meeting to discuss the logistics of ending the rebellion. At the table were some top brass of the NYSP including Chief Inspector John Miller, as well as Major Monahan, the head of the local Troop A out of Batavia. Prison officials Vincent Mancusi and Walter Dunbar were also there, as was Rockefeller’s man, Buzz O’Hara. Bluntly, and clearly reflecting how spooked he had been by his recent visit to the yard, Oswald asked the men assembled whether they thought conditions were now right for “retaking the institution by force.”26 The more they all hashed this over, however, the more the commissioner kept coming back to one hard truth: he simply couldn’t allow a retaking now that he had not only authorized, but actually facilitated, the process of bringing more than two dozen well-known individuals to Attica to oversee and observe the negotiation process. Even the officials gathered at this meeting understood that this made a retaking dicey at best.

  Back in D Yard, the knowledge that more observers were on the way was helping to lift the spirts of prisoners and hostages alike. The hostages were allowed more freedoms—some were exercising that morning in their circle area—and they had been given coffee and cigarettes in addition to their regular food. One hostage asked if he could have some Marlboros instead of the Camels he’d been given, and the man guarding him came back with three packs.27 State officials had also allowed Dr. Hanson to make a second trip into the yard that day, and when he did so, “he found that the hostages were feeling much better; they were being well cared for and their blindfolds were off.”28 He noticed that the prisoners had given the hostages better shelter by draping some sheets over some boards so that they would be protected from the sun.29

  The prisoners in D Yard are undaunted, raising the Black Power salute. September 10. (Courtesy of the Associated Press)

  Even though they were all more hopeful once they realized that negotiations were going to proceed, and with outside observers, the disastrous meeting with Oswald had unnerved everyone. Sleeplessness was also taking its toll. Big Black Smith had, for example, asked Dr. Hanson if he could give him some sort of amphetamines because he knew he needed to stay alert and “awake for the negotiations.”30 He and most of the other prisoners also wanted to be alert should state officials suddenly change their minds and decide to retake the prison by force. In many ways their long history with prison authorities led them to expect betrayal and so, even as they waited for the negotiations to recommence, the men also devoted considerable time that day to constructing barricades at various doors in the yard as well as on the catwalks above.31 If the police should begin an assault, the men in the yard wanted as much protection as possible.

  As the hours passed following Oswald’s departure from the yard, the prisoners began worrying that they were perhaps now being set up. What if no one was coming to negotiate again? By that afternoon, slight unease was once again turning to paranoia. Stewart Dan, a television reporter from WGR-TV in Buffalo, saw this firsthand. Prisoners and prison officials had given Dan and his cameraman permission to walk around the yard to interview people. They spent some time talking with two white inmates who had become friends while in prison, twenty-six-year-old Barry Schwartz, who’d been at Attica for about three years by then, and Kenny Hess, a twenty-two-year-old who had only been there for four months and was eligible for parole in a mere six more.32 When Dan asked the two how they were handling the crisis, they regaled him with dramatic tales of the uprising. As Dan furiously scribbled in his small reporter’s notebook, a large shadow fell across it, and he looked up to see Herb Blyden, who, without preamble, took his notebook, saying, “Let’s see what you have.”33

  But Blyden was unable to read Dan’s notes—the reporter used his own version of shorthand—and insisted that Dan, Schwartz, and Hess accompany him to the negotiating table.34 Once there, Dan had to read his notes aloud to a group that included Champ, Flip Crowley, Richard Clark, Dalou, Jerry Rosenberg, Jomo Joka Omowale, Bernard Stroble (Shango), and others. All three of the men who’d been brought to the table protested vehemently that they’d done nothing wrong.35 But after Oswald’s visit to the yard, the men were so on edge that the existence of seemingly mysterious notes only stoked suspicions. “While we are trying to work things out, this is what’s going on!” one of the men shouted at Barry Schwartz.36 Flip Crowley, who had befriended Barry Schwartz while in prison counseling sessions together, asked him what was going on—why hadn’t he gone through the proper channels to talk to the media?—to which Schwartz replied sincerely that “he didn’t know he was supposed to.”37

  As Dan looked on with increasing dread, one of the men at the table called for a vote regarding what should be done with Hess and Schwartz. With almost no deliberation, the approximately six men at the table handed down the group’s verdict: Hess and Schwartz had been undermining prisoner solidarity in the yard. They couldn’t be trusted. They needed to be watched now. Trying to defuse the situation, the reporter offered to leave the yard right away, and even to leave his notes with the committee if that was what they wanted. “No,” said Blyden, “you don’t have to go…you’re only doing your job.”38 But, Dan pressed, what would happen to these men? To his relief, he was told that “nothing would happen to them,” and that Hess and Schwartz would just be moved to a different part of the prison.39

  Dan wanted to believe this. He retrieved his notebook and left the yard, but did not tell any prison officials what had just transpired. He decided that he would just have to trust what Blyden told him.40 But things did not go well for Hess and Schwartz after Dan left. Both were forced to strip and then, according to one prisoner, four members of the security team “marched them out of D Yard into the corridor [of D Block],” where they were subsequently locked in cells.41

  Meanwhile, the tension in D Yard continued to crackle—there still had been no word from the administration building and the recent scene at the negotiating table had gotten ugly. Were outsider observers in fact coming to D Yard to oversee a peaceful resolution of their rebellion, the men wondered, or were they being set up for an attack? They needn’t have worried yet. The observers were indeed on their way, and later that night everyone would once again feel that anything was possible.

  PART III

  The Sound Before the Fury

  TOM WICKER

  In 1971 forty-four-year-old Tom Wicker was one of the most respected journalists at The New York Times. This son of a railroad conductor had traveled more, studied more, and experienced more than most of the folks he met at swanky parties in Washington, D.C., or New York City. Wicker had not only seen the world, he had also taken the time to think deeply about it, to probe many of the social and political issues that were now dividing the nation. Chief among them was the state of American race relations. Wicker had grown up in the tiny town of Hamlet, North Carolina, largely oblivious to the ways in which segregation structured his town and undergirded all of its social and political institutions.

  But as a young man Wicker became acutely aware of the immoral laws and inhumane practices that defined his region of the country. By the time he landed his job as a newspaper columnist in New York, he had decided to use his platform to call attention to social injustice, and to the people and organizations committed to fighting it. If this slightly pudgy newsman with an open face and a deferential demeanor couldn’t be the great novelist that he secretly wanted to be, then he would be a damned good social critic.

  The year before the Attica uprising Wicker had written about a New York state prisoner who had filed suit against the Department of Correctional Services for locking him in solitary confinement for an entire year. Wicker had been horrified by what he learned of Martin Sostre’s ordeal, and impressed by federal judge Constance Baker Motley’s ruling that the treatment Sostre endured was cruel and unusual. Wicker admired jurists like Motley who were brave enough to take on state officials when they were not following the rules or doing their jobs humanely. Stories like this cemented Wicker’s
faith in the transformative power of simple truth telling. In his heart he believed that ordinary Americans would do the right thing if they just had all of the facts in front of them.

  At noon on September 10, 1971, Wicker was sitting down to lunch in the lush dining room of the National Geographic Society a few blocks from the White House. He felt honored to be breaking bread with dignitaries as impressive as the ambassadors of New Zealand and Italy. Then he was told he had a phone call. On the line was his secretary with surprising news: Wicker was being summoned to Attica.1 A state assemblyman had called to let him know that rebellious prisoners had requested that Wicker act as a witness to their negotiations with the state of New York.

  Wicker agreed to go. If nothing else, this would give him something to write about in his weekly column. So far his green spiral notebook, the one that he always carried with him to jot down ideas, contained only uninspired possibilities: “New York Stories: traffic, Giants, CUNY open admissions” and “Taxis—doing well?”2

  He retrieved his jacket, made his way to the airport, and flew to Buffalo. There he was met by a state trooper who drove him to the prison. Over the next hour the two men chatted companionably, but as they neared the ominous-looking structure, the mood in the car shifted. The building was surrounded by hundreds of heavily armed state troopers, which alarmed Wicker. And yet, weirdly, the scene in the parking lot could also have passed for a state fair or carnival. The Lions Club had set up a stand where members were busily passing out hot coffee and sandwiches; children “ran and played in front of the prison’s main gate”; and across the street from a row of port-a-johns people were tapping a keg.3

  As Wicker drew closer, though, it was clear that no one here was in the mood for games. Grim and unsmiling faces watched him as he made his way through the crowd to Attica’s remarkably ordinary-looking front door, which was flanked by troopers. This was a makeshift military base, complete with families awaiting news of loved ones and platoons preparing for battle. “Every officer,” Wicker noted, “seemed to have a pistol at his side, a heavy club; many carried rifles and shotguns; some had tear-gas launchers; others had gas masks swinging at their belts.”4 There were also “military-looking trucks, stacks of boxes, extended fire hoses”—everything one would need to take down a small country.5 Wicker found himself questioning the wisdom of making this trip. He had absolutely no idea what role he was expected to play in the drama unfolding at Attica.

  15

  Getting Down to Business

  Although not every luminary whom the prisoners wanted at Attica agreed to come—Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, for example, declined the invitation, explaining that his leader and mentor, Elijah Muhammad, had instructed him not to go—many others welcomed the opportunity.1 Among these were William Kunstler, the fifty-two-year-old attorney who was well known as a tireless advocate for human and civil rights, as well as two representatives from the Young Lords Party, and several liberal prison reformers from the Fortune Society.2 In the mix too were two well-known black journalists, Jim Ingram from the Michigan Chronicle and Clarence Jones from New York’s Amsterdam News. Although the Black Panther Party minister of self-defense, Huey Newton, had not yet agreed to help out, word had it that Bobby Seale, the BPP chairman, would make the trip.3

  Commissioner Oswald and the governor’s staff were comfortable with the group that had been assembled, but were especially glad to see that Arthur Eve had persuaded reporter Clarence Jones to be a part of it, since Rockefeller had a good personal relationship with him. They were also delighted when U.S. representative Herman Badillo accepted their invitation to be an observer, and were pleased as well when he brought two other moderate Latinos with him—State Senator Robert Garcia of the Bronx and Bronx school superintendent Alfredo Mathew.4

  The ranks of the observers group continued to swell into Friday evening, not just as these men began to arrive, but also because others kept showing up uninvited. One of these was a man named Jabarr Kenyatta, a former prisoner who now led a mosque. No one really knew who Kenyatta was, but because he had somehow attached himself to reporter Jim Ingram, and because he had long flowing African robes, prison officials finally let him in—assuming, according to Oswald, that he must be “the highly regarded black nationalist leader Charles 37X Kenyatta of New York City”—an impression Kenyatta did little to dispel.5 Later that evening three public interest lawyers from Washington, D.C., including a man named Julian Tepper, showed up and were admitted as well. By the end of Friday night, a total of thirty-three observers would be on the scene at Attica.

  On Friday afternoon, as the men in D Yard were growing concerned that talks had been abandoned, the many observers already at Attica had sat down with Commissioner Oswald and Deputy Commissioner Dunbar and pressed these state officials on the specifics of what was now expected of them. As Tom Wicker put it, they had to push, because everyone was at a total loss “as to precisely what we should do, what role we should be playing, were we to view ourselves as representatives of the prisoners, were we to view ourselves as representative of the state. Were we purely neutral go-betweens. Were we in fact negotiators?”6

  From these officials, the observers learned two crucial facts: one, the prisoners had no intention of giving up; and two, Oswald and Dunbar had no intention of going back into the yard again to persuade them to do so. This was to be the observers’ task—to enter the prison and talk with the men in the yard. More specifically, Oswald said, they were to go into D Yard to ascertain exactly what it would take to reach a settlement, and then they were to negotiate an agreement that would put an end to the rebellion.7 The observers were taken aback. Tom Wicker, for example, had just assumed he was going home to his own bed that night and hadn’t even bothered to pack a toothbrush or a clean shirt.8 The responsibility just handed them was daunting, to say the least. But the group assembled was impressive and at least some within it were happy to be negotiators and had faith that they would be able to make a difference. Congressman Herman Badillo had not only spent the previous summer hammering out a relatively peaceful end to the New York City jail riots, but when he saw the list of prisoner demands, he, for one, believed that a settlement was possible. As he noted, the prisoners were well aware “that some things could be negotiated and some things could not.”9

  Observers Clarence Jones and Lewis Steel weren’t so confident about the chances of reaching an agreement. Jones’s paper, the Amsterdam News, ran a column called “Behind Prison Walls” written by prisoners, and he was familiar with the grievances at issue here.10 What wasn’t clear to him, however, was what position the state would take in addressing those concerns. Jones pushed Oswald to clarify how the state intended to respond to the various demands, arguing “vehemently that he would not enter D-yard as the bearer of mixed and inconclusive tidings resulting from Oswald’s ‘yes, yes, yes’ and occasional ‘no’ ” with the prisoners.11

  Lewis Steel raised an even thornier, deeply prophetic, concern. “The issue here is amnesty,” Steel told the assembled group. “Those guys in there know what happened after Auburn. They know inmates were indicted that time for everything the prosecution could think of, even stealing a guard’s keys….They know there could be charges up to kidnapping, and if that guard dies [referring to William Quinn, the CO severely beaten in Times Square in the first hours of the uprising], there’s a murder rap for somebody. Maybe for a lot of them. Those guys have to get amnesty. If they can’t get it, there won’t be any negotiated settlement.”12

  Commissioner Oswald listened attentively to the various concerns raised by the men gathered in the administration building and agreed right then and there to place a call to the Wyoming County district attorney, Louis James, to get his thoughts on the issue of amnesty. Putting down the phone, the commissioner reported somberly, “James says he does not have the authority to grant criminal amnesty [and] if he did, he wouldn’t do it. So, there’s not going to be any amnesty, gentlemen. Absolutely not.”13


  Silence fell over the room as the men considered what this meant. If there was not going to be amnesty, then what? Still, Tom Wicker and most of the other observers simply took it for granted that no one wanted “the irrationality of bloodshed and death,” and that surely “reasonable men could find a formula that would, for all practical purposes, mean something close to amnesty without men like James and Oswald having to admit that it was amnesty.”14 Clarence Jones also felt strongly that “the resolution of amnesty was not a legal question, not a constitutional question. It was a moral humanitarian question” and thus things would eventually work themselves out.15 As he later put it, it was obvious that “if you are a chief executive officer of the State, you consider the preservation of human lives more important than the risk of breaking the symmetry of law….Human lives are far more important.”16

  Sensing that, for now, there wasn’t more they could do about the amnesty issue, and with the daylight fading, the observers decided that it was time to go into D Yard and meet the prisoners. Almost six hours had passed since Oswald’s last tense meeting in D Yard, and Badillo, for one, thought it would be a good idea to try to see these men before much more time passed—especially given that the media was now in D Yard and, therefore, everyone knew that at least some of the observers were there and eager to help.17

  Notwithstanding the warnings, such as those offered by one of Attica’s prison chaplains that “the more rabid inmates in the yard might attack [the hostages] at any time,” a group that included State Senators John Dunne and Robert Garcia, journalist Tom Wicker, Congressman Herman Badillo, school superintendent Alfredo Mathew, lawyer Lewis Steel, Reverend Walker, Reverend Chandler, Minister Scott, newspaper editor Clarence Jones, and State Assemblyman Arthur Eve entered the yard at 7:00 Friday evening.18 Most soberingly, on their way down to A Gate for this sixth visit of outsiders into D Yard, a trooper wrote down each of their names just in case any of them were captured.