The Michigan Daily
Vol. LXXXVI, No. 41-S Ann Arbor, Michigan-Thursday, July 8, 1976 Ten Cents Twelve Pages
Kelley baCks
FBI actions
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) - FBI Di-
rector Clarence Kelley, testifying yester-
day in the trial of two men accused of
killing FBI agents on the Pine Ridge In-
dian Reservation, defended his agency's
actions in dealing with Indians.
Asked why helicopters, other aircraft
and battlefield gear are supplied to
agents at the South Dakota reservation,
Kelley said the equipment is needed to
protect the agents' lives.
"IS LIFE ON the reservation more
dangerous than in other parts of the
country?" defense counsel William
Kunstler asked.
"More dangerous perhaps to FBI
agents," Kelley replied. "There have
been two agents slain there."
Kunstler responded, "Many native
Americans have been slain there too."
KELLEY SAID agents use helicopters
and fixed-wing airplanes to patrol the
reservation. Kunstler said they were
also issued M16 automatic weapons, bul-
let proof vests and army type clothing.
Kelley arrived in Cedar Rapids on
Tuesday night after U. S. District Judge
Edward McManus ordered him to ex-
plain why he should not be held in con-
tempt for failing to answer a subpoena
to testify Tuesday. The contempt is-
sue did not come up in open court, how-
ever.
Two members of the American Indian
Movement (AIM) - Robert Robideau,
29, Portland, Ore., and Darelle Butler,
34, Rogue River, Ore. - are charged
with killing agents Jack Coler and Ron-
ald Williams, both 28, on June 26, 1975,
at Pine Ridge.
THE FBI claims the agents were am-
bushed when they went to the reserva-
tion, located near Oglala, S.D., to serve
arrest warrants.
Kelley was the first of several promi-
nent persons expected to testify at the
trial. However, plans for testimony by
actor Marlon Brando, an Indian rights
advocate, were canceled yesterday when
the government was sustained on an ob-
jection that anything he said would be
hearsay.
Kelley said the FBI conducted a thor-
ough investigation of the circumstances
surrounding the killing of the FBI
agents.
"I DON'T know if there was any" in-
vestigation on the death of Joseph Stuntz
of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, he said in ans-
wer to a question by Kunstler.
Stuntz was the Indian killed in a sub-
sequent gun battle between FBI agents
and several persons in a house a few
hours after the FBI agents were killed.
Kelley testified earlier that the FBI
had no evidence to support the so-called
"dog soldier" memo contending that
AIM planned to kill the governor of
South Dakota and blow up the state
Capitol at Pierre.
"We're in the business, the profession,
the occupation, of preventing violence,"
Kelly said as justification for the memo.
AP Photo
MARLON BRANDO hurries on his way to the Federal District Court in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa, where he is observing the trial of AIM members Darelle Butler
and Robert Robideau. The defendants are accused of slaying two FBI agents
last summer on the Pine Ridge, S.D., Indian Reservation.
POSSIBLE PENSION FUND ABUSE
Teamsters boss questioned
WASHINGTON (P) - Labor Depart-
ment investigators interrogated Team-
sters President Frank Fitzsimmons
about the union's Central States pension
fund yesterday amid reports of ques-
tionable loan practices including possible
fraud and embezzlement.
Fitzsimmons was questioned under
subpoena from a joint Labor-Justice De-
partment task force. The subpoena was
issued after he refused a request to give
a deposition voluntarily. Neither he nor
any of the Labor investigators would
comment about the interrogation.
FIVE OTHER trustees of the fund have
been subpoenaed to appear in the next
several days. They include William
Presser of Cleveland, a vice president of
the union who has been convicted in the
Past of illegally accepting payments to
the union from employers, obstructing
justice and illegally destroying union
records.
The 68-year-old chief of the nation's
biggest union emerged without comment
after two hours of morning questioning.
He was accompanied by three men who
repeatedly refused to identify them-
selves. Department officials said they
were his lawyers.
Asked by a reporter what had gone
on during the session, one of the three
replied: "No comment."
FITZSIMMONS and the trio met with,
the investigators again after lunch for
several more hours of questioning.
During the union's national convention
last month in Las Vegas, Nev., Fitz-
simmons defended the fund and com-
plained of harassment. He said the fund
"has been whipped by adverse publicity
over the past two decades and has been
investigated by every Dick Tracy in the
land."
As for himself, Fitzsimmons declared:
"I have been harassed personally as far
as grand juries, indictments and what-
not . . . I'm in receipt now of a subpoena
to appear in Washington, D.C., as a few,
others sitting on this rostrum are."
SOURCES SAY the investigators, head-
ed by Lawrence Lippe, have uncovered
questionable transactions by trustees of
the $1.4 billion fund, which covers 400,000
of the union's 2 million members. The
sources said evidence of possible fraud
and embezzlement in two fund trans-
actions has been turned over to the
Justice Department.
The fund's investments include an esti-
mated $200 million in loans to Hotel and
gambling operations in Las Vegas.
Trustees of the fund include Fitzsim-
mons, seven other union officials and
eight representatives of employers of
Teamster members. Under the law, the
Labor Department could seek their re-
moval. The probe has been under way
since the fall.