War at Attica: Was There No Other Way?

"If we cannot live as people, we will at least try to die like men."

--Attica Prisoner Charles Horatio Crowley ("Brother Flip")

AT 9:44 on a drizzly overcast morning last week, a radio loudspeaker snapped out the order to attack. Through the stinging mist of CS pepper gas dropped by Viet Nam-style helicopters, yellow-clad troopers set off a barrage of rifle fire from atop 30-ft. prison walls. More than 500 officers--armed with shotguns, rifles, pistols and clubs --charged into the crowded compound, shooting as they ran. Sporadic firing continued for nearly an hour. When the onesided battle was over, lawmen representing the State of New York had killed 26 convicts and nine of 38 hostages that the inmates had seized in the four-day prison riot. At least 83 prisoners were hurt seriously enough to require surgery.

That was Attica. For some time to come in the U.S., that word will not be primarily identified with the plain upon which ancient Athens nurtured philosophy and democracy. Nor will it simply stand for the bucolic little town that gave its name to a turreted prison, mislabeled a "correctional facility." Attica will evoke the bloodiest prison rebellion in U.S. history. It will take its place alongside Kent State, Jackson State, My Lai and other traumatic events that have shaken the American conscience and incited searing controversy over the application of force--and the pressures that provoke it.

With the riot and its aftermath still shrouded by secrecy, rumor, half-truths and untruths, the nation was sorely split in trying to decide just why it happened and who was to blame. Since most of Attica's prisoners are black, many blacks saw the event as yet another manifestation of America's deep-rooted racism. Newark Mayor Kenneth Gibson termed it "one of the most callous and blatantly repressive acts ever carried out by a supposedly civilized society." White liberals --and not liberals alone--interpreted Attica as, at the very least, a measure of the bankruptcy of the U.S. prison system. Yet many if not most Americans seemed to feel that the attack was legally and morally justified. The Atlanta Constitution, in a singularly savage editorial, suggested execution of "the animals of Attica" for trying to impose "kangaroo justice" on the hostages.

New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who had approved subordinates' decision to storm the prison, was defended by President Nixon, who said that the "painful, excruciating" action was "the only thing he could possibly do . . ." At the same time, Rockefeller was also widely denounced for needlessly risking lives by using so much firepower, and derided for initially being too soft on the prisoners.

The violence at Attica sent tremors throughout U.S. prisons. The FBI warned many institutions to prepare for similar uprisings, and security was increased. But there were surprisingly few incidents. One uprising took place at Baltimore city jail, where some 200 prisoners (nearly all were unconvicted blacks awaiting trial) rioted in the mess hall, overturning tables and smashing 120 windowpanes. Eight guards fled to safety, and officers armed with tear gas promptly restored order. There were also protests from police and prison guards. At New York's Green Haven Correctional Facility, 390 guards demanded assurance that the state would move swiftly to quell any similar rebellion at their prison -- even if they were held as hostages and their own lives were threatened.

The convulsion of conflicting values and emotions put in question the future of a penal system that most responsible authorities consider a dismal failure (see story, page 26). Many officials, including President Nixon, hoped that the tragedy would give a sorely needed impetus to prison reform. Others worried about the danger of a new rush toward repression that would make prisons even more inhumane.

Volatile Incident The eventual course will depend upon how the events at Attica are understood and evaluated. The precise origin of the uprising is still not clear; what is obvious is that the prisoners have long had so many grievances that a volatile incident could have touched off a rebellion at almost any time. Attica houses some of the state's most hardened criminals. But it is also an admission facility for new convicts, who are convinced that their lesser crimes do not warrant the prison's harsh treatment.

At the time of the uprising, at least 75% of the 2,250 prisoners were black or Puerto Rican. All of the 383 guards --too few for that number of inmates, in the opinion of most experts -- were white. Blacks resented the racism shown by guards, who gave easier prison jobs to white inmates and openly referred to their clubs as "nigger sticks."

The convicts also complained about the stern discipline of Superintendent Vincent Mancusi, an unimaginative, old-school warden who seldom spoke to his prisoners and apparently resented the heat he was getting from his superiors, mainly Oswald, to loosen his reins. This pressure was also resented by veteran guards, mostly country folk from upstate New York, who felt that they were losing control over the prison population. In particular, they found it hard to cope with the new breed of hip, street-wise young criminals from the ghettos of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant, who spouted revolutionary rhetoric. Almost the only communication between kept and keeper was the banging of clubs against prison walls, signaling orders to line up or move.

Former inmates of Attica contend that solitary confinement was frequently imposed for minor infractions, and that beatings in the elevator en route to "the box" were common. The box is conveniently located over the prison hospital. Inmates are allowed only one shower a week, even though many work (for as little as 25-c- a day) in the metal shop, known as "the black hole of Calcutta," where temperatures exceed 100DEG. Former inmates claim that one bar of soap and one roll of toilet paper is the maximum monthly allotment. There is little useful vocational training.

At Attica, protests against such conditions have been simmering for some time. Many of the self-styled revolutionaries--transferred to Attica from other prisons because of their militancy --smuggled banned books by such writers as Malcolm X and Bobby Seale into their cells, and held secret political meetings when pretending to be at chapel or engaged in intramural athletics. They passed around clandestine writings of their own; among them was a poem written by an unknown prisoner, crude but touching in its would-be heroic style (see cut for the first stanza)

Many of the demands that emerged in the Attica rebellion were first raised in July in a tough "manifesto" sent to Oswald and Rockefeller by a group of inmates called "the Attica Liberation Faction." The paper labeled Attica a "classic institution of authoritative inhumanity upon men," but added: "We are trying to do this in a democratic fashion. We feel there is no need to dramatize our demands."

But what, more immediately, sparked the riot? It could have been the rumor of brutality that swept the prison on Sept. 8, after a young guard reportedly tackled an inmate who refused to leave his cell for a disciplinary hearing on charges of punching another guard. Or it could have been a mess-hall incident the same day in which two prisoners threw a piece of glass at a guard and, after the ensuing scuffle, were sent to the box; both claimed they had been beaten. Some prison officials are convinced that the revolt was planned; they found the date Sept. 9 "circled big" on calendars in some cells.

Whatever the reason, violence did erupt on the morning of Sept. 9 at about 8:30, when a group of inmates refused to line up at the rap of guards' clubs for a work detail. Suddenly the guards, armed only with their clubs, were fighting with inmates--and were completely outnumbered. At the time well under 100 guards were on duty in the 55-acre compound to supervise the 2,250 prisoners. Moving swiftly, the convicts rushed through three of the quadrangular cell blocks (see cut) and set fires in six buildings. The chapel, prison school and machine shop were completely gutted. Quickly producing knives, pipes, baseball bats and makeshift spears fashioned from scissor blades and broom handles, the inmates captured guards and civilian employees for hostages.

Using tear gas, the undermanned prison staff regained control of cell blocks B and C, confining about half the prisoners in their cells for the long ordeal. But some 1,200 inmates were in control of cell block D and the yard it faces. Locking gates and even welding some of them shut with equipment from the metal shop, they repulsed advancing guards and shredded the hoses of prison firefighting equipment.

In the revolt, one guard, William Quinn, 28, was severely injured; some observers said that they saw his body fall from an upper floor. The first day, convicts released Quinn and 11 other guards and civilians so that they could get medical help. After being stripped, the remaining guards were given inmate clothing, blankets and even mattresses (which convicts in the rain-soaked yard did not have) to sleep on. Guard Phillip Watkins, 33, said that convicts at first kicked him and broke his arm. But another prisoner called them off. Later he was addressed as "sir," given cigarettes, hot meals and snuff, and a prison doctor was allowed to treat his arm. What he found particularly terrifying was not the convicts' threats, but the fact that he, like most of the hostages, was blindfolded much of the time. "Every sound, even the drop of a pin, sounded like an explosion."

State Corrections Commissioner Russell G. Oswald, a chunky, earnest man who, before moving to New York as a top parole officer, had won high praise from penologists for modernizing Wisconsin's prisons, rushed to Attica from his Albany office. He arrived on the scene at about 2 p.m. On the job only eight months, he had tape-recorded a speech to inmates only a week earlier, asking for more time to improve conditions. Among other things, he promised "meaningful rehabilitative methods, evening vocational programs, better law libraries."

Bizarre Transport

Now Oswald decided to talk to the prisoners in person. Although that tactic was later to be criticized, his personal courage could not be. While police sharpshooters kept watch from prison walls, Oswald and Herman Schwartz, a reform-minded attorney trusted by the convict leaders, walked into the midst of the rebels. The prisoners had created an extremely efficient paramilitary organization. The leaders had commandeered a megaphone, and they dictated a list of demands, which had been neatly typed by inmates seated at a long bench. The hostages were encircled and carefully guarded--both against escape and from any harm by more hostile inmates--by a ring of grim convicts, standing with arms interlocked. Some wore football helmets; others were masked by towels and rags.

Initially, Oswald intended to discuss the men's grievances only after the hostages were released--a cardinal rule of most prison officials. He did demand their release, but he also listened to the inmate ultimatum and found it unalarming. The prisoners wanted "religious freedom" (for Black Muslim worship), permission for political meetings "without intimidation," the end of mail censorship, the right to communicate with anyone they wished and regular grievance procedures. Only one demand, added to the list later, sounded bizarre: "Speedy and safe transportation out of confinement to a nonimperialist country."

Although that demand was subsequently seized upon by state officials as an example of the prisoners' dangerous radicalism, it was soon abandoned by the rebel leaders when other inmates pointed out how hopeless it was. Throughout the uprising, in fact, the inmates never quite lived up to their fierce rhetoric, although their threats to kill the hostages sounded credible enough. Underlying the bullying tone of their demands was an unmistakably genuine plea that even if they were convicted criminals, all they wanted was to be treated like human beings. "We are men," said the inmate statement. "We are not beasts, and do not intend to be beaten or driven. What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those oppressed."

Low Key Rockefeller

Oswald decided to negotiate. "My paramount concern was to save lives--hostages and inmates alike," he explained later. "We had to give the negotiations a chance." His first concession was to let into the compound a group of outsiders, chosen by the prisoners, to "oversee" the situation. They included New York Times Columnist Tom Wicker, Bronx Congressman Herman Badillo, Republican State Senator John R. Dunne and Clarence Jones, black publisher of Manhattan's Amsterdam News. But they also wanted Radical Lawyer William Kunstler and the Black Panthers' Bobby Seale. At one point there were as many as 30 mediators.

Governor Rockefeller was attending a Washington meeting of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board when aides telephoned him about the Attica uprising. He quickly agreed to all of Oswald's moves. Rocky remained in Washington for the first two days of the rebellion, then spent the weekend at his Pocantico Hills estate north of New York City. He kept in touch, but played it low key.

On the first day of talks, Oswald made two other conciliatory moves that he hoped might gain release of the hostages. While insisting that he could not agree to amnesty for any criminal acts committed by the convicts, he signed a pledge that prison officials would take no administrative action against the rebels for their revolt and would not punish them physically (which is against state law anyway). He also supplied Attorney Schwartz with transportation to Manchester, Vt., where Federal Judge John T. Curtin put the prohibition against reprisals into the form of a highly unusual court injunction. The brief for the injunction was drafted by a prisoner who provided an odd element in the largely black cast of rebels: Jerome S. Rosenberg, 34, a slight, round-shouldered son of a middle-class Jewish Brooklyn merchant. After a career of lesser crimes, Rosenberg was convicted eight years ago as a cop killer. Governor Nelson Rockefeller commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment in 1965, giving Jerry Rosenberg a chance to become a skilled jailhouse lawyer.

As the bargaining continued, tensions grew. Oswald and Schwartz were bitterly disappointed when the inmates discarded the court injunction as worthless. Apparently the rebels feared both physical beatings by guards if they surrendered--despite the promises--and criminal prosecution. They also felt that if they released the hostages, they would lose their bargaining power.

In talking with inmates, most members of the committee of overseers gained the impression that a way out of the impasse could eventually be found. In fact, a settlement seemed imminent after Oswald surprised the visiting mediators by agreeing to 28 of the 30 prisoner demands. He balked only at complete amnesty, which he considered both unlawful and "nonnegotiable," and at the prisoners' insistence that Warden Mancusi be fired. Dumping Mancusi, Oswald contended, would undercut superintendents throughout the New York system.

Then came two blows: the death of Guard Quinn, which made the prisoners liable to prosecution for murder, and the arrival of Seale. At first, officials turned Seale away from the prison. But when the inmates learned he was on hand, they refused to talk further until they heard from him. Seale spoke to the prisoners for only about five minutes. He was apparently uninterested in cooling the situation, telling the prisoners that they must make their own decision on Oswald's offer. But they wanted his advice; he said that he would have to consult with the Black Panthers' Huey P. Newton and would return in the morning. The momentum toward a settlement had been lost.

Seale did return next morning but --unknown to some of the visiting committee--Oswald told him he could not address the prisoners unless he urged acceptance of the final offer. Seale refused, and left for California. As for William Kunstler, a few members of the committee have charged that he told the prisoners to hold out for amnesty; he denies this. Kunstler did, however, tell the convicts that representatives of "Third World nations are waiting for you across the street." This was an ambiguous--and irresponsible--reference to the hundred or so demonstrators, both black and white, who had arrived in Attica. It could have been taken by the inmates as a reason to hold out.

By Sunday afternoon, preparations were under way for an assault by state troopers and National Guardsmen; indeed, many of their commanders had for days been pressing Oswald to let them attack. Fearful relatives of the captive guards, waiting wearily in the rain, saw powerful fire hoses carried into the prison, truckloads of gas masks unloaded. A Catholic priest asked them to pray for the hostages.

Within the prison's administration building, the committee watched the activity with growing horror. Some arranged another meeting with the inmates and walked a final time down the A-block corridor (dubbed "the DMZ") toward the prisoner-controlled gates. Inmates had earlier agreed that newsmen could film the hostages to show that they were still alive, and allowed the captives to speak before the cameras. The hostages pleaded for more time, warned against an assault, and urged Rockefeller to come to the prison. "Unless Rockefeller comes here, I am a dead man," said Sergeant Edward Cunningham, a ten-year Attica employee. Next day Cunningham died in the attack.

Force Meets Force

The state's course had been set. Oswald, consulting with Rockefeller by telephone and with his aides on the scene, had decided that two final ultimatums would be delivered to the prisoners; if there was no favorable response, the attack would come on Monday morning. The prisoners, they felt, were intransigent, and their mood was turning uglier. The inmates had dug trenches up to 200 feet long and flanked by mounds of dirt to provide protection against attack. Gates were being wired to make them electrically hot. Metal tables were upended along the catwalk leading to the "Times Square" intersection of the prison's inner connecting corridors--a route along which any invading police would certainly come. "They were going to create an inferno [by igniting gasoline] when our men came through," contended one Rockefeller aide. "We had a deteriorating situation on our hands, and we had to act before it got worse."

Four of the observers (Wicker, Badillo, Dunne and Jones) telephoned Rockefeller and for 90 minutes pleaded with him to come to Attica and talk to them as a means of expressing concern and buying more time. "If we could just get two hours, three hours, more time . . ." said Badillo. "I can give you that, all right," Rocky replied. "We'll stretch this [the negotiations] out as long as anybody thinks there's a chance of settling it peaceably. But if I come up and talk to you, they [the prisoners] will demand that I come inside --and that wouldn't be very productive."

At 7 a.m. on Monday, the army of troopers was assigned to specific functions: sharpshooting, rescue, barricade removal, back-up security. The instructions were to "use force to meet force."

The men were to shoot, said one official, "only to prevent death or injury to one of our own or to one of the hostages." Two state helicopters took off and circled the prison to obtain in formation on the location of inmates and hostages in D yard.

About the same time, Oswald sent a personal message to one inmate leader, "Brother Richard" Clark (see box, page 21). Oswald reminded him of the demands that had been granted, insisted upon the release of all hostages, and asked the inmates to "join me in restoring order to the facility." Clark was given one hour in which to reply.

That Guy

At 8:35 a.m., Oswald walked clown the "DMZ" to confront a prisoner delegation led by Clark. Brother Richard said he wanted more time; again he demanded "complete, total, unadulterated amnesty" and the removal of "that guy Mancusi." At 9:05 a.m., a convict shouted down the corridor through a mega phone that all hostages would be killed if state troopers tried to storm the compound. Replied Oswald's chief assistant, Walter Dunbar: "Release the prisoners now. Then the commissioner will meet with you." The fatal one-word reply was "Negative."

Moments later, the prisoners marched four hostages to the top of Times Square. An "executioner" pulled back the head of each and held a knife to his throat. Elsewhere in D yard, grim convicts, taking up similar positions be side each of the other hostages, poised as if to kill them with either a knife or crowbar. Oswald turned to aides:

"There's no question now -- we've got to go in." Recalling that decision, he said later: "On a much smaller scale, I think I have some feeling now of how Truman must have felt when he decided to drop the A-bomb."

The operation was speeded up. At 9:32, a radio observer in a helicopter reported that hostages, guarded by six inmates, were confined within a circle of park benches in the yard. Sharpshooters were advised to take aim at the threatening convicts--"but you'll have to have hostile action by the inmates to fire." Then the two helicopters, loaded with tear-gas canisters, swept low over the prison, one of them barely clearing the walls. "To all posts," barked the command radio. "Jackpot One is about to make drop." There was a pause. "Jackpot has made drop. Base to all posts --move in; launch the offensive."

The choking gas, which induces tears and nausea, filled the yard. At first the gunfire was barely audible over the roar of the choppers. From one helicopter, an amplified voice kept repeating: "Put your hands over your head. Walk to the outside of the yard. You will not be harmed. Do not harm the hostages."

But as troopers dropped into the clouded compound, hostage blurred with prisoner. Some rescuers tried to reach the captive guards and pull them to safety. Others headed unresisting inmates toward the secure cell blocks. But there was an abundance of shooting. "We piled through and raced past Times Square," recalled one police sergeant. "The ones that resisted--throwing spears and Molotov cocktails--were cut down. We caught some men with arms extended to throw weapons. Anybody that resisted was killed." Claimed one officer: "They came at us like a banzai charge, waving knives and spears. Those we had to shoot."

Yet much of the shooting may not have been all that necessary. A team of doctors who treated prisoners in their cells later said inmates in widely-separated parts of the prison described in identical detail instances of "indiscriminate" firing by the officers and the calculated slaying of unresisting convicts. Reported Dr. Lionel Sifontes of Buffalo: "Many of the ringleaders were approached by guards and shot systematically. Some had their hands in the air surrendering. Some were lying on the ground."

During the attack, many of the terrified hostages, blindfolded and resigned to death blows from their executioners, were blissfully surprised. Phillip ("Curly") Watkins had been talking to his captor. "I asked him if he knew a buddy of mine. He said he did, and then I said, 'Well, then you know who I am.' " When the helicopters moved in, Watkins' man shoved him to the ground and fell on top of him. "The guy had time to kill me, but he didn't," said Watkins.

In his Manhattan apartment, Rockefeller heard the news by telephone from his counsel, Robert Douglass, who was on the scene. "I'll never forget the moment when the report was given that 14 guards had come out alive," he told TIME'S Roger Williams. "Now it's 15, now it's 16, now it's 18. And it went up to 21. I was just absolutely overwhelmed. I didn't see how it was possible, with 1,200 men in there armed, with electrified barricades, with trenches.

Twenty-eight men were saved -- far more than anyone could have predicted. It was a race between the gas, the knife and police."

When the compound was secured an hour later, nine hostages lay dead. Also dead or fatally wounded were 26 prisoners (four convicts were later found dead of stab wounds, apparently inflicted by other inmates in factional fighting). Then, in the confusion of the aftermath, Oswald and Dunbar made a perhaps understandable but nonetheless inexcusable mistake. They announced that the hostages had all died by having their throats slit. Dunbar added that two hostages had been killed before the attack, and that one hostage had been found emasculated, his testicles stuffed in his mouth.

No Slashed Throats

Individual troopers corroborated the officials' stories. Then, 24 hours later, the Monroe County medical examiner, Dr. John F. Edland, provided some shocking news. He had examined eight of the dead hostages and found that "all eight cases died of gunshot wounds. There was no evidence of slashed throats." A ninth hostage's body was examined at a nearby hospital; he, too, had died of bullet wounds. Two independent pathologists confirmed that all nine hostages had indeed been shot to death. None of the bodies had been mutilated, although some bore cuts and marks from beatings. All had died on Monday morning.

Why had officials been so quick to offer as facts the unsubstantiated reports of slashed throats? Admittedly, the immediate scene was hectic; the wounded and the dead hostages were rushed out of the prison to morgues or hospitals with great speed. Said one observer: "A doctor would take a look at each one. If he shook his head, that meant the guy was dead, and they pulled the sheet over his head." In many cases, the bleeding was so profuse that it spattered blood on the wounded men's necks.

Convicts had repeatedly threatened to cut throats, and the executioners' poised knives at the time of the attack had created the expectation that they would do so. Yet once again, the inmates' talk proved to be tougher than their acts.

The state's credibility was not bolstered by the bumbling response that officials made to Dr. Edland's finding. At first they denied the medical examiner's report; then Oswald wearily admitted that the throat-slashing reports were erroneous. Other spokesmen tried to suggest that the deaths were really the prisoners' fault, claiming homemade zip guns had been found in the compound. Rockefeller finally said flatly that the hostages "had died in the crossfire." He insisted, though, that the attack was "morally justified" and that there had been no "indiscriminate shooting."

Many -- including some grieving relatives of the dead convicts -- saw the state's effort to blame the prisoners for the deaths as an attempt to cover up a bungled job. To the families of the dead hostages, the news that police bullets had caused the deaths created a shocking sense of betrayal. One Attican charged emotionally that his relative "was killed by a bullet that had the name Rockefeller written on it." At week's end there were still many in Attica who would not or could not face up to the medical findings.

Gauntlet of Guards

The ferocity of the police attack apparently did not subside with the end of the shooting. Guardsman James P. Watson, 24, a law student, testified in a federal court that unresisting naked convicts, standing with hands on heads, were poked in the groin, rectum and legs with clubs to make them run through a gauntlet of guards, who kicked and beat them. Some inmates fell, he said, and guards chased others into a building. Standing near by, Watson heard "screams and moans and the sounds of clubs hitting flesh and bone." Days later, four outside doctors confirmed reports of brutality.

The bodies of fallen guards were tagged with their names, and their families were quickly notified. The bodies of convicts were labeled "PI, P2, P3." As late as four days after the gunfire, relatives of some convicts were still refused information on whether their sons or husbands were alive or dead. Those who were notified received the news in terse telegrams. One read: REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR HUSBAND RAYMOND RIVERA NUMBER 29533 HAS DECEASED. THE BODY REPOSES AT THIS INSTITUTION.

In some U.S. cities, there were sporadic demonstrations protesting the assault. From throughout New York and across its borders, prison officers, state troopers and other lawmen arrived in Attica to attend a solemn and trying round of wakes and funerals for the slain hostages. Dressed in trim uniforms and saluting sharply, but sometimes weeping, they helped the town mourn.

At least five investigations, including one by a congressional committee, began trying to find out just what went wrong at Attica. They threatened to get in each other's way and confuse matters even more. A single Warren-type commission commanding broad public confidence might be more useful--especially since many of the convicts have been shunted off to other correction centers and Robert E. Fischer, deputy attorney general, has imposed a total press blackout on the prison.

Caught in the swirl of praise and blame, Rockefeller was at week's end still firmly defending his action. "I used my best judgment," he said. Yet that judgment raised some legitimate questions, for which only tentative answers can be given until more facts are known.

WAS IT WISE TO NEGOTIATE? Almost to a man, prison officials say no. As long as the inmates held any hostages, officials were in an impossible position, they say. Moreover, dealing with prisoners in this situation only encourages more such seizures. Some uprisings have been quelled when authorities simply refused to negotiate with inmates until hostages were released. Last February, Maryland Governor Marvin Mandel rushed to a state prison where inmates had seized two guards and threatened to kill them. He faced the rebels and said: "We've shown our good faith by coming here; now you show your good faith by releasing them. If you don't, I'm leaving." After 20 minutes, the prisoners surrendered their hostages, then poured out their grievances to the Governor.

WHAT ELSE COULD HAVE BEEN DONE EARLY? Rebellious prisoners, say many experts, are scared and uncertain at the start of an uprising and must be overwhelmed promptly. Contends one Midwestern warden: "At the beginning, the inmates had no security; they would have run if authorities had gone in right away." Actually, Attica prison guards tried, but were repulsed. The Midwestern officer insists that a large enough force, using tear gas and clubs instead of guns, could have been mustered quickly to handle the mob. Another warden says that bringing in too many outside police can undermine the authority of the regular prison staff in the prisoners' eyes.

WAS THE OVERSEERS' COMMITTEE A GOOD IDEA? Once the negotiation path is entered, an outside mediator trusted by both convicts and officers can be useful. But if there is a committee of mediation, it must be small to be effective, and it cannot be fractious. There were far too many Attica observers, and they were sharply divided in ideology. Rockefeller, who had complained at first about the role of "outside revolutionaries" in the uprising, was asked why he later admitted a potential troublemaker like Seale to the bargaining. "Because the prisoners wanted him," he replied.

SHOULD ROCKEFELLER HAVE GONE TO ATTICA? There is no way to know whether Rockefeller's arrival on the scene would have saved lives; yet it is hard to see how it could have made matters worse. A confident and able persuader, Rockefeller might have eased tensions by dramatizing the state's concern; he might even have given weight to Oswald's ultimatum. Theodore Kheel, New York's veteran labor negotiator, contends that the convicts found Oswald's quick acceptance of 28 prisoner demands "too good to be believed"; they feared that his promises were only a ploy to free the hostages and would not be kept. "It would have been a mistake for the Governor to negotiate with them face to face," said Kheel. "But if he had come, he would have given the concessions credibility."

WAS THERE ANY ALTERNATIVE TO THE ASSAULT? Certainly, if hostages were being killed, force had to be applied. Officials were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the guards were in imminent danger of execution. Waiting could indeed have resulted in more deaths. But there is simply no certainty of that. Criminologist Vernon Fox points out that fatigue and delay often break down the prisoners' cohesion and will to resist. A prolonged stalemate endured in a wet, garbage-strewn yard and with inadequate food and water might have discouraged the rebels and convinced them that they must accept the Oswald concessions or seek some other face-saving out.

WAS THE ASSAULT TACTICALLY SOUND? Only investigations will reveal just how it was executed, but the plan was obviously risky. Radio communications indicated that the observers were not certain precisely where many of the hostages were being held. Because of the rain and the clouds of gas, visibility for sharpshooters was poor. Had the gas been as effective as expected, so much shooting would not have been necessary. Officers were proud that 28 hostages had been saved--but it was not at all clear whether this was because the attack was successful or because the convicts, in the showdown, made no effort to kill their captives.

Many of the rebels, of course, were in prison for violent and ugly crimes; many were there for lesser offenses. Yet by and large, at Attica they were treated without distinction, as numbers or niggers or animals to be caged. Most penologists point out that the key to dealing with inmates is to know them--and their leaders--well. In the end, the major failure at Attica may be that the authorities simply did not know what the desperate men behind their walls really wanted, thought or felt. Until the uprising became another symbol of America's many agonies, all too few seemed to care --at Attica or elsewhere.

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