Tragedy Averted

There was an ominous familiarity about the uprising in the maximum-security state prison at Rahway, N.J. Remember Attica, scrawled on a sheet fluttering from a cellblock window, was hardly necessary. However, 24 hours after Rahway inmates had seized four guards and the warden as hostages, the rebellion ended peacefully. At Attica, 43 inmates and hostages died during an assault on the prisoners' stronghold; after a negotiated settlement, the hostages at Rahway were released and prisoners returned quietly to their cells.

Throughout the fearful day, New Jersey officials and inmates alike gradually abandoned hard-line demands in favor of safety and compromise. Shortly after the rebellion started, New Jersey Governor William Cahill appeared, to direct negotiations from a nearby command post. The prisoners were not as well organized as the Attica inmates; they were also less militant and inflexible in their demands. Both sides, it seems, remembered Attica.

Fifteen Demands. The outbreak began in an auditorium at the hub of the sprawling, X-shaped penitentiary. A few more than 550 of Rahway's 1,143 prisoners were attending a regular movie screening on Thanksgiving Eve. Making It had just concluded when an inmate leaped onto the stage and launched into an angry speech denouncing the injustice of the prison system and society at large. He asked anyone who did not want to join a revolt to leave the hall immediately. Only 150 inmates stayed. Warden U. Samuel Vukcevich arrived to try to calm the disturbance, but within minutes he and the guards were overpowered. The riot was on.

No one knows how many prisoners were involved, but they took over a wing of the prison that normally houses more than 500 men. As at Attica, state troopers and prison guards donned bulletproof vests and helmets in preparation for an armed attack on the inmates. Inside, prisoners drew up a list of 15 demands, covering improved food and medical care, educational and rehabilitation programs, religious freedom, increased mail privileges. Three newsmen allowed into the cellblock at the prisoners' request heard echoes of Attica in the inmates' demands. Associated Press Correspondent Carl Zeitz, one of the three, wrote later: "Inmates crowded to the bars, each hotly stating his grievances: distrust of officials, contempt for the police and the guards, the conviction that the courts, the prisons--indeed the whole system of American justice--are a failure and they its victims."

Grievance Formula. On Thanksgiving Day, prisoners shouted demands for total amnesty; that had been the principal obstacle to a settlement at Attica. They set fires inside the cellblock to dramatize their grievances. But behind the scenes, negotiations went on quietly. The armed assault was called off. Cahill's presence, which the men inside the prison learned about from radio announcements, probably contributed to a swift and peaceful settlement. The Governor said later that he would have done whatever was possible to avoid bloodshed. "I probably would have gone in myself." New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller had refused to travel to Attica, arguing that he could not negotiate with the rebelling inmates.

Rather than insisting that their demands were not negotiable, as the Attica rebels had done, Rahway inmates agreed to a formula for settling their grievances with prison officials after the riot had ended. Finally, the leaders withdrew their demand for amnesty, asking only that observers supervise their return to undamaged cells as a safeguard against reprisals. One by one, the hostages were released and the prison returned to normal.

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