A Year Ago at Attica

The fusillade of shotgun pellets and dumdum bullets went on for six minutes. When it was over, 29 inmates and ten guard hostages at the maximum-security prison outside Attica, N.Y., lay dead or dying in the early morning drizzle. Last week, one year after the massacre, a nine-member special commission created by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller issued its report* on what happened before, during and after the bloodiest prison riot in U.S. history. Headed by N.Y.U. Law Dean Robert B. McKay, the commission interviewed 1,600 inmates, as well as 400 guards and hundreds of state troopers and National Guardsmen. Among its blunt, plain-spoken conclusions:

> The uprising was not planned in advance. Sealed off in one block of the prison, a small group of rioters exploded in a "spontaneous burst of violent anger" at a guard. When a faulty bolt unexpectedly gave way as they shoved on a gate, they suddenly had access to the rest of the prison. "The rebels were part of a new breed of younger, more aware inmates, largely black, who came to prison full of deep feelings of alienation and hostility," the commission concluded, but they were not "revolutionary conspirators."

> The four-day negotiations were seriously undercut by numerous mistakes in judgment. The commission did not second-guess Corrections Commissioner Russell Oswald's decision to talk to the prisoners, but it contended that he should not have negotiated with more than 1,200 rioters looking on. Nor should newsmen and TV cameras have been permitted into the yard, thereby giving rioters a national limelight that they were unwilling to relinquish. The 33 "citizen observers"--an unwieldy group including Radical Lawyer William Kunstler and New York Times Columnist Tom Wicker, were too "racked with ideological differences" to be much help. The commission agreed that granting total amnesty was impossible, but chided officials for not making sufficiently clear to the rioters that there would be an armed assault if the inmates did not give up their last, unacceptable demands.

> Governor Rockefeller should have gone to Attica. The gesture might or might not have made a difference, the commission said, but "where state neglect was a major contributing factor to the uprising," the report said, "the Governor should not have committed the state's armed forces without first appearing on the scene and satisfying himself that there was no other alternative."

> The assault was poorly planned. No command structure existed after it began, and excessive firepower led to the death and injury of hostages and inmates. Even though the attack was directed by state troopers, prison guards "inexcusably" were allowed to participate. The troopers were ordered to fire only at inmates engaged in "overt, hostile acts." Nonetheless, unprovoked gunfire was reported by inmates and was apparent in filmed evidence. No adequate arrangements were made for medical care of casualties, a lapse for which "there was no excuse."

> After the riots, nothing was done to prevent reprisals. Inmates were made to run naked through gauntlets of enraged guards, who had "anesthetized their humanity and become righteous vigilantes." Several days after the riot's end, doctors saw evidence of fresh beatings. The commission accused state officials of allowing rumors to spread --and of unconscionable delay in denying the false report that one hostage had been castrated and that others had their throats fatally slashed.

The immediate response to the report was muted. Governor Rockefeller noncommittally thanked the commission for its "monumental job of investigating and reporting" but did not react to its criticism of him. Also holding his peace was Russell Oswald, who has written his own book-length account of what happened. Due to be published next month, it makes his case for doing "what I had to do" and argues that the revolt was carefully planned, at least in general terms, by a coalition of black and white radicals.

Another account of Attica has been written by Richard Clark, an inmate leader during the rebellion. It provides explicit reportage of what happened inside convict-held territory and describes the convicts' executions of three fellow prisoners. Whether the manuscript will ever be published is problematical. Random House dropped the book after receiving threats of libel suits from prisoners' lawyers as well as warnings that the book would almost certainly be used in any state prosecution of rioters.

Dread Sound. To aid that prosecution, the state attorney general's office and a grand jury have been conducting their own intensive investigation, but so far they have filed no charges. Two weeks ago, Chief Prosecutor Robert Fischer sought to supplement his information by subpoenaing the McKay commission's confidential records. Announcing that he would fight, the commission's general counsel angrily declared that he had obtained most interviews only by promising that they would not be shown to the prosecutor, an arrangement agreed to by the state.

The McKay commission agreed that conditions at Attica have improved some--a view not shared by current inmates. But it saw urgent need for greater "freedom for inmates to conduct their own affairs," more community contact so that convict life is not "shrouded from public view," improved status and standards for guards, and less arbitrary parole procedures. The report is pessimistic about long-range reform. "The cycle of misunderstanding, protests and reaction continues," the commissioners said, "and confrontation remains the only language in which inmates feel they can call attention to the system. The possibility that the Attica townspeople will again hear the dread sound of the powerhouse whistle is very real." Moreover, it is not only in upstate New York that such an alarm may be sounded. "Attica," warns the report, "is every prison, and every prison is Attica."

*Published in paperback by Bantam Books; 533 pages; $2.25.

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