("My efforts to raise the consciousness of Whites who are so against Indians
in the States are bound to be stopped by the FBI
sooner or later."...Anna Mae Pictou)
Notes:...taken from In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
One of the first AIM people to suspect that Douglass Durham was some sort of government agent was Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, the young Micmac woman from Shubencadie, Nova Scotia.
by Peter Matthiessen...During Doug Durham's brief visit to Wounded Knee, certain AIM women, Aquash among them, had noticed that this "one-fourth Chipewa" in headband, beaded belt buckle, and turquoise jewelry was dyeing his hair black.
...taken from Wasi'chu - The Continuing Indian Wars
Another rather inept attempt to reinforce the "savage" stereotype was directed not within police circles but to the American public...This was a report on AIM byt the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committe. The only witness to appear before the committee when it met April 6, 1976, was Douglass Fran Durham, a former FBI-paid operative who had infiltrated the American Indian Movemen in 1973.
by Bruce Johansen and Roberto MaestresNo Indians were asked to testify at the hearing, at which Durham, who had earned $20,000 from the FBI for his spying, read into the record several falsehoods and several statements which imputed acts of savagery to AIM members, most of them without corroboration. Some of Durham's statments were refuted by his own testimony.
The most spectacular fabrication was a description of events on Easter Sunday, April 22, 1973, in the occupied hamlet of Wounded Knee. On that day, according to Durham, "AIM members hung a man from a cross in full view of marshals and some members of the press. For approximately six hours, the body was pummeled for six hours."
In March 1975, Durham, who was so trusted that he was appointed AIM's head of security during the 1974 Wounded Knee trials in St. Paul, was confronted with evidence that he was an informer. He confessed, and was simply ousted.
Durham was/is Army Intelligence, as well as his sort of "cover" as FBI. He resettled in a suburb of Dallas, TX (where he still lives). For a time, he infiltrated groups of Chicano people and attempted to infiltrate liberation groups (of Maya) S. of the border. I had obtained and published (in Akwesasne Notes and AIM pamphlets) enough pix of him that he was apparently recognized.Durham's background--he was a minor mafioso, involved in drug and arms smuggling, using Army planes (which he also used for AIM flights--included running a number of illegal gambling establishments in Iowa. This made him a particularly valuable "consultant" to NY state authorities during the 1989-90 "gambling/anti-gambling" Mohawk tribal war at Akwesasne. He didn't appear on any scenes publicly that I know of, although he may have "snuck in" to Ganienkeh (the Mohawk Warrior Society land), if so I didn't hear it. He was around the NY state Gambling Commission.
Back in TX, he lives in some sort of born-again Christian communal house, that is said to be a cover for Satanists. (I don't have anything definite on this). I feel this is some type of government covert operation. Durham remains available to various state and federal authorities as their main man who is both an "expert" on Indians and on gambling. I have no recent photos of him.
During his army career preceding his infiltration of AIM at Wounded Knee (he went in under Army auspices, and took part in fake interviews which were really military interrogations) he was known as a disguise expert, and gave classes in that, in demolition, and in "infiltration, ex-filtration [getting out again afterwards]." This was in connection with an unsuccessful U.S./Gusano invasion of Cuba in the early '60's.
I would be very interested in receiving any info, especially current photos.
Anyone living in Dallas may obtain a current address/phone (his number is unlisted) from the Polk City Directory, at the main library. Up until 2 years ago, Durham kept the "key" odd spelling of his first name as "Douglass" making him easier to ID on directory listings, but about a year ago, he dropped the second S. His middle name is "Frank." He was born in 1937, is approximately 6'2", used to be rather stocky-built with something of a pot-belly. He used colored contact lenses and died what appears (from early family photos) to have been brown hair, black. Sometimes he wore varieties of wigs, including a blond crew-cut wig (in LA).
The people of his "born-again/Satanist" group maintain he's not the same guy--but he is, and he is still "active". If you have this kind of interest and ability, you should be very, very careful, physically and psychologically. He was always armed, including a variety of small, hidden knives and guns; I think this would probably still be true.
Durham's "secret" or covert Army commander was then-Col, now Lt. General Robert K. Brown, publisher of Soldier of Fortune Magazine, and of a group of "covert" entities, which includes Omega Ltd (a funds laundry), all located in Boulder, CO. Brown is not a retired old right-wing officer with an odd hobby (recruiting bikers and psychos for "deniable" paramilitary operations in Africa and S. America), he is an active leader in covert U.S. "intelligence" operations, which includes assassinations, quiet murders, and organizing "native" troops for battles against their fellows.
There is a whole U.S. "secret Army organization" which doesn't appear on any regular Army chain of line-command. There is a more recent one which appears to be headed by "retired" Army officers which is organized on a statewide basis, there being a commander and chain of command for each state. Its purpose is not known at this time (it is not specifically intelligence/disruption, it's more like the regular army except it's half-social, half-secret).
Recently, the commander of Texas for this "informal state-by-state" Army group is said to have met covertly with individuals connected with the operation of the Shakopee Mdweakanton Sioux casinos; purpose of the meeting is not known. I speculate that casinos make excellent laundromats for covert funds; the organized crime casinos of Nevada and NJ perform(ed?) this service for the CIA. Perhaps the secret army is looking for it from Indian casinos?
The Army's intelligence/disruption, secret operations activities in this hemisphere have never received the attention of those of the CIA and FBI, although in the early '70's there was a brief national flash about how Army Intelligence had infiltrated many campuses and student orgs.
Indian people should be especially interested in Army Intelligence, because--Army v. Indians, traditional, ya know. They still are in the field.
Ward Churchill's book, "Agents of Repression" is symptomatic, as well as operative. During the period of which he writes, AIM was targeted by the CIA, Army Intelligence, Naval Intelligence (on the West Coast) for major disruptions and attacks on not just leaders, but grass-roots members. Churchill's books makes it appear the FBI is some sort of villainous out-of-control org, which it was, but by comparison to the others, they were kind of clumsy. Durham's case is a good example. Like most of these covert types, he was crooked and corrupt, so he sought money from whoever would pay him, e.g. the FBI, local (Minneapolis and St. Paul) police, etc. Much of the *lawyers'* focus on Durham's FBI affiliation was part of a legal strategy: It was the Justice Department (of which the FBI is its investigative arm) which was prosecuting hundreds of federal "Wounded Knee and aftermath" cases, so whatever they could "make" legally of Durham's so-called "invasion of the defense camp" (actually rests on "violation of attorney-client confidentiality") might have legal benefits for hundreds of AIM defendants. Their concentration should not have been allowed to obscure the more active and sinister organizations for which Durham (and of course many others) actually worked.
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