Steve Hendricks Interview

Steve Hendricks discusses his book The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country. In 1976 the body of Anna Mae Aquash, an American Indian luminary, was found frozen in the Badlands of South Dakota — or so the FBI said. After a suspicious autopsy and a rushed burial, friends had Aquash exhumed and found a .32-caliber bullet in her skull. Using this scandal as a point of departure, Hendricks opens a tunnel into the dark side of the FBI and its subversion of American Indian activists. He also discovers things the Indians would prefer to keep buried. What unfolds is a sinuous tale of conspiracy, murder, and cover-up that stretches from the plains of South Dakota to the polished corridors of Washington, D.C. Hendricks sued the FBI over several years to pry out thousands of unseen documents about the events. His work was supported by the prestigious Fund for Investigative Journalism. Hendricks is an investigative journalist who has written for such publications as the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, the Boston Globe, DoubleTake, and Seattle Weekly. Recorded December 26, 2006