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How did you prepare for your intervention?
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Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
In some
communities, you won't know who the leader may be, especially in minority communities. It's a
culture
thing; you have to learn something about the culture. You don't barge in there, not having taken
those
things into consideration.
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
So you call places like the library and the historical society. You
can be talking to somebody who's giving you the information you want, and before you know it,
you get
another thing that ties in. You want to know about organizations, if there are important
organizations in the
community. Never mind about the majority community's organizations; you want to know about
the
minority community's organizations. The majority community's organizations are an open book
with the
exception of those organizations that are operating clandestinely (e.g., KKK); you already know
what the
power structure is. All you have to do is identify the founders of the town and some of the
important
people -- University officials, industrialists, and people that are leaders and historical enthusiasts.
You
identify the power structure, and that's not hard to do, but you also want to dig deep into the
community.
Now, why do you do that? You do that because you want to know if you're getting credible
information
from the people who are in the community. You want to be able to do that.
Martin Walsh
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
A number of our cases come from the media and basically the
process we try to use is that unless there is already a major conflict taking place that involves
violence, there is usually time to get the information. Even when there
is major violence, say a civil disorder is taking place, our process is to alert the people that we are
coming and get as much information as we can from the community on the background of the
incident or conflict. I would say the critical aspect when we meet with any of the authorities is to
have more information than what is in the media or the press. It is critical at those first
meetings with the police chief or the mayor. They often say, "It was an isolated incident," or "It's
something that we are in control of," and there is either a deliberate or a non-deliberate attempt to
block and head off any further deliberations from outside. They often say, "We're handling it, we
can handle it, it's really nothing major."In my mind, that's the usual mindset of authorities. If you
have no more information than they do, there is nothing you can really go on. That's why before
we go forward to have a meeting is to get as much information as possible about the totality of
the picture. Often we are dealing with police-type cases. I remember one shooting and
there were two dynamics working. In going to the community and talking to them about the
issues we were trying to find out not only their concern about the officer who shot the person, but
to explain to them the process that was going to happen, the chances of prosecution, the trial and
the like. That was their immediate need. We can't satisfy that need other than explaining what
process they can use and what their options are for getting redress for what they think is an
unjustified shooting. We also need to meet with them to find out what else is taking place. That
is, what lends itself to our process, that is, to mediation and conciliation processes other than the
prosecution of that officer. That is the second dynamic.
| Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Did you always know all of the parties before you went down?
Answer:
Yes, if at all possible. You might not be able to get in touch with everybody, but the goal
would be to get in touch with all of them before you got there. Whoever I talked to first, I would
tell them that I'm going to be talking to the other party today. "Before I leave, I'll be talking to
these people. Is there anyone else you think I should talk to?" That did two things. First, it
broadened the network for talking to people, it began to identify some of those leaders. Second,
it began to establish the trust that I was in fact going to talk to the mayor, the police chief,
LULAC, or this person who's in charge of the demonstration. Everybody knew I wasn't trying to
hide anything. Usually the next person is the chief of police who will say, "Why did you talk to
them before you came to talk to me?" I would tell him I made the appointment with them first
and I didn't try to go into that anymore. I knew there was always that feeling of, "Who did you
talk to first?" One would always say, "They're just trying to con you." So I just say, "Everyone's
trying to con me. It's part of the deal. Everybody tells the story from their perspective." I
understand that it's part of the dance. "I understand that's a concern of yours." I'm trying to
minimize any impact it has in a negative way. "I think we can be helpful."
Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Did you do anything else to prepare before you went?
Answer:
It depended on the case. Sometimes it would be a housing issue, and I wasn't that familiar
with the housing laws at the time. So I would need to research that. School district policy I
would sometimes try to look at. I would often ask an institution for copies of some of their
policies and procedures. Then I could find out if what the community perceived about the
institution was real or perceived. Was this true that they don't have a grievance procedure, or is it
that they have a grievance procedure, but it's not effective? Or, do they have an effective
grievance procedure, but they don't implement it? It's hard to know how to help if you don't
know what's in place. In a lot of the police departments I worked with, I was able to get them to
do a written brochure that outlined how to complement or grieve a police action. That was a big
step. So it was written and the police officers were handing them out. If you want to comment
or if you have a grievance against a police officer, these are the procedures to do that. Again, we
honored the interests of the police department. I made it clear that the community needs to be as
aggressive in commending police officers as they were in complaining about them. That was
part of my sense of balance. I had to honor both. The community had as much responsibility for
one as the other. And the department had as much responsibility to respond back to the
community.
Silke Hansen
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
How did you decide how to prepare for this particular case? How did you come up with your game plan, so to speak? Is it something that's standard with each case that comes to your attention?
Answer:
Typically, when I approach a new mediation case, before I even bring the parties together, I try to find out what the specific needs and interests of each party are, what is it that they hope to get out of this, and why. This way, I have some sense of where the common denominators are and where we're going to have some problems before we actually bring them together. So I do a lot of ground work with the parties before I ever get them to the table. I'm not necessarily referring to this particular case, but I don't like bringing parties to the table without knowing what's going to happen. I hate surprises. So if I don't think that there's at least some area where they're going to be able to reach some agreement, or some understanding, I typically keep them apart. If anything, I do shuttle diplomacy because I don't want this first experience of actually eyeballing each other to be one of further conflict and disappointment and failure.
Silke Hansen
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
So there was a potential for violence there. One of the key things that we try to do before an event which might lead to violence is that we get the key players, the leaders, together to talk about what expectations each one has about the coming event. We talk about what parameters each one has set, what are their absolutes, and what is negotiable, so that each side would know what to expect of the other. In this case, we arranged for a meeting between the march leadership and the Nebraska Law Enforcement, particularly the State Patrol. We tried to come up with an understanding of how far marchers would be able to go. The Nebraska Law Enforcement understood that there was no intent to create any violence or to destroy any property. They understood, in fact, that the marchers would be training self-marshals. CRS helped, to some extent, in doing that too. AIM has a very effective security staff themselves, so they served as marshals to some extent in controlling their own group.
Stephen
Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
We could never get the chief of police together with the tribal
chief. It would just be one accusation after another. It was very tense at that level. But we
decided we could bring the town council representatives and the tribal council representatives
together. Vermont was really taking the lead on this case. It was decided that we get the two
councils together to sit in on the mediation. In this case, we hit another impasse. We
met several times with the parties prior to convening mediation. There were just a lot of issues in
this particular case. We knew what the issues were, and we knew what the concerns of the
Native Americans were. We conveyed that we were given permission to relay to the town
council representatives. The town council reviewed the proposed issues and were willing to
discuss them, so we started setting up our mediation schedule.
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
What did you do?
Answer:
Well we knew a demonstration was going to take place. Since we know the leadership of
the Korean community and felt we had a fairly good handle on them, we decided to meet with
city hall.
Question:
That's what you did in this case?
Answer:
Yes, we met, with city hall and the police to let them know what
the Korean demonstrators intentions are, what they're going to do, that we're going to be on site,
that we have the leadership and we want to know who's going to be your leadership and how we
can continue to communicate at all times, because we just don't know where this is going to go.
After we met with the city hall police and let them know this demonstration was going to take
place, we had to let the LAPD know because there are multiple jurisdictions. The other law
enforcement agency that we didn't contact or develop a working relationship with was the
parking enforcement police. We later had a problem with them. So we learned that we had to
look at all the law enforcement agencies that were going to be involved.
| Angel Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Had you met with other people?
Answer:
No, we just met with our own staff. Then we began to determine what was happening and
how we might
be able to help.
Question:
How did you assess what was happening in that case?
Answer:
We had already had some people down there -- I think a couple of people who were probably
stationed in L.A. at that time. So they knew what was taking place and there was contact with
the
police department. When we got there, it was a matter of them briefing us on what
was happening and then working out potential assignments for further assessment of the
situation, and making assignments for people to deal with the police department and the sheriff's
department and city folk in general. Then some of us would have to go out into the community
and sort of get a feeling of what was happening.
We stayed on the periphery. We really didn't move into the area of
the problem itself because they had the National Guard there, and there
was a lot of checking and rechecking and concern that we might get fired upon by some of the
people involved in the riot or maybe some trigger-happy guy from law enforcement. So we sort
of stayed on the periphery and talked to adjacent communities about what was happening, what
they saw as happening. These people, even though they were not actually in the problem
area, had a pretty good handle on what was happening. We also spoke to police departments in
those adjacent
areas.
Question:
How did you decide what was the appropriate time to actually go into the problem area?
Answer:
That is a good question, because I can remember being told about things that were
happening,
but I can't really remember being told, "This is what we're going to do." We were mostly left on
our own and since we worked in small teams, that's exactly what we did. So we decided when
we would go into the problem area and we decided when to deploy ourselves in these situations.
We were just told, "You're out there in that area, and you've got a new job to do. Now, here's the
book, go
out there and do it." But we had our experience and we had contacts and that kind of thing, and
we had a general plan about what it was that should happen. In those kinds of cases, you follow
your own instincts. You hear about things occurring at a given area, so you move over there to
see if it really is happening, and to talk to the police in that area, and then decide what you ought
to do.
Bob Ensley
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Would you walk us through how you assessed? What were you looking
for? Did you call people in advance? Just tell me all the steps that you can think of.
Answer:
When I first went into Washington, NC, following SCLC's request, I had never been to
Washington, NC in my life. It is a beautiful revolutionary town. There were houses built during
that time. It has a beautiful river front. I was simply amazed at the beauty of it. Then I start
inquiring. The first thing you do, you go to the
black mortician. They're independent of the system. The barber shop, the beauty parlors.
Then after talking to them, I tended to ask, "Who's the pastor in this town?" You know, the one
pastor I
think that could give me an overview of really what's going on this town. Then I would go to
the schools. And I am going to say this with caution, and I hope you fully understand what I'm
going to say -- but in the nature of this work, I'd try to find a Jewish business person. Because
they have in some time suffered the effects of discrimination, the same as we have. And they
would be very honest in telling me who the people were that I needed to deal with. And another
thing that I would use, I always would ask the black people, "Who are the white people you
think I need to see?" They would tell me. Then I would ask the white people that I would meet
with, the white business leaders, and the elected officials, "Who are the blacks I need to talk
with?" And nine times out of ten, they are the ones you didn't talk with.
Question:
You didn't?
Answer:
I wouldn't or they'd be the very last. They would not be at the top of my list, because they
are the so-called hand-picked blacks that the white community has always used. So I made it a
point for them not to be the first blacks that I would contact. Then I would go to the schools
because, at that time, most of the schools were predominantly black. I'd meet with the principal
and some of the teachers, and then try to find a teacher who's had the most difficulty, actually the
one that's very outspoken.
I try to bring little groups together and let them talk, and I listen. I mean
you don't just sit there, you gotta listen to what people are saying. Then sometimes it's
important to realize what's not being said. You just go on from that point.
Once you get them together, that jump-starts the process. They'll suggest to
you what steps you need to take. And then, we all start moving as one in that direction. Not the
Justice Department, not Bob Ensley, but all of us. And we begin to pick up people along the
way, you know, who are supportive. But keeping in mind that you only go as far as a
community's going to permit you to go. You cannot go any further than they're going to permit you, because many times you'll
get way out there in advance of what they think or where they think they need to go, and they're
going to leave you and you're out there all alone. So you just go along. And when you feel as
though it's time to stop and re-strategize, you do that. Many times, you strategically stop, so
you can re-strategize and set some additional goals or priorities. Or, if this is not working, you
move to another objective.
Bob Ensley
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Going back to the beginning, when you needed to personally contact people,
did you call them on the phone or did you write, or what?
Answer:
No, you never write when you can call, you
never call when you can visit. on-site assessments are essential in this business.
Ernest Jones
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
The assessment that I did took place over probably 5 or 6 months. We made sure that we
had all the points of contact that were necessary. What separates this from a regular case is that
instead of going into Birmingham, AL and dealing with the mayor of Birmingham or the police
in Birmingham, here you've got the Olympics coming to the city of Atlanta and you've got
literally every level of law enforcement involved, every level of governmental entity. So there
was a massive group of people we needed to touch base with to be able to move around to be
able to get things done. Part of the assessment required an extensive amount of identifying who
the key leaders were in different areas and then making contact with them. That way they would
know who I was and vice versa. In the Olympics you've got all these people coming from all
over the world. You've got an extremely diverse cultural atmosphere and because of that you've
got the potential for all kinds of conflict particularly between law enforcement and people. The
police aren't running the show, but they are making sure that it flowed smoothly. The tension for
conflict between police, the majority of who would be white, and people from all kinds of parts
of the world was exceptionally high and so we were trying to identify how that would work and
where we would plug into this. The assessment and that leads me up to, the key factor in the
assessment process was to make sure that we knew where we fit and where we could best
provide the kind of service that we were supposed to.
Julian Klugman
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
First they want to start
mediating right away, I said I don't think we're ready, but go ahead. They fumbled along for
about an hour and they said well maybe we should do some preparation. So then I met
separately with each group. There were five law enforcement officials including the sheriff.
They had a room called the tepee where they used to put the Indian kids who got drunk on
Saturday nights. So we had the sheriff, we had the city police chief, who was pretty good, the
state police with their lieutenant, the DA, who was also pretty good, and the Park Service on one
side. Then you had the Indians on the other side. There was an AIM group, so there was a lot
going on there. There was an Indian woman who was the matriarch. She seemed to be the one
holding it together.
But it had to be done publicly, because nobody completely trusted anybody. CRS had a rule,
you couldn't do mediation publicly, but I did it real fast, I did it in two days, and by the time Ben
Holman got wind of it and called me up and said what are you doing, it was done. Success. The
Indians initially didn't know what they were doing, so we spent time working on preparing for
mediation, and that was very important. You had to train the minority group if they didn't know
what they were doing or how to do mediation.
Julian Klugman
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Answer:
We had a procedure. First you do an alert, and the alert says this is something that's within
our
mandate. You get the basic facts, and you determine that this is something within our mandate.
Then you do an assessment. Over the years we've streamlined this. We used to say you had to
go on-site, but it became too expensive and too time consuming. So we really learned to do
phone assessments.
Question:
How'd you do that?
Answer:
You just call up the key people, you don't do a full assessment, but you do a phone
assessment.
We have techniques for how you talk to people you get the facts. We have forms and everything
became computerized at one point.
Question:
So you have standard set of questions you go through?
Answer:
Yes. We did. There we had forms and we had a system.
Question:
So what does it include?
Answer:
It's like a newspaper article. When did this happen? What happened? Basic stuff. Just
like
a newspaper reporter, you get it fast. You focus in.
Question:
Who, what, when, why, where sort of thing?
Answer:
Exactly. What's it all about, who's involved, who are they? Sometimes you don't understand
what they're telling you. Such and such a group uses an acronym. What's the acronym? You
write it down, what's it mean? You get it all down in one page. You write it fast. Then, see if
there's expenses involved. I'm the Regional Director and anytime there's money involved, I have
to approve every step. Nobody traveled unless they had my authorization. You had to tell me
what was going on before hand, and if I had any questions, I would ask them. Then you go on
site and you do an assessment. But that's a commitment for us, it's money and time. You go
on-site and that's really a commitment for us but it's not a complete commitment.
Question:
Did you ever try to help without going on-site?
Answer:
Oh sure, you could offer help through telephone conversations. We had at one point, as an
example, an agreement with the Coast Guard. About twelve years ago the coast guard had very
few blacks or women in it. They decided they had to do something. So one of the things they
did was an agreement with CRS. I went to see the admiral in Long Beach and I gave them some
training. They set up each unit with a trained human rights officer. The background was that
there was a coast guard station way up north in California and there were a few blacks there.
There was a black family that was really discriminated against. When they would go into stores,
people were really nasty to them. And what the Coast Guard had done in the past in this town is
they'd move the family. Very compassionate, so if there were problems they would move the
family. I told them not to move anybody. Call a meeting at the chamber of commerce, and say
either you guys stop that behavior or we're not going to buy anything here, we're going to buy
from a town twenty miles down the road, get it? You're going to lose fifty thousand dollars a
year. About two weeks later I get a call. You know it worked. That ain't mediation, there are
times you don't mediate.
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I called the chief of police, and I
got in touch with key community leaders.
As you're identifying issues at first, you also want to identify key players, and their roles.
Going into any situation like that one, without having some idea of who the leadership is, is
kinda putting
your life at risk -- very much at risk, because you're walking around like a zombie or something,
because
you don't know who's who, and what's what. But you know for sure that the police chief is the
Police
Chief. In any city, you know for sure that the mayor's office is the mayor's office. But before
you know
that, you have to understand and learn what form of government a municipality is operating
under.
For example, you may go in there and say, "I'm going to talk to the mayor, and see what's
going
on with him." The mayor may just be a symbolic individual, so you have to find out if the mayor
or the City
Manager is in charge.
Dick
Salem
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Okay, number one was potential for violence. Assuming it's within our jurisdiction, the
mandate of the agency. Number two, is it likely we can have some impact? How many people
are involved? Another is, who's asking us? Is it a school superintendent, is it the head of the
NAACP, is it a congressman's office, is it the director calling from Washington? This all had a
practical impact on whether we responded or not. That had an impact on how effective we could
be. It had an impact on how important the matter was, and the political consequence to the
agency of responding or not responding, which obviously is a matter that you had to take into
consideration. That wasn't overriding, but it could have some impact. How long had the
problem been persisting? Have we ever been in that matter before? What other efforts had been
undertaken? Was this intractable, or was this something that was new and fresh? Was this
something we had experience in? Do we have a higher expectation of success based on our
experience? Did we have the money to respond? Did we have the personnel to respond? What
were the negatives? Was there someone who didn't want us to respond. Maybe there was a good
reason not to. That might not be pretty always, but there well may be a reason why we should
not respond. I think that probably covers all of the things we considered.
Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I made contact with some of the student
leadership that I was aware of; some of the black student organizations, a Hispanic organization,
and a Native American organization.
Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
So you're doing this on the phone?
Answer:
Yes. Letting them know I'm on my way, if it's really a violent situation. If I get a sense that
things are already started or getting ready to start, I would make a clear commitment to them that
I am on my way, I will be there.
Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
How much of a plan do you develop
before you go in? How much comes later?
Answer:
Has anyone brought up the Annual Appraisal of Racial Tension?
Question:
No.
Answer:
When I first went to CRS, one of the skills which I brought that they were interested in was
being able to write and design training materials and do research. One of the first things they
assigned to me was to research with all the other conciliators what they did for entry. How did
they know what to do when they went into a community? They were the first generation, then I
came along, and now we've got some newer people. The first conciliators had pretty much
learned it by doing it. Anybody that came in next had to be an apprentice with them. I was the
first one who was going to try to codify and write that down. Every time, I would ask one of
these veteran conciliators, "How did you know what to do?" "I just knew." "Well, how did you
know?" "I don't know, I just knew." What came out of the interviews was that they had
intuitively, over time, developed this whole perception that people who believe that the system
will respond to their grievances, don't usually respond with violence. If there isn't a grievance
procedure, or they don't have confidence in the grievance procedure and they feel that they've
been mistreated, the more likely there's going to be violence. So when someone goes in on a
school discrimination case, or a case involving violence in the school, they go in and ask
questions like, "How many minority students do you have in special ed? How many minority
students do you have on the cheerleading squad? How many minorities do you have in the
Talented and Gifted program? What is your procedure for responding to grievances?" They look
at the systems available to provide redress. If those systems aren't there, that will fuel the plan.
If they are there and the community doesn't know about them, different plan. That was true in
every institution, city government, contracting, or housing case. There are systems that should be
in place to respond to people's grievances. Gill Pompa's theory really proved itself, that the
higher the level of disparity and the lower the level of confidence in redress, the higher the
potential for violence. High disparity, low confidence, that's the highest configuration for
violence.
| Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
You talked a couple of times, off tape,
about how you assessed whether a case was worthy of your time. You said that one aspect was a
potential for violence and another was the potential to make systemic change. Was this AART a
tool that you used to make that determination?
Answer:
Yes, as far as the violence part of it. One of the potential goals of it was to routinely go into
a community and do an assessment. Like every three years.
Question:
Even if there hadn't been a situation?
Answer:
Even if there hadn't been an incident.
Question:
So did you go into all sorts of institutions?
Answer:
Oh yes. All the institutions were identified, as well as community systems. And it included
everything: city government, schools, housing, employment, police, law enforcement.
Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I would sometimes do research on other
companies that had done stuff like that. I would bring information to them and say, "This is what
happened to production. Production went up." So they gain more. The organization gained
more from that than they lost. We did a really long mediation with Levi Strauss one time. They
were closing a plant in San Antonio. The community's perception about who they are as an
organization was very important to them, so they weren't difficult to bring around. Generally, it
becomes an ego thing and both sides become entrenched. So then you've got to figure out a way
to let them save face and come out of that entrenched position. If there's no potential for a
long-term relationship, it's probably not ever going to settle, short of both groups being
destroyed, economically or whatever. These people lose their jobs, these people lose the plant.
But you try to find a place where you can bring them to a joint, mutually beneficial goal. Save
the plant, save our jobs, but get some of our needs met. Also give them that place where they can
stay safe. "Yeah, I understand how they feel, but we didn't do anything wrong." And it’s really
as simple as that sometimes.
| Leo Cardenas
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
When you found out about a dispute, how
did you investigate it? How did you go about finding out what the problem was?
Answer:
We have a process that we simply call
a "call-in assessment", which consists of contacting the parties, asking about the status of the
dispute, the nature of the issues, and more than anything else, we simply ask in their mind do
they see a resolution to it and what type of resolution do they see to the dispute, to the issues at
hand? In the majority of those cases, the resolution is one sided.
Question:
Was the contact always done by
telephone, or was it by mail, or did you ever just show up?
Answer:
Majority was telephoned; we still received letters, but the majority was by telephone.
Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Yes, I
called him. Let's say in that situation, since there was a black
victim involved, I wanted to see the concerns of the black
community so besides calling the mayor I tried to reach the
NAACP, and the ministers. I tried to reach the First Baptist
church, also. As I left town I called the F.B.I. to see what
had been happening. The F.B.I. district director special agent
in charge talked to me and said they held a press
conference at noon, and he was on his way back to Houston. He
just filled me in a little bit on what happened. I had also
tried to reach the mayor and the mayor finally called me back and
arranged to meet with him. We arranged to meet about 7:00 or
8:00 that evening, so on the way up there about thirty minutes
from Jasper, I called the mayor because I thought maybe I should
meet with other people and he could notify them. He said sure,
come on over we'll talk about that. He was going to see what he
could do.
Later I was up at his house and he had a whole lot of black men
there all dressed up in suits and all that. I thought it was a
monthly meeting of some group. I realized after a while that he
had called them to meet with me. There must have been about
fifteen, or twenty people, maybe more. They told me about what they felt
about the current situation, what they had been doing already,
and some historical issues involving race in the community.
We agreed I would help them, and we'd look into the
historical issues at a later date, but right now we would look at
what's happening currently, what was expected, and who was doing
what already. I found they had begun working very closely with
the white ministers.
Dick Salem
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
When Gerald Ford, unexpectedly acceded to the presidency of the United States, I checked on
Grand Rapids, Michigan - - his home town - - where we’d had little activity. We had one case
there over the years regarding a museum that was unearthing an Indian mound, and there was a
conflict over the bones, whether they go to the museum or the Indian group. Other than that, we
hadn't had a Grand Rapids case in a dozen years. All of a sudden we wanted to know what was
happening in Grand Rapids. So I took my senior mediator and we went to Grand Rapids to meet
with the head of the Human Relations Commission and the head of the NAACP to establish
some relations in the President’s home town. That was a practical, political, but also
programmatic response. We never did very much there after that because there wasn’t a call to.
When there was a volatile Indian fishing rights dispute in remote northern Wisconsin, we took
information on the phone and Efrain Martinez and Werner Petterson made an initial site visit.
Martinez stayed with the case. It was one of the best he ever did when he was working out of
Chicago. The reservation was in the district of a congressman who was on our Appropriations
Committee. So that made it easier for me to commit our sparse funds for travel to a remote area.
The congressman was essential to CRS’s funding and survival, so this was a way to be sure he
was aware of the important work we were doing.
So, getting back to your questions, during the alert stage, we always would talk to people who
were involved on all sides of the conflict and then let them know if we were coming in. Only
rarely would be go on-site without an initial phone assessment.
Dick Salem
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
We had done some good things in that
part of the country over the years. We knew the players, but not well enough. I had not done my
homework well enough. This is one of the disadvantages when you’re shooting in and out of
places, and trying to be all over the place. Especially if you’re the regional director focusing on
a community. But by that time we had a very small staff and we hadn’t spent a lot of time in
that part of the country in some years.
Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Now did you give them prior notice
before you went to the university to let them know that you were coming?
Answer:
Yes, I called and made appointments with students, student leadership and administrative
leaders.
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