OPA

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced he has appointed H. Rex Lee, veteran career specialist on American Indians and dependent peoples, as Governor of American Samoa.

Secretary Udall also announced that Air Force Maj. Eric J. Scanlan, whose family has lived in American Samoa for three generations, is returning to his home islands to be Government Secretary. The post is similar to that of a lieutenant governor.

Since 1950 Mr. Lee has been associate commissioner and deputy commissioner of the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs. From 1946 to 1950 he was assistant director of the Department's Office of Territories. During that period he played a key role in arranging the transfer of American Samoa from Navy jurisdiction to civilian administration under the Office of Territories.

The territory has a population of slightly more than 20,000. It is an underdeveloped area, and the Polynesian inhabitants face social, political and economic problems.

Secretary Udall said Mr. Lee was drafted for the Governorship because of his unique experience and long familiarity in helping to solve just such problems among dependent groups.

One of Mr. Lee's major assignments will be the preparation for the South Pacific Commission conference in American Samoa in July 1962. It will be the first time the conference, scheduled every three years, will be staged at a site under United States jurisdiction. The commission membership includes the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Australia and New Zealand. It advises and assists the participating governments in promoting the economic and social welfare and advancement of the South Pacific peoples. International interest in the South Pacific is growing, and world attention will be focused on United States policies and programs in American Samoa.

Mr. Lee was born April 8, 1910, in Rigby, Idaho. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hyrum Lee, still live in Rigby. He attended the public schools of Jefferson County, Idaho, and received a Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural economics from the University of Idaho in 1936.

From June 1936, to July 1937, he worked as an economist with the Department of Agriculture's Resettlement Administration in Moscow, Idaho. Then he joined the University of Idaho Extension service and served a year as assistant county agent in Pocatello.

From November 1938 to June 1946, he held important posts with the War Relocation Authority, relocating Japanese Americans during World War II. His service include heading the Division of Relocation and Evacuee Property.

In 1946 he transferred to the Interior Department as assistant chief of the Office of Territories. In 1949 he was a consultant on loan to the United Nations, and spent three months traveling in the Near East, conferring with Arab and Israeli leaders to assist Arab refugees displaced by the Israeli-Arab war.

Mr. Lee married Miss Lillian Carlson of Pocatello, Idaho, in Seattle, Washington, in 1937. They have three daughters and two sons: Sherry, 21; Dixie, 19; Linda, 18; Duane, 14, and Carlson, 11. The Lees live at Fairfax, Va. Their new home will be the Governor's quarters in Pago Pago.

Major Scanlan, a career military officer, was reared in American Samoa. He is the great grandson of a Boston Irishman who emigrated to the islands and married a Polynesian. Major Scanlan's blood quantum is about 40 percent Samoan.

He was born May 31, 1919 in New Zealand. The family returned to Samoa before his second birthday. He attended elementary school in the Territory, and began his high school education. In 1937 he moved to New York City to live with relatives and complete his education.

Maj. Scanlan entered active duty September 12, 1940, with the combat engineers of New York's Twenty-Seventh Division. The Division was shipped to Hawaii shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

In October 1942, he returned to the States to Officer Candidate School at the Engineer Center at Fort Belvoir, Va., and received his second lieutenant's commission three months later.

He returned to the Pacific Theater in November 1943, with an aviation engineer battalion. As executive officer of a combat construction company, he served in the New Guinea and Philippines operations. After V-J Day he was rotated back to New York. In May 1946, he transferred to Geiger Field, Spokane, Washington, where he spent five years in military police and counter-intelligence assignments.

In December 1951, Scanlan was transferred to Castle Air Force Base near Fresno, Calif., as assistant provost marshal of the base. A year later he was sent to Nouasseur Air Depot, near Casablanca, French Morrocco, as assistant provost marshal.

He captained a prize-winning rifle and pistol team and personally posted the highest scores in North African competition for both rifle and pistol competition.

He was promoted to provost marshal of Orly Air Base, Paris, France, in June 1955, and served there until August 1958. He won a commendation medal for smashing a black market ring in Paris.

During his tours in Africa and France he studied under the University of Maryland's overseas college program, and in 1958 completed his course at the university' s campus in College Park, Md. He was graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in military science. During all five years of enrollment, he was on the University Dean's honor list annually. General Lauris Norstad, Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, presented him with an outstanding scholarship certificate.

After graduation he was transferred to his present assignment as assistant provost marshal of McGuire Air Force Base near Trenton, New Jersey. He was promoted to major in December 1960.

He married Miss Marian Elizabeth Currey of St. John, New Brunswick, in 1946. They have a son, David, aged 12, and a 9-month-old daughter, Reinnette.

Scanlan, an avid outdoorsman, sails, swims, golfs, hunts and fishes

A number of outstanding events in the field of Indian Affairs occurred in the 1963 fiscal year as the Bureau of Indian Affairs continued its emphasis of greater development of human and natural resources on Indian reservations in line with policies recommended by the 1961 Task Force on Indian Affairs, the Department of the Interior reported today.

Fiscal 1963 was a period of welcome employment for 4,418 previously jobless Indians who obtained wage work on projects initiated under the Accelerated Public Works Program on nearly 100 reservations in 18 States. Besides providing employment for a significant number of some of the Nation's neediest citizens, these projects have made important contributions to reservation life through road improvements, upgraded timber stands, the construction of community centers, and the prevention of soil erosion. A number are, in addition, promoting greater economic development on many reservations by expanding the relatively untapped, but extremely valuable, tourism potential of the reservations.

Early in the year 10 young Indians and Eskimos from Alaska completed an l8-month course in electronics training, made available under the auspices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to equip them for skilled employment in their native state, and were received at the White House by the late President Kennedy. These trainees, who received their instruction in New York City, were the first in what may be a long line of Indians and Eskimos from Alaska to take intensive courses in electronics instruction in preparation for jobs at defense and communications installations in their State. Training is financed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and by the Department of the Air Force, which contemplates employment of the trainees after completion of the courses. Subsequent groups of Alaskan natives will be trained in Los Angeles.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall has approved an order extending until January 1, 1969, the period of trust on Indian lands, both tribal and individually owned, in cases where the trusteeship or restrictions would otherwise expire in the years from 1964 through 1968.

The order applies to Indian allotments or homesteads on the public domain, Indian lands in Oklahoma, and the lands of tribes and bands which voted to exclude themselves from the provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. In the case of tribes which voted to accept the 1934 law, the trust period for their lands continues in force until otherwise provided by Congress.

In recent years the Department has been issuing an order toward the end of each calendar year extending for five years the trust periods that would otherwise expire in the following 12 months. The effect of Secretary Udall’s new order is to eliminate the need for these annual orders for the next five years.

Promotion of Alfred Dubray, a career employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs since 1938, to the position of superintendent of the Winnebago Agency, Winnebago, Nebraska, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

A Sioux Indian of Winner, South Dakota, Dubray has been in charge of budget and fiscal activities in the Bureau's area office at Muskogee, Oklahoma, for the past eight years. He first came with the Bureau as a clerk-typist at Rosebud, South Dakota, and Subsequently served in positions of increasing responsibility in the Bureau's national headquarters and in the field office at Anadarko, Oklahoma.

He is a graduate of Mitchell Business College, Mitchell, South Dakota, and served in the Army during World War II.

At Winnebago, Dubray succeeds Llewellyn Kingsley, who recently transferred to the superintendence at Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart Lo Udall and Vernon Smith, Council President for the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community near Scottsdale, Arizona, discussed the industrial development potential of the 46,000-acre reservation on November 20.

Mr. Udall promised his support for a proposal to construct a million dollar electronic plant on the reservation. Area Redevelopment Administration financial support for the Dickson Electronic Corporation project is also being sought, Mr. Smith said. Employment for more than 200 Indians is forecast.

The Scottsdale, Arizona, Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the project and has promised its full cooperation. For several months, reservation Indians and non-Indians from the surrounding area, including representatives of the Dickson Company, have been meeting to develop plans and work out the details of the project.

The Department of the Interior has asked Congress for legislation that would make Indian tribes eligible to receive planning help under the Urban Planning Assistance Program of the Housing and Home Finance Agency.

The program is administered under Section 701 of the Housing Act of 1954 which authorizes grants to State planning agencies for the provision of planning assistance to smaller cities, counties and other local units of government.

“Indian tribes are not included as the law now stands. "Indian tribes on reservations are in fact units of local government," the Department pointed out, "although not political subdivisions of the States, and we know of no reason for excluding them from the Urban Planning Assistance Program."

The Department added that Congress has explicitly made Indian tribes eligible for assistance under other similar statutes such as the Area Redevelopment Act, the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962, and the Public Works Acceleration Act.

Normally such grants cover two-thirds of the total planning cost. Under the proposed bill, however, grants could be increased to three-fourths of the total planning cost if the reservation is located in a designated redevelopment area under Section 5 of the Area Redevelopment Act.

An application for 160 acres of grazing land near Craig, Colo., filed by Kiowa Indian Amos A. Hopkins-Dukes, has been rejected by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall on the grounds that the land cannot qualify for allotment under an 1887 act providing l60-acre allotments for Indians.

The Secretary's ruling may forestall a flood of applications which would lead to great waste of public and private funds. The Indian Allotment Act of 1887 allowed from 40 to 160 acres for Indians wishing to leave reservations and become farmers or ranchers. The grants were to be made from the public domain, now administered by Interior's Bureau of Land Management.

Secretary Udall issued a strong note of caution to other Indians. “While the law is still open to bona fide applicants," he said, “ there is very little likelihood that suitable land could be found on the public domain today.”

Long-established Interior rulings have held tha.t allotted lands must be capable of supporting an Indian family. The law allowed 40 acres for irrigable land, 80 acres for non-irrigable agricultural land, and 160 acres of non-irrigable grazing land. Very little agricultural and pasture lands remain in the public domain capable of supporting a farm or ranch family in such small units. In the past 5 years only 17 allotments embracing 2,250 acres were approved for patent.

In his decision Secretary Udall said that the land Hopkins-Dukes had applied for can support only two cows on a year-round basis, and that economic ranch operations in the area required 100 animals.

Publicity concerning Hopkins-Dukes' application has stirred considerable interest among Indians in Colorado, Wyoming, and Oklahoma. The Kiowa Indian, described in newspaper interviews in Colorado as a motion picture stuntman-actor and writer, has recently stimulated Indian interest in the 1887 law through the Iowa Tribal Land Association.

Bureau of Indian Affairs officials have indicated doubt that many of the 7,000 eligible Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches living in the three states would be able to find lands suitable for allotment. Secretary Udall's decision confirmed this when he pointed out that lands incapable of supporting an Indian family cannot be allotted.

Secretary Udall pointed out that the public lands in the Western States were withdraw from entry and selection in 1934, and that the Taylor Grazing Act requires him to use his discretion in classifying lands as suitable for entry.

In ruling against Hopkins-Dukes' application, Secretary Udall said he considered "the capability, suitability and physical characteristics of the lands for the purpose for which they were sought, and for the other purposes for which the public land laws were enacted."

Secretary Udall pointed out that the Indians' relation to the allotment law is the same as all citizens' relation to the homestead laws. All citizens are born with a homestead right, but only a handful will receive homesteads because of the lack of good agricultural lands in the public domain.

The Department of the Interior today announced the revocation of a provision in Federal regulations which for many years has limited the appearance of professional attorneys before courts of Indian offenses on Indian reservations.

Courts of Indian offenses are organized and staffed by Indian tribal groups under regulations promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior. Fifteen such courts are now in operation.

The provision being revoked is found in Section 11.9 of Title 25 of the Code of Federal Regulations. It states that professional attorneys shall not appear in any proceedings before the courts of Indian offenses unless rules of court have been adopted by the court and approved by the tribal council and Indian Bureau superintendent governing the admission and practice of such attorneys before the court. Defendants, 11owever, were given the right to be represented by tribal members. The regulation was originally designed to meet the special needs of Indian courts whose judges are not formally trained in law, and who are concerned to a considerable degree with tribal customs which do not follow non-Indian laws.

The Department's revocation also applies to Section 11.9CA in Title 25 of the CFR which completely prohibited the appearance of professional attorneys before the court of Indian offenses on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation in Idaho.

In addition to the courts of Indian offenses, 50 tribal groups have tribal courts established under their own enactments. These courts are not subject to the same constitutional limitations as courts established by Departmental regulations and are not affected by the revocation action. Many of them have regulations similar to the revoked provisions.

The revocation order is being published in the Federal Register.

Secretary of Agriculture Orville L, Freeman and Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced adoption of 8 study and recommendations made by the two Departments to bring timber sale practices by the two agencies into closer uniformity.

The two Secretaries noted that 13 specific recommendations are being adopted. The changes apply to timber management in Western Oregon by the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Land Management in the Department of the Interior. Several of the recommendations are of wider geographic application. Four of these also apply to certain practices by Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs on Indian Timberlands in the Pacific Northwest.

Both Secretaries noted that the steps being taken to reconcile and standardize timber sale and management practices within the two Departments were in keeping with President Kennedy's Special Message to the Congress on Natural Resources in which he stressed the necessity for bringing together IIwide1y scattered resource policies of the Federal Government." Adoption of the study and recommendations follows a special study by the two Departments.

Among the study recommendations being adopted are orders to the agencies involved to standardize management plan inventory procedures, reconcile differences in determining allowable timber cut, and detailed field studies looking to possible uniform adoption of the International one-quarter inch rule and/or cubic foot measurement as substitute for the Scribner Decimal C rule. The latter recommendation deals with the way in which the board-foot volume of timber is measured for management inventories of standing timber and for timber sales.

Other recommendations include possible adoption of a joint nursery program, and action to meet land jurisdictional problems in the complicated checkerboard ownership areas of Western Oregon.

Secretary of Agriculture Freeman noted that the six Western Oregon embrace approximately 6.3 million acres. 1.8 billion board feet of timber are harvested each year management. national forests in From these lands some under sustained yield.

Secretary of the Interior Udall noted that his Department's Bureau of Land Management manages about 2.5 million acres of Federal lands in 18 Western Oregon counties. From these lands BLM harvests more than 1 billion board feet of timber each year under sustained yield program.

The Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs is responsible for some 2.1 million acres of commercially valuable Indian-owned forest lands in the Pacific Northwest. Timber sales from these lands amounted to 370 million board feet in fiscal year 1960.

Other efforts toward uniform practices would include action to resolve legal differences now existing in the transfer of contracts, and maintenance of close liaison on set-aside timber sales for small businesses. In addition, existing interagency committees in Washington, D. C. and in Portland, Oregon are to be strengthened and given specific responsibilities for further recommendations on uniform timber management practices.

The complete text of the 13 summary recommendations is attached.

1. The agencies will continue adherence to the established management objective of producing saw timber as the main product of timber harvest cutting.

2. The agencies are to obtain standardization of management plan inventory procedures.

3. The agencies are to reconcile significant procedural differences in determining allowable cut.

4. The Interagency Timber Appraisal Committee is to be continued as a means of progressing towards elimination of timber appraisal differences.

5. The agencies will consider the need for acting in unison when making any changes in bidding methods.

6. The General Counsel for the Department of Agriculture and the Solicitor for the Department of the Interior will confer with respect to the resolution of the legal differences now existing in the transfer of contracts.

7. Both agencies will maintain close liaison with respect to the set-aside sale program of the Small Business Administration and carefully considered common policies will be followed.

8. The agencies will explore the need for a joint nursery program.

9. The Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs will institute jointly a program aimed at providing for the uniform measurement of timber for management inventory and for sales.

10. The two Departments will collaborate on development of a uniform timber trespass bill and regulations.

11. Both agencies are to consider and recommend action to meet certain land jurisdictional problems.

12. The existing interagency committees in Washington, D. C., and in Portland, Oregon, are to be strengthened and given specific responsibilities for recommending uniformity of timber management practices.

13. The offices of both agencies in Portland, Oregon, will establish the same arrangement for exchanging manual and handbook material and all amendments thereto as is presently in effect between both agencies in Washington, D. C

The Department of the Interior today announced the selection of three new superintendents for Indian agencies in Minnesota, Montana and Washington.

At the Minnesota Agency in Bemidji, Herman P. Mittelholz, superintendent of the Turtle Mountain Agency in North Dakota since 1957, will succeed W. Wendell Palmer who retired May 13. No successor has been designated for Turtle Mountain.

At the Flathead Agency, Dixon, Montana, Presley T. La Breche replaces Charles S. Spencer who transferred to the Fort Hall Agency in Idaho last month. La Breche is a career employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and has been serving 8S industrial development specialist at Phoenix, Ariz., since 1958.

The new superintendent at the Yakima Agency, Toppenish, Washington, will be Melvin L. Robertson succeeding Floyd H. Phillips who retired May 12. Robertson has been superintendent for the past six years at the Menominee Agency, Keshena, Wis., where Federal trust supervision was terminated on April 30 under terms of a 1954 law.

Mittelholz has been with the Bureau of Indian Affairs since 1941 when he was appointed teacher at the Fort Berthold Agency Community School, Elbowwoods, N. Dak. Subsequently he served in a variety of positions ranging from the principalship of the Jicarilla Apache Agency School in New Mexico to realty work with the Great Lakes Agency, Ashland, Wis. Prior to his 1957 appointment at Turtle Mountain, he served for over a year as realty officer at the Minnesota Agency. He was born in 1909 at Munich, N. Dak., and is a graduate of the Bemidji State Teachers College, Bemidji, Minn.

Robertson was born at Kalispell, Mont., in 1900 and has had 33 years of continuous service with the Bureau. From 1928 to 1948 he served in various capacities from timber scaler to forest ranger at the Colville Agency in Washington and the Klamath Agency in Oregon. In 1948 he was named assistant to the superintendent of the California Agency at Sacramento and later was made district agent at the Hoopa Agency in northern California. His first superintendency appointment was in 1950 at the Northern Idaho Agency, Lapwai, Idaho. Four years later he transferred to the Western Washington Agency, Everett, Wash., and served there a little over a year before transferring to the Menominee post in July 1955.

La Breche, who is of Blackfeet Indian descent, first came with the Bureau in 1937 as an unskilled laborer at the Chemawa School in Oregon. Over the years he rose to positions of increasing responsibility in finance and credit work serving at a number of Indian Bureau offices throughout the country. For one year prior to his industrial development assignment at Phoenix in 1958 he was in the central office of the Bureau at Washington, D. C., as a program officer. Born in 1915 at Glacier Park, Mont., he served for four years with the Air Force during World War II and emerged with the rank of captain.