50 Years Ago: Feud between Nakai, Littell continues

The battle between Navajo Tribal Chairman Raymond Nakai and Norman Littell, the tribe’s general counsel, continues.

It’s been more than two years now since Nakai took over as chairman and he has tried numerous times to get Littell fired, thrown off the reservation or disgraced. In each case, he has failed.

Littell wins because he has the support of the ‘old guard’ on the Navajo Tribal Council, which continues to have a majority and is committed to rejecting any plan Nakai draws up to carry out his campaign promises.

One of three promises was to remove Littell, who Nakai feels has taken the tribe down the wrong path, promoted deals not in the best interest of the tribe, and, most of all, convinced the tribal council to allow the Hopi Tribe to file suit claiming ownership of 1.8 million acres of land occupied almost solely by Navajos.

The latest ploy used by Nakai was to simply not pay Littell. Ever since November of 1963, he had refused to sign off on any of the invoices submitted by Littell, saying they were still under review.

Even back in the 1960s, the tribal government was well known for delaying paying bills. Before any bills were paid, they had to go through various offices, any one of which could hold it up for any reason, which is why delays of three or four months were not uncommon.

By July of 1964, some nine months after his last payment from the tribe, Littell was owed about $30,000, which even in those days was not a lot for an attorney who was considered a general counsel for the nation’s largest Indian tribe.

But the Navajo Nation was only one of many clients that Littell had but it was the one that got his name in the newspapers all of the time.

Even the secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall, got in the act, advising Nakai that Littell had a legitimate contract with the tribe and if he went to court, he would not only get his back pay but the tribe would have to pay for legal expenses.

So on Nov. 7, Nakai backed down and sent a letter to Udall, saying he was ‘reluctantly’ paying Littell.

A few days later, Littell arrived in Window Rock to attend an Advisory Committee meeting and lashed out at Nakai, saying that the campaign against him has been an assault on Navajo rights and liberties ‘unprecedented in Indian history.”

Score another victory for Littell.

In other news, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced that it was conducting an investigation into the death of one student at Crownpoint Boarding School who died because of a fall in the school’s dormitory.

The student’s name was never released but the BIA report said he was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Arthur.

According to the initial BIA report, the youth died as he was running across beds in the dormitory when he stumbled and fell. In these types of investigations, the BIA usually looks into things that the BIA could do to make sure that this type of accident did not occur in the future.

This week also answered a question that had been in the minds of many people since April — What would Chet MacRorie do after stepping down as editor of the Navajo Times?

MacRorie had been praised for his efforts to provide a fair and balanced report on happenings on the reservation but he finally said he had enough with efforts by tribal leaders to control the paper so he resigned.

But where he went surprised a lot of people.

The Associated Press announced that MacRorie had accepted a job as news director of KFUN, a radio station in Las Vegas, N.M.

It turned out that the Thunderbird Broadcasting Co., which also owned KGAK in Gallup, owned KFUN. Besides working at the Navajo Times, MacRorie had also worked at the Farmington Times and had been, for about a year, publisher of the Gallup Independent.

Eventually, MacRorie would return to run the Navajo Times but this wouldn’t be until 1971 after Peter MacDonald was elected to replace Nakai as chairman.

And finally, the BIA announced that it had completed an 18-month, $500,000 project to build a gas line between Ganado and Chinle to supply trading posts, chapters, churches and residents in that area.

The gas line was started five miles south of Ganado, going through Ganado to the Round Top Trading Post and then to Nazlini and then to Chinle.

Navajo Tribal Utility Authority paid most of the cost of the line since it will service the houses and businesses along the route.