INDIANS: Twin Stalemates

The few hundred Indian militants who seized the trading post of Wounded Knee, S. Dak., may have been impelled by contradictory objectives and muddled moralities, but their guerrilla tactics and resolve have proved effective enough. Three weeks after they first took several residents hostage, they were still holding at bay 125 federal marshals, 150 FBI agents and 15 armored personnel carriers. Public sympathy, first with the militants, was slowly drying up. Yet their prime objective had been achieved. National attention had been focused, if fleetingly, on the plight of the Indian in much the same way that it focused...