Some Indians Laud Reagan After Long-Delayed Talks

President Reagan met with American Indian representatives Monday and was praised by many participants in the long-awaited session as having made a good start toward improved understanding of problems confronting native Americans.

Reagan, who angered many Indians during the Moscow summit meeting last May by saying that Indians had been “humored” in their “primitive life style,” called the White House discussion “a meeting between friends.”

Indeed, several Indian participants emerged from the meeting praising the President for his efforts. Ivan Sidney, chairman of the Hopi Tribe, told reporters that Reagan understands that “there needs to be contact between the White House and Indian nations.”

Hodel Attends Meeting

The meeting, which lasted more than an hour, included representatives of more than a dozen Indian nations. In addition to Reagan, who stayed for only part of the session, several federal officials, including Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel, attended.

Administration officials said that it had taken a long time to set up the meeting because Indians had been unable to agree on whom to send. At the same time, officials acknowledged that they had suggested names for the meeting.

Hodel called the meeting “historic,” asserting that it focused on “continuing the policies of self-determination,” in addition to concerns involving education, health and economic development of the 1.3 million American Indians.

Reagan had promised to hold the meeting after the furor caused by his response to a question from a student at Moscow University during his summit meeting in the Soviet Union with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

After briefly discussing the establishment of reservations and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Reagan asserted that some Indians preferred “that early way of life. And we’ve done everything we can to meet their demands as to how they want to live. Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we should not have humored them in that wanting to stay in that kind of primitive life style.”

He said also that “some of them became very wealthy because some of those reservations were overlaying great pools of oil, and you can get very rich pumping oil.”

When asked during a photo session if he regretted his remarks about the Indian life style, Reagan told reporters: “I don’t recall saying that. I tried in response to a question to explain that there was a freedom, as with all people in America, a freedom that is quite different from what they (Soviets) had in their own country.”

Eddie L. Tullis of Atmore, Ala., tribal chairman of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, called the meeting “a good start” toward smoothing feelings that were ruffled by the President’s remarks.

However, Henry Sockbeson, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, said: “The Administration has had no interest in Indians for eight years. For them to express an interest at this late date is hypocritical.”

Sockbeson, who did not attend the meeting, said that it is “more important to concentrate on the incoming Administration and see if they can interest (President-elect George) Bush in solving some of those problems.”