NONFICTION - July 21, 1991

THE LAST WARRIOR: Peter MacDonald and the Navajo Nation by Peter MacDonald with Ted Schwarz (Knightsbridge Publishing: $21.95; 416 pp.). Peter MacDonald, former chairman of the Navajo people, is best known these days for his 1990 conviction on charges of bribery, extortion and violation of election laws. The result, naturally, is a book, and it’s no apologia: I’m a victim of a political conspiracy, he says here, arguing that his acceptance of money and gifts while in office was a) proper under Navajo law, b) ultimately helpful to his tribe, and c) penny-ante, anyway. The excuses don’t wash. Although MacDonald undoubtedly had the Navajos’ best interests at heart when he cut short a successful career at Hughes Aircraft to return to the reservation in 1963, he also had acquired, as MacDonald readily admits, a taste for limousines, private planes, Jacuzzis and the high life in general. It’s impossible to say from this book whether MacDonald is in fact guilty in the eyes of the law (his cases currently are under appeal), but at the very least he is guilty of bad judgment. For all his talk about respecting traditional Navajo ways, he still wants to run the tribe like a business . . . with himself as CEO. MacDonald says he’s “a man of two cultures, of two worlds,” but that dual identity seems to have made him opportunistic rather than thoughtful.