The Nation: War at Attica: Was There No Other Way?

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ambiguous—and irresponsible—reference to the hundred or so demonstrators, both black and white, who had arrived in Attica. It could have been taken by the inmates as a reason to hold out.

By Sunday afternoon, preparations were under way for an assault by state troopers and National Guardsmen; indeed, many of their commanders had for days been pressing Oswald to let them attack. Fearful relatives of the captive guards, waiting wearily in the rain, saw powerful fire hoses carried into the prison, truckloads of gas masks unloaded. A Catholic priest asked them to pray for the hostages.

Within the prison's administration building, the committee watched the activity with growing horror. Some arranged another meeting with the inmates and walked a final time down the A-block corridor (dubbed "the DMZ") toward the prisoner-controlled gates. Inmates had earlier agreed that newsmen could film the hostages to show that they were still alive, and allowed the captives to speak before the cameras. The hostages pleaded for more time, warned against an assault, and urged Rockefeller to come to the prison. "Unless Rockefeller comes here, I am a dead man," said Sergeant Edward Cunningham, a ten-year Attica employee. Next day Cunningham died in the attack.

Force Meets Force

The state's course had been set. Oswald, consulting with Rockefeller by telephone and with his aides on the scene, had decided that two final ultimatums would be delivered to the prisoners; if there was no favorable response, the attack would come on Monday morning. The prisoners, they felt, were intransigent, and their mood was turning uglier. The inmates had dug trenches up to 200 feet long and flanked by mounds of dirt to provide protection against attack. Gates were being wired to make them electrically hot. Metal tables were upended along the catwalk leading to the "Times Square" intersection of the prison's inner connecting corridors—a route along which any invading police would certainly come. "They were going to create an inferno [by igniting gasoline] when our men came through," contended one Rockefeller aide. "We had a deteriorating situation on our hands, and we had to act before it got worse."

Four of the observers (Wicker, Badillo, Dunne and Jones) telephoned Rockefeller and for 90 minutes pleaded with him to come to Attica and talk to them as a means of expressing concern and buying more time. "If we could just get two hours, three hours, more time . . ." said Badillo. "I can give you that, all right," Rocky replied. "We'll stretch this [the negotiations] out as long as anybody thinks there's a chance of settling it peaceably. But if I come up and talk to you, they [the prisoners] will demand that I come inside —and that wouldn't be very productive."

At 7 a.m. on Monday, the army of troopers was assigned to specific functions: sharpshooting, rescue, barricade removal, back-up security. The instructions were to "use force to meet force."

The men were to shoot, said one official, "only to prevent death or injury to one of our own or to one of the hostages." Two state helicopters took off and circled the prison to obtain in formation on the location of inmates and hostages in D yard.

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