FBI Arrests Three Suspects In Wounded Knee Food Drop

The FBI issued warrants for the arrests of a Boston Globe reporter and the national coordinator of Medical Aid for Indochina Saturday, charging them with conspiracy in the air drop of food and other supplies last Tuesday at Wounded Knee, S.D.

William B. Zimmerman, the coordinator, was arrested early Saturday morning at his Somerville home, and later arraigned in Federal court and released on personal recognizance pending a May 18 hearing.

The FBI also issued a warrant for the arrest of Boston Globe reporter Thomas P. Oliphant, whom the airlifters invited to participate in the supply drop on condition that he not reveal their names.

Oliphant has said he will surrender to the FBI at 10 a.m. today.

An FBI spokesman said yesterday that the government was charging Zimmerman, Oliphant, and a third man, William P. Wright of Chicago, with conspiracy to violate the antiriot provisions of the 1968 Federal Crime Control Act.

The spokesman refused to say why the FBI thought Zimmerman and Wright were involved in the airlift.

Three single-engine planes parachuted nearly a ton of supplies to Indians at Wounded Knee on April 17, The Boston Globe reported last Wednesday. Seven young men were involved in the airlift, the story said.

Commenting on his arrest last Saturday, Zimmerman said, "I have been accused of bringing food to Wounded Knee, South Dakota. According to the newspaper accounts I had read, these were people who were subsisting on one bowl of rice a day for the last three or four weeks."