Book Review

Over the past several decades, a nearly uniform historiography has emerged regarding the federal government's ill-fated "termination" policy toward Native Americans in the post–World War II era. The standard interpretation is that termination evolved into a misguided, avaricious, and culturally arrogant policy that ultimately wreaked havoc on those Indian groups who bore its full brunt. Bureaucrats and politicians like Dillon Myers, Arthur Watkins, and Hugh Butler are the commonly identified villains of the story, while John Collier, Felix Cohen, and various native American leaders appear as the defenders of Indian sovereignty and the right-minded critics of both the concept and the execution of termination initiatives. While there is much truth in that accepted imagery, and the academic assault on the impact of termination is fully merited, Kenneth R. Philp's Termination Revisited offers a welcome and useful reminder that the full story of termination is a complicated tale. In Philp's deft hands, the termination movement is revealed as the exceedingly nuanced phenomenon that it was--one that, at various times and in various ways, drew support from prominent Native Americans and important pan-Indian groups.	1
The most fundamental premise necessary for a full understanding of this period, as Philp repeatedly and persuasively shows, is that the concepts of "termination" and "self-determination" became inextricably intertwined in the hearts and minds of the protagonists. For Native Americans who favored certain aspects of termination programming, the movement was optimistically envisioned as a catalyst for enhanced Indian autonomy and control over tribal resources and increased liberation from the heavy hand of federal paternalism. Government proponents of termination likewise viewed the policy as aimed toward Indian "freedom," but their view of self-determination was predicated on the ultimate goal of privatizing Indian resources through the wholesale liquidation of the reservation system, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the very concept of tribalism itself. As so often has been the case in federal Indian relations, the two sides largely talked past one another, and little common ground could be found.	2
One of Philp's most notable contributions is his showing that Native Americans did not just passively "remain on the periphery of events during termination" (xii). Rather, articulate Native American leaders like Ruth Muskrat Bronson, Frank George, and Avery Winnemuca offered compelling input to government policymakers at key stages in the progression of termination policy. To be sure, Indian leaders and many of their non-Indian advocates, such as Felix Cohen and James Curry, did not always agree on matters of substance or procedure. Factionalism and internecine disputes (such as the unseemly wrangling between Cohen and Curry over contracts for legal services with various tribes) sometimes impeded or weakened the Indian contribution. Yet this too is one of the most important reminders contained in Philp's work: there was no single "Indian perspective" on termination, just as there has rarely, if ever, been a fully unified Indian or "white" perspective on any other issue in the history of federal Indian relations. Nevertheless, Philp convincingly demonstrates that "the variety of [Indian] responses to empower both individuals and tribal governments made the uniform policy of termination an outmoded concept. It marked the beginning of a Native American movement for increased self-determination that would reverberate throughout the twentieth century" (xiv).	3
Philp organizes his analysis into ten relatively self-contained chapters, each representing a notable case study in the evolution of termination politics. While many of these address familiar topics, such as the origins and evolution of the Indian Claims Commission (chapter two) or the transfer of federal Indian jurisdiction to several states pursuant to Public Law 280 in 1953 (chapter nine), Philp's extensive use of archival sources in "revisiting" these subjects adds authoritative and fresh vitality to many of his findings. For example, based upon Philp's thorough analysis of the legislative history of the Indian Claims Commission Act, we learn that numerous Indian leaders testified in support of the Commission, not only as a way to redress past grievances but as a necessary precursor to the full assimilation of their people into mainstream society. Similarly, the president of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), Napoleon Bonaparte Johnson, testified in favor of the Commission because lingering unresolved claims had, in his words, the "undesirable effect" of keeping Indians on the reservations while they waited for large cash awards (22). Such insights are rarely seen in the standard analysis of the termination era, where Indians are most often portrayed as universally opposed to such notions as "full assimilation."	4
Similarly, in his examination of the turbulent and aggressively pro-termination tenure of Indian Commissioner Dillon S. Myer from 1950 to 1953, Philp shows that Myer's candidacy for the post had been supported by the NCAI and that many of his initial efforts at withdrawal of federal programming had "significant grass-roots support" among Indians (94). Louis Bruce, Jr., a Mohawk member of the NCAI's business committee, supported Myer's initial efforts because he "resented Felix Cohen's romantic stereotyping of Indians" and "strongly disliked the paternalism associated with the [John Collier's] Indian Reorganization Act" (95). Again, Philp's point is well made: termination was a complex issue, drawing fairly widespread support from Indians in its initial stages. It was only later, when the full breadth and depth of the gap between Indian government definitions of "self-determination" became apparent, that most Native American groups backed away.	5
This book is probably not well suited for undergraduates or the casual student of Indian policy. Given its strong foundation in primary and archival sources, it occasionally bogs down in the institutional history of the NCAI or other pan-Indian advocacy groups. For the graduate student and specialist in the field, however, this is a powerful and balanced assessment of a complex and controversial topic. Long on exposition and pleasantly short on vitriol and hyperbole, Philp's "revisitation" of termination is an admirable and important contribution to the field.	6
Mark R. Scherer University of Nebraska-Omaha

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