The Great Escape: How Nixon and Brando Prevented Another Wounded Knee Massacre

Here’s an exclusive peek at By the Light of Burning Dreams, my new history book about “the second American Revolution” — to be published by HarperCollins on June 8. This story was told to me by Dennis Banks, the heroic cofounder of the American Indian Movement (AIM) shortly before he died. I wrote the article for Air Mail, the new online magazine launched by Graydon Carter, of Vanity Fair and Spy magazine fame. As I write, the story about President Nixon, the FBI and the Native American militants who seized the forlorn Wounded Knee outpost on the snowy plains of South Dakota in the winter of 1973 demonstrates how history is a surprising series of locked doors that lead to other closed doors. Read on!

Dennis Banks and Marlon Brando