The Last Warrior: Peter MacDonald and the Navajo Nation Book

Peter MacDonald, influential and controversial tribal chairman, tells the story of his dazzling rise to power as the leader of the great Navajo Nation, his remarkable achievements in that office, and the dramatic conflicts that ultimately ended his career and put him behind bars. For more than two decades, Peter MacDonald was the most powerful Indian in North America. Today, he sits in Federal prison, facing a fifteen-year sentence for crimes he says he did not commit. But Peter MacDonald has not been silenced. In The Last Warrior he speaks out, at last telling the story of the events that led to his brilliant rise and tragic fall. This is the story of a young Navajo, raised in an isolated, traditional sheepherding family, who became a World War II Navajo code-talker, a Hughes Aircraft engineer and designer of the Polaris Missile Project, and finally the elected leader of the Navajo tribe. In a few decades, MacDonald experienced the equivalent of several centuries of technological development. The story of this transition is powerful and astonishing; virtually no other American Indian has ever been so fully immersed in two such completely different worlds. MacDonald's efforts to bring power, justice, and the control of their own destiny to his people produced brilliant and unprecedented accomplishments. As tribal chairman, he was wise to the white man's ways and he would not play along; he would not be the white man's Indian. He fought the CIA and he fought the Congress. He made many powerful enemies, and when they had their chance, they nailed him. His detractors say he was corrupt. MacDonald says he was framed and held to a double standard. Emotions run high on both sides. Even today, stripped of office and sitting in prison, he remains a controversial and fascinating figure throughout the Southwest and in all facets of Native American political life. His is a very important voice, and his story goes right to the heart of the 500-year-old predicament faced by