A stocky, gregarious Lebanese-American—one of the few in his native South Dakota—maverick Democrat Abourezk has been treading on important toes with enthusiasm since his election to the Senate in 1972. Last month it was the Army's turn, after the Pentagon claimed that the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890—in which U.S. cavalrymen shot to death some 150 Sioux Indians—was actually a spontaneous battle. "Change the name Wounded Knee to My Lai and the history reads the same," snapped Abourezk, who will hold hearings this month on his bill to pay about $600,000 to the descendants of Wounded Knee victims. "It was a slaughter."
Born 44 years ago on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Sioux reservation, where his immigrant father was an itinerant peddler before setting up his own general store, Abourezk has an inherited concern for Indian rights. "My father never made much money because he could never turn down a grocery order, even if he knew the people couldn't pay him back," he recalls. "When he died, the Indians lined the streets in mourning."
After graduating from the South Dakota School of Mines, Abourezk worked several years as a construction engineer before going back to school as a married law student with three young children. He, a Syrian Orthodox, and his wife, Mary, a Roman Catholic, met when they were both 15. They now live in Northwest Washington with their younger son, Paul, 15. Their son Charles, 22, and daughter Nikki, 21, attend school in South Dakota. "We were poor," Abourezk remembers of his early life, "but I never really minded. I knew I wasn't going to stay that way."
A lawyer at 35, Abourezk was elected to Congress only four years later, and moved up to the Senate two years after that. The only senator of Arab descent, Abourezk has been denounced by U.S. Zionists for urging recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Shrugging off the charge that he is an "Arab spokesman," he accuses the Israeli lobby of "running a protection racket up here on the Hill" for the purpose of intimidating wavering congressmen. He sees a similarity, he says, between Palestinian refugees and American Indians. "I was in a refugee camp in Jordan in 1973," he recalls. "I thought if I closed my eyes I could hear the words 'Pine Ridge.' The Indians and the Palestinians are the same—people without power put against the wall by people with power."
Abourezk gets little political mileage out of championing the Indians—there are only 32,000 of them in his state, and very few of them vote. "They figure it doesn't make any difference," he points out.
A casual dresser, given to moccasins, open-necked shirts, and off-the-rack jackets and trousers, Abourezk runs his office with a certain hang-loose efficiency and is oblivious to senatorial pomp. "I'm not the clubby type," he admits. He is, however, a member of Congress's unofficial Committee on Corpulent Responsibility, and has shed more than 40 (of 245) pounds since last June. Recently he received a fan letter beginning, "Dear idiot, I saw your fat greasy face on the Today show." "Dear sir, my face is not greasy," replied the wounded Abourezk. "That was before I went on my diet."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
