Report from Santa Fe; Stewart Udall

You You You Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by a grant from New Mexico Tech

on the frontier of science and engineering education for bachelor's masters and PhD degrees New Mexico Tech is the college you've been looking for 1-800-428-ECH I'm Lorraine Mills and welcome to report from Santa Fe. Our guest today is Stuart Udolph. Thank you for joining us. Glad to be with you again, Lorraine. Yes, it's always a pleasure. For viewers I want to kind of recap a little bit about your career so they know where to place you in the historical context. You were the state representative from Arizona for several years. You were the cabinet secretary for the interior under presidents Kennedy and Johnson. You've written what nine ten books and you've been involved in many many environmental ecological and humanitarian projects so I'm honored to have the time with you. Let's start with some of the your recent activities because this year marks the hundredth year anniversary of the birth

of Rachel Carson. You spoke at an event at the Kennedy Library. Tell us let's talk about Rachel Carson. Well I had two accidents with ice and one involved breaking my leg and the other involved in concussion and that almost ruined my year but I was invited by the Kennedy Library to come to Boston to the library and help celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Rachel Carson who was the founder. I believe she inspired the beginning of the what we call the environmental movement and that was the major event that I have done this year and I was very pleased to do it because I knew Miss Carson. I championed her president Kennedy of pointed a special

environmental group to study her book Silent Spring and they backed her up that it was essentially sound from a scientific standpoint so that has been my major activity this year is getting ready reading about Rachel getting ready to give a speech at the library. Well you were the one who gave her the title as Mother of the Environmental Movement even though it officially started later but her work is what got the awareness for the environmental movement going don't you think? Well I prefer to say she inspired by her writing the beginning of the environmental movement and I don't know because I was there and it changed the way in my department and in the government

eventually it took a few years for this to permeate into the thinking of people but that book was a sensation and it ultimately was translated into 32 languages and it was not just a U.S. book about birds and DDT, a powerful pesticide it was a book about the future of the planet. It was a I called her a scientist who was a prophet because the environmental movement was built on the foundation of the conservation movement but it was broader than that and she saw that the whole planet would be in danger if we didn't restrain some of the powerful

technologies like nuclear explosions and the use of pesticides those were many examples and this is I believe is the most influential or one of the three or four most influential science books of the 20th century and she is on the list at the end of the at the beginning of the year 2000 time magazine put out a list of the 100 most influential people in the century and there she is Rachel Carson with her book Silent Spring. She also was a gifted writer and one of the best nature essays because her essays the sea around us and all that were just such wonderful reading but when she came in with Silent Spring and the image of that title that here is you know a morning in the world and yet the sound that we always associate the chirping of birds

suddenly that's gone and the power of that emotional image and her impeccable science is what helped prepare it. Well she said in effect we've got to change our way our attitude and our way of thinking about the planet that was her message and she was the first one to say that we began in my department a different form of planning conservation was a wonderful movement but it was focusing on managing the forests for example our managing a national park. Rachel Carson said we've got to think about an exercise restraint and what we do think of the planet and its future and what is global warming today she didn't prophesy the global warming crisis of the 21st century

because enough research hadn't been done we weren't measuring the carbon in the atmosphere but that is the type of thing that she was a prophet really that's what she was. And she warned against our kind of intoxication with technology that we had these chemicals that could wipe out every pest and that we had this atomic energy. In a way you have spoken that you are both children of the atomic age because you both came to intellectual maturity at the time of the atomic weaponry and yet and now it's winding down talk about the well let's talk about your book the Quiet Crisis because her book Sound Screen was 1962 but in 1963 you came out with your book and I just want to hold up although this has no bright colorful cover this is the first copy of your first book 1963 the Quiet Crisis tell us about it. Well I was the first book I never written

I never taken a writing course but I worked in my spare time and my book came out a year after Rachel Carson's book but I finished it several months before it came out so I didn't have an opportunity in that book and I sought out the opportunity later when I 25 years later I brought the book up today by a book called The Quiet Crisis in the Next Generation and there I paid tribute to what Rachel had done and the word ecology did not it was a specialized world word that a few biologists understood and she made it part of our common language and she said we have to plan what we do with technology we have to restrain it and if we don't we'll destroy

part of life and make it much more difficult for us to live with the other animals and creatures of the earth that we share the earth with. So that moment in time the early 60s when you look at what you did as cabinet secretary for the interior the the I have to go to my notes for this but the clean clean air clean water the Clean Water Restoration Act the Wilderness Act you preserved 10 million acres of land. Well it tends to stay because President Kennedy's initial program was what it was getting water to spill saving the national seam shores that were left and doing more to save birds and wildlife of all kinds and that that was the old conservation. Rachel

Carson said look look brother look at the planet itself we're going to use technology the power of technology to alter the earth as an environment and this will do great damage in fact she was warning us that we should be careful with what we did. Well if you call it the old ecology it was still like the wild and scenic rivers act was under your watch the endangered species act there was this like burst of conservation in the highest form of the word and another thing that I've heard you speak about before back then it was bipartisan the Republicans and Democrats worked together to save the rivers and the sea shores how long did that last? Well it lasted essentially 20 years and President Nixon was a good environmental president and I want to

say that he gets credit for that president Ford was it was bipartisan we all worked together we all we never had fights about any of the conservation or environmental issues that you mentioned and we kind of hit a strong wall of President Reagan wanted freedom for people to do whatever they felt they needed to do and and that changed the attitude of some people but the environmental movement is more important today than it ever has been in the past. Now I just want to stay with our historical context for a minute because you were very close with first ladies and since we've recently lost our wonderful Lady Bird Jones and I wanted to show a picture here of you and Lady Bird

and I'd like you to tell us a little about it. Well this is Lady Bird took conservation and natural beauty as her issue and that was our first trip that's in the Teton on the Snake River and the Teton National Park and she had by her background in Texas she had a strong interest in conservation and natural beauty and and she did by her activities the program she started she did a lot to make our country more beautiful place and she started a well flower institute and it's filling just today and they give seeds wild flower seeds to organizations all over the

country. Now Lady Bird was a influential first lady I will always believe that Lyndon Johnson might not have climbed the ladder all the way he did if she had not been there as his advisor because when he went home if he had made mistakes she talked to him about it I know the heck there's a fact. So you would go off on trips together to to various parks wilderness areas? Well it changed over time our first trip for example we went to the Grand Teton we went to an Indian reservation she became interested in Indian orcs and what was happening here in Santa Fe with the institute of Indian orcs and she became interested in historic preservation

we dedicated the Point Reyes National Seat Shore a marvelous place that had been created while present Kennedy was still present and we did trips on historic preservation on fisheries and wildlife and she took up this cause and she had a way if she called the head of the Federal Highway Administration and said she thought that they ought to make changes the changes remained I could say. I participated with her in some of those projects and you were also close with Jackie Kennedy too with you. Well I think I was fortunate both first ladies their ages were different their backgrounds were different but I and my wife Lee had a close personal relationship

with both of them and it was almost as though I was part of my job as being a helper to the first ladies to do accomplish the goals that they wanted to achieve. Now you served as cabinet secretary of the interior under both Kennedy and Johnson but if it's not too painful I'd like to talk to you a little about that transition time because I know that the day that Kennedy was assassinated you and six other cabinet members were in a plane flying to Japan and then suddenly you got the news well this this came this was Air Force one one of the presidents playing it was a jet plane by then we're talking about 1963 of course and it came on the ticker that the president had been shot

that was the first message and we were all stunned and of course within a matter of minutes they confirmed that he had been killed and we turned the plane around and came home and that was a great tragedy and the nation was caught up in it one of the things that I these conspiracy theorists you know most of the people don't believe that we know the truth about Kennedy's assassination and and they think there's some kind of conspiracy I don't I read the war in the report I knew a lot of the people and I think he was hit by a lucky shot by the long gun by Oswald yeah so while

you all were stunned and trying to make this to accommodate this the horrificness of this tragedy the new president Johnson was then interviewing people who was going to stay on his cabinet what was it like since were you all ready close with Lady Bird then no no no I was not and I had helped Kennedy get the nomination and the Johnson people thought they had Arizona they all down they didn't and so I was caught in a crossfire and I was the last person President Johnson made a wise decision keep the cabinet he said let us continue yes that was a smart thing that he did but I was the last person President Johnson had in the White House and I weighed in like a lamb

because I knew that he had remembered that I hadn't supported him in the 1960 election and he made it clear that he hadn't forgotten that you were a Kennedy person yeah he said go out and tell them I want to have the same relationship that Franklin Roosevelt had with his interior secretary I want oil out of the White House and the reporters I went out and told him that and the reporters always thought for a long time that this was just window dressing but he meant it he wanted oil out of the White House and I took on the largest oil responsibilities of that time but oil responsibilities are one thing you also really manifested the environmental agenda

of the great society you know between you and Johnson together there were so many issues so many national parks so many environmental bills that were passed you know it's really a major accomplishment well Johnson uh President Lyndon Johnson I always said I believed that at the time that he he was not a southerner he was a westerner he was from the hill country and he didn't have the attitude of racial prejudice racial discrimination and Lady Bird certainly didn't have it I can tell you that but he wanted to carry on what Kennedy had started and do even better that's the only Johnson one and and he he I sort of had a blank check that anything that I wanted to do he was willing to support I never lost an argument with President Johnson on a conservation issue

well and then let us just say a little prayer for Lady Bird we lost her this year and what a lucky word to have that that interface for those two great great leaders of our country well Lady Bird there were one woman stands out in our history as an important first lady that's Eleanor Roosevelt there'll never be anything like her and the influence she had whether her husband but Lady Bird Johnson and Jackie Kennedy both were they had strong views and they expressed them and they accomplished some of the things that they wanted to see done

and I think that was important and with back to Jackie Kennedy for a minute her image of Kamalat of this kingdom ruled by a beneficent king and doing everything for for the good of the citizens that was a really golden wonderful time in America well it was you see what Jack Kennedy's election represented is something different all of the you couldn't really seriously run for President unless you were a white Anglo-Saxon wasp and Kennedy broke that tradition he was a first Catholic elected and that was a very powerful message he just barely did it but but he but Kennedy was also the first president of my generation the president was born in the

1920s or earlier than that he was he was the first president that came out of the war to be elected president that that war and also he was a president who embodied so much hope for the future it was a very optimistic time Kennedy inspired people and that was one of his gifts he made wonderful speeches he backed good causes he certainly did it where I was concerned and and he was on the way to being one of our most memorable presidents and of course President Johnson what he did to the civil rights and other things he made a high

mark but I don't divide them they they had a lot of the same convictions as it turned out on civil rights and other issues women's rights and it began in the 1960s and people shouldn't forget that that this was it was a turbulent time a lot of a lot of people just think of of the of the of the of the the end I be it now more well that sort of took over as a way but the end of the Johnson presidency but there was a good feeling in the country before that division on the war came forward how did you feel about Johnson's decision not to run again

no I I thought he made the right decision and and I I'm sure Lady Bird Johnson knew that he was not going to run again I happen to have information because I know she was working on a speech as to or on a statement as to what she was going to say when he decided not to run but he made the right decision and and I praise it that's the time and I still think that he that he made the right decision I so appreciate that we can take the historical perspective on this and these are some of my most fascinating political figures and I'm so grateful that you can tell us about them I want to move to a non-political figure if we could

take a moment to talk about Robert Frost this is a picture tell us a little about this picture if you would well this is a picture the dogwoods in Dunbarton Oaks Park in Washington and Robert Frost and I are going to a meeting where we're going to talk about the hundredth anniversary of the death of Henry Thoreau and those are the sort of things we did during the new hour and Justice Douglas was one of the speakers he was a great admirer of Thoreau and Robert Frost spoke and I spoke and a few others as well but you had a friendship for many many years didn't you well we had formed a friendship with Frost in 1959 and and we sort of became his advocates and sponsors and I made the suggestion to present Kennedy that he invite Frost to be on the inaugural

program and Kennedy decided to do it and it set the whole tone that there was something new and we were going to honor the artists and the poets and others and and that was part of the mood change at the time that I thought and think still was very important well thank you so much for your time today our guest today is Stuart Udon former cabinet secretary of the interior under presidents Kennedy and Johnson prolific author and great humanitarian thank you for joining us today thank you and I'm Lorraine Mills I'd like to thank you for being with us today and report from Santa Fe we'll see you next week report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by a grant from New Mexico Tech on the frontier of science and engineering education for bachelor's masters

and PhD degrees New Mexico Tech is the college you've been looking for 1-800-428-T-E-C-H