Whtie Sands Administrative History

Whatever the mission of the park service, the political and civic leadership of New Mexico saw in the space program the economic stimulus they needed to lift the state from its fiscal doldrums. Ignoring former President Eisenhower's admonition in January 1961 to avoid dependence upon the "military-industrial complex," Tularosa basin boosters invested in the space port the same energy that they had shown in the 1930s when New Deal spending came with the formation of White Sands National Monument. Senator Clinton Anderson, long a champion of federal spending for science and technology in New Mexico, called upon Defense and Interior officials to explain their "conflicting stories" about the "space port affair." Colonel Lambert, Holloman AFB commander, had told the powerful senator that the Air Force had "no plans" to seek access to monument lands. Forrest Benson reported to his superiors: "There may be no plans, but the attached news clipping indicates somebody is thinking in terms of a spaceport." He then discovered in July 1962 that "more and more items are appearing in the local papers concerning increased military activities in the area adjacent to the monument." These local media had also detected rising hostility toward the park service, said Benson, because they feared that the NPS "may curtail some of this activity involving monument lands, to the detriment of the local economy." [49]

Research into the extension and expansion of the special-use permit ranged far and wide in 1962 and early 1963. In an effort to accommodate the Air Force's position, Washington officials of the park service raised the rhetorical question: Why did the NPS want access to Lake Lucero and the Alkali Flats? The regional office in Santa Fe combed their records, only to find no "determinations for locating the original boundary to include the Flats." An additional discovery was that no evidence existed "to determine geologically which lands within the boundary need to be retained to perpetuate the formation of the gypsum sands." The regional office did learn that a similar study scheduled in 1944 had been cancelled, and they also uncovered Johnwill Faris' comment that year that the NPS could delete 79 sections of land without harming the ecological and aesthetic integrity of the monument. Faris by 1950 had reduced that prediction to 64 sections of land. By 1962, the park service realized that it would have to defend retention of all 149,000 acres of the monument in the face of national security and political economy imperatives. Thus Thomas Allen agreed on March 6 that, "should it be asked for, consideration can be given to issuing the military authorities a permit for use of . . . Alkali Flat." The regional director hoped that this would not include "installation of large structures," and that the park service "could resume use of that land when and if military programs no longer needed it." Allen conceded the weakness of the NPS vis-a-vis the military, however, stating his confusion over the Air Force's denial to Clinton Anderson about use of White Sands. Not only had the local media detailed this, but Allen also had "confirmation . . . as printed and widely distributed in the Rocket Association magazine and newspapers." [50]

Superintendent Benson confronted this lack of NPS support squarely in August 1962 when he paid a courtesy call at WSMR on the new commander, Major General J. F. Thorlin. Since the Interior department had no leverage with the Pentagon, Thorlin's chief of plans, B.H. Ferdig, told Benson bluntly: "It is time we quit dealing under the table and legalize our premeditated encroachments." Ferdig conceded that "[the Army's] attitude toward lands not owned by their agency was in need of considerable improvement," and he feared that the NPS would "give a poor recommendation as to their [WSMR's] compliance with permit restrictions." The chief of plans revealed, however, the inevitability of Kennedy's space and weapons programs. "With the proposed firing from Blanding, Utah, into the White Sands Missile Range," said Benson , "there is no assurance that such missiles will not fall on the monument." Then Ferdig confided in Benson about the massive scale of land use planned for the Apollo moon project. Said the chief of plans: "If you think we are taking over your monument, wait until NASA gets into operation." Benson returned to White Sands outraged at how "the Defense agencies continue to plan and program their projects, then apologize when they are caught." He knew that "apologies wear a little thin after repeated occurrences," and asked his superiors to "help prevent this gradual attrition of our area." [51]

The year 1963 marked the nadir of White Sands' relationship with the space program. For the military, NASA, and New Mexican political and civic leaders, however, that year was one of giddy expectations for economic development. Interior secretary Stewart Udall remembered three decades later that the military, flush with appropriations from Congress and just entering the protracted conflict in Southeast Asia, was "powerful and popular." The Pentagon could usually "get what they wanted," said Udall, and his park service "had to fight back and stop the military." A critical example for Udall came in the spring of 1963, when JFK's Defense and Interior staffs sought closure on the White Sands special-use permit. The draft from the Pentagon, said Thomas Allen, "would give carte blanche use of the eleven western sections of [the monument] . . . , an area of about 150 square miles." This would leave the NPS with 72 square miles, less than one-third the original size of the park. Allen commiserated with Udall's unenviable position "to strike a balance between the importance of certain national defense activities and the preservation of a natural area having scientific value that exists only when unchanged." [52]

Any hope that the park service could forestall the space juggernaut was dashed in the spring of 1963 when the White House announced a planned visit by President Kennedy that June to WSMR. This came on the heels of a story published in March in a Washington journal called Insider's Newsletter. The prestigious trade publication quoted NASA officials as studying the transferral of the manned space flight center from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to the Tularosa basin. Evidence of this was a plan to launch and retrieve a Gemini spacecraft in 1964 from Alkali Flats. In the euphoria generated by this news, Clinton Anderson told the Alamogordo Daily News that Kennedy "wanted to see for himself what New Mexico senators and representatives have insisted is the best area for landing space vehicles in return flights from other planets." As proof of the wisdom of such personal contacts, Anderson remarked that JFK's visit in December 1962 to the Los Alamos and Sandia research laboratories "had a fine effect on nuclear programs and I hope his White Sands visit will likewise stimulate space activities." [53]

Forrest Benson did not share the enthusiasm of his colleagues at WSMR and in the city of Alamogordo. He read in the Insider's Newsletter where Anderson dismissed allegations of political influences, saying: "The decision as to where space projects are located will depend on scientific decisions and what is best for the space program and the U.S. Treasury . . . [and] not on my being on the Senate Space Committee or [U.S. Representative] Tom Morris [D-NM] . . . on the House Space Committee." The superintendent also learned from the local media that "no mention is made of a possible conflicting land use in the middle of this space port proposal." Thomas Allen asked that NPS officials intercede on behalf of White Sands, as he had the "impression that one thing will lead to another very swiftly for new use and that the integrity if not the very existence of the National Monument is being weighed." Allen cited to his superiors in Washington the Anderson quotes, noting how the state's congressional delegation hoped to "explain the program to the President on the ground." The regional director then pleaded: "Perhaps the National Monument's importance could also be brought to [Kennedy's] attention before he arrives." [54]

When the president came to southern New Mexico on June 5, Forrest Benson had little time to speak on behalf of his monument. The primary concern was the fitness of WSMR for the Apollo program, part of the aura surrounding Kennedy as he basked in public opinion approval ratings of 65 percent. His schedule fell behind as the day progressed, and Benson reported that Kennedy's staff cancelled the trip to Alkali Flats. The visit, however, led New Mexico governor Edwin Mechem to appoint a committee of influential people to encourage the selection of WSMR as the primary spaceport site. The group came to the dunes in August 1963, where Benson provided them with "an explanation of the position of the Service as to this non-conforming use." Two months later the monument hosted the "National Parks Advisory Board," which learned first-hand of the military-NPS relationship. All that this official attention could accomplish, however, was a promise by Washington staff that "an integrated geological-ecological study... is the top priority research project in the proposed [NPS] research program for the Southwest Region." [55]

Forrest Benson did not remain at White Sands long enough to see the results of his hectic three-year relationship with the military and space programs. In January 1964, he was detailed to the Washington headquarters to serve as the NPS "representative on the 'Wild Rivers' recreation area studies," an offshoot of the Wilderness Act passed that year. The park service sent as acting superintendent a Southwest Region employee, Lawrence C. Hadley, to manage the monument. Donald Dayton, who would assume Hadley's duties later that October, recalled how volatile the position of White Sands superintendent had become. Stewart Udall, said Dayton, had wanted to "kick out" the military from the dunes. The Defense installations, however, did not change their tune under Hadley or Dayton. One example was the discovery in February 1964 of trash dumps amid the dunes in the northeast quadrant of the park. Chief Ranger Hugh Beattie reported that month being stopped while on patrol by "two investigators from the House Appropriations Committee," while another NPS patrol in March was questioned on monument grounds by "a civilian employee" of WSMR who "asked for security clearance badge and other identification." These interceptions also boded ill for plans to expand back-country hiking in areas targeted for missile impacts, despite the aforementioned rise of interest in camping and wilderness access to the rest of the monument. [56]

By the mid-1960s, tensions between the missile range and White Sands seemed to subside. Impacts still occurred with great regularity (the "Lance" program sent ten missiles over the dunes in the summer of 1965), and a range fire of 150 acres broke out in June 1965 when a missile exploded south of the monument boundary. But that April the Army agreed to provide Donald Dayton with money to pay for a six-month ranger position detailed exclusively for recovery work. The military also began use of helicopters to carry out missile debris, which reduced substantially the damage to the dunes caused by ground vehicles like the 20-ton crane used by WSMR to lift missile fragments onto flatbed trucks. The only difficulty with helicopter recovery was the escalating demand for their use in Vietnam, where U.S. forces needed them for troop transport in that jungle conflict. [57]

The war in Vietnam also ironically shifted the burden on White Sands away from advanced weaponry. Primarily fought by ground troops and pilots using conventional weapons, the war effort required less funding for sophisticated and experimental technology as that under study at WSMR. This did not lessen the intrusions, however, nor the cycle of official apology for recovery crew abuse of the dunes. Especially annoying was the phenomenon of "sonic booms," where loud noises from high speed aircraft shattered the silence over the dunes. But records for White Sands show a decline in staff complaints, perhaps due in part to general acceptance of the circumstances surrounding joint-use. Thus it was interesting for Superintendent Dayton in 1966 to work closely with NASA on "the final test of the Apollo moon probe escape system." Dayton called this "the first large-scale NASA test" for White Sands, and he remarked that "the NASA people were very cooperative in abiding by the Special Use Agreement and the restrictions that we laid down." The project, which involved firing a "Little Joe" booster rocket from WSMR, "received nationwide press coverage." Dayton called NASA "much more cooperative than many of the organizations testing missiles in the monument in the past." He also learned from NASA something that military personnel had refused to admit: that "this area was not now a strong contender [for a spaceport] since the alkali flat runs north and south rather than in the east-west direction needed for any future landing spot for orbiting space vehicles." [58]

Figure 53. Greeting visitors at old portal entrance at Visitors Center (1960).
Photograph first printed in New Mexico Magazine.
(Courtesy Museum of New Mexico. Negative No. 56438)