Whtie Sands Administrative History

How much the continued military testing affected monument staff was harder to gauge than cracks in adobe buildings. Yet the strain of the 1980s on personnel reached crisis proportions during "spring break" of 1986, when a large party of visitors (identified as "gang members") started fighting after consuming alcohol. One vehicle raced out of the picnic area, careened across the dividing line, and struck head-on a car carrying a family into the dunes. One woman was killed in the collision, and youths at the picnic grounds overturned a park service vehicle and burned it before local law enforcement officials could restore order. Don Harper believed that limited funding was to blame for the low level of police protection, but the damage to his career had been done. Regional officials decided two years later to replace Harper with Dennis Ditmanson, and urged him to seek new directions for the largest and most heavily visited national monument in the Southwest. [28]

The arrival of Ditmanson brought a new generation of park service thinking to White Sands. Trained as an historian at the University of South Dakota (his home state), Ditmanson understood the role of historical forces in shaping the park service. Among his first tasks was improvement of staff morale, which began with the hiring as chief ranger a fellow Vietnam veteran, Jerry Yarbrough. Yarbrough, who would leave White Sands three years later to become superintendent of Fort Davis National Historic Site in west Texas, noted immediately the need for strict law enforcement at the dunes. By 1989 the park experienced an average of 4-6 serious automobile accidents; a statistic that Yarbrough and his rangers reduced to zero by 1992. This was accomplished by rigorous application of underage drinking laws (Yarbrough confiscated "rooms full of beer" from teenagers), and by efforts to educate the visitors about the larger dimensions of the White Sands experience. [29]

As law enforcement restored equilibrium to the dunes, Dennis Ditmanson then addressed problems of military use and chronic NPS underfunding of the unit. His historical training showed in a memorandum he prepared in January 1992 for John Cook, SWR director, on the status of WSMR's joint-use permit. Ditmanson read through park files to learn that White Sands had now endured two generations of subordination to security necessities. "The military operated within the park with a heavy hand," Ditmanson told Cook, and he drew special attention to the fact that "the Superintendents' reports from [the 1940s] are marked with uncertainty over the very existence of the park." Ditmanson characterized the 1960s as "a time of feverish activity for the Missile Range, and of dashed hopes for the park." He read Army responses to NPS correspondence as "implying that if the Park Service pushed too hard on permit issues that the military would simply take over." He was also surprised to learn that questions raised in the 1980s over military authority to encroach on the monument forestalled a new permit, and that "we are today operating under a continuance issued by the National Park Service." [30]

Most damning to Ditmanson was the legacy of fifty years of rocket and missile impacts on the dunes. Fragments of test projectiles littered the landscape, some still contaminated by hazardous chemicals. "Program development has been stymied by the restrictions, real and imagined," he told the director, while "our physical plant dates to the 30's . . . and related facilities are virtually unchanged even though visitation has grown tenfold." Ditmanson suggested major revisions of the permit, inspired in part by WSMR's failure to negotiate with him prior to submitting an unchanged permit directly to the Interior secretary for signature. He wanted NPS backing "to take a more assertive position with regard to our resources," and commitment to stand by White Sands throughout what the superintendent realized would be "a protracted process." [31]

In order to assess the merits of changes that he sought for the monument, Dennis Ditmanson hired the University of Idaho's Cooperative Park Studies Unit in the spring of 1990 to survey visitors and seek their input. He learned that large majorities of visitors preferred recreation to hiking or study of the dunes. A surprising 45 percent were adults between the ages of 21 and 45, and only 59 percent were part of family groups. Fifty-seven percent of visitors came from the states of New Mexico and Texas, while eight percent came from foreign countries. This data led Ditmanson to promote the educational and aesthetic experiences of White Sands, including the hiring of the first natural resources specialist (Bill Fuchs). The superintendent hoped that the Fiscal Year 1994 budget would aid his cause, and speakers in attendance at the 60th anniversary program for White Sands (August 25, 1993) included Senator Pete V. Domenici, who revealed plans to seek an additional $600,000 for the park. [32]

Upon entering its seventh decade, White Sands National Monument had developed qualities of endurance and persistence that would be tested yet again by late twentieth century forces of budget constraints and increased visitation. At the national level, the Clinton administration in 1994 called upon the park service to "reorganize" its management structure to reduce costs and staffing levels. Preferring to scale back the national debt rather than expand existing programs, Congress denied Senator Domenici's request to double the White Sands appropriation. Hiring freezes government-wide forced Superintendent Ditmanson to operate in the summer of 1994 with two fewer positions, even as visitation moved inexorably toward the 600,000 mark.

Despite these limitations, Dennis Ditmanson and his staff of park service professionals could identify several accomplishments that the history of the park had made imperative. By working closely at the local level with base commanders from Holloman and WSMR, Ditmanson negotiated a new memorandum of understanding that treated the park service as the equals of the military. Included in this new spirit of interagency cooperation were negotiations for a transfer of lands to give the Army acreage west of Range Road 7. In exchange White Sands anticipated receipt of several parcels in the southeastern area of the monument near U.S. Highway 70. Ditmanson also hired the park's first education specialist in the summer of 1994, to meet the 61-year-old mandate of Congress to utilize the dunes for the advancement of knowledge. Finally, as chair of the Alamogordo chamber of commerce's subcommittee on tourism, Ditmanson worked to include White Sands in the city's new "Sunbird" advertising campaign to lure retirees to the Tularosa basin. [33]

By emphasizing the historic and cultural value of White Sands, Ditmanson and the NPS staff had brought the park in line with late twentieth century park service initiatives to offer visitors and scholars more understanding of the broader meaning of the nation's natural resources. By seeking stronger ties to the community, the superintendent had reinvigorated the close linkage to the Tularosa basin fostered by Tom Charles and Johnwill Faris. And by negotiating with its powerful neighbors in the Army and Air Force, Ditmanson sought to balance the nation's needs for national security with the interest of visitors in the story of atomic testing and the power of nuclear war to change the face of history. White Sands thus had endured much as both a natural wonder, and as a force within the National Park Service for preservation of the distinctiveness of America's ecological and cultural treasures.

Figure 63. Filming a car commercial (1980s).
(Courtesy White Sands National Monument)