Parks, Politics, and the People
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Chapter 10:
The Winds of Change

When in the fall of 1962 I was elected president of the American Institute of Park Executives, one of the first things I did was to appoint a committee to look into the advisability of trying for the fourth time in thirty-five years to bring together in some kind of a federation the five or six different organizations then supporting the park and recreation movement. The committee was asked to have its report ready for consideration at the 1963 AIPE meeting in Washington, D.C. We felt that a federation would bolster each group's particular field of park and recreational activity without disrupting its primary purpose, provide a channel for interchange of professional experience and a planning interchange at all levels of government, and manage the administrative overhead common to all at considerable savings. These savings could be used for research and planning and thus provide the professional park and recreational men with the tools to carry out their responsibilities.

The joint meeting of the American Institute of Park Executives and the National Conference on State Parks in the fall of 1963 was the next big event as my retirement grew closer. The meeting started on Sunday, September 22, and ran through Friday, the twenty-seventh. As president of the AIPE and chairman of the board of the National Conference on State Parks, I was very busy. On Wednesday I was presiding over the joint meeting, the main subject of which was the report of the committee on the matter of consolidation. Vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson, an old friend of mine of some thirty years, was not on our program, but I had asked him to drop in at one of our afternoon general joint meetings, and he said he would try. That Wednesday he did, and the visit was a real surprise to our group. Charles K. Boatner, our information chief at the time, had been on the vice-president's staff when Johnson was in Congress and knew him well. He had prepared a very nice one-page statement that I could use to introduce the vice-president. Johnson was escorted by several secret service men, some of whom came in beforehand and placed themselves so that they could get a good view of the whole assemblage of over a thousand people. I stopped the proceedings, but before I could announce what was happening, the vice-president came through the door and headed straight for the podium. I gave my short introduction, and then he took over.

He spoke first of the importance of preserving our natural heritage and then talked at some length about our American values, concluding with this personal anecdote:

One of the first projects I got for my district was a conservation project—a soil conservation project with CCC labor. One of the next things was a WPA project that extended running water to our school for the first time. We had to dig through the soil with picks. We had a new teacher at our little school. He was very proud of the fact that the Congressman had graduated from it, so he was introducing me down the line to all these people who had been raised with me and my father and my grandfather in this little town of Johnson City named after my grandfather. He introduced me to Mr. Smith and to Mr. Brown and each time he said, "Do you know our new Congressman?" (He was a little pompous.) Every one of those old fellows looked up. They did not want to be deterred from their jobs by meeting a boy they grew up with, and of course all of them knew me—knew me too well, perhaps. When I was a youngster, nine years old, I had a shoeshine parlor. There was a man named Earl Haley. He went off to war, and when he came back on furlough we would shine his shoes and his leggings. He would come in every Saturday, and he had more money than the locals did. He made $30 a month in the Army, and he would always give us a dime tip—a dime to shine his shoes and a dime tip.

After the war, Earl wound up on the WPA, and he was out with his pick and he was digging. The school superintendent said: "Mr. Haley, do you know our new Congressman?" Earl had a chew of tobacco in his mouth. He spat it out and said: "Know him? I reckon I know him. He used to shine my shoes." I wonder how many shoe shine boys we have in the audience this morning. But that is the strength of America. Here in America boys who shine your shoes have a chance to rise to the highest offices in the land, and we really mean what we say in our Declaration of Independence and in our Constitution about equality. We really proved last election that you can elect a man from the north who is a Catholic and a man from the south who is a Protestant.

Although we have always had with us some prejudice and some bigotry, we are proving every day that we love this country and we are going to preserve it and we are going to protect it and we are going to do what we think is best for it. That is why you are here today, and I prize my association with you.

Our final meeting was to be a banquet at the Sheraton Park Hotel. The secretary of the interior and Assistant Secretary John Carver and their wives were invited to attend as our guests, along with the chiefs of the various bureaus with which we did business and other government officials. The day before the banquet Dick Rogers, an assistant to John Carver, contacted me to say that Carver, who was acting secretary, wanted me to put the director of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation at the head table. I told Dick this couldn't be done because the committee had already made all the table arrangements and had provided special tables right in front of the podium for the chiefs of the bureaus, and I couldn't put one of them at the head table if I wanted to. I emphasized that this meeting was not sponsored by the Park Service or the Interior Department but by an association of federal, state, and local park people who had their own rules to which we adhered. Although I happened to be president, I was not going to try and tell the banquet committee what to do. His reply was that he would report that to the acting secretary, but he would rather be out of town. I told him I'd be glad to call Carver myself, but resignedly he said, "No, I'll do it." I heard no more that night.

The next morning I was sitting at a desk in the hotel convention office making some notes with some dozen people standing close by. The whole convention was about to leave by bus for Arlington National Cemetary to place a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, followed by a tour of the Washington park system. There were some two thousand people in all. In walked one of our park police sergeants who came up to me and said, "Director Wirth, Secretary Carver sent me here to bring you down to his office right away." Everybody turned and looked at me. I thought for a moment and then said, "Well, Sergeant, will you please tell the Acting Secretary that I can't come right now because we are about to leave to place a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and after that is over I will be happy to come to his office—and I can do so under my own power." The sergeant looked at me and smiled and said, "Mr. Wirth, that is what I had hoped you would say." And he left.

After the ceremony in Arlington I proceeded to the Interior Department and went up to my office. Associate Director George Hartzog was there and suggested I be conciliatory in this case to satisfy Carver and avoid an argument. I told him no, I would not do that, that I would tell Carver frankly why I could not respond to his request and he should be smart enough to understand. I went to Carver's office, and he showed me the draft of a wire he intended to send Laurance Rockefeller. It asked Rockefeller not to give his scheduled talk that night at the banquet. I told John to go ahead and send it, but I suggested he dispatch it to the hotel because Rockefeller was already there and had given me the pleasure of reading his talk, which I thought was an excellent one. I also reminded him that the invitation to speak had been extended by the AIPE and the NCSP, not by the department or the service. He took back the wire, and as far as I know he never sent it. He then said he was thinking of calling off the Park Service's field meeting in Yosemite National Park that was to start on October 13, a little more than two weeks off. He said he would do it on the basis of cost, and that he had asked the Park Service budget office to give him a detailed report on the total cost of the proposed meeting.

I told Carver that he should have asked me for this information because I already knew how much it would cost, that in fact this was our regular biennial meeting year and the necessary funds were included in our budget which the department had approved and Congress had appropriated. I told him that each park and office would have representatives at the meeting, that the money had already been allotted to them for their expenses, and that the total cost would be approximately $25,000. He said, "Well, I'm thinking of calling the meeting off." I said, "John, you have the authority to do it, but I suggest you let us know before people start traveling to the meeting." Then I said, "John, why do you do these things? Why can't you be reasonable and understand that this meeting now going on in Washington is not a federal meeting; there are over 2,000 people attending and only about one per cent of them are federal government employees. This is their meeting, not yours or mine, and I think you're making a very unreasonable request and you can't give me one good reason why the director of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation should be at the head table and not the head of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the head of the General Land Office, or the representatives of the Reclamation Service, the Forest Service, the Public Health Service, or the Bureau of Public Roads." He didn't say a word; his face was red, and I think mine must have been too. Neither of us had anything more to say and I left.

We had a very good banquet. Mark Evans, of Metromedia, and later ambassador to Finland, was master of ceremonies. Representatives were present from the Department of the Interior, Agriculture, Health, Education, and Welfare, and Commerce. Laurance Rockefeller gave a very fine talk and it was well received. The evening was really a gala affair. There were two tables up front for bureau chiefs and all were introduced. John Carver did not show up, and I did not see him again until the Yosemite meeting.

Mrs. Wirth and I arrived in Yosemite on Friday, October 11. Others started coming in on Saturday, and the field meeting started with reunions, committee meetings, and social functions on Sunday. On Monday "The Road to the Future" was presented with slides and sound, and this presentation together with the discussions that followed took up most of the day.

At breakfast on the second day Hillory Tolson gave me a sealed envelope that contained his request for retirement as of December 31, 1963. I felt sure he didn't know that I was going to retire, and he had certainly kept his own plans secret until then. Here we both were, announcing our retirement at the Yosemite meeting. It was short notice, but I talked it over with George Hartzog and we decided it should be made public. Wednesday at the noon time stop at Wawona, on a trip through the park, we had a little ceremony for Hillory. I don't think we did very well, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances.

The next day John Carver came in shortly after noon, addressed the conference, and left right afterwards for Washington. He had kept secret what he was going to say, and I guess the 1963 meeting in Yosemite could be called the "meeting of secrets." Carver lashed out at the Park Service in no uncertain terms. He picked on picayune things that had crept into some correspondence and on job descriptions that, taken out of context, were misleading, especially to those looking for things to crab about. The tenor of his remarks is illustrated by the following excerpts:

banquet
Laurance S. Rockefeller addresses a banquet audience at the joint meeting of the American Institute of Park Executives and the National Conference on State Parks in Washington, D.C., in 1963. Ambassador Mark Evans, master of ceremonies, is seated next to Director Wirth, with Mrs. Rockefeller at the left. Photo by Abbie Rowe, courtesy National Park Service.

...I sometimes have the feeling that the entire Park Service is resolutely shutting its eyes to the fact of the creation of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, and to the nature of the functions assigned to it. Particularly do I have the feeling that the Secretary's order creating the Bureau and the subsequent act of Congress (not to say the specific directions of the appropriations committees contained in their reports) are regarded as idle conversation. Perhaps if you don't think about such things they will go away. But I don't think so.

At this conference you are going to discuss the Long Range Plan. I would advise you constantly to bear in mind that you can't bootstrap your way into ascendancy in functions which have by Secretarial order and by law been transferred to another bureau.

Which leads to my third point. When all else fails, the Park Service seems always able to fall back upon mysticism, its own private mystique. Listen to this sentence: "The primary qualification requirement of the Division Chief position, and most of the subordinate positions. . . is that the employees be. . . imbued with strong convictions as to the 'rightness' of National Park Service philosophy, policy and purpose, and who have demonstrated enthusiasm and ability to promote effectively the achievement of National Park Service goals."

This has the mystic, quasi-religious sound of a manual for the Hitler Youth Movement. Such nonsense is simply intolerable. The National Park Service is a bureau of the Department of the Interior, which is a Department of the United States government's executive branch—it isn't a religion, and it should not be thought of as such.

Of course you should have strong convictions, but you are expected also to have discipline. The sentence I've read is from a proposed submission to be made to the Civil Service Commission, which reached my desk last month. Taken by itself, it might be interpreted not to have the connotation I've given it.

But read on with me. Later in the report there is singled out a truly classic case, admirably suited to emphasize the mystical nature of your jobs. That was the famous "hunting in the parks" statement of September 14, 1961, issued without Departmental clearance, and leading to a crisis in public relations the like of which had not been seen up to that time. The Secretary was made to look foolish; I was caught in a vicious crossfire, and the whole thing was a fiasco.

Out of it, eventually, came the Leopold Report, the solid backing for a good position, but to credit the Park Service with the Leopold Report is like crediting a collision at sea for a dramatic rescue effort—the captain of the offending ship is hardly likely to get a medal for making the rescue effort possible.

His points were essentially confined to one theme: "You didn't say anything about me;" but they further revealed a lack of understanding of nationwide comprehensive planning plus a flair for poor judgment, the same trait Carver showed at Chancellorsville and the banquet in Washington a few weeks earlier. Surely the BOR never expected that it would be required to plan all the parks, recreation fields, and open spaces for all the federal agencies and the political subdivisions of the nation, nor did Congress, nor the secretary of the interior. That bureau is responsible for putting together an overall plan and reporting on the park and recreation system of the nation as a whole, but the only way they can do that is to collect information from the state and federal agencies handling park and recreation work. If the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation were given enough money I am sure that they would be highly successful, and the nation would be much better off if they followed the same principle as the Public Roads Administration, that is, working with the state and federal agencies. The basic studies must be done by those in charge of managing the parks. Further, neither the secretary nor Congress has transferred the responsibility of the National Park Service to the BOR; the service is required by law to think and plan to better carry out its responsibility to the country. Not only does this not interfere with the BOR, but it actually makes it possible for the BOR to better carry out its own responsibility to develop a national comprehensive outdoor recreation plan that will include all governmental agencies that deal with parks and recreation.

meeting
The meeting in Yosemite National Park in October, 1963, at which Assistant Secretary of the Interior John Carver delivered his "National Park Service mystique" remarks. Courtesy National Park Service.

As to the primary qualifications of a division chief in the Park Service: believe me, if he is not interested in the parks and loyal to his objectives he shouldn't be there. Anyone in any agency, public or private, who doesn't feel that he can carry out its policy and be a part of the team should seek other employment. Further, all the "philosophy, policy, and purpose" of the National Park Service was established by law and the department. When Carver calls loyalty "mystique" and implicates it with the Hitler Youth Movement, all I can do is apply his own words to his attitude and reasoning: "Such nonsense is simply intolerable."

The last item he brings up is about "hunting in the parks" and the "Leopold Report." As I recall the policy he refers to had been followed through the years with the approval of the department secretaries long before Carver took office, and everybody knew it. The Leopold Report, as he indicated, substantiates the policy. Our basic act states that we are to preserve the parks "and the wildlife therein," but there are many things that experts like Leopold, in and out of the service, have worked on through the years that make it possible for us to mandate and at the same time meet the problems caused by the changes in the habits of the creature called man. I am sorry that John got caught in "a vicious crossfire." It was of his own making.

George B. Hartzog, Jr.
George B. Hartzog, Jr., director of the National Park Service from January 8, 1964, to December 31, 1972.

That auditorium was full of very angry people after Carver's speech. He left immediately, handing Tom Flynn a bundle of copies of his speech and telling him to distribute them. (Tom had been in Carver's office before joining the service as chief of the office that administered our concessions.) He came to me and asked what he should do. The speech was terrible, and so I told Tom to go ahead and distribute them. When Carver got back to Washington he held a press conference. The next day The New York Times reported that I was being fired. This news hit Yosemite the morning of the day that Secretary Udall arrived. George Hartzog and I met the secretary at El Portal early in the afternoon, and I gave him my letter requesting retirement. It was unchanged from the draft he had seen some nine months earlier. The conference was all settled in the assembly room when we arrived at Camp Curry in Yosemite Valley. I introduced the secretary, and he announced that I had given him my request to retire and read my letter. Eivind Scoyen was at the meeting and told how several of us had met over a year earlier to make recommendations on the upcoming retirements, and that the secretary had accepted our suggestions. The secretary, after praising me and mentioning how everything had been handled in accordance with my long-standing requests and suggestions, announced the appointment of George Hartzog as director effective January 9, 1964, the date of my retirement, and of Clark Stratton to succeed Hartzog as associate director. There was no doubt in my mind that Udall had learned of what Carver had done and was trying to smooth things over without mentioning the subject.

I have described these events to serve as a warning, because such things are bound to happen to others, and the worst part of it is that one is almost helpless to defend himself. Now, years later, many of my friends have urged me to tell what happened and clear the record, and to do so complies with one of the basic purposes of this book, namely to expose life as a career civil servant.

On Monday, October 28, 1963, Senator Harry F. Byrd, of Virginia, placed a speech in the Congressional Record defending my reputation as former director of the National Park Service. Included in the speech were a letter from Secretary Udall and also an editorial from the Washington Evening Star. The Washington Evening Star editorial was from the October 22, 1963 issue:

October 22, 1963

Mr. Horace Albright,
Los Angeles, Calif.

Dear Horace:

Needless to say, I share your concern over the items which appeared in the press which implied that Director Connie Wirth's retirement was a result of some policy crisis or personality conflict within my Department. Nothing could be more untrue—of more unfair to Connie.

You know the high esteem that I have for him and I attempted to convey this at the Yosemite conference when I stated that his contribution has given him a place on the highest honor roll of those in this century who have done the most to preserve a rich outdoor legacy for the American people.

In order that you will have the true facts concerning the leadership transition in the National Park Service I want to recite them again:

(1) At the time Associate Director Eivind Scoyen retired in early 1962 it was my feeling, and I expressed it to Director Wirth, that he should be replaced with a career man who would be selected and groomed to become the next director;

(2) Connie concurred, and late last year he submitted to me a list containing the names of five career Park Service employees whom he recommended for consideration for appointment as associate director;

(3) After much discussion and evaluation we decided to ask George Hartzog—who was then employed by downtown St. Louis—to come to Washington for a special interview, and at that time we persuaded him to return to the Park Service and accept the associate director's position;

(4) Later, in February or March Connie indicated that he intended to retire about January 1, 1964, and stated that he would like to announce his retirement at the Biennial Conference of Superintendents at Yosemite in October. At that time I agreed to attend this conference and we also decided to make a final decision during the intervening period on his successor and to announce his appointment simultaneously.

As you observed at Yosemite, the arrangements we made were carried out and it gave me the highest pride and satisfaction to note the deep affection and loyalty felt for Connie by his associates in the Park Service, and the warm and enthusiastic reception given to the announcement of the Hartzog appointment.

The public should know the facts I have outlined here and I am confident that you and other friends of Director Wirth and of the Park Service will help to see that the truth is disseminated and any misapprehensions are dispelled.

Sincerely,
Stewart L. Udall
Secretary of the Interior

We have sometimes been critical, even strongly critical, of the stiffnecked attitude of the National Park Service. When it stands like Horatius at the bridge, blocking some project vital to the emerging new Washington, patience runs low.

On the other hand, if it had not been for the National Park Service, Washington might well have lost, or perhaps never have acquired, what amounts to one of the finest park systems in the world.

Since 1951, Conrad L. Wirth has been Mr. Park Service to us.

Connie Wirth's retirement as Park Service Director was announced last Friday, 4 days after Assistant Secretary of the Interior Carver made a speech to park superintendents that was highly critical of the organization's attitudes and contained the implication that the Interior Department high command had lost patience with Mr. Wirth.

Among other things Mr. Carver charged the Service with resorting to a semireligious mystique to thwart Interior Department policies. He said it fostered a public-be-damned attitude and was not cooperating with the Department's new Bureau of Outdoor Recreation.

Mr. Wirth denies that his retirement was hastened by his superiors. And Interior Secretary Udall, since Mr. Carver's speech, has taken pains to praise Mr. Wirth's record and to disavow to Mr. Wirth's subordinates Mr. Carver's implied slap. It is now clear that George B. Hartzog, who is to succeed Mr. Wirth as Director, was one of five men recommended for the post by Mr. Wirth. His selection does not presage an aboutface in the national park policy.

We are glad that this is the case. For to sacrifice to expediency or popular demands of the moment the basic policy of conserving natural America for generations yet unborn could have tragic consequences.

The men who fathered the park movement were zealots. They were missionaries. Without these qualities the movement never would have got off the ground. The men who continue their work must have the same basic zeal.

While we intend to continue to argue the merits of specific decisions on the use of park land, we do not believe that a "soft" policy concerning such use should be adopted. We congratulate Connie Wirth on 32 years of dedicated service to the Nation and especially to its Capital. If his successor does as well, we will all have been very ably served.

The banquet on the last night of the Yosemite meeting in the Ahwanee was one the like of which could not ever be repeated. The Ahwanee's big dining room was full; the dinner was great; my brother, the admiral, and his wife had come up from San Francisco; the park people and concessionaires put on a skit; and the ovation I got was tremendous. Udall, who sat next to me, turned to me after the applause and remarked, "That was a tremendous ovation they gave you, you've got a lot of loyal friends." The secretary, who said a few nice words, seemed hurt, I thought, by what Carver had done the day before. At any rate, it was a gala affair and we all had fun. Helen and I greatly appreciated the demonstration. What crowned the evening as far as I was concerned was what Helen Wirth did. She stood up and asked for the floor and got it and gave one the nicest short talks I've ever heard, thanking everybody for all they had done for us over the years. It was absolutely perfect. She did something that I could not do, and I felt very proud to be her husband. The meeting had come to a pleasant finish, and a couple of days later we left for a meeting with the secretary's advisory board on national parks and the dedication of the Horace M. Albright Training Center at Grand Canyon National Park.



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Parks, Politics, and the People
©1980, University of Oklahama Press
wirth2/chap10b.htm — 21-Sep-2004

Copyright © 1980 University of Oklahoma Press, returned to the author in 1984. Offset rights University of Oklahoma Press. Material from this edition may not be reproduced in any manner without the written consent of the heir(s) of the Conrad L. Wirth estate and the University of Oklahoma Press.