Scott Einberger - With distance in his eyes : the environmental life and legacy of Stewart Udall

University of Nevada Press | Reno, Nevada 89557 USA
www.unpress.nevada.edu
Copyright 2018 by University of Nevada Press
All rights reserved
Cover design by Louise OFarrell

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Einberger, Scott, author.

Title: With distance in his eyes : the environmental life and legacy of Stewart Udall / by Scott Raymond Einberger.

Other titles: Environmental life and legacy of Stewart Udall

Description: First edition. | Reno : University of Nevada Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017041049 (print) | LCCN 2017041589 (e-book) | ISBN 978-1-943859-62-7 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-943859-63-4 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Udall, Stewart L. | Cabinet officersUnited StatesBiography. | ConservationistsUnited StatesBiography. | EnvironmentalistsUnited StatesBiography. | ReformersUnited StatesBiography. | United StatesPolitics and government20th century.

Classification: LCC E840.8.U34 E46 2017 (print) | LCC E840.8.U34 (e-book) | DDC 352.2/93092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017041049

Manufactured in the United States of America

For Grayson Birch Einberger
May you grow up to be a steward of planet Earth

In addition to the staff of the University of Arizona Special Collections Department and the Library of Congress, who pulled a massive number of boxes and books for me and were always helpful, I am highly grateful to a select set of individuals. First, the staff and contractors of the University of Nevada Press were a delight to work with every step of the way. Specifically, I am grateful for the guidance, editing, and support of Justin Race, Annette Wenda, Virginia Fontana, Sara Hendricksen, Lynne Ferguson Chapman, and the two anonymous scholarly editors who red-penned the book.

Prior to his passing in 2015, Douglas H. Strong edited my early text and provided guidance. Strong was an early environmental historian, a San Diego State University professor, and an author whose writing I admire, and it was an honor getting assistance from him. Thank you, also, to my friend and former colleague Barbara DEmilio for her edits in the books early phases. Additionally, Michelle Moriarty encouraged me to write the book in the first place, and Sandra Crooms of the University of Pittsburgh Press brought the book to the attention of Justin Race, which made all the difference. To all of these people, in addition to my wife and better half, Andria Hayes-Birchler, I say thank you.

Finally, it must be noted that historians stand on the shoulders of past historians. My book benefitted from the previous work of every single author and every publication listed in the endnotes and bibliography. Without them, this book would have no basis and would be nonexistent. Of course, the author who looms largest is Stewart Udall himself. From the moment I first learned of him in 2008 and started reading The Quiet Crisis, I was hooked. His writings and sayings express my own thoughts and opinions better than even I can. His health was degenerating rapidly in 2009 and he had to politely decline my request to meet him and shake his hand, but his memory, philosophy, and writings must live on.

THE 1960S WAS A DECADE of civil rights debates and ultimate progress that included the rise and consequential racial assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and many other African Americans. It was a decade of the Beatles and of counterculture, of peace, love, and happiness in the form of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It was a decade of Vietnam, Cold War, JFK, LBJ, and RFK. In addition to these important events and key figures, the 1960s ushered in the modern environmental movement, a fact that is largely overlooked in many standard history textbooks and classrooms of high schools and colleges across the country.

Indeed, in the 1960s, numerous new national park units, federal wilderness areas, and federal wild and scenic rivers were established and protected via new legislation. The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), the National Wilderness Preservation System, the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, the Water Pollution Control Act, and the Endangered Species Preservation Act were all passed by a bipartisan Congress, as were unprecedented expansions to the US National Park System and National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) System.

Many individuals can rightfully claim to have been a part of the 1960s environmental movement. There were grassroots organizations and citizens that wanted to preserve specific pieces of beautiful land or wild animals; progressive politicians, both Republican and Democrat; and farsighted individuals such as Rachel Carson and others. But only one person can claim to have been the US secretary of the interior for eight years during the 1960s, and this individual was a progressive Mormon Democrat from rural Arizona named Stewart Lee Udall. As a JFK and LBJ administration cabinet member and the highest-ranking public official fully dedicated to the causes of natural resource conservation and environmental protection, Udall fully embraced the 1960s environmental movement and in some ways helped create it and steer it along.

With a long-term view of sustainability for humans, natural resources, and public lands, Udall helped establish an unprecedented number of new national park units, including Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas, a superlative natural area home to the Lone Star States highest peak; Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore in Indiana, one of the most biologically diverse units of the National Park System; and many more. He pushed for the protection of nearly extinct species, such as bald eagles and whooping cranes, by creating and expanding national wildlife refuges, writing the first draft of the Endangered Species Preservation Act, and banning pesticide use on public lands administered by the Department of the Interior (DOI). Udall pushed for cleaner water and increased outdoor recreational opportunities for urban and suburban masses, and he even warned of human-caused global warming decades before the term was a regular part of US and world discourse. And then, at only forty-nine years of age, having completed more than fifteen years of federal government service, in 1969 private citizen Udall became even more of an active and outspoken environmentalist. Udall wasnt perfect through all these years, but he did do a lot of good. Furthermore, Udall did not operate in a vacuum, as other politicians, federal employees, and individuals were needed to pass important conservation bills. But Udall was an imperative in this equation.