Historical

George B. Hartzog, Jr., at the National Park Foundation Board meeting, Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia, 1972. Cecil W. Stoughton, photographer. (National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection, Harpers Ferry Center.)

William C. Everhart, before 1977. (National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection, Harpers Ferry Center.)

George B. Hartzog, Jr., served as seventh director of the National Park Service for nine years, 1964 to 1972. This oral history, the third in a series of interviews with former directors by Park Service bureau historian Janet McDonnell, records Hartzog’s commentary and judgments on the events of his tenure. It is a valuable contribution to the history of the national parks and the National Park Service.

I approach this foreword as both participant and historian. As participant, I served as chief historian of the National Park Service through the entire directorate of George Hartzog. As historian, I have had more than three decades to study and reflect on those frantic, momentous years, with the added perspective afforded by the passage of time.

As participant, I remember George Hartzog as an administrator of rare ability. He was a workaholic who drove his staff at his pace. He not only managed, he ruled. He could be deeply caring, friendly, and sentimental with everyone in the Service. He could also be nearly tyrannical in his demands for superior performance. He entertained a broad vision of what the national parks should be and should mean to the American people, and he pursued his vision relentlessly. Above all, both with the Executive Branch and the Congress, he possessed political cunning, insight, and mastery almost nonexistent among federal agency heads, and he employed these talents to the great benefit of the National Park Service and the environmental movement launched by his chief, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall.

I have been privileged to call George Hartzog friend in all the years since my experience as participant.

Casting myself now as historian rather than participant and friend, I stand back as far as possible to appraise the Hartzog directorate. In the interview, he deals with the events of his administration with all the charm, wit, candor, verbal facility, and articulation for which he has always been known. Here I place these events in more orderly form as background to his commentary.

Most important, he led the largest expansion of the National Park System in history. During his nine-year tenure, the system grew by seventy-two units totaling 2.7 million acres–not just national parks, but historical and archeological monuments and sites, recreation areas, seashores, riverways, memorials, and cultural units celebrating minority experiences in America.

Working closely with subcommittee chairman Senator Alan Bible in 1971, he laid the legislative basis for the expansion of the National Park System in Alaska. When the Congress in 1980 finally acted on this provision of law, it doubled the acreage of the National Park System.

Determined that the National Park Service reflect the growing national concern for minorities, Hartzog developed programs that gave the Service a different complexion. He named the first black park superintendent, the first career woman superintendent, the first American Indian superintendent, and the first black chief of a major U.S. police department. The promotion of women and minorities has steadily expanded over the years since.

Hartzog persuaded Congress to authorize a program for citizens to volunteer their time and talents to the needs of both park resources and park visitors. The Volunteers in Parks program (VIP) has flourished as budgetary shortfalls increasingly stressed permanent employees.

Beyond the parks themselves, Hartzog pursued outreach programs. Examples are the first environmental education curriculum in kindergarten through the twelfth grade. Complementing this initiative, he inaugurated study areas in a system of National Education and Development Landmarks, christened NEED. He also put into effect programs to make national parks relevant to an urban society, such as Summer in the Parks, Parks for all Seasons, and Living History. He obtained legislation creating the congressionally chartered National Park Foundation, which funded many worthy projects for which appropriations were unavailable.

Many other achievements and issues could be cited, but as a historian I want to give special emphasis to historic preservation. This is especially timely because in November 2006 Hartzog received the prestigious Crowninshield Award of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 broadened the concept of historic preservation from individual landmarks of significance to all survivors from the past that citizens thought worth saving as part of their local environment. Interstate highways and urban renewal had wiped out much of local value to citizens, not only individual structures, but entire districts and even treasured landscapes. The new act created a National Register of Historic Places, led to a network of State Historic Preservation Officers charged with nominating such local places to the Register, established a program of grants-in-aid to the states, and authorized an Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to advise the president and federal agency heads as well as enforce protective safeguards for registered properties.

The National Historic Preservation Act would not have passed, at least in 1966, but for George Hartzog. Many people worked hard on this initiative, but without Hartzog’s largely hidden political labors on Capitol Hill, with congressional staff as well as members, the law would not have been enacted. He not only brought his legendary political skills to bear, but ensured that the entire program would rest with the National Park Service. This I know because I witnessed it as participant.

The programs spawned by the National Historic Preservation Act have spread across the nation, onto the state and local levels and into the private sector. For people concerned with the quality of their local environment, the results of the act have proved one of the great success stories of the late twentieth century.

George Hartzog made great things happen. He benefited from a rare combination of circumstances that favored his vision. It fit neatly into President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” and into Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall’s robust environmentalism. The secretary, moreover, not only had selected George Hartzog for the directorship but gave him full rein and support in pursuing his vision. A Democratic Congress receptive to the “Great Society” proved receptive to the measures Hartzog promoted. And the Democratic Congress also discovered that voters concerned for their national parks and the environment in which they lived were ready for the laws he sought.

Well versed in the history of the National Park Service, I am familiar with the record of every director since the creation of the agency in 1916. Excepting the co-founders of the Service, Stephen Mather and Horace Albright, I have no hesitation in pronouncing George Hartzog the greatest director in the entire history of the Service.

History will benefit from his own view of his legacy as set down in this interview with Janet McDonnell.

*Before his retirement from federal service in 1980, Robert M. Utley served not only as chief historian of the National Park Service but as director of the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation, assistant director of the Service for Park Historic Preservation, and deputy director of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. He is the author of sixteen books on the history of the American West.

This oral history is the product of three interview sessions conducted with George B. Hartzog, Jr., seventh director of the National Park Service, at his home in McLean, Virginia, in 2005. This oral history provides but a small glimpse of Hartzog’s Southern charm, warmth, and candor—and his great gift as a storyteller. He remains a commanding and inspirational figure. As no doubt with every task he has taken on, Hartzog approached this project with his characteristic enthusiasm—and some degree of humility. He insisted that the oral history focus on the Service’s accomplishments, rather than on his own, and was particularly intent that current and future Service employees benefit from his interview. Though George Hartzog retired from the Park Service decades ago, his passion for the parks and for the National Park Service remains evident. I have heard no one speak more eloquently or forcefully about the importance of national parks to our nation and the role of national parks in defining us as a people.

William C. Everhart graciously agreed to join us for the first and last interview sessions. The close friendship and mutual respect between the two interviewees were readily apparent. Everhart started his distinguished career with the National Park Service as a historian at Gettysburg National Military Park in 1951. His friendship and professional partnership with Hartzog began soon after Hartzog became superintendent at Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. As the result of a search for the best candidate to plan and develop the memorial’s museum, he invited Everhart to join him in St. Louis. When Hartzog became director of the Service, he selected Everhart as assistant director for interpretation, and Everhart played a key role in the Hartzog administration. Later Everhart served Directors Ronald H. Walker and Gary Everhardt as special assistant for policy before his retirement from the Service in 1977.

This oral history is not intended to serve as a detailed account of George Hartzog’s extraordinary career. For a more complete picture, one should look at Hartzog’s own published account, Battling for the National Parks, at a well written portrait in The New Yorker,1 and at several other oral history interviews conducted with him over the past few decades. Kathy Mengak produced a doctoral dissertation about Hartzog in 2002 as a Ph.D. candidate at Clemson University. I saw no need to duplicate the historical record already available to researchers. Rather, this interview attempts to focus on the Hartzog era as one of transition. Its goal is to add personal insight and depth to the historical record of what was a period of phenomenal expansion in the National Park System and significant change in the National Park Service. This oral history focuses on Hartzog’s career with the National Park Service, primarily on his tenure as director.

After the first interview session, Mr. Hartzog provided me with written comments to expand on some of the subjects we had covered. I have integrated short excerpts from his written statement into the transcript where appropriate and have in a few instances inserted additional detail. These additions are set in italic type. In addition, occasionally words or phrases are added in brackets for greater clarity.

In the course of the interview, Hartzog spoke eloquently and fervidly about why parks are important to the American people, how parks help define us a people and foster a common identity. Parks, he said, challenge us with the fundamental questions, “Why?” and “Who am I?” Throughout his career, the question “Why” remained critically important to Hartzog. It was not only a question he asked himself, but a question he encouraged others to ask. It is a question that remains relevant for us today. As a final note, spending time with Mr. Hartzog and his wife, Helen, was a rare treat—a privilege and a pleasure. I am deeply grateful for their warm hospitality and for the long chats about what was, by any measure, one of the most remarkable periods in Park Service history.

I am very grateful to Mary Ann Greenwood for carefully transcribing the original interview tapes and to Lise Sajewski for her great skill in editing the transcript. Tom DuRant at Harpers Ferry Center generously gave his time to locate many of the photographs. Kerry Skarda and her team at [B] Creative Group deserve much credit for their high quality design work. Finally, I am deeply grateful to Martin Perschler, acting manager of the NPS Park History program, for his expertise and diligence in seeing this oral history through to publication.

To fully appreciate the career and contributions of George B. Hartzog, Jr., it is important to understand something of his early life. His character and beliefs were shaped to a great extent by his mother, his Southern upbringing, the Great Depression, and the New Deal programs of the 1930s. George Hartzog, Jr., was born in 1920 in a rural community in South Carolina. His father, George, Sr., farmed roughly 150 acres in the Edisto River section of Colleton County, South Carolina, off State Highway 61, five miles from the village of Smoaks. George, his parents, and two younger sisters lived in a modest frame house, near a larger family home occupied by his grandparents. He began his education in a nearby one-room schoolhouse. The following year he began attending a school in Smoaks. George helped his father grow cantaloupes, cucumbers, watermelon, corn, green vegetables, and cotton.

The economic bust of the Great Depression forced the family to sell their farm to pay the mortgage and move into the home of George’s grandfather. When fire later consumed that household, Hartzog writes in his autobiography, the family lost everything “but faith in God and my mother’s determination.”2 The situation grew worse for the Hartzog family when George’s father developed chronic asthma that prevented him from working; his mother struggled with rheumatoid arthritis. The family survived these years, Hartzog later recalled, through the charity of neighbors and the welfare programs of the New Deal. The personal experience of the Great Depression and New Deal programs left a deep imprint on the young Hartzog and no doubt shaped his devotion to the values of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society program decades later. Growing up in a rural South Carolina community and watching the daily struggles of women and African Americans also planted the seeds of his deep personal commitment to advancing opportunities for women and minorities in the national parks and in the National Park Service.

In 1933, the Hartzog family moved to Walterboro, the Colleton County seat, so George’s mother could find work. A talented seamstress, she quickly found work as the county supervisor of WPA sewing rooms, while George Hartzog, who had absorbed her strong work ethic, took on a series of part-time jobs to supplement the family income: mowing lawns, pumping gas, store clerk, busboy, dishwasher, and cook. In 1936, at age sixteen, Hartzog left school in order to work full-time, pumping gas during the day and operating as a hotel clerk at night.

Hearing that George had dropped out of school, Col. James F. Risher, headmaster of the Carlisle Military School, a high school in Bamberg, South Carolina, visited the Hartzog family at Walterboro. The colonel, a childhood friend of George’s mother, told the family that “to amount to anything, George must finish high school.” There were only six weeks left of the school year, but the colonel took George back with him, agreeing that if George passed the final exam, he could graduate. George did. In the summer of 1937, he was licensed by the Methodist Church as a local preacher, the youngest licensed preacher in the state at the time. An anonymous group of local businessmen provided funds to send the seventeen-year-old preacher to Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, to study Methodist theology, but when the funds ran out at the end of the first semester, George returned to Walterboro, where he worked for a year and a half as a stenographer and interviewer for the Colleton County Department of Public Welfare.

In 1939 Hartzog went to work as a law clerk and legal secretary for Joe [Joseph M.] Moorer, a partner in the Walterboro law firm of Padgett and Moorer. There he read and studied law at night under Moorer’s supervision following the prescribed three-year curriculum. To augment his modest income, Hartzog joined a local National Guard unit. In September 1940 his unit was called into federal service and sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. After his return, Hartzog continued his studies back in Walterboro, passed the South Carolina bar exam, and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of South Carolina on December 17, 1942, remarkably without completing college or ever attending a law school. He then went into private law practice. In March 1943 he was inducted into the army, where he first served in the judge advocate’s office of the 75th Infantry Division at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and later was assigned to the military police.

After his discharge from active duty in 1946, he began work as an adjudicator for the General Land Office (now the Bureau of Land Management). Six months later, he left the federal government to join a private law firm. Soon after, he accepted a position as an attorney for the National Park Service in its Chicago headquarters. When the Park Service headquarters moved back to Washington, D.C., in 1947, Hartzog and his new bride, Helen, moved there as well. He was subsequently transferred to Lake Texoma National Recreation Area in Denison, Texas, to administer the program for leasing land and in 1948 was reassigned to the chief counsel’s office back in Washington, D.C. The self-taught lawyer was admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States in October 1949.

Hartzog was promoted to assistant chief of concessions management in 1951. Over the next few years he continued his education at American University, where he received a bachelor of science degree in business administration. In 1955 he became assistant superintendent of Rocky Mountain National Park and two years later was transferred to Great Smoky Mountains National Park as assistant superintendent. He became superintendent of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1959. There he successfully initiated the construction of the historic Gateway Arch. With construction underway, Hartzog left the Service in July 1962 to become the executive director and secretary of Downtown St. Louis, Inc., a position he would not hold for long.

In 1962 Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall approached Hartzog about becoming the next director of the National Park Service. Udall had been favorably impressed when the two men met in 1961 during Udall’s visit to the Ozarks in southeast Missouri to review a proposal for a national monument. During a two-day float trip on the Current River, Udall quickly came to admire Hartzog’s enthusiasm, drive, and leadership qualities. They agreed that Hartzog would serve as an associate director under the current director, Conrad L. Wirth, and then step into the director’s position when Wirth retired. Hartzog became associate director in February 1963 and succeeded Wirth in January 1964, early in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. Udall had found what he was looking for in a National Park Service director—a forceful leader who would help implement President Johnson’s Great Society program. Hartzog approached his directorship with vision, passion, and energy, often working fourteen hour days and devoting many weekends to meeting with park superintendents. His was a very personal and dynamic style of leadership. He wielded power forcefully and effectively. As we see in this interview, Hartzog took personal control of the budget, personnel issues, and legislation, delegating everything else to his staff. Early on he decided to appoint each park superintendent personally.

George Hartzog was one of the most influential and effective directors that the National Park Service has ever had. It can be argued that Hartzog ranked with the Park Service’s founders and first two directors, Stephen T. Mather and Horace M. Albright, in his political acumen and effectiveness. He fully understood and appreciated the important role of Congress in shaping public-land policy and had a deep respect for the legislative process. He was a skilled lobbyist and even today recalls with some satisfaction that he wore out three pairs of shoes a year making office visits on Capitol Hill. He was extremely successful shepherding new legislation through Congress. No doubt the strong support from Secretary Udall and their shared vision contributed greatly to Hartzog’s effectiveness.

During Hartzog’s nine years as director, the National Park System underwent its greatest period of expansion since the 1930s. Roughly seventy units came into the system, nearly three-quarters as many as in the preceding thirty years. His tenure not only marked a period of great expansion and growth, but also it was in many ways a period of transition for the Service. Under Hartzog’s skilled leadership, Park Service managers and professionals expanded their operations and activities in new directions. The director greatly enlarged the Service’s role in urban education, historic preservation, interpretation, and environmental education.

A remarkable array of new types of units came into the National Park System during the Hartzog years. Ozark National Scenic Riverways in Missouri, authorized by Congress in 1964, foreshadowed the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of October 2, 1968, which led to the incorporation of other free-flowing rivers into the park system. Pictured Rocks and Indiana Dunes on the Great Lakes became the first national lakeshores in 1966. The National Trails System Act of 1968 made the Service responsible for the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. Gateway National Recreation Area in New York City and Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco, both established in 1972, would lead to similar units serving other urban areas. The director advanced the concept of national cultural parks with the establishment of Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts (now Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts) in Virginia.

The Hartzog years marked a transition from the era of Mission 66, the ten-year billion dollar program launched in 1956 by Director Wirth to upgrade and modernize facilities, staff, and resource management throughout the National Park System, to the environmental era. Hartzog was the first director to serve at a time when the environmental movement had to be addressed. During his tenure Congress passed a series of laws reflecting the new emphasis on the environment, including the Wilderness Act of 1964, National Trails System Act, and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which helped transform the National Park System. There was a new emphasis on science, and natural resource management was restructured along ecological lines following a 1963 report on the condition of natural resources in the parks by a committee of scientists chaired by A. Starker Leopold. Environmental interpretation that emphasized ecological relationships and special environmental education programs for school children reflected and promoted the growing national environmental movement.

As noted, Director Hartzog had a strong personal interest in the values of the Great Society program. He viewed national parks much like other Great Society measures, as an investment in improving the way people lived, and was deeply and passionately committed to making parks more relevant to an increasingly urbanized American society. Under his skilled leadership, the Service reached out as never before to underrepresented and underserved groups, particularly urban populations, minorities, and young people, with urban parks and programs such as Summer in the Parks. Living History programs were introduced at many historical parks, ranging from frontier military demonstrations at Fort Davis National Historic Site, Texas, to period farming at Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, Indiana. Hartzog worked to expand diversity by expanding the management role for women and minorities within the Service. He appointed the first African American to head the U.S. Park Police (Grant Wright) and was the first to promote women, African Americans, and Native Americans from within the Service into park superintendent positions.

The Hartzog administration marked the greatest advances in historic preservation since the 1930s. Responding to the destructive effects of urban renewal, highway construction, and other federal projects after World War II , the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 authorized the Service to maintain a comprehensive National Register of Historic Places. The listed properties, whether nationally or locally significant, would receive special consideration in federal project planning and federal grants along with technical assistance to encourage their preservation. Thus the Service’s historical activities moved beyond park boundaries. During this interview Hartzog observed that his proudest accomplishments were twofold: his role in ensuring that large areas in Alaska were set aside (under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act), and his role in the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966. He was quick to point out that he did not initiate either of these measures, but accepted some credit for pushing the legislation through.

Under Hartzog, the National Park Service developed and instituted new management policies to address a greatly expanded and increasingly complex park system. On July 10, 1964, Secretary Udall signed a management policy memorandum that the Park Service director and his staff had prepared. It identified three categories for units in the National Park System: natural, historical, and educational. A separate set of management principles were devised for each; Service leaders distilled dozens of handbooks that governed how parks were managed down to just three. Hartzog launched a number of reorganizations within the Park Service, not all of which were popular or successful. For example, he consolidated professionals at the Denver Service Center and at the newly established Harpers Ferry Center in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. He created an associate director for resource studies and created the new Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation to oversee and implement the Service’s greatly expanded historic preservation responsibilities.

As part of Hartzog’s effort to build support for the parks outside the National Park Service, he played a key role in securing the 1967 legislation creating the National Park Foundation. The legislation authorized this private, non-profit foundation to encourage, accept, and administer private gifts for the benefit of the Service and to support and assist the Service in other ways in conserving the National Park System’s natural, scenic, historic, and recreational resources. The foundation would fund many significant projects for which congressional funding was not available. He also secured congressional authorization for the Volunteers in Parks program to encourage the public to volunteer their time and talents in the parks. Hartzog successfully organized the National Parks Centennial Celebration and the Second World Conference on National Parks held at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in 1972.

George Hartzog was one of the last directors to span both Democratic and Republican administrations and work for Department of the Interior secretaries from both parties. He remained as director until January 1973 when President Richard M. Nixon replaced him. In this interview the former director stated that he had three major objectives during his tenure: to expand the National Park System, to make the National Park Service more relevant to the American people, and to incorporate more women and minorities into the management structure. By any measure he succeeded. With his vision, political skill, and dynamic leadership, he left behind a greatly expanded and invigorated agency. His rich legacy and contributions continue to be felt throughout the National Park Service and the National Park System today.

William C. Everhart, before 1977. (National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection, Harpers Ferry Center.)

William C. Everhart, a veteran of twenty-six years with the National Park Service, participated in two of the three oral history interview sessions. Everhart grew up in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and received a bachelor’s degree from Gettysburg College. During World War II , he enlisted in the army infantry, participating in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he continued his education. He received a master’s degree in history from Penn State and then enrolled in a doctoral program in history at the University of Pennsylvania. While pursuing his doctoral studies, he accepted a summer job as a ranger historian at Gettysburg National Military Park. During Everhart’s second year at the university, the battlefield historian, Fred Tilberg, hired him on a permanent basis as his assistant in 1951.

Everhart would have six different positions in his first six years with the National Park Service. After a year at Gettysburg, Everhart accepted a position as park historian at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi, where he managed the interpretive program. He later became project historian with the Atlantic and Gulf Coast seashore survey and then went on to Philadelphia to supervise historians and curators in the restoration of Independence Hall. The Park Service transferred him to San Francisco in the mid 1950s to participate in a national survey of historic sites and buildings. Toward the end of his second year in San Francisco, Everhart was invited by George Hartzog to join him in St. Louis to research and plan the Museum of Westward Expansion underneath the Gateway Arch.

Everhart preceded Hartzog to Park Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1962 he was assigned to serve on a task force preparing long-range plans for the Service. When Hartzog later became National Park Service director, he offered Everhart the position of assistant director for interpretation. Everhart became the first director of the Park Service’s interpretive design center opened in 1970 at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, to house graphic designers, editors, curators, photographers, and other professionals who developed interpretative displays and performed other tasks in support of the parks. After his work at Harpers Ferry Center, he served Park Service directors Ronald H. Walker and Gary Everhardt as special assistant for policy. Everhart retired from the Service in 1977. Following retirement he spent time as a visiting professor at Clemson University and published two classic Park Service histories: The National Park Service in 1972 (rev. ed., 1983) and Take Down Flag & Feed Horses in 1998.

You came to the Park Service, as I understand, in 1946 to the Chicago office. Would you describe what it was like to work in the Merchandise Mart in Chicago in 1946? 3

Well, it was really a great experience. And as a matter of fact, I think the commercial culture of the Merchandise Mart spilled into the government operations of the Park Service, not to affect its process or procedures, but to make it conscious of a larger world that you were a part of rather than just being a government employee. So I enjoyed my time in the Merchandise Mart very much indeed.

What are your recollections of the National Park Service director at the time, Newton Drury? Any thoughts on his leadership, his personality?

Newton Drury was a shy, introverted man, but a brilliant man and a deep thinker, who had tremendous visions and hopes, many of which, through his tenacity and his assembly of friends, he was able to implement successfully, such as the Save the Redwoods League in California. Most of the Redwood National Park, state parks, and national parks in California, owed their being to Newton Drury and his commitment to saving those redwoods. He was a very even-tempered man. I found him a delight to work with and as a young lawyer I was always awed when I was called into his presence and he frequently did that. He would have subordinate staff come into his office to discuss things with him, always in the company, of course, of Jack [Jackson E.] Price, the chief counsel, who was a great friend of Drury’s. They had a great rapport. I thought that Drury had a great commitment to the National Park Service.

I [will] tell the story about a leaning redwood in Giant Forest [in Sequoia National Park]. The owner of the concession [in the park] was Howard Hayes, a great figure in the history of parks, who owned the Riverside Press, the morning and afternoon newspaper in Riverside, California. He built the first cabins in Yellowstone National Park as a young man and then headed the See America First campaign during World War I. And then he got what the doctors considered to be terminal tuberculosis. He had to sell out his Yellowstone operation and went to California presumably to die, and he was bedridden for a year in California. And when they took him back in the hospital they could find no evidence of tuberculosis at all, so he began his life again as an entrepreneur. He started, at Stephen Mather’s suggestion, with a concession in Sequoia National Park, and then went on later to own the transportation concession at Glacier National Park. He was a wonderful person. I considered him to be one of my mentors, because he was of that breadth of influence and personality.

This tree was leaning over about seven or eight of Howard Hayes’s cabins. And Eivind Scoyen, who later became associate director, a legendary figure in the Park Service, was the superintendent at Sequoia and nobody could cut a redwood tree without the director’s concurrence. We were having this superintendents’ conference in Yosemite. This would have been in 1950. After that conference this team of Drury and Howard Hayes and Eivind Scoyen were to go back and look at this redwood tree.

Because of a great tragedy in the Park Service—the chief of concessions, Oliver G. Taylor, had climbed a tree in his backyard to trim a limb, had a heart attack, and fell out of the tree dead—I had just been detailed over to concessions as a young lawyer to help out. The director designated me as acting chief of concessions, so that’s why I was at the superintendents’ conference, to represent the concessions program in the Park Service. Mr. Drury said to me, “Why don’t you come down to Sequoia with me and look at this redwood tree?”

I had the experience of looking at three men whom I greatly admired in a very difficult situation. To see their interaction was an experience I can never forget, because the four of us assembled at this redwood tree. Those redwoods historically can lean for years without falling, but also they can in one storm topple, even if they’re standing straight, because they have a shallow root system. That tree was leaning in such a way that if it fell it was going to take out eight cabins, and if they were occupied, it was going to be a catastrophic loss of life. If they were not occupied, it was going to be nothing but eight wooden cabins destroyed in Giant Forest; … from the conservation standpoint it would have been the right thing to … get rid of them.

So round and round this redwood tree the four of us walked. Nobody said a word. And you cannot imagine the tension that built every time this group of four circled this tree. And why they kept circling the tree instead of stopping and talking was something I never did understand. But they continued to circle this tree and finally Newton Drury stopped and turned to them and he said, “Howard, my first responsibility is to the tree.” With that Howard Hayes exploded. He said, “My first responsibility is to the occupants of eight cabins, and if that tree were to fall on them, I would plaster this meeting across the front page of my newspaper.” This was the most absurd thing. Two guys I had the utmost respect and admiration and esteem for were really going at each other. Well, Eivind Scoyen spoke up and he said, “Mr. Director, why don’t you let me talk with Howard about this matter?” Drury turned and he said, “I think that is a great idea.” With that, the group dispersed and Mr. Drury and I came back to Washington. Of course, we cut the tree down. And that was a remarkable experience that I had.

W.E.– My definition of the Park Service is an organization in which, if a name is mentioned, a story is bound to follow and it’s often long. But it’s full of interesting characters who have stories to tell.

W.E.– That’s a good point and it is not as true. I don’t think there are as many characters as there used to be, because it’s a bureaucracy now, I guess it has to be, and so individuals don’t play such an important role as they used to.

Let’s move on to your tenure as director, Mr. Hartzog. When you became director what in your previous background and experience did you find most useful, maybe something out of your experience at Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Are there things you could point to when you became director and say, “Well, I know this, because of my past [experience],” that kind of thing?

Well, I was very fortunate. [In 1955] when I was the assistant superintendent at Rocky Mountain National Park, the government didn’t have any training for senior-level managers. The American Management Association gave the government eight scholarships to the managers program taught by the American Management Association at the old Hotel Astor in New York. I received one of those scholarships. Of course, the program was heavily supported by industry. Characters in my particular class came from Hughes, or from AT &T, Libby [Corporation]. All of those big-name companies had their mid-level managers at this program.

It was chaired by Laurence Appley, the chairman of the American Management Association, who had been the vice president of an international oil company and his domain was the eastern part of Asia. As he related to us, in his office there were two people, himself and his secretary. He pointed out that the reason was, “My managers in the field, when they had a problem, wanted to discuss it with me and not an assistant to me. And therefore I didn’t need any staff.” It was that tenor of the responsibility of a leader that I developed through that management program. I have a concept of management which I felt was pretty well grounded and was unique in terms of government service, because I never encountered that in the government.

I mean, the government was looked on as something different. I think one of the problems with government [work] today is [that] it is looked on as something different and something anybody can do. As long as it is politically acceptable, [you will have the attitude that] anybody can do government work, at any level. And that’s not true. Some of the most difficult, sophisticated management responsibilities in the world are done by government employees. I now have spent about half of my life in government and about half of my life as a private practicing attorney, and I would say between the two I have met more talented people in government than I have in private enterprise. There are a lot of advantages in private enterprise that don’t work in government, such as [family wealth] inheritance, that give people prominence and position and authority. They don’t get that advantage in government.

That was different than anything.… Then I went to St. Louis, and when I got [there] I discovered that I was not the first choice for St. Louis. I got the position because I was the last guy who would agree to go. They had offered the job to any number of more senior people who turned it down. They didn’t want any part of it. And as one of my friends wrote to me, “What in the hell did you do now that got you to St. Louis?”

Because I wanted an opportunity in any shape, manner, or form. I was on the make. I think that’s a modest way of putting it, don’t you, Bill?

G.H.– I thought it was an opportunity. When I got there I had a fantastic surprise, because the mayor of the city of St. Louis, Raymond R. Tucker, who turned out to be a mentor and a friend beyond compare, had issued an ultimatum to the director that if the project wasn’t under contract by July 1, he was going to make arrangements for somebody else to take it over, because he had been waiting for four years after the money had been appropriated for the Park Service to do something. I was unaware of that when I was appointed in December 1958 to report for duty in February.

The first thing I learned when I got there was that the relocation of the railroad tracks contract was to be under way by July 1, and they hadn’t even finished preparing the plan yet. There were fifteen organizations that had to review and concur on those plans, from labor unions, to railroads, to the city. So I was involved in a project for which I was only technically the final decision-maker. But to make that decision stick, I had to have the support and agreement of all of these people, any one of whom could bomb the project.

I learned a lesson in how to challenge people to something bigger than themselves, because when we got the plans for the railroad relocation from Eero Saarinen’s 4 office it was May. This was the first time anybody had seen those plans. And they had to be reviewed and approved by all of these agencies, including the state corporation commission, which controlled all corporations in the state of Missouri. I had tried to explain to my superiors in the Park Service that the normal Park Service review was never going to cut July 1, because you had to send those plans to the regional office. That became a month-long process and we didn’t have a month. We had less than two months left to get it [the railroad track relocation project] under contract.

I prevailed upon my regional director, Howard Baker. He was a remarkably fine man, whom, when I became the director, I made my associate director for operations. I said, “Howard, we’ve got to get everybody in a room, and we’ve got to let Saarinen’s people explain these plans, and they’ve got to sign off. We’ve got to go to contracting on a unit-cost basis, so much for a yard of excavation, so much for a yard of concrete, so much for a cross tie, so much for a foot of steel track, a unit-cost basis for everything, and we’re not going to know how much it costs until we’re finished. All we can have is an engineer’s estimate against which to open for bids. The bids have to be evaluated on the unit cost, who is offering us concrete the cheapest, and what is the aggregate sum of that.” “Absolutely no way can it be done that way. It has to be a lump-sum contract,” my superiors contended. Well, fortunately for me he [Baker] came to the plan review meeting. And when he saw the condition and the issue laid out in front of him, he immediately agreed we would be able to go to bid on a unit-price basis. The result was that we had the groundbreaking ceremony for the railroad relocation project on June 23. We made it by seven days. That was one of my first projects.

The second project was getting Bill [Everhart], because nobody had yet decided what the story was, what the story of expansion was. We were going to build the largest museum in the history of the National Park Service on the largest subject (westward expansion) that the National Park Service had ever been charged with interpreting and [we] hadn’t written the first chapter yet. I had a park historian who was more interested in being a superintendent than he was in being a historian. So I arranged for him to become a superintendent. Then I had to find a historian, and that’s how I found Bill, from the first promotion list.

And that was another thing about park management I found out. The first list they sent me, the guy at the top of it was a guy they were trying to get rid of at the park he was in.

So he was recommended superlatively. Everything was superlative. I didn’t call the regional director in whose region he served. I called his friends, because we shared some mutual friends. I knew who he was. I didn’t know his competence. I called them and they were the ones who said to me, “They’re trying to get rid of him. They’re trying to unload him. He’s incompetent. He’s a nice guy, but he’s over his head.”

I took that list and I got on a railroad train from St. Louis to Omaha, Nebraska, and I walked into [Regional Director] Howard Baker’s office and I handed him the list and I said, “You can have them. I don’t want them. The one I want I found from these many telephone calls, a guy named Bill Everhart, who’s working for the [historic sites] survey team in San Francisco.” Howard said to me, “Hell, he’ll never go to St. Louis.” I said, “Have you asked him?” He said, “No, I just know he won’t come.” I said, “Well, I want him on the list, number one, and you can put anybody else you want on it. But you put Bill Everhart on the list first and give it to me, and I’ll go back to St. Louis, and then I’ll tell you whether he’ll come or not.” So I called him [Bill Everhart], and, of course, Howard was right. Bill wanted to know who this idiot was on the phone talking with him, [asking him] to leave San Francisco to come to St. Louis in the first place, in the second place, to undertake a project which nobody had even started, let alone described the dimensions of it, and he didn’t have anybody to help.

W.E.– Let me tell you why I was available. About two months before that I had gotten a call from Omaha. They had an opening for a person who would be in charge of exploring new areas in the Rocky Mountains. Wonderful. So I came back to my wife, who was from Canada, and I mentioned the possibility of going there. In all my married life I’ve never heard her use a four-letter word before, but what she said was, “Where in the hell is Omaha?” It suggested to me something, so I turned the job down and was available [for another assignment].

O f course, being in the Park Service, I did the same thing on [George] that he did on me. I hadn’t heard much about him, so I started checking around and seeing what kind of job, what kind of program he had. It just seemed a fantastic opportunity so I took it. But I was called up for jury duty in San Francisco and I went to report that I was going to be moving out. The judge said, “Where are you moving to?” “St. Louis.” The judge said, “My goodness, from San Francisco?” We both sort of felt the same way. What a great town San Francisco is—but it worked out.

A s George was saying, both he and I were working with Eero Saarinen. I mean working with the guy meant you in turn brought in the best possible people that you could get and those people changed our minds about design, all kinds of design, and so forth. Yes, I started work.

You both shared a history with the Park Service and worked together from that point on. Mr. Hartzog, I’d like to talk about your vision for the Park Service when you became director. The two of you must have had a shared vision. I’d like to hear both of you talk about your vision of what the Park Service could be, what it should be, how it should define itself.

I think that’s a very germane question and I’m so happy you ask it that way, because that’s exactly the way I approached my notes to talk with you. I think that is the heart of my nine years as director, because I think we did, and I think we shared the same vision, because we had talked about it for a long, long time. So there was not much new in terms of what he and I thought about the operation. There was a heck of a lot new in what we did about it when we got here, because, of course, Bill beat me to Washington. He left me [in St. Louis] and came to Washington for a promotion. So he was in Washington when I came as director. And one of the first things I did was to promote him and make him my assistant director for interpretation, because he had the vision for a new emphasis on interpretation and what it could mean. He can tell you about that. That’s one of the reasons I wanted him here [for this interview], because he was an integral part of what we tried to do.

I want to make one other point: when I came here I was aware of the fact that the opportunity for achieving your ambition is greatly enhanced with allies. That’s how we were able to build that project in St. Louis—with our allies. I learned the importance of legislators in a project’s success, such as the St. Louis City Council, Missouri State Legislature, and Missouri Congressional delegation.5 Success breeds success. When we were able to get that contract under way, we created more interest from more people than you can ever imagine in the city of St. Louis, because it had been there so long with nothing. We took a lot of ridicule, of course, [references to the proposed Gateway Arch as] the “wicket” and all of that, but we never let that depress us. It kind of excited us, because we were going to build the biggest “wicket” in the world, and we did. So the fact that you had to involve other people, and the ability and the recognition of the need to work with other people in achieving your objective was very much a part of my philosophy when I came here.

Now, with that in mind, what were the motivations that drove me to change things? Well, when I was in the field I had spent my time in Washington as a lawyer and as assistant chief of the concessions division, for a short while as the acting chief of the division when the old gentleman as I mentioned earlier, Mr. Oliver G. Taylor, passed away. And then I went [back] to the field but during that Washington experience I wrote three administrative manuals: land acquisition, concessions, and law enforcement. I got out to Rocky Mountain [National Park] and I had just finished the concessions manual, the last one of the three before I got there. We had the forms in the back that were acceptable for use in authorizing concessions. The form I had used for a saddle horse permit was the best one I had seen up to that point. I put it in the manual, but when I got to Rocky Mountain, I found one that was much superior.

So when it came time to issue those permits the next year, I said to the superintendent, “You know, this is a better form than the one in the book. Let’s use this.” He agreed and so we authorized our saddle horse operators under this park form. At that time you had to send a copy to the region. So the region got my copy. In two or three weeks, maybe a month or so, we got a memorandum back from the regional director wanting to know why we had used this form instead of the one prescribed in the manual. So the superintendent came in and he said, “What’s this all about?” I said, “Well, it’s better than the one in the manual. I wrote the manual so, I mean, I know what they are talking about. If I had had this form, it would have been in the manual instead of the one that’s in there. So I recommend you put that memo in the trash,” and that’s what he did while he was standing there. We heard nothing further of the matter.

But that fixed my view about administrative manuals. So when I came here as director in 1964, there were several things I was intent on doing. One of them was that the last time a secretary and the director had agreed on how they were going to run the park system was when Secretary [of the Interior] Franklin Lane and later Secretary [Hubert] Work both did memos for Horace Albright and Mather.6 Since then, no one had written a memorandum that set out how they wanted the Park Service run and who was going to run it. So the first thing that Bill Everhart and I started working on was a memorandum to me for the secretary to sign saying what the policies of the Park Service were going to be and what its modus operandi was going to be.

After reviewing the draft I had prepared, the secretary signed the memorandum on July 10, 1964, establishing six policy objectives: to provide for the highest quality use and enjoyment of the parks; to conserve and manage the parks responsibly; to expand the National Park System; to cooperate with other conservation organizations; to communicate the significance of the American heritage through the National Park System; and to increase the effectiveness of the National Park Service. In 1964, we had to change attitudes and motivate people to respond to the emerging needs of an urban America. That was a secretarial objective; therefore, it became my imperative.7

That was the beginning. The second thing I did was—after I got that [memorandum]—I then gave it to the legislative committees of Congress. Secretary Udall’s memo recognized the three categories of areas in the National Park System: natural, historical, and recreation. I wanted that defined by statute so that both the administration and the Congress were in agreement as to what’s in the park system…. Then we wrote these three management handbooks, [which] compiled for the first time in one place the individual policies that applied to natural areas, historical areas, and recreation areas.

Then another thing that we did was—we didn’t have any agreed-upon mission statement for the Park Service—so we developed what we called the Pledge of Public Service [card]. I’ll give you that if you don’t have one.8

G.H.– That was our mission statement. You turn that over on the other side, and there were goals, our goals in personnel management, because, you see, at that time if you left the Park Service, you were gone forever. They didn’t want you back. My experience was that I would welcome you back with the added experience and learning that you’d acquired. That’s one of the goals you see listed on the card. We [encouraged] you to go out and get additional experience.

Absolutely—and changing a structure that’s based on books to a structure that’s based on people. That concept of [having a] mission statement and the secretary’s memorandum saying what his objectives for the Park Service were, and we then developed those individual administrative policies that codified these sections. Then we developed program goals each year to tie it to the budget and that I meant to have mentioned that earlier, but I’ll mention it now.

The first thing I did when I came to Washington was I took control of the budget, personnel, and legislation with the explanation that I didn’t care who approved the master plan. Nobody was getting any people or money until I approved the budget and made the personnel appointment. So the critical juncture of management is people and money, and then legislation, the foundation for both of them. You can’t operate without money, and you can’t achieve your objective of expanding the system without the Congress, because they set the public-land policy of America—you don’t. So you’ve got to involve them. I took legislation, budget, and personnel; they were my province. Then I delegated the rest of the operation to the deputy, associate, and assistant directors in the Park Service. Now about that there are a lot of questions. Some of them say it was a good job, and some of them say that it was not done very well. But that’s why I’ve got Bill, and he’ll fill you in on that.

The other thing I did is that I wanted to know what my customer thought about my operation. What are the visitors getting, and what do the visitors have a right to get? So I set up an operations evaluation team.

I wanted to know that internal controls were in place as required by the laws enacted by Congress and the regulations promulgated by the General Accounting Office [now the Government Accountability Office], the Office of Management and Budget, and the secretary for accountability for money and property. I had an assistant director for administration who oversaw these functions, but I wanted to know more.

The Park Service is in the park-resource-preservation and people-serving business. You can have a clean bill of health from the auditors that tells you no one went south with anything of value. But it does not tell you how well you accomplished the mission. I established an operations evaluation unit to answer that question. The unit was small with two clerical workers and three senior executives who had experience in legislation and regulations, budget and appropriations, personnel management, and field operations.9

There were three people of senior rank on the team. One of them had been my previous personnel officer. One of them had been my previous chief of legislation and congressional affairs, and one of them had been a previous regional director: Hank [Henry G.] Schmidt, Frank Harrison, Jack Pound. They traveled. That’s all they did. No audit. They were forbidden to go into the back office and look at the books. Their view was the visitor’s view in the park. What do the signs look like? What is the condition of the roads? What do the buildings look like? What is the condition of interpretation? Does it have a story that the visitor understands and is interested in? Is it communicated well? Or does he [the ranger] have on a dirty uniform and not know what he’s talking about? What does the visitor see? That’s what I wanted to know.

They went from area to area and what they found to be excellent or very good in one area they shared with another, so in that way what was innovative and creative was quickly spread to the field where it counted. What was a real problem they sent to me in a blue envelope,10 a lousy park operation or a superintendent not on top of the job. I sent a copy [of the report] to the regional director with a note that I wanted to see him and the superintendent in my office in thirty days to discuss this.

The first one that went out happened to be involving one of my favorite people, Fred Fagergren, who had been superintendent of Grand Teton and whom I had just promoted to be regional director in Omaha. He got that memorandum, and he just came apart. You couldn’t imagine this wonderful man using such language to describe the inspector who wrote that report. What did he know about park operations? “Well,” I said, “Fred, he doesn’t know anything about them, but I had the doctor certify that he has very good vision. He can see. He’s not blind and that’s all that is—a report on what he saw. The signs are not maintained. The road has potholes in it. The ranger had a dirty uniform on. The other thing that he [the inspector] went on about involved an interpretive program in which the person stood in front of him and read half of it instead of having memorized the exercise. That’s what the visitor saw and it was a lousy visitor experience, and that’s what I want to talk about.” “Well, I know that’s not the way it is,” [Fagergren retorted]. I said, “Well, why don’t you do this. Why don’t you just cool off and go to the park and see what’s happening. Maybe it’s not the same park that you left.” Well, he quieted down.

Three or four weeks went by and it was time for my meeting. Helen Johnson, my secretary, called Fred to set up the meeting. One afternoon, late, I got a call from Fred and he said, “We don’t need that meeting.” I said, “Oh, yes, we need that meeting, because I want to find out what’s at the bottom of all of this.” He said, “I’ve already done it [identified the problem] and it won’t happen again.” So the reports had the added incentive of giving the regional directors insight into how their parks were being run. Often they get involved in paperwork, just as the director does, and do not see park operations often enough.

Mr. Everhart, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the vision that you shared. In my reading, a theme of that vision that really stood out was relevancy, and maybe if you could talk about that, too.

W.E.– When the Park Service was formed back in 1916, there were maybe fifteen national parks. Within a couple of years, interestingly enough, the leaders of the Park Service decided one of the major objectives of the values of the park was education. The Park Service was established in 1916 and by 1920 in some of the major national parks they were trying out evening campfire programs. If you’ve ever gone to a national park they’re still doing that to tell people about things. Horace Albright, one of the founders in Yellowstone, was hiring naturalists. And they used to give walks, and in the evening put on slide shows. Well, they called it initially “education.” Then they thought that sounded more like lectures and so forth, but what they were doing was telling people stories about the animals, and the flowers, the trees, … “interpreting” wildlife management, biology, geology, and so forth. Essentially, they were translating a foreign language. So interpretation became one of the four important park activities, along with ranger activities, administration, and maintenance.

At the time I joined the Park Service, I was a historian at the University of Pennsylvania working on a Ph.D. I came back to Gettysburg, my hometown, over a weekend and ran into the park historian at Gettysburg, who offered me a job as a seasonal. So I worked one summer and then went back to school until the Park Service invited me to come back and be a permanent employee. Well, at that time I didn’t think that much of the Park Service and I thought it over. But I did figure here I was, nearing 30. I didn’t even own an automobile. I needed the money. So I joined, intending to finish up the Ph.D. soon.

In the first six years I was in the Park Service, I had six different jobs. What I realized is that the archeologists, the architects, and the historians and so forth were doing programs in the park which should be of a value and an excellence comparable to the park itself. When you’re doing things in Yellowstone, whether you’re doing the visitor center, or whether you’re doing the exhibits in the museum, they ought to be on the same level of [quality] and interest as the park itself. This is no place to do sloppy work.

Underneath the Gateway Arch, the Park Service planned to develop the largest museum it had ever undertaken. That’s what George called me to do. But as we made visits to Eero Saarinen’s office and saw the quality of the work being done, we got the idea of why not hire Saarinen to do the museum? We would do all of the historical research and have him design the museum.

So I went up a couple of times to his office— so we decided to ask Saarinen to do the museum. He agreed and invited Eames to help. I don’t know if you’re a fan of Charles Eames,11 the chair maker and designer and so forth— Well, to make a long story short, they made their pitch to the director. He told them, “No, we already have the best museum designers in the country.” But later on, the museum was designed by a former Saarinen architect.

G.H.– That’s the vision we brought back here. And that caused a lot of consternation, because it had been an organization that was run by personalities and by administrative manuals. We had fifty-six of those books, and I was convinced that that was the bottom line of why we couldn’t bring about any change. So I asked the regional directors about that, because we had to not only develop our program standards but also develop personal performance standards. These standards told the employee the conditions that exist when the job’s done satisfactorily. I was convinced from what I was hearing that always we went back to those cotton-picking manuals.

So I asked the regional directors to look at the manuals. They agreed that many of them were out of date but said we should keep them because it insured uniformity, and that’s when I came unhinged. I said, “You know, that happens to be the last thing I’m looking for. I want creativity, and innovation, and we’ll get it my way, if we abolish them.” And I abolished every one of them, thinking that never again would the Park Service be able to put them together, because they wouldn’t have that many people. Well, I wasn’t gone five years before they’d rewritten up to seventy volumes of them. Do you want to know the difference in the Park Service then and now? That’s it! Now you’re using a book to run the place, and back then we used people to run the place. I’m perfectly happy to have the record compared when we used people as opposed to when you use books.

I guess part of that emphasis on people was, again, with this idea of relevancy, looking for ways to reach out to a broader American public, a more diverse American public, and attract them to the parks.

We were already excluding from our management over half of our population, because no woman except one and no minority had any management job in the uniform service of the National Park Service. We had one woman who was a park superintendent. She [Wilhelmina S. Harris] was Mr. [Brooks] Adams’s secretary when the Adams [Memorial Foundation] gave the Adams Mansion to the National Park Service, and the requirement in the transition was that she be retained as the manager of the estate. I like to tell the story that the only woman superintendent we had was a gift. And that was it.12

That was the situation when we opened the system up to women and minorities. We also opened up the Park Police. I appointed the first minority chief of any major police department in the United States. You know, here we are—and we’re saying that crime is rampant and that most of it is in the center [inner] cities. Most of it is generated by impoverished minority groups, and yet who is running the place? We have nobody who can speak their language. We’ve got nobody who is empathetic to them. And I learned from my experience in St. Louis where our guard force was African Americans. They were some of the most competent people I had there. I don’t think there was any one of them whom we had who didn’t have the respect of every professional we had on the staff there.

Can you put that in the context of President Johnson’s Great Society program? It seems like what you were trying to accomplish also fit into the broader goals of the administration.

I don’t think there’s any question but that the success of it depended upon the fact that it was consistent with what he and the secretary were trying to do. But I think that my explanation is: Why was I so committed to that? Because my experience from my youth said to me that women are the most competent people. Our family was saved by my mother, not by my father, because the Great Depression had made an invalid out of him. Our family was saved by her. So I knew what women could do.

Of course, I had the same experience with the blacks in the South. I knew that some of the most talented people in our town, our little rural country town, were the black people. An electrician who was a black man was one of the most competent people in town, but he had to come into your house by the back door. That was repulsive to me. Those were the motivating factors that said, you can’t exclude such people from management and have a successful team. But certainly it would never have succeeded without being consistent with what the secretary and the president wanted. And President Johnson’s experience was very much like mine. We both were raised in the South.

It sounds like you’re describing a very personal commitment to the goals of the Great Society. Is that accurate? Do you want to elaborate on that?

Absolutely. I don’t have any problem with that [the goals of the Great Society]. I believed [in] that and I believe it still to this day. Yes, I do. I believe that and I think that we are leaving behind a great segment of our population, which is a tragic failure of government. But that’s not because the government employees are incompetent. That’s because we’ve got an administration that doesn’t share those objectives.

A common Southern reason for believing black people are poor is because they’re lazy. Well, it’s just a falsehood, that’s all. They have had no opportunity. When they have opportunity they’re as successful as anybody else.

Certainly the Park Service has begun in the last ten years to incorporate sites into the National Park System that reflect a more diverse history. Is that a trend that you’ve also seen?

W.E.– Women’s Rights National Historical Park, speaking of the way in which that [trend is exemplified]—and another one, we can talk about how Wolf Trap came about.13

G.H.– You know, Bill Everhart and I believed that our historical cultural parks were mostly birthplaces and battlefields. That was what we were commemorating. The military started it by saving battlefields, which ultimately in the 1930s were transferred to the Park Service and became the core of our historical parks in the system today. Birthplaces and battlefields, but nothing in between about what the creative people who came to this country accomplished. Every politician is anxious to jump out and proclaim [these sites as symbols of] the American way of life. When I became director, we hadn’t commemorated any of that. We started that [effort] when Bill and I were in the Park Service, and Wolf Trap is one of them. We had a whole list of cultural park proposals.

I even had a cultural park on the boards to interpret the cultural heritage of the Zuni Tribe…. It would have been a “counterpart proposal.” We would interpret the Zuni history and we would put in a Park Service career organization, and the chairman of the Zunis would appoint a counterpart. NPS and American Indian staff would work side by side. We agreed that when the Zuni had reached a level of competence that he could handle the job, we’d take our career employee out. [Eventually] that cultural park would be staffed entirely by Zuni Indians. Just think what a marvelous experience that would be today for somebody from New York being able to walk into a great cultural park in the Southwest and all they meet are Indians, Native Americans. Well, that went by the boards because one of the [Nixon administration’s] objectives in getting rid of me was to stop that legislative flow of new areas into the park system. The administration … operated under the slogan of “thinning of the blood.”14 I’m sure you’ve run into that.

If you would, talk about your concept of the system: how you would define it and whether it’s a finite thing or whether it should continue to grow; just your concept of parks as a system and how to determine what should come into the National Park System.

I saw a television program last night on this fantastic formation in the state of Washington. Did you happen to see that? Well, I forget what the title of the program was but it was about Missoula Lake. Have you ever heard of Missoula Lake?

I never had either. But there was a glacier independent of the Canadian glaciers that came down in the Ice Age that formed, that blocked the river that goes through Missoula, Montana, and created a 500-mile lake, 1,000 feet deep. And when the water broke the dam of the glacier from the Washington State side, that water washed across the state of Washington and into the Pacific Ocean. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s a formation that we don’t yet have in the National Park System. I think it should be in the National Park System. I think the natural areas have not had nearly the opportunity for expansion.

We still lack a good hardwood national forest park in the Northeast. We were going to do one in Pennsylvania. That was when the concept of national preserves came about. I told Joe [Rep. Joseph M.] McDade [of Scranton, Pennsylvania], the senior minority member on the House Appropriations Committee, that Pennsylvania had a large area of land that had been polluted with tailings from mining. This land could be set aside as a preserve. We were going to set it up as a preserve for thirty years with no visitation, use it for the Job Corps boys and girls to go in and restore the natural environment. The restoration could take decades but the result would be a great natural park. This is much like what the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] boys did in Shenandoah [National Park]. Shenandoah was all farmed over, cut over, burned over, and today we argue about the size of the wilderness. That’s what we could have if we used those preserves in that way in the Northeast [and took] over this mined out, depleted land, which often is a burden to the communities where which it exists. McDade could not get enough support and never introduced legislation. Instead he focused on Scranton, Pennsylvania, and railroads. He wanted the Park Service to look at Scranton as a site to interpret railroads. The Park Service was not interested in doing this. When McDade secured an appropriation for a railroad historic site, the Service had no choice. Steamtown [National Historic Site] was not the best national park but it is the only one that reflects the history of the railroads. We’re creating history everyday, so there will never be an end to historical areas.

We haven’t nearly finished commemorating the cultural achievements and the achievements of the Industrial Revolution in America and the contributions that … enrich our lives everyday. Those things ought to be in the National Park System. We’re building the park system for eternity, not for tomorrow. So you can talk away the relevance of it: “We got one that looks like that so we don’t need another one.” But we don’t have that one that talks about the Industrial Revolution. We have the Saugus Iron Works [National Historic Site], but the Saugus Iron Works to represent the Industrial Revolution is like a pimple on an elephant. I mean, there is so much more to the Industrial Revolution that is not commemorated. They got a little bit of the Ford family money in the museum to Henry Ford in the Detroit area. But heavens, that’s just a miniscule part of the whole story of transportation [as it evolved through the Industrial Revolution and afterward] in this country, none of which is in the National Park System. And all of which ought to be.

You mention the term “thinning of the blood,” which former director James Ridenour coined. How do you feel about that concept? Do you think that the process of deciding what sites come into the system has become too politicized?

Let me tell you. You can’t get it too politicized. You know why? Because the framers of the foundation of this government said politicians are the ones who are going to establish the public-land policy of America. That’s why you find that my term as director was so much different than those of my predecessors. Mather and Albright believed very much, as I did, in the role of the Congress. That’s why Mather spent thousands of dollars personally taking congressmen out to the parks.

I had a “show me” trip every year, in which I invited the Congress to go see the parks in the National Capital Region. The idea came from Horace Albright who said that the National Capital Parks was a microcosm of all of the natural areas and cultural areas that we had in the National Park System outside of Washington. And that’s true. We’ve got the monuments as cultural, historical areas; we’ve got Rock Creek Park, one of the first natural areas saved in the National Park System. We’ve got them all. So I ran that “show me” trip every year financed by a donation from Laurance S. Rockefeller, which Horace Albright arranged. Those members of Congress, the politicians, are the ones who make the policies so you’ll never get me to say that there is a “thinning of the blood” of any congressionally approved area, because that is the policy-making body of all public lands in America, not the bureaucrats in the National Park Service.

Now the historians, they have their criteria. Chickamauga [and Chattanooga National Military Park] may not be as historically significant as Gettysburg, but the Congress established them both. Who is to say which one shouldn’t be there? And certainly I can agree that Gettysburg was more influential in the course of [the Civil] War than perhaps Chickamauga. But I don’t know that I would exclude Chickamauga to have Gettysburg. I don’t think you can get too much politics in it [the selection of sites], that’s all I’m trying to say.

Related to that, in a 1981 interview you indicated that during your administration the Park Service witnessed what you called “the largest legislative explosion in its history.” I would love to hear you talk about how you account for that explosion. It sounds like recognizing the important role of Congress was part of that.

Absolutely. I wore out three pairs of shoes a year walking the halls of Congress to make it happen. Yes. Absolutely. That was it. That was my commitment. I never once missed a congressional hearing in which I was asked to testify. Not once, because that’s the body that sets the public-land policy of America. The president is important, because he represents one-third in the legislative process. He can veto it, and then it takes two-thirds plus one to overrule him. So he represents one-third minus one. But he’s not the maker of public-land policy, and neither is the director of the National Park Service. That’s why I was very careful to get my directive from the secretary confirmed by the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and a piece of legislation saying the National Park System consisted of natural, cultural, and recreational areas as the foundation for my management policies.

I’ll say this without any sense of criticism, but when the [presidential] administration decides in public-land matters that Congress doesn’t count, they’re absolutely totally mistaken, because that’s a constitutional responsibility of the Congress. It’s nothing dreamed up by one politician or one political party that has a minority or a majority of the voters at any time. That is a mandate given the Congress by the founders of the Constitution to set the public-land policy of America. So I never felt they were meddling. I did my damnedest, and I make no apologies, to engage them and cultivate them, and to take them fishing if that’s what it took to get the bill through. Or to take them hiking if that’s what it took to get the bill, whatever it took to get the bill through, I was for doing it.

You have also spoken over the years about the distinction between congressional authorization and appropriations, and how important getting the money was. Would you like to elaborate on that for a minute?

You better believe it. That was, so far as I know, the first time ever that I got the authorization committee [the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs] to go sit down and talk with the Appropriations Subcommittee [the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies]. But I was able to do that because of my total commitment to the fact that not only the authority that I had, but the money that I needed, had to come out of the Congress, because I can’t spend a nickel unless they give it to me. I’ve got to first get it authorized, and then I’ve got to get it appropriated. If there is a difference between the two committees, I can have all the authorization in the world, but if I can’t get the chairman of the Appropriations Committee to appropriate the money, it’s useless. That was when I was able to get congressmen and the leadership of my subcommittees [House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs and House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies] to sit down across the table from each other and talk about my budget. I don’t apologize for that. I think that is what has to be done if you’re going to get your money.

Let’s talk about cultural resources and historic preservation. Would you put your initiatives in the area of historic preservation in the broader context of the historic preservation movement at that time, and maybe talk a little bit about the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and what that meant for the Park Service?

Well, I looked on the Historic Preservation Act of 1966 as being the mechanism for the Park Service to extend its influence [in historic preservation], which began with the Antiquities Act of 1906 and increased with the 1935 Historic Sites Act.15 The 1935 legislation was the first time that the Congress assigned the Park Service responsibility for the preservation of our national history. Prior to that, the president was authorized to establish national monuments under the Antiquities Act of 1906. The president established national monuments by presidential proclamation. But in 1935 this young bunch of creative people came in the government as a result of the federal [New Deal] programs to put people back to work. I forget all their names, but it started with Ronnie Lee and Herb Kahler.16

The 1935 act was the one that authorized Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to recognize historic sites. That was the basis for St. Louis JNEM [Jefferson National Expansion Memorial]. JNEM was the first area established under the Historic Sites Act of 1935.17 The legislation gave us a broad charter, but it didn’t provide any money. By the time the 1960s came around, there were a lot of areas and program activities and other departments that were eroding the responsibilities in the areas of the National Park System (both the natural areas and especially our historic and cultural areas) [like] tearing down historic buildings, putting roads through the center city, knocking down historic districts.

Could you tell me a little more about your role in securing passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966?

In 1964, Rep. Albert M. Rains, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Housing, indicated to Laurance G. Henderson that he would be interested in pursuing a project of public interest after retirement. Henderson and Carl Feiss, a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, decided that the former congressman should lead a special committee that would examine preservation activities in Europe and prepare a report detailing the need for preservation in the United States.18

[There was] a young man, Larry Henderson, who was an assistant to Senator [John J.] Sparkman of Alabama, and Casey Ireland, assistant to Bill [William B.] Widnall. Bill Widnall was a Republican congressman from New Jersey on the House Subcommittee on Housing. Larry and Casey persuaded these legislators of the need to have a look at what was happening. They persuaded them to look at historic preservation in America using the insights that could be garnered from the restoration of the face of Europe after World War II . They19 went to the Ford Foundation and got financing for a grant from the Ford people to do this.

Gordon Gray, former secretary of the army in the Truman administration and former president of the University of North Carolina, was then the chairman of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which was an organization [that had grown] out of the 1935 Historic Sites Act. The Trust was established in 1949. The Park Service had played a key role in that with Ronnie Lee and Herb Kahler and others. I was an ex officio member of the board of directors of the National Trust. But the moving force in it was Gordon Gray. They [the board of directors] had enticed Gordon Gray to take over the leadership of that organization. Gordon Gray gave political muscle and enlarged the perspective of the Trust.

Henderson, Feiss, and Rains recruited members for the special committee. They invited heads of federal agencies involved in financing public construction projects or pursuing preservation activities to serve as ex officio members. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall was one, and [Secretary Robert C.] Weaver of Housing and Urban Development was one, and the [secretary of the] Department of Commerce was one.20

It was [urban renewal] programs that impacted the core of the cities, which is where you find most of the cultural resources in America. And the highways were just busting right through cities, destroying neighborhoods and historic heritage right and left. The money the Ford Foundation put up enabled them [Henderson and Feiss] to involve the Governors Association, and the League of Cities, and the [U.S.] Conference of Mayors, all of which were very potent political organizations. And in the league there were prominent preservationists.

Henderson served as the committee’s director and made the trip arrangements, assisted by Casey Ireland. The special committee, which became known as the Rains Committee, visited eight European countries with notable records in preservation.21

They went to Europe to discuss [restoration], and to discover, and evaluate what had happened on that continent after the devastation of World War II. The secretary designated me as his representative on that task force. That’s where my involvement started. So it was there that I made all of my contacts, with Phillip Hoff, governor of Vermont and a very prominent Democrat in the establishment, and Gordon Gray, whom I got to know very personally, and Casey Ireland and Larry Henderson.

Several weeks after returning from Europe, the Rains Committee met in New York City and approved recommendations that Feiss and Ireland had drafted for a new national historic preservation program in the United States.22

It just kind of evolved that we wrote a report. With Heritage So Rich [Random House, 1966] was the name of the final publication that included the report we wrote. One of the recommendations of the report was that [the federal government take an active role in historic preservation]. We took the position that the most important thing we needed was money to support state and local and private historic preservation efforts, which was a key to the success in Europe with the local government and private enterprise.

That trip brought all of this together. I reckon [the reason I was included] was primarily because I was an ex officio member of the board of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, but also because I was director of the Park Service, and the fact that I was a damned good lobbyist. I got a note from a guy that I have a great deal of respect for, Carl Hummelsine, who used to be the chief lobbyist for the State Department before he went to Williamsburg, as the president of Williamsburg, for the Rockefellers, and developed that. He wrote me one day a note [calling me] “the second best lobbyist in Washington.” Then he put, “P.S. I’m the first.” And he was, because he was there with John Foster Dulles, and he was the face of the State Department on the Hill. I don’t think there was a more prominently associated politician in Washington. He [later] went to Williamsburg.

Out of that Rains Committee came this proposal for legislation that would not only set the dimensions and create a National Register of historic sites and structures, which we found to be of special significance, especially in France, but would also provide money to match state and private money to give spirit and body to the historic preservation effort in America. It was left to Gordon Gray and me to get that legislation through the Congress.

As I understand, it wasn’t easy initially to get the draft legislation through Congress.

It wasn’t. I’ll tell you about it. Nobody paid much attention to the legislation until I got it to the Hill. And then when I got it to the Hill, then the HUD [Housing and Urban Development] people decided, “Oh, there’s money here.” Then all of a sudden Dillon Ripley of the Smithsonian discovered, “My goodness, there’s international representation here.” And this gives the Smithsonian a chance to branch out. Both of those [groups] tried to raid that legislation. I don’t take any credit for writing the bill, because that was done in the committee. But I was the principal [person] who got the [National] Historic Preservation Act of 1966 [passed]. And I’m the guy who saved those provisions of the international representation, the IUCN [The World Conservation Union]. The matching grants program which HUD wanted is in the Park Service today as a result of what I did in getting that bill through.

As you say, it wasn’t easy. But I had the confidence of Casey Ireland and Larry Henderson, a Republican and a Democrat, both of whom were most intelligent, articulate guys, who believed in me as an individual and who believed in what I was trying to do. They, too, believed in the concept of keeping the various historic preservation responsibilities together under one agency because of the close coordination required, rather than spreading it all over hell’s half acre. So yes, with Gordon Gray I take credit for having passed the Historic Preservation Act of 1966. There were many hands on the tiller getting to that point, but when it came down to the bottom line, it was Gordon Gray and I who got that bill through.

Your administration marked a transition in so many ways. The National Historic Preservation Act, as you mentioned, extended the Park Service’s preservation responsibilities outside park boundaries. We talked only briefly about the explosion of new legislation during your tenure, such as the National Trails System Act. Mr. Everhart, you wrote that Mr. Hartzog “might be termed the last director of the old Park Service.” I’d love to hear both of you comment on the idea that this was a transition period. Would you like to go first, Mr. Everhart?

W.E.– I think that with the coming together of President Johnson, Stewart Udall, and Hartzog for the Great Society, there was really sort of a revolution. I’m a historian. I know the people who live through a revolution never realize it. It’s the next generation who has to realize it. So that was the time, and the great tragedy for the country was that LBJ got caught up in the Vietnam War. And that is where all of the money went.

But during that time, all things were possible and the Park Service started looking where it had never looked before for parks and for activities. Like Wolf Trap, Stewart Udall and George, engaged in a little conversation, mainly, “Is culture a part of history?” And when they decided that it was, then many others expanded it [the number of cultural sites]. At the same time with the victory [for historic preservation, the Service started] getting involved in so many things that the organization itself got to be—I think in our time 7,000 employees; now it’s up to 15,000 employees—now it’s probably a bureaucracy. We always tried. At the same time we [the Service] are doing things that George and I would be astonished to even find out we’re doing. But once it started up it hasn’t stopped. The Park System has expanded, but I think it was during those days that it took off for the big revolution.

I suppose in looking back you would have thought it was a transition. I never really looked on it as a transition. I thought of it as a revitalization, and I still look on it as that. You look back at Steve Mather and Horace Albright, and I put them together, because of the great difficulty Mr. Mather had with two or more years of his administration.23 It was really Horace Albright’s administration. They were interchangeable in the years from when Mather was director through Albright’s term; it was really one.… That was a period in which the Service set its bounds, branched out into new areas. It had no historic areas. Horace Albright brought them in, in that one fortuitous trip that he made as a passenger with the secretary and President Roosevelt to Shenandoah and the Blue Ridge Parkway. That’s where Horace Albright got the historical areas in that few minutes that he talked with the president about it.24

So I looked on it as a revitalization of that era in which there were no limits. There was a great rapport between the Service and the Department [of the Interior]. The secretary was involved and gave me free rein to go and do. I always kept him fully informed. He knew everything I was doing.

Udall. I had the same kind of relationship with Secretaries [Rogers] Morton and [Walter] Hickel. They didn’t circumscribe me. That’s one of the reasons that they give for President [Richard] Nixon’s quote in [H. R.] Haldeman’s book: “Rogers Morton won’t get rid of the son-of-a-bitch. But he’s got to go.” Nixon meant “Morton wouldn’t contain him, so I’m going to contain him. I’m going to get rid of him,” you know. But they [administration officials] were a part of it, because I always kept the secretary advised of my activities and pending legislation. The White House wanted to stop the expansion of the National Park System.

Be that as it may, if people want to look on it as a transition, then it was a transition, because I’m sure we came out of it a different organization than we went in. The Park Service had become a bureaucratic organization hidebound by its books and its rules and regulations. I think Bill Everhart and Ted Swem and Howard Baker and Ed [Edward A.] Hummel, and those of us who had a new vision about what created the Park Service, could bring it [the organization] back to the [original mandate for the] Park Service. And we restored it by abolishing handbooks, making superintendents responsible for management, saying to the employees what a satisfactory level of performance is, what the policies are and they decide how to run the park on a day-to-day basis without having somebody in Washington write a book answering all of their unasked questions.

In that 1981 interview, you indicated that you had: “A freedom of movement which none of my successors have ever had, and which I doubt if any of them will ever have again.” It sounds like that’s what you were talking about with the support from the department.

Absolutely. Yes. I don’t know if any of them have had that liberty since, do you?

W.E.– Well, it’s gotten so big, but one thing is that George initially went in and got the approval from Udall that he [Hartzog] would appoint every superintendent in the park system. Well, that was a clever way to do it, because every park superintendent in the system was looking forward to moving upward, and he knew that he would have to impress George. So by doing that George was able to get the support he wanted. I guess, as I recall George’s conversation with me one time, he was pointing out that he gave the superintendents his authority, because they had to do things and make decisions and so forth. But he could not delegate his responsibility. In the end it was all going to come, the things that get out of hand, come back to him.

So that is the way to operate the system, and the difficulty was it got too big. Now it would be literally impossible. The Park Service has become a bureaucracy. I guess what’s happened is, it [the responsibility] has moved down. The superintendent now runs his park, and it’s a bureaucracy. And a lot of the goodwill came out of it [the Service when it became more bureaucratic]. [But] it’s still a great organization, and we still have a great park system.

G.H.– I met with every superintendent in the National Park System once every year, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We convened on Friday night, had our meeting on Saturday, and tried to adjourn by noon on Sunday, so they could be home to go back to work on Monday morning. They were invited to bring their spouses, and I met with the wives separately during that session to hear what they thought about the Park Service.

I don’t know. That took an awful lot of time from my family, but my wife approved of it before I started it. I left this area on Friday morning, and I didn’t come back usually until Monday, because if a superintendent wanted to stay individually and talk with me on Sunday after the meetings were over, I stayed overnight for that purpose. No minutes. No agenda. Just your problems, whatever you want to bring up we’re going to talk about it. The only record ever made was, if you brought up a problem and we agreed on an answer that had Service-wide implication, then that answer went out the next week on a pink memorandum to all regional directors so that that communication went throughout the Service. But otherwise no record was ever made of it.

I felt that was one of the most important things that I did in meeting with those guys, because we could sit across the table from each other and talk about their problems. I had no agenda. I spent the first fifteen minutes telling them what was going on in the department and in Congress, where the legislation was, where the appropriations were, what, if anything, the secretary was all churned up about and wanted to do something about. That was it.

I also insisted that the regional directors give me a list of five of the most talented people in their region every year. And I kept that list in my desk drawer. At the end of the year, I took it out and compared it with where those thirty-five people were at the end of the year. And generally every one of them had been moved to a new position during the course of that year.

Absolutely. We contracted with the Federal Executive Institute at Charlottesville, Virginia, to devise and implement a team-building program to foster cohesiveness in our changing organization. The institute was established by the Civil Service Commission (now the Office of Personnel Management) to train senior managers in the federal government. The University of Southern California loaned the director of its School for Public Administration, Dr. Frank Sherwood, to the federal government to head the institute. The sixty-day residential program that Sherwood designed for federal managers was the most creative, innovative effort made by the federal government during my career to improve the quality of government management. I attended the first session and sent some of my principal assistants to each session thereafter until each deputy, associate and assistant director, and each regional director had completed the program. I thought it was one of the most innovative, substantive things ever done to improve the quality of government management.