"Bob, this is Carl Mac Murray. Can you be at the secretary's office at 4:30 this afternoon? Wally wants to see you."

"Wally" was Secretary of the Interior Walter J. Hickel, elected governor of Alaska in 1966 and appointed secretary of the interior by Richard Nixon in 1969. Regarded by conservationists as a man who - seeing one lonely tree waving in a tundra windstorm - would think of building a saw mill to process it, Wally had, with considerable success, turned his critics into supporters with campaigns initiated to save the Everglades, vastly increase lands set aside for public enjoyment, and warn the oil companies that they would be held responsible for spills and other wildlife-killing disasters.

Continue reading Robert Zelnick in Politico’s Arena

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