John A. Carver, Jr. Oral History Interview – JFK#8, 11/25/1969 Administrative Information
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John A. Carver, Jr. Oral History Interview – JFK#8, 11/25/1969 Administrative Information Creator: John A. Carver, Jr. Interviewer: William W. Moss Date of Interview: November 25, 1969 Place of Interview: Washington, D.C. Length: 44 pages. Note: Page numbering begins at 80 and ends on 123. Biographical Note Carver was Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Public Lands Management from 1961 to 1964, Under Secretary of the Interior from 1965 to 1966, and Commissioner of the Federal Power Commission from 1966 to 1972. In this interview Carver discusses the working relationships the Department of the Interior had with various Senators on the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, in both the John F. Kennedy Administration and the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration, as well as his personal relationships with some of the same Senators, among other issues. Access Open. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed June 23, 1997, copyright of these materials has been assigned to the United States Government. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish. Copyright The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.” If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excesses of “fair use,” that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. The copyright law extends its protection to unpublished works from the moment of creation in a tangible form. Direct your questions concerning copyright to the reference staff. Transcript of Oral History Interview These electronic documents were created from transcripts available in the research room of the John F. Kennedy Library. The transcripts were scanned using optical character recognition and the resulting text files were proofread against the original transcripts. Some formatting changes were made. Page numbers are noted where they would have occurred at the bottoms of the pages of the original transcripts. If researchers have any concerns about accuracy, they are encouraged to visit the Library and consult the transcripts and the interview recordings. Suggested Citation John A. Carver, Jr., recorded interview by William W. Moss, November 25, 1969, (page number), John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program. John A. Carver, Jr. – JFK #8 Table of Contents Page Topic 80 Clinton P. Anderson’s sphere of influence on Department of the Interior matters 82 Carver’s relationship with Anderson 85 Carver’s relationship with Henry M. Jackson 87 Carver deals with personal biases in the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration 89 The North Cascades National Recreation Area and Park 93 Jackson’s areas of interest as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs 95 Alan Bible as Chairman of different Senate Interior subcommittees 96 Carver’s relationship with Frank Church after leaving his staff to work in the John F. Kennedy [JFK] Administration 99 Personnel flow from the Hill to the White House and back 101 Ernest Gruening—asking for too much, and not doing it nicely 104 Edward Lewis Bartlett and the importance of Alaska to Interior 106 Partisanship and other divisions in the Senate Interior Committee 110 Carl T. Hayden—Interior Secretary Stewart L. Udall’s “own Senator” 112 Frank Edward “Ted” Moss and the Canyonlands project 115 Thomas H. Kuchel—sometimes more Democrat than Republican 116 Additional Senate members and the Interior Committee 117 Contact between Interior and the staff of a Senate committee 120 JFK’s Administration’s relationship with Congress Eighth Oral History Interview With JOHN A. CARVER, JR. November 25, 1969 Washington, D.C. By William W. Moss For the John F. Kennedy Library CARVER: …all the Administration types. Sort of more like analysis. MOSS: Yes. Well, I think there is a lot of not just getting things off your chest in these sessions but a rethinking, a re-perspective, and that kind of thing. Let’s see, last time we were talking about people in the House of Representatives who were on the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and on the Appropriations Committee for Interior and Related Agencies. I’d like to talk a bit first, today, about people in the Senate in much the same way. And I suppose that the man to start off with is Clinton Anderson [Clinton P. Anderson], [-80-] who was originally the Chairman of the Committee, as I understand it, and then gave way to Jackson [Henry M. Jackson], what, when Anderson’s health began to fail, or was it for some other reason? CARVER: Oh, I’m sure it was not that. Anderson took the chairmanship of the Space Committee [Senate Aeronautical and Space Science Committee]. MOSS: That’s right, that’s right. CARVER: His health was better then than it is now. He always was kind of a hypochondriac, always growling about his health, but he always seemed able to do his work, still does. But the change rose out of his taking the chairmanship of that other committee, and Scoop Jackson succeeded him. Anderson is such a grey eminence in this field, has so many whiskers in it, that it took a year or two for that to shake down, for everybody to remember that Anderson wasn’t still the chairman, that Jackson was the man in charge. I don’t remember the—I guess that change took place right at the beginning of that Congress, didn’t it? MOSS: Yes, just about. [-81-] CARVER: 1961? MOSS: Yes. CARVER: So that Anderson was a major force, but on a kind of a declining basis as Jackson’s star rose a little bit that year. We had the great, big wilderness fight, of which Anderson was the leader. He delegated the actual floor leadership to Frank Church, but behind the scenes and in every way that you can imagine.... Nothing would ever go in the conservation area without Anderson’s support, and nothing that he opposed ever was going to really get through, at least for the first two or three years. MOSS: Any instances of, say, direct interference in the decision-making in the Interior or anything of this sort? CARVER: Oh, I don’t believe that Anderson did much. MOSS: I would interpret that pretty broadly; I don’t necessarily mean it pejoratively. CARVER: No, I recognize that. My relationships with Anderson were rather special because when I was nominated to be Assistant Secretary, Anderson, for reasons which I can only speculate, opposed [-82-] me. He didn’t actually oppose me, but he said rather explicitly that he thought that was a lousy appointment. I later found out, I think, that one of his staff members, who has since died, kind of poisoned his mind. I had the pleasure of having him publicly acknowledge his change of mind on it, on at least two occasions, most specifically when I was later nominated to be Under Secretary, but also in certain hearings thereafter. But because he had stood as an obstacle to my appointment at the outset, my relationships with him, personally, never were—well, they were always quite careful, even after all of this had passed by, and after we were on good terms. Everybody was careful with Clinton Anderson, but I was particularly careful with Clinton Anderson. Udall [Stewart L. Udall], on the other hand, got along with him very, very well, and indeed that was part of his problem with other senators and with the House members, because he was so buddy-buddy [-83-] with Clint Anderson. He consulted him, and he advised him that he was planning to do and confided in him and so on. I wouldn’t be able to remember anything specific that Anderson got in. I think I eventually got back on sound terms with him when I took a strong executive position on grazing fees, for one thing. He’d been a cabinet officer himself and recognized, you know, that the time comes when you have to stand for that prerogative. And I think he also began to get a lot of good reports back from out in the field from a lot of his constituents—he’s got a Western constituency in New Mexico, that they could communicate, work with the Department under my leadership well, so that I think he, you know, came around to an affirmative position. But a senator who makes up his mind in one direction generally still has that view in the back of his mind; you never really erase it. But back to your question as to anything specific: I suppose that his position on Indians [-84-] was as critically important to the Department’s program, at least the part I was concerned with, as anything else. There was no possible way of working out some of our administrative problems involving Indian problems when he was opposed, and on some things, he was just flat opposed to some of the programs which the Administration wanted to do. I don’t know of anything that we got through in that area easily over his opposition. As I’ve said before, he was opposed to Philleo Nash, and that kept a bad relationship there, over time.