News

Oil Spills And Federal Leadership

Walter Hickel’s death comes at a time when the nation is focused on the causes and consequences of offshore oil spills.  As the newly-minted Secretary of the Interior —literally newly-minted, having only been confirmed six days earlier— Wally Hickel had to deal with...

Hickel Was One Of A Kind

Wally Hickel was one of a kind. When President Nixon appointed him Secretary of the Interior, he asked me to help Wally get his office organized. Secretary Hickel became my first boss in the Nixon Administration and my life long friend. When Frank Sinatra sings, “I...

Walter J. Hickel   1919-2010

"The conservationists cheered me when we fought against pollution or when we preserved park lands; they attacked me when we advanced the Alaska Pipeline and the North America energy grid. My friends and associates in business were equally perplexed. I was not their...

RN’s Conservationist

Former Alaska Governor and RN Interior Secretary Walter Hickel died today. He was 90. Hickel was a trail blazer for President Nixon’s environmental agenda early on, leading the cleanup after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil rig explosion and conservation efforts for the...

Camelot And Sacred Cow–Tipping

Whatever his obvious faults and flaws, it is somewhat understandable that Richard Nixon would ruminate about how Jack Kennedy got away with a lot during his assassination-shortened presidency. And there is no doubt that the 37th President of the United States saw all...

Kent State, 40 Years Later

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of one of the Nixon era’s most tragic events, when four students were killed by Ohio National Guard gunfire at the campus of Kent State University during an antiwar demonstration. The shootings were followed by a nationwide student...