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Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Great Britain at the age of 65 on this date in 1940. May 10, 1940 was a moment of dynamism militarily and politically as Hitler’s forces swept across Belgium en route to France. One purported bulwark—the famed Maginot...

Alaska Lt. Governor candidate and Chair of the U.S. Arctic Commission Mead Treadwell on Walter Hickel: Gov. Wally Hickel, who invited me in to his world when I was a high school grad visiting Alaska in 1974, and in the 36 years I worked with him, here in Alaska and...

Photo: Courtesy of Foreign Policy Magazine photo feature “Leaders and their moms:” Senator Nixon with mother Hannah Nixon at her home in 1951.

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...

The New York Times has just put up a lengthy obituary of Walter J. Hickel, two-time Alaskan Governor and President Nixon’s first Secretary of the Interior who died last night in Anchorage. With Governor Hickel’s passing, George P. Shultz (Secretary of Labor,...

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...

"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...

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...