Spencer Smith oral history transcript

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Interview with Spencer Smith… Former FWS Director

as Interviewed by Steve Chase

< Tape Begins>

Spencer Smith: Very fine evening , we had the opportunity to be with Lynn Greenwalt

and Judy for dinner. Then John Connor joined us and a great review of many things that

did happen and some things that didn’t happen.

Steve Chase: Well did you come over from California just for this?

SS: Oh yes… <SC: interjects..” oh that’s great, that’s wonderful.”> I guess Steve was

the instigator, or someone was, I’ m not sure.

SC: Well a couple of us have been talking about it for awhile, and you have been on our

radar screen for over a year to try to get you to come and talk to us. So we are glad that

you could. Where did you go to school to get your Biology degree.

SS: I did my college work at Oregon State University, came out of the Navy right after

WWII. Was located in Corvallis, Oregon. An individual that I had been with for a

number of years in the Navy, was the former Instructor of Wildlife at Purdue University.

He rather introduced me into the Fish and Wildlife profession during those years of Navy

time. In fact he and I were stationed in Corvallis, Oregon on our last segment of duty and

so I chose Oregon State as my school, I am quite pleased that I did. As you know back in

those days there where only four or five schools that offered degrees in Fish and Wildlife

management.

SC: What do you, recall, were there any influential text books back then.

SS: The lack of text books was a real problem. A couple of Ira Gablesons books and

quite frankly I don’t recall the name of them, but, more of a philosophical concept of

wildlife management. Al Day was a past graduate of the school, the then Director of the

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Fish and Wildlife Service, and he was out several times for seminars and so forth. So

we did get and introduction not only to the fishery management aspects of our education,

but equally important we had some good insight from leadership at both the State level

and Federal level during the time that I was there.

SC: Interesting, excuse me I want to take your name tag off… When did you first join the

Fish and Wildlife Service.

SS: I joined the Fish and Wildlife Service in 19 and 48, interestingly enough I graduated,

I got my Bachelors from Oregon State and received a teaching assistantship appointment

at Texas A&M University. I went there to study under a Leonard Wing who was an

outstanding fisheries man of that day. By the time I arrived at A & M he had just

accepted a job at another school. After a bit of chatting with the new individual, I decided

not to continue my education there. The individual that introduced me to the Fish and

Wildlife field, Gordon Ferdeen, at that time was Regional Supervisor of River basin

studies in Atlanta Georgia. I joined him, at a salary of $2,900.00 per year. With an

income of $101.00 every two weeks take home pay. After nine months I starved out in

Atlanta, and at about that time the State of Mississippi was looking for there first

professional Fishery Biologist as you know the state of Mississippi has both a very large

inland fishery both commercial and sport, as well has the coastal fishery. Which at that

time was quite an income for the state. The Governor of the state looking around for

trained scientist learned that I was trained, and that I was from Texas, I was raised on the

Texas Coast, so he asked me to come over and establish a Fisheries Commission for the

State, and I did so, was there some five and a half years. Felt that I had pretty well

accomplished what I set out to do, and then went back to work for the Fish an Wildlife

Service, in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Handling the lower Mississippi Valley project studies for the Corp. of Engineers for the

Fish and Wildlife Service. I worked there until I moved to Atlanta in …Oh I don’t know

…58, 57 or 58…1957 or 58. As the Assistant Regional Supervisor of river basin. A

couple of years later I was made the Regional Supervisor of river basins, and then a

couple years later I was named the Assistant Director of Operations for the Atlanta

Region. Stayed there until I went to Washington on a six month assignment to serve as

the Assistant Director under John Godshelt on a training type assignment , seven years

later I left Washington. During my time in Washington I was named the Deputy Director

of the Service. At one point in my Washington period I served under the Assistant

Secretary as his Special Assistant. A Dr. Leslie Valasco who was the Assistant Secretary

under Secretary Hickcock. Was appointed acting Director, I guess in 68 or…69 it was.

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We were in Washington as the Director for three years, and my wife became very ill

with a allergy situation that we had no choice but to get to high and dry country, so we

relocated in Denver Colorado.

SC: Lets jump back to Vicksburg. Bottom land hardwood habitats were vanishing more

and more during that time period. What was it like during your fist couple years working

in that office. What did you focus on and do you have any neat stories about back then?

SS: Well the interesting part of my Mississippi days was both at the State level then at

the Fish and Wildlife Service level. Yes… at that point and time major studies Corp. of

Engineers studies, were going on for flood control of that total Delta region of

Mississippi. A region some 220 miles long and 100 miles wide, that had formerly flooded

by the Mississippi River almost every year. One of the most beautiful bottom land,

hardwood, Oxbow Lake, southern type streams you could find. So I witnessed the

destruction of a great deal of that by flood control projects. I also learned to be an

environmentalist the hard way. In that in many instances when I would appear at a Corp.

of Engineers hearing either for the State or for the Service. In both capacities, when it

became for me to present the Fish and Wildlife plan for the project, most of the audience

would get up and walk out to show their distaste of Fish and Wildlife interference in their

flood control. So I came up in the service with a bit different background of seeing

public reaction and seeing the attitudes of other interests as it related to Fish and Wildlife

habitat. And probably from that acquired a bit different look at the real role of the Fish

and Wildlife Service than perhaps some of my earlier pedessesors had looked at the

Service. I came to the Directorship looking at the total role of the Fish and Wildlife

resources. Rather than looking at the structural division or the functional division of each

of the things that the Fish and Wildlife Service did. An example here is refuges, over the

several decades of building refuges, in our organization, which was an appropriate thing

to do. But we had reached the point that refuges were becoming an end into themselves,

and I felt my challenge was to try to make the Fish and Wildlife Service an agency

responsive across the board to all resources. So I set up a different management approach.

Which in substance looked at the role of the Service rather than the function of the

Service. We left the functions in place, the columns in place, but then we cross sectioned

that with horizontal lines looking at major program areas. For example Migratory Birds,

Wetlands our Habitat. Then you would take a migratory bird problem and see what part

refuges played in that program, you’d look at what part Law Enforcement played in the

program, what part fisheries could play in this particular type of program and this

program was put into effect. It gained good support in the Congress. When I took over

the leadership of the agency our budget was,140 million dollars. Three years later we

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were well over 400. In Lynn Greenwalts second year of office which was my last

budget cycle we were well over 500 million. So I felt that the approach did demonstrate

the proof of the puddin’ .

SC: Were you discouraged when people would turn around and walk out of those

meetings on ya or did it just make you more determined.

SS: Oh yes, at first anybody would like to be liked. You like to be one of the guys. But

after while you had to come that hard decision, what am I here for. Then you begin to get

aggravated then your determination begins to grow, Then you begin to protect yourself

politically, because you are in many cases out there by yourself. I can recall for example

on one particular project that incorporated both Louisiana, Mississippi, and, Arkansas.

Within a three week period I was instructed to appear at three Senators offices and two

Congressmen’s offices. So that they could inform me to get “my you know what” out of

their project and if I didn’t that they would assure me that the Fish and Wildlife Service

would dispense of my services in short order. That was a bit discouraging but it didn’t

seem to interfere with what I felt that I needed to do. Fortunately we had good

Washington support, so we kept our nose to the grindstone and I think we in the end

became fairly successful. We were practicing ecology, and environment, and all of those

things before many of the environmentalists of today were out of their cradles, and sort

of doing it the hard way.

SC: Did you ever get discouraged?

SS: No. . . I probably not because I am not a person that discourages very easy. I guess ,

if anything I have the name, “ if you don’t want me to do something don’t tell me not to

do it.” I am sure that was to my benefit over the years, entering into a occupation as I did

and more importantly entering at the time that I did. So it was such a delight to see the

seventy’s arrive, and see that new movement of environmental awareness, begin to grow.

To see the Earthday happenings in Washington, and I happened to be there when that

occurred. I looked out the Department of Interior Building windows, and I thought to

myself where have you been the last forty years, a bit late in coming. < SC: interjects “ I

was in New York on Earthday in 1970, I was ten years old and my parents brought me

there. There were people everywhere. “> It was the same way in Washington as you well

know.

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SC: Lets talk a bit about your fisheries back ground, as far as how do you think the

Service did with its fisheries programs back in the sixties and seventies? Do you think the

fisheries were put in the right place in the Fish and Wildlife Service, I know that we

moved the commercial fisheries over to Commerce at one point. How do you think the

Federal Government has done with fisheries?

SS: Now you are speaking of fisheries total both commercial and sport . Yes, there were

those years that we were one Agency the old Fish and Wildlife Service, then came the

years of having us as two bureaus, Bureau of Commercial Fishers and Bureau of Sport

Fishers and Wildlife. And then the decision to abolish the commissioner and send the

Commercial Fishers over to Noah, or to Commerce I feel that was a good decision.

I feel that the Commercial Fisheries because of the commerce aspects of it, and as we

were really getting into a worldwide fisheries consideration, that this was a good move. I

thought it was a better move after the decision was made to place them under Noah.

Because it seemed to fit so well with those things that that particular assignment was

dedicated to. Looking at the Fisheries within the Service, and I look back first at

basically the hatchery years. Then you look at those years of the early fishery services, in

which we provided technical service to military installations, we provided technical

service to in some instances the Forest Service other Federal entities, and fisheries

services too, to individual groups. I think we did a outstanding job of bringing an

awareness of fisheries, an understanding of fisheries into focus. Through that select group

of people within the Fish and Wildlife Service. As I recall I think John Gotshalt was the

father of that concept, and that it did add a great deal to the fishery understanding and

fishery interest, in this nation. Where we will go in the future with fisheries I’m not sure,

I look at hatcheries, at times you wonder will hatcheries go the way that whale hatcheries

did. I doubt that they will. I think that some part of the hatchery program probably will.

As we learn more about the total environment, and we can appreciate better how to have

natural fishery production, and as we are now seeing some real resentment on the part of

some of the fishing interest groups, on this matter of certain types of hatchery production,

particularly on the West Coast. I think that there are going to have to be some new

concepts brought into play as we look at the future of the hatchery operation within the

Service. Yes, there will be certain levels of mitigation that you are producing fish for

replacement porpoises. But I’m not sure where it will go, and I think that it is incumbent

upon the Service right at this time to begin to decide what is the best route. As I

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understand that is now being done within the Service, which I think is their most

appropriate step.

SC: Rick said last night that you guys were talking about an airplane in Alaska can you

tell us that story.

SS: Yes I can, I am not sure if this should become part of the public record but yes we

should tell this story. In the days of John Greenwalt as Director, we had a Commissioner

but the name of Clarence Posskey, who was a Washington State individual. I had been

the Director of Fisherys for the State of Washington for long a number of years. Quite a

good Commissioner. He was a close friend to the then, Madame Chairman of the

appropriations Subcommittee for Interior in the House. Her name was Julie Butler

Hanson, and she loved to take trips to Alaska, and every time we would take her up on

the old amphibious Goose, aircraft that we were using, we had a number of them. There

was no way she could get out of that aircraft without bumping her head. And she was

quite a salty gal, and could use those words quite eloquently, and one day she made the

comment, I will not come back to Alaska until you come up with a different type of

airplane. Our response was if you have the money, we got the time. So we started with a

Grumman Goose, a two engine radio, amphib job, with a short body and we put a center

section in it, extended the center of the aircraft. We put a couple of General Electric

turbines on it, and we made it a almost fail safe working platform. After awhile we

began to call it the “Golden Goose” because of the price of, the cost on converting the

thing. After we completed all of the rebuilding then of course, we had to take it through

the total certification process. Because it was a completely new airplane, it was not a X

airplane, not an experimental, it was an airplane that was developed for our use. And we

could really not fly it without a great deal of liability unless we went through the

complete process of wing stress, all of the floatation stress on it. So we took it

everywhere in the United States getting all of these tests done. And I think when Lynn

came in as Director he then renamed it the Platinum Goose, interestingly enough John

Turner was telling me last night that on his last trip to Alaska, he flew the airplane, and

every trip that he went up he flew the airplane, and what a great working platform that it

still is. During the days of the refurbishing and the rebuilding of it. We began to run into

those normal problems of excessive cost on real small items. Like all of the control

knobs up above the wind shield on the thing, and they had installed a lot of additional

navigational gear in, the little knobs ya know, cost over a hundred dollars apiece if you

bought them from an aircraft production company. In one of our well intentioned and

intelligent aircraft mechanics said ya know I drink a wine that the tops on those bottles

look just like those knobs. Lets drill them and put pins in them. When I first saw the

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airplane and I assume they are still in there all of the upper control section, all of the

control knobs were off the top of wine bottles and they worked perfectly. So there was a

great deal of innovation, but as you know in Alaska you have to have a safe working

platform, and the only feasible working platform in Alaska is a aircraft. And this airplane

has been well worth its money. Because it has provided our people and many other

people with the ability to move about the state and do it in a safe manner. The airplane

was equipped navigationally and fuel wise in the event of a fog out in the northern part of

the state, that the aircraft could either fly to the Hawaiian Islands or it could fly to

Seattle, and it had the best radio communication, instrument landing and so forth in it. So

it proved out to be a good investment.

SC: Did you see that sense of innovation in Service people everywhere you went when

you were Director.

SS: Fish and Wildlife Service people are people that can get anything done even with a

piece of baling wire pair of pliers, and a screwdriver. They can make things happen. But

now let me add to that, and let me put it this way so I hope it will not be misunderstood.

Ya know at times an agency can be shoulder deep in people that know how to do things,

and not have enough capability in people that know what to do. That is a real distinction

as you begin to look at leadership of an agency. I think that we have seen some very

good changes in the last couple of decades in bringing people into the organization that

know what to do. That is where the real decision process has to occur within an agency.

Now I probably should have not have added that last little comment with regard to the

question you asked me. But I think it is so important that you balance your organization

with people that know how to get things done but equally important that you have those

individuals that know what should be done. Because in so many instances agencies will

get off on a tangent that involves how you do things and not what the real issue is, and

what the real resource need is.

SC: What did you most enjoy about being Director?

SS: The day when I had to advise them I would no longer be a Director, no I am kidding.

Because of my back ground of looking at the total biology, looking at the resource

programming rather than the functional programming it was a pleasure to have come into

leadership at the time that the new Environmental movement was starting up, was taking

place . Because this gave the opportunity to fulfil some of those things that I had felt so

deeply in those early years when ya know I was standing up before a crowd and most of

them was leaving the room. And to have the type of support and assistance that I was

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given by the then Secretary of the Interior Roger Morton, and the then Assistant to the

Secretary of the Interior Nat , Nathaniel Reed, Nat Reed. Two people who both had a

real interest both in the harvest side as well as the protection side. But more importantly

they had a conservation ethic. And both men that knew their way around, Secretary

Morton was the first Eastern Secretary in I do not know how many decades maybe since

the beginning of Interior. So he had a different view point toward hunting and fishing,

than many of the Western Secretaries had had, and he was a world wide hunter and

fisherman. So he came to the agency saying I want my Fish and my Wildlife Service to

be something new and different. I want to see the real national leadership for the

protection and the use of the resource. Most Secretaries don’t come into the interior with

that much focus on Fish and Wildlife.

SC: Spencer you mentioned the close working relationship you had with Secretary

Morton, and how a lot of the focus on Fish and Wildlife Service came into being during

that era, and under his leadership. Can you tell us some of the issues that really resonated

in the administration or with the Secretary where he really got involved in working with

you on Fish and Wildlife Service?

SS: The first and perhaps the most important issue and to a degree it is initiative, in one

of one of my first meetings with he and Nathaniel Reed, and I think in this particular

meeting Russell Train was there at that point as the Under Secretary, and as I recall, and I

would have to go back to my notes to check this but I think George Bush was there, At

that time George Bush was a Congressman from Texas, George Bush and Russ Train

were very close friends, tennis partners and so forth. Nat Reed and George Bush became

very close friends. We had a, I guess you would call it just a get together chat one

afternoon, late one afternoon, up in the secretaries office, and he looked at me and he

said, one thing I would like to see happen during my tenure of office would be the

development of a biological service. He said I want an activity that is non advocate that

undertakes the understanding of biology and environment, the way geological surveys

understands water issues and geology issues and so forth. So that was the beginning, my

immediate response was, ya know write the check and we are on our way, of which he

did. We had several chats with regard to Law Enforcement, in those days Law

Enforcement was primarily an own site type of enforcement capability. Done primarily

with regard, or in harmony with states. There was some thought, and I think very good

thought that perhaps a great deal of illegal products were coming into this Nation that we

should be monitoring, that it was our duty to get into that area of enforcement. With in a

couple of years we had revamped our law enforcement set up, we had changed the entire

concept toward enforcement, and began to get into the undercover and even some of the

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foreign undercover activities that resulted in some of the major, major cases. Another

area that he showed a real interest in and was most helpful in, perhaps we could not have

done it without his really getting in and saying I will go with you. Was this matter of

converting to steel shot, we came to the decision with in the Service that lead shot just

could not be tolerated, we just could not accept that as a position. We chatted a bit with

two of the major manufacturers, and of course as you can imagine we got it can’t be

done, no way you could package a load. I had the uncomfortable duty of going to St.

Louis , sitting down in Mr. John Olands office, who was owner and president of Oland

Industries, and Winchester arms. And saying to Mr. Oland , “Mr. Oland, we are simply

going to have to produce a steel shot. Had Secretary Morton not been in real support of

this we probably would have not made it because , as you can imagine Remington

Standard, and Winchester, both came back with the answer it can’t be done. Secretary

Morton said then we will go to Europe and find a way to do it. And he stood his ground

along with Nat Reed, and within a year we had the first steel shot being produced in a

very limited way, and we went trough a good year of testing. In harmony and in

company with the ammunition companies. To make sure the shoot that was developed

was satisfactory. So a very good example of how the Secretary and the Assistant

Secretary became actively involved in getting things done through the Fish and Wildlife

Service.

SC: Well let look at it from a different perspective, what one issue did you feel strongly

or passionately about that you went up the chain of command and successfully lobbied

the Secretary or the Administration on. What one issue did you really put on their

agenda?

SS: The major issue that I took to them, and took a bit of selling for their complete

acceptance and full support which I would not have attempted without it. Was to convert

the Service from a functional Administration system to a program Administration

system. We called it management by objectives. We changed the entire system of

programming, the entire system of making that what decision of what you do, and as you

are well aware we received a great deal of opposition from within the turf protectors of

the functional activities within the Service. Which we that knew we would receive. So I

knew that it would not be possible to bring that type of management in without the full

support of both the Assistant Secretary and the Secretary, as well as the people on the

hill. So we did our selling job to bring the program in prior to bringing it in and it

survived well for a number of years. I am sure most of it is now changed. But it was the

key to well to getting those dollars that we needed as an agency to do appropriate

management. We had some close to 100 million acres of refuge land at that time. Our

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average layout for refuges was somewhat less than 25 cents per acre per year for

operations. You can’t do justice to the public trust and to the public resource with that

kind of dollars. So we needed a way to gain an understanding first within the

Administration and then within the Congress. To begin to look at Fish and Wildlife as a

total program, and get away from well we need another refuge or we need another

hatchery or we need another Law Enforcement capability here or there. That we have

responsibilities for example in the National Water fowl program or the Migratory bird

program, and here are the things that we need to do, we tried to instill within the agency

that a refuge is not the end product. 100 acres of corn on a refuge was not a measure of

success. In many instances that hundred acres could be doing more harm than it could be

doing good. Cause there might be the need to move those birds on down the flyway at a

earlier date. So we went into the activity knowing that the turf reaction was going to be

tough and it was.

SC: Well I think we can wrap up. Wrap it up with this last question, the porpoise of this

tape is for Archival porpoise so that people that come to the N.C.T.C can learn from your

experience, so do you have anything that you would like to say to future Fish and

Wildlife employees that might view this tape in twenty years.

SS: It’s most difficult to look twenty years, ten years, thirty years down the road. If I had

to come up with a scenario of what I would feel would likely be those things that would

be happening thirty years from now, I would look to there being a Federal Land

Management activity, in which perhaps all federal lands would be managed for the good

of the public. You probably will not have refuges as such, you probably will not have

Park Services as such. You will have those lands that are there for all purposes, including

forest service, and BLM lands. I think as you go to other nations and you look at

evolution of governments, that, that is a way that we should suspect that this nation will

go as we look at federal land use. You know right now the only difference between a

National Park and a National Wildlife Refuge, is that on a National Wildlife Refuges in

most instances you can have some hunting. You take that out of a Refuge and you

essentially have the same thing as a National Park. Now this I’m sure would not be well

received by Fish and Wildlife Service people as what the future might be, but I think if

you take a hard look, at where we may be going in the direction of Federal Land

Administration at the federal level I think that is a very likely way that the public will

take us. I feel that if you try to say, what will the Fish and Wildlife Service be thirty

years from now, we may be called Biological Services, that’s what we started off as. If

you remove such thing as refuges, and you put the Service back in to a resource

managing agency, and I should not infer that it is not now a resource managing agency,

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but you make that their primary goal, then perhaps we will go back more to a biological

services concept. Rather than a functional management concept, for such things as

hatcheries, refuges and so forth. Because I think that the Environmental Movement of

this country, the environmental awareness, as it grows it’s going to look to someone to

say these are the facts, these are the real understandings of all of those biological

questions that still have to be answered, and we want a agency we want to put those kind

of things under a public trust situation that perhaps to some degree is similar to

Geological survey. In that they are so called non advocate agencies and they attempt to

provide the best scientific data on our water resources of the country. So perhaps not a

bright prediction but I would suggest that there is a need to look at where we are now and

where we may be thirty years from now, and don’t overlook that particular scenario in

trying to look to the future.

SC: Thanks, thank you.