An Interview with Robert M. Utley on the History of Historic Preservation in the National Park Service—1947-1980

AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT M. UTLEY ON THE HISTORY OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE—1947-1980
by Richard W. Sellars and Melody Webb
September 24, 1985 - December 27, 1985

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Tape 19, December 27, 1985

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Dick: We talked about homes of presidents and recent presidents. Would you comment on the Georgia O'Keefe National Historic Site that was authorized and then later deauthorized. What is your opinion on this and should it have been in the System? And did we have enough perspective to make that kind of decision?

Bob: That is a hard one to call. It illustrates the perils of trying to commemorate a living person. You had your area and then in the whims of her old age you lost your area. This was an instance where, because of the tremendous longevity of this woman, you probably didn't need any more perspective to assess her as a nationally significant artist. I don't think there is any question about that. I think it would have been wise to defer the commemorative move until after her death. And I think there were measures that could have been taken to sew it up so that it happened more or less automatically after her death, and so that the property and the resources were not compromised before her death. This is what happened at the Truman Home in Independence, Misssouri, through the cooperation of Truman's daughter. Things were kept as the Park Service wanted so long as Bess Truman lived there, and then everything was in place and had all been worked out in advance to explode once she died. That might have been possible in the case of Georgia O'Keefe too. But it certainly shows the perils of embarking upon the commemoration of living people. On the other hand, this tradition started when Franklin D. Roosevelt put his own home into the National Park System while he was President, which was an egregious lapse of good taste, but we are eternally grateful to him today that he did.

Dick: That is correct. With regard to the O'Keefe property and others like it, by waiting for a period of time, unless we have some sort of covenant with the family, we run a strong risk of losing furnishings and losing integrity.

Bob: That is true, and that is why I say I am not convinced we could not have worked with the family to do that. I guess covenant is a good word, and that is what I was talking about. I don't know enough of the situation to know if that was possible, but you are right back to where you would have been anyway, and I don't think you have a covenant. One thing you can do with the family's cooperation is go in there and photograph every square foot of the place, so you know how it was at the time she was living there.

Dick: Bob, in several cases, unsuccessful park superintendents were reassigned to the Division of History. Did you support or resist these moves and what was the affect of this on the division?

Bob: I supported any move where the position and the money came with the incumbent. No matter who the incumbent, such a move always held the prospect, realized as often as not, of one day losing the incumbent but retaining the position and the money. That happened many times. The money and position got built into your base. So I never resisted any move, whether it was a superintendent or any personnel problem, where the money and the position came along with it. These moves rarely had an adverse affect on the organization. The personnel actions that had a bad affect were the political ones forced from the outside. Usually when our own came in they fit pretty well and there wasn't any big problem.

Dick: You selected Russell Mortensen to succeed Roy Appleman as Chief, Branch of Park History, and then yourself as Chief Historian. Dr. Mortensen was not universally admired in the ranks. How did you select him and in retrospect was he a wise choice?

Bob: It's always easy, in retrospect, for anyone to say what ought to have been done. In assessing such appointments, one needs to go back to the climate that existed at the time. I suppose you could say that almost any incumbent of a high position—Mortenson, Utley, Judd, or whoever—was not universally admired in the ranks. You will always have people in the top officialdom who are disliked. Mortenson was selected for several reasons. For one, I knew him and had worked with him and knew his record in many fields of history, including historic site administration. Another was that he was a candidate I could sell at that particular time. When Appleman retired, we were at the peak of Hartzog's insistence on outside blood and academic credentials. Mortenson represented outside blood. He had a Ph.D. He was therefore someone that I could sell to Hartzog. I don't know that I had any others at the time acceptable to me, whom I could have sold to Hartzog. And so that is how Mortenson came into the Park Service. I suspect that the same considerations prevailed when he became Chief Historian. I don't remember that as well as I do bringing him in.

Dick: In retrospect, was he a wise choice?

Bob: At the time he was a wise choice, and so therefore, in retrospect, I have to say he was a wise choice. As time went on, I became less approving, but if I had it to do over again at the time and the place, the setting, the climate, the environment, I'd do it, yes.

Dick: Bob you selected Horace Sheeley to succeed Sidney Bradford as Chief of the Historic Sites Survey. And you later supported Bradford's appointment as Associate Regional Director, Professional Services, in Philadelphia. Each of these appointments also proved controversial. Were they wise choices?

Bob: The wording of your question implies almost total freedom of choice. That does not always exist. Horace Sheeley had worked himself up to the place where he was a GS-14. If I had not selected him, I would have had to find some other place for him. Horace served long and faithfully and deserved sympathetic consideration. Horace, Lord knows, had liabilities, and he knew them as well as anyone. Had I the freedom of choice implied by your question, of course, I would have not have selected Horace Sheeley. But if I had the freedom of choice I would have made certain that Horace Sheeley got a job that in no way demeaned him personally or professionally or detracted from his long years of faithful service to the Park Service.

Sydney Bradford was another expedient situation in which Ernest Connally and I had decided to transfer historic preservation planning from the grants division to the National Register Division. We felt it made more sense over there. This was the state plans that underlay eligibility for grants. Bradford was the chief of the Grants Division, and for reasons he considered quite sufficient refused to accept that. The only thing to do, therefore, since he would not accept what his two immediate superiors had ordained, was to get him out of there, and Associate Regional Director in Philadelphia seemed to make sense. Sidney Bradford was a GS-15. You don't just move GS-15s around willy nilly. Here in Philadelphia was a GS-15 that was open. Here was a Regional Director who would take him in that position. It was a case of going back to a Region where he had once served before. And while Sidney and I rarely saw anything in the same way, he was qualified by grade and background for that position, and it relieved an impossible situation. It created another impossible situation, but you frequently do that.

Dick: Bob, how can cultural resources management in the Service best be strengthened?

Bob: I am not going to give my usual speech on how the Park Service ought to organize itself because nobody ever agrees with me anyway. That would be my sole answer—that this is almost exclusively a question of organization, a question of arranging the Regional offices so that they reflect the Washington Office and, to the extent possible, arranging the parks, where they are big enough, in the same way. We touched a few moments ago on the new budgetary and political prospects of the Park Service. I think part of the answer to your question is to concentrate all of the professional services now done by the Denver Service Center and the archeological centers in the Regional Office and charge all of those functions to the Regional Director. Then on top of this I would create an organization in the Region with the responsibility of monitoring on the park level the application of policy. This would be an effective monitoring organization backed by an overall Park Service organization that insists on accountability, that holds every park manager accountable for the application of the policies, which I think are fine. If the Park Service could make those organizational reforms, so that accountability is enforced and the policies are applied, then I think you would have an improvement of CRM in the Park Service that would leave little to be desired.

Dick: Did you promote this kind of reorganization at the time you were in the Service?

Bob: Yes sir. Connally and I both did.

Dick: Do you think it ever came close to being.........

Bob: No! It never came anywhere close. The Park Service has a tradition of decentralization. But in management theory and practice, decentralization is not effective unless there is accountability, unless there is a system that allows the exercise of creativity and individuality within the framework of universally understood and accepted policies. The Park Service has the policies, but the Park Service never has had a system of accountability. The Park Service has a strong tradition, then, of independent baronies, which operate according to their own desires no matter what the policies say, and a tradition of management weakness and cowardice in enforcing the policies when their lapse is identified.

Dick: Do you think that this weakness that you speak of is true in the management of natural resources as well?

Bob: Just as much. It's true in the National Park Service. This is not a problem of cultural resource management. It goes across the board. When we carried out Director Walker's initiative of sensitizing the Park Service to cultural resources management, we started with the premise that we cultural resources management people were somehow different than the rest of the Park Service and were being discriminated against. But once this initiative got fully floated, we found that the natural scientists agreed with everything we were saying, and it quickly became apparent that the problem was one that is inherent in the National Park Service from top to bottom.

Dick: Did you think the natural resource people at the time you were in the Service wanted the same kind of organization that you are talking about?

Bob: Everybody has his own organization that he wants. I don't remember that we ever sold anyone on the organization that I felt was necessary, but we certainly had the natural scientists with us 100% in the identification of the problem.

Dick: When you say natural scientists, you are speaking of professional natural scientists, not necessarily the managers of the natural areas?

Bob: That is right.

Dick: Now on a beautiful late December afternoon this concludes the initial set of interviews with Robert Utley by Richard Sellars and Melody Webb. We anticipate that this will be transcribed and then edited and then reviewed and perhaps more questions will follow. Bob, I would like to thank you very much for your time and your patience in answering these questions and I think this will be a contribution to the National Park Service Archives and the writing of the history of the National Park Service in the future. Thanks!

INDEX
(omitted from the online edition)

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Last Modified: Mon, Mar 22 2004 10:00:00 pm PDT
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