Whtie Sands Administrative History

Johnwill Faris' predictions about the relationship between the armed forces and his monument were more accurate than his guesses about local population growth. As early as January 30, 1946, he wrote to the regional director that "the [Alamogordo Army Air Base] will be manned by a skeleton crew merely as a plane refueling station, emergency landings, etc." As for the proving grounds to the west and south, "[it] seems to be going stronger so we are yet in the middle of excitement." What had prompted the WSPG activity was the capture in Europe by Allied forces of German V-2 rockets; the same weapons that had proven so effective in Adolf Hitler's bombing of London during the Battle of Britain. The Army wished to examine these V-2's for their accuracy and firepower, but needed more open space than the Aberdeen, Maryland proving grounds would permit. Without knowing it, Faris identified the most telling feature of the next 25 years at the dunes when he reported to regional headquarters of a visit from a WSPG executive officer, "Major Holmes." He had come to the park in late May 1946 because an early V-2 test had gone off course and crashed into the dunes. While Holmes denied any problem with the test, said Faris, "a general visiting here, who has been in charge of similar tests in Florida, informed me, unofficially of course . . . that . . . [the Army] themselves have little or no idea where the projectile might land." [24]

The rationale for testing of missiles in the Tularosa basin sprang from diplomatic and economic forces far beyond White Sands. Successful development of the atomic bomb in southern New Mexico had shown the military the advantages of the region's open space, sparse population, and pliant civic leadership. Victory in Europe and the Pacific theatres resulted from massive applications of air power, which the armed forces sought to maximize in the first years after the war. Then the burgeoning confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union provided more incentive for escalation of advanced-technology weapons research and testing. When one added the financial windfall of postwar defense spending, it was little surprise when Johnwill Faris learned in January 1947 of Army plans to consolidate air bases in Kansas and Utah at Holloman. [25]

Construction of test facilities throughout the basin began soon after the visit to the monument by President Truman's "Strategic Bombing Survey" team. Its members included Paul Nitze, who would become famous as an arms negotiator for the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, and Franklin D'Olier of the Prudential Insurance Company, identified by Faris as "a long time personal friend of former [NPS] Director Horace M. Albright." The survey team negotiated the first of several "joint-use" memoranda of understanding (MOU's) between the Army and the park service over access to the western sector of the monument. The NPS believed that "this permit will not remain in effect over six months," and that "upon completion of the tests all materials shall be removed by the War Department." The Army erected a series of ten to fifteen towers, 30 feet in height and ten feet wide, to carry electric transmission lines from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's hydroelectric power plant at Elephant Butte Dam. The Army offered to sell White Sands some of its electricity for the "very nominal" sum of .015 cents per kilowatt hour; a bargain compared to the monument's oil-fired electric plant. The military also explored the option of outright purchase of the Dog Canyon stream flow, which Faris described in 1947 as producing "65,000 gallons daily, an amount far in excess of monument needs now or for years to come." [26]

Hindsight reveals either the naivete of park service officials, or their sense of inadequacy in the face of national security imperatives in the years prior to the war in Korea (1950-1953). In March 1947, Superintendent Faris reported a meeting with the WSPG commander, who was "very liberal with his information regarding appropriations, proposed construction, rocket firings and type of missiles, probable effects on our area, etc." What shocked Faris was the commander's assertion "that negotiations were in progress at the present time whereby . . . Naval activities would virtually close down our area." The rationale he gave for this sweeping and secretive land transaction was that "seemingly no known controls exist for the rockets to be fired." Then, in a statement remarkable for its candor, Faris observed: "The bulk of the information we have gathered would indicate that we [White Sands] are just an existing evil, and not necessarily to be considered by such high priority agencies as the War and Navy Departments." [27]

Such arrogance would manifest itself in a thousand ways to Johnwill Faris and his successors. Two incidents in the summer of 1947 typified this mindset of military haste and shortsightedness. That July, in the early stages of a ten-year drought, the Army expropriated several water wells near the monument to supply its missile range. "The nature of this water," said Faris, "was such that lately we are forced to haul almost entirely from Alamogordo." More disturbing to the superintendent was the behavior of a "Sergeant Ross," who came to the dunes on June 29 with his wife and another couple. Ross did not wear his military uniform, and thus had to pay the 50-cent entrance fee like any other visitor. The sergeant declared his immunity from any park service charge, and drove toward the dunes, where Faris jumped on the running board of Ross' car to stop him. When Faris reached into his shirt pocket for a notebook, Ross ripped the pocket open, seized the notebook, tore it to shreds, and warned Faris that he "and our whole area would be 'blown to Hell' if I reported the case." Upon complaint filed with Ross' superiors, the Army asked Faris not to press charges if Ross were prohibited from returning to the dunes. The superintendent relented, not wishing to expose Ross to a court-martial, and concluded: "I believe the action taken certainly made it clear that such incidents would not be tolerated and I dare say the entire camp [WSMR] knows by now that bluffs and threats do not scare us one bit." [28]

Sergeant Ross' comment about "blowing" the monument "to Hell" had a faint ring of truth to it. As tensions escalated worldwide between the client states of the Soviets and Americans, weapons testing grew more frantic. By August 1947, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, through their district office in Albuquerque, had drawn a map of the Tularosa basin in which White Sands National Monument would be surrounded by the missile range. The Engineers' property division had "acquired the fee simple title to all private owned lands within the Fort Bliss Anti-Aircraft Range, has the exclusive use of all private lands and interests within the Alamogordo Bombing Range until 1967, and co-use of all other private lands and interests within the area for the duration of the National Emergency and six months thereafter." Secretary of War Kenneth C. Royall thus wrote to Julius Krug, Secretary of the Interior, to explain the need for all public domain acreage in the basin not already covered by permit. Royall also wanted a twenty-year (not six-month) extension of his department's co-use MOU with White Sands. The secretary believed that no public hearing was needed on this massive land transfer, since "the area in question, except for the proposed extension to the north, has been used by the War Department for several years." Royall would, however, send representatives to such a hearing if Krug considered this "necessary." [29]

Johnwill Faris and his staff thus faced a turning point in park service relations with the military. The 1946 MOU was ignored with impunity, as shells dropped on the monument with increasing frequency (one in December 1948 left fragments "the size of a desk top" one-quarter mile from the residential compound). Then for the first time in September 1947, Faris learned why the dunes had to be included in the test firings. Colonel Pitcher of the WSPG came to the park to inform Faris of the status of the land acquisitions, and to explain why the Army had built another utility line across White Sands without NPS permission. "They mentioned the fact that it would mess up certain calculations" if missiles could not travel north to south in the basin; "all of which," said Faris, "may or may not be true." The superintendent, as he would do so often for the next decade, "clearly stated . . . that the same Congress . . . that charged them with protection of our country, charged us with keeping that portion of the country within our boundaries in as near the natural state as possible and that we were as intent in duty as I appreciated they were in theirs." [30]

Matters involving monument trespass reached a peak on August 2, 1948, when the Army held a public hearing in Las Cruces to declare their intentions for the Ordcit Project. Other affected federal agencies joined the NPS to hear what the Army had in mind. Hillory Tolson, now acting NPS director, wrote to his counterpart at the BLM to inform that agency of the park service's position on Ordcit. "A 'permanent' permit is out of the question," said Tolson, "since it would amount to virtual disestablishment of the monument." John K. Davis, acting regional director, also wanted NPS officials to protest the newest technique in missile recovery work at the monument: "a close gridiron pattern traversed with many jeeps." Davis called this an "apparent disregard or noncompliance" with the MOU, and he wanted other federal agencies to hear in public the extent of military intrusion into the fragile ecology of the basin. [31]

At the Las Cruces meeting, the unified opposition of local stock raisers and federal land agencies forced the Army to soften its demands for the Tularosa basin. So many ranchers spoke that the Army held a separate hearing for federal officials on August 4, where Johnwill Faris and other regional staff detailed their grievances. One complaint in particular was the arbitrary firing schedule, which Faris noted could come at 4:00 in the morning. "You can't call your time your own," Faris told his superiors, "[and] consequently, we have to be on the alert for the Army practically all the time." Milton McColm, chief of lands for the Southwest region, came away relieved at the Army's willingness to listen, and concluded: "No doubt there will result less restrictive operation of other than Army use and interest." [32]

Over the next twelve months the dialogue continued about military usage of basin lands. Rumors flew among stock raisers, such as the permanent closing of U.S. Highway 70 once the Ordcit land transfers became official. Fueling speculation about the Army's intentions was an article appearing in the February 25, 1950 issue of the Chicago Tribune, entitled "Strange Rocket Security Modes Govern Range." The author, Hal Foust, reported that all Tularosa basin military installations had an "apparent jumpiness" which he related to disclosure of the sale of atomic weapons plans by Klaus Fuchs of the Los Alamos scientific laboratory. Fuchs in 1945 had transferred secret documents to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in a house near downtown Albuquerque. The public only became aware of this breach of national security four years later, when Soviet scientists and engineers successfully tested their own atomic device. Eager to learn about security conditions at the "site of continuing secret preparations for warfare of long range missiles," Foust came to Alamogordo to visit the two military bases. He marveled at the furtive behavior of supervisory personnel, the diffidence of low-level sentries at the gates to WSPG, and the candor of local business people to inform a reporter what they had been told about rocket firings. Convincing Foust of the bizarre nature of the Cold War in the New Mexican desert was the reaction of Johnwill Faris: "If we vacated every time the army tells us we are supposed to . . ., we wouldn't be performing our duty to the national park service as guardian of these properties, including our museum, and as host to tourists." [33]

Military imperatives prevailed over local concerns when on April 1, 1949, the Army and park service drafted a new permit for joint use of White Sands. The MOU declared that "physical use of the monument is not desired by the Armed Services," and that 24 hours' notice of evacuation would be given prior to test firings. NPS staff would be compensated for overnight removal, and the park would be reimbursed for restoration of any lands and facilities damaged either by missile impacts or recovery crews. Similar considerations would be extended to private grazing leaseholders within the monument. A third category of reimbursement would be for the concessionaire at the dunes, "to compensate him for any losses or damage sustained that are attributable to [the Defense] Department's activities." [34]

This new agreement, coupled with the escalation of the "arms race" with the Soviets, propelled White Sands into its second phase of postwar relations with the military: that of dependency upon military largesse. In November 1949, Faris reported to the regional office: "I hope our Service can see the handwriting on the wall as indicated by all this Army expansion on both sides of us." The superintendent had learned that there were "over 500 homes under contract within 35 miles of White Sands," which he also interpreted to "mean that we will have to furnish recreational facilities to a large number of these families." A year later (October 1950), the superintendent recorded more growth: "Some 2,500 new housing units are proposed by the Army alone within a radius of 125 miles of the White Sands." The Army in addition came onto the monument to conduct a thorough survey of the NPS boundaries, and also to research the legal titles of the private in-holdings of local ranchers. [35]