Former government officials do not ordinarily write books, unless it is in the category of autobiography. But Stewart Udall, former member of Congress and U.S. secretary of the Interior under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, figures he doesn't have to do "an ego trip" like that. He says a full-fledged Udall biography that will tell his story "warts and all" is already being written by Ross Peterson, Utah State University history professor.
So Udall has instead written about "The Forgotten Founders" of the Old West, both a historical and personal look at what he regards as the important people of westward settlement — the Indians, missionaries, pioneers and farmers who did the actual work of settlement. It was not the gunslingers like Wild Bill Hickok and Billy the Kid, though Hollywood has anointed them for stardom. And it is certainly not the miners who blasted away entire mountains and permanently scarred the landscape.
Udall has already written four other books, the most important being "The Quiet Crisis," written in 1963 during his service in the Kennedy administration, and "The Myths of August" (1994), about the Cold War and the tragedy of bomb testing that led to the health plight of downwinders. The first has been judged by environmentalists as a major engine to the environmental movement of that era (although the most important book about ecology, says Udall, was written the previous year by Rachel Carson, "The Silent Spring").
During a spirited interview in the offices of the Deseret News, Udall, who now lives in Santa Fe, called Carson's book "the fountainhead of the ecological movement. She said we have to look at the whole planet — the entire system. Because it was an international best-seller and translated into 18 languages, it is still read today as a bible of conservation, built on the foundation started by Teddy Roosevelt."
Udall believes he was able to capitalize on Carson's excellent "kick-off" by writing his own book and promoting the environment through presidents who were friendly to his policies. "There is a cycle in American politics. In the '60s and '70s, through Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter, we were able to establish new values. The last 20 years represent a different period with arguments and divisions we didn't have before."
Udall remembers that when he went into President Kennedy's Cabinet, "most of the rivers in this country were sewers, very badly polluted. We developed policy for the rivers with the federal government putting up half the money. Utah today remains a battleground for land-use policies."
"I was startled when Gov. Leavitt came out recently for a national park in the San Rafael Swell. I've been waiting for this to happen, and I think it suggests subtle changes in Utah. After all, it was an Idaho U.S. senator, Frank Church, who led the floor fight for the Wilderness Bill. I call myself a troubled optimist who expects a new consensus on environmental values in the next few years." (Udall's greatest contributions were "The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act" and "The Land and Water Conservation Fund.")
Udall is still working on the downwind controversy, trying to get compensation for Navajo Indians who were exposed to radiation from uranium mining. "I'm trying to finish up by next summer. How many lawyers are actively practicing law at 82? Not very many. It gives me satisfaction to help people."
The new book on westward settlement he regards as his last book, because he is suffering from macular degeneration and can't do major research any more. "I'm in the category now where I can pretend to be an elder statesman. This book comes out of my reflections about my own life. I was fortunate that my life has a larger span than my actual years. In a way, I felt like I'd grown up on the frontier."
So, has Udall the politician and advocate become a historian in his later years? "I'm not a trained historian, but I've taken the advice of many of my historian friends, such as Leonard Arrington, Nancy Limerick, Richard White and Ross Peterson.
"Another of my great friends was Wallace Stegner (the now deceased Utah-bred novelist and historian who advocated environmentalism). I'm trying to correct the record. That's audacious, I suppose. But I felt that when I looked at the Gold Rush, the settlers and the role of religion in the Old West, they deserved to be treated separately. The gunslingers and the miners came later, yet they've been lumped together and glorified by Hollywood."
Udall calls his focus "the wagon people, who put a few tools and some belongings in wagons and took their wives and children 1,000 miles or more. That's heroic. " So to personalize the book, Udall used some of the stories of his own ancestors, including Jacob Hamblin and John D. Lee.
He also took the legendary Bernard DeVoto, who grew up in Ogden "to the woodshed" for emphasizing fur trappers over religious settlers. "He was a brilliant writer who won a Pulitzer Prize, but his writing was not history."
Udall feels strongly that his own Mormon roots are among the most important, so he gives them proper credit, even though he is not himself "a church-going Mormon." "I lived in a Mormon village for 18 years (the small northeastern Arizona hamlet of St. Johns), and my views of land and resources come from my Mormon upbringing.
"I like the story about Henry David Thoreau, who, when he was on his death bed, his family sent for a minister. The minister said, 'Henry, have you made your peace with God?' Thoreau said, 'I didn't know we'd quarreled.'
"That answers the question for me, too."
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com