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44 Orville L. Freeman, the secretary of agriculture, flew on Air Force One with President John F. Kennedy, heading north from Andrews Air Force Base to Stewart Air Force Base in New York, from which they would then take a chopper to Milford. Despite the significance of the forthcoming celebration at Grey Towers, the secretary wasn’t nervous because of his proximity to the charismatic president. The pair had developed a strong working relationship from the start of the Kennedy administration. A liberal governor of Minnesota before coming to Washington, Freeman had a sharp sense of humor that endeared him to the quick-witted president; when asked why the urbane Kennedy had tapped him for this particular cabinet post, Freeman reportedly quipped: “I’m not sure, but I think it’s something to do with the fact that Harvard does not have a school of agriculture .” Although Kennedy was “full of enthusiasm” for Freeman, this did not shield the secretary from the chief executive’s legendary barbs: “He would frequently kid me about agriculture and always about the budget. He would say that anybody that could spend as much money as I spend in agriculture ought to have a special kind of recognition out of the government . He always had the needle out on this. I think in part it was because he knew it would set under my skin, and he would tease me about it.”1 At this particular moment, however, Freeman’s anxiety had less to do with his relationship with the president—political and personal—and Chapter five Under Fire In this dawning age of abundance more and more Americans will have the chance to experience God’s great outdoors. —Orville L. Freeman UNDER FIRE 45 more with his part in the coming dedication of the Pinchot Institute. His intent was to foreground in his speech the central role that the U.S. Forest Service played in the Department of Agriculture and the outsized contribution Gifford Pinchot had made as the founding chief of the public lands agency. “I had some points to make that were important to the Forestry Service that had, in part at least, been left out of this conservation tour,” Freeman remembered; “most people in the United States don’t know that the Forestry Service is in the Department of Agriculture anyway. This is sometimes a bit of a morale problem. So I had some things to say, since Gifford Pinchot was really chief of the Forestry Service and had done great things in this area.” The president was not persuaded: “We were sitting in his cabin in the plane flying up there, and when I handed [my speech] to him he quickly read it and turned to me and said,—‘That is fine, but can’t you make it shorter?’ I didn’t make it shorter because there were some things that I had to say. He never said anything, but I think he was a little impatient through it.”2 True to his word, Freeman praised Pinchot’s formative role in establishing the Forest Service, under the mantle of protection and support of President Theodore Roosevelt and Agriculture Secretary James Wilson. Some of what may have made Kennedy squirm was the extensive quotation Freeman pulled from the mission statement that Wilson had sent Pinchot on February 1, 1905, to guide his efforts (a letter that Pinchot had composed for his boss), and according to Freeman, “in classic language it set down the spirit and philosophy that has dominated the Forest Service ever since.”3 Central to that philosophical perspective was a distinct political realism: “The permanence of the resources of the reserves is therefore indispensable to continued prosperity, and the policy of this Department for their protection and use will invariably be guided by this fact, always bearing in mind that the conservative use of these resources in no way conflicts with their permanent value.” That being so, Wilson advised Pinchot (who thus advised himself) that “where conflicting interests must be reconciled[,] the question will always be decided from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.” Freeman brought this maxim into the present: just before he introduced President Kennedy to the expectant crowd he assured them the president, “the Number 1 conservationist in the United States,” was fully in support of the consensual principles guiding the Forest Service’s actions for the past sixty years: “President Kennedy’s presence here demonstrates better than...

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