Air Force during World War II and had worked in the Pentagon Office of the
Secretary of the Army. He was able to hit the deck running and knew all the
personnel rules when we started to recruit the rest of the staff. We had to get
that first contract going before we even had the rest of the staff. We didn't
have very much space in the office at 1016 Sixteenth Street, so they made
space available for us in the New Executive Office Building on Seventeenth
Street. This was very nice office space which made me feel that the
commission was going to be right in the middle of government policymaking.
We could have the commission meetings right there in the office and walk
across the street to the Metropolitan Club for lunch. But in the meantime,
Russell Train had resigned from the commission to accept an appointment as
Under Secretary of the Interior, and Howell Appling from Portland was
appointed. This started to upset the geographical balance of the commission
because we lost an Easterner and picked up another Northwesterner. Howell
was a businessman, and he very quickly developed an understanding of what
we were trying to do.
Who appointed Appling?
A: He was appointed by Nixon. He had been a campaign worker for Nixon in
Oregon. At one time he had been the lieutenant governor of Oregon but he had
given up politics because he felt that it took too much time away from his
family. I had not been consulted; we read about his appointment in the
newspaper.
After a couple of months in the New Executive Office Building we were told
unceremoniously that we would have to give up that office space.
Howell Appling knew H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, the two guys that
ran the Nixon White House, and wanted to put up a fight to keep our office
there, but Chuck felt there was no use getting involved with that kind of a
fight. I think Chuck realized that we had no political clout, since all of the
other commissioners had been appointed by Lyndon Johnson and had submitted
pro forma resignations to Nixon on January 20.
In the meantime, we were going ahead with the evolution of the study
program. I had already contacted Abel
Gilbert White, and Ed
Ackerman, and they had agreed to serve as consultants.
three were very
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