WhoopingCrane_Generals_Sansom_Andrew_AustinTX_31July2023_Reel4163.mp3

Andy Sansom [00:00:00] You know, I had started out as a speechwriter to the Secretary of Interior, and I was really unsuccessful, primarily because I kept trying to get my own views into his speeches. And he and I became good friends, but it just wasn't a good fit.

Andy Sansom [00:00:17] And so I remained as a special assistant to him. And he would assign me to various projects.

Andy Sansom [00:00:23] And Bob Armstrong, whom I was thrilled had been elected, actually began to lease offshore oil tracts off Matagorda.

Andy Sansom [00:00:33] And two entities went through the roof. One was the Pentagon, because the island was at that time a base of the Strategic Air Campaign. And two, was the Audubon Society, because it was known that Matagorda included a significant part of the wintering ground for the whooping cranes.

Andy Sansom [00:00:54] And so, Don Kennard had done a series of studies of natural areas in Texas through the University of Texas. And one of them was on Matagorda Island. And I had read it. And Matagorda Island was off-limits. You couldn't go there.

Andy Sansom [00:01:09] But, having read that study, when the Secretary called me in and asked me what I knew about this place, I had enough to sound intelligent. And so, he said, "I want you to go down there, and make your own analysis of the situation, and give me your recommendations."

Andy Sansom [00:01:27] Well, I found the number one expert in the department on whooping cranes, which was a Ph.D. at Patuxent, where at the time they were raising them domestically to try to reintroduce them.

Andy Sansom [00:01:38] And he and I went down there. And the day I arrived on the island, a plane load of generals flew in from Vietnam to hunt white-tailed deer and quail. And that's basically what they were doing down there.

Andy Sansom [00:01:52] And so, I wrote the whole thing up. There was some evidence that the hunting activity, while not directly threatening whoopers, it was clearly prohibiting the expansion of their habitat.

Andy Sansom [00:02:07] And so, I wrote it all up and recommended that the base be closed and become a National Wildlife Refuge. And he agreed with me.

Andy Sansom [00:02:15] And so, I delivered the letter to the Secretary of Defense on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 1972.

Andy Sansom [00:02:23] And the Secretary of Defense was named William Schlessinger, and he was a birdwatcher. And so we figured, you know, he's going to like this.

Andy Sansom [00:02:32] Well, they didn't even reply to us.

Andy Sansom [00:02:35] And so, the day before the Christmas holidays, as promised, I got the Audubon Society to lay off and let us have a chance at this, but told them that if we didn't get any response out of Defense, that I would share the document. And so I handed it over to a fellow named Charles Callison at Audubon.

Andy Sansom [00:02:58] And within 24 hours, I got a call from 60 Minutes. And I thought, "Holy shit, you know, I'm in too deep."

Andy Sansom [00:03:06] And so I refused to talk to them. But they did the story over the Christmas holidays.

Andy Sansom [00:03:11] And I'll never forget that, I lived in Virginia at the time, and I would buy myself a Washington Post and read it on the bus on the way in to work. And so I bought my Post from a newsstand. I got on the bus and I opened the paper. And the entire bottom fold was a photograph of the whooping cranes.

Andy Sansom [00:03:31] And I remember being, number one, exhilarated. But number two I was like, "I'm doomed."

Andy Sansom [00:03:38] And they reprinted the whole story.

Andy Sansom [00:03:41] I was essentially let go.

Andy Sansom [00:03:44] And there was a great muckraking member of the U.S. Senate at that time whose name was William Proxmire, from Wisconsin. And Proxmire took my study and did his own investigation, which confirmed everything that I had written.

Andy Sansom [00:04:02] And in October of that year, '73, by this time, I had finally gone back to work, and the base was closed and declared a National Wildlife Refuge.