boundaries in as near the natural state as possible and that we were as intent in duty as I appreciated they were in theirs."[1]
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.[2]
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."[3]
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
- ↑ SWNM Monthly Reports, July, October–December 1948; Memorandum of Faris to the Region Three Director, September 17, 1947, RG79, NPS, WHSA Files, Denver FRC.
- ↑ Memorandum of Tolson to BLM Director, "Proposed Withdrawal for Army, White Sands Project (Ordict Project), New Mexico," July 29, 1948; Memorandum of John M. Davis, Acting Region Three Director, to the NPS Director, July 21, 1948, RG79, NPS, WHSA Files, Denver FRC.
- ↑ Memorandum of McColm to the Region Three Director, August 9, 1948, RG79, NPS, WHSA Files, Denver FRC.
