toward the totality of the system of pride and education which the National Park System represents.

There are many people today who have visited units and would point out that their revolution that it commemorates, it was not their Civil War that the unit commemorates. And I do believe there would be those who feel that it is not their natural heritage at Yellowstone or Yosemite, the Grand Canyon or the Everglades that the units commemorate.

As the demographics shift, there will be far more political pressures upon the National Park System, so even if it were demonstrably true that those pressures at this point are containable, I, myself, from my own studies, would certainly project that they will become ever greater.

Thus, I think your bill speaks to the needs of the future, even if it could be argued as to whether it speaks to the needs of the immediate past. Over a half of the units in the National Park System are historical, and that will continue to be the cutting edge of growth within the system.

All of the units of the National Park System properly interpreted are cultural. It is necessary, therefore, for there to be a body independent of politics that understands and works to preserve the historical and the cultural heritage of the United States, and uses the units to promote historical and educational understanding of the society.

For this reason, I commend the bill because it will either restore professional criteria to the National Park System or will restore the perception of such criteria to the National Park System, which is equally important.

The independent board, which will hold six public meetings, will by the bill carry out a significant public educational function. It is true, if the National Park System Advisory Board on which I served, and twice as chairman, were carrying out its functions satisfactorily, it would be true if the National Park System Advisory Board and the Council which initially worked with it had not been politicized, that it might be possible for that National Park Service Advisory Board to carry out this educational function.

But it has been politicized, without doubt. The council itself has been destroyed. And, therefore, there is a clear need for an independent board to hold the kinds of public meetings that the bill envisions.

The 5-year proposed security for the Director also seems to be essential for continuity, for the laying on of hands, for the understanding of the way in which mistakes can be corrected. And of course for, in effect, the independence that it will provide to the Director.

I commend the bill because of the signal it gives to the Government and to the American people because it would unite a variety of groups that have tended often in the past to fragment into special interest groups concerned primarily with the preservation within the National Park System of historical units or battlefield sites or recreational areas, or great wildernesses.

It would bring them together, it seems to me, to understand that it is a National Park System rather than 342 units which require

clear defense and oversight of the kind that the board would provide.

It also means, I should think, that there would no longer be the odd linkage of Fish and Wildlife with the National Parks, since, indeed, the actual purpose of the one is quite distinct from the other.

It is true in reading the bill, sir, that I would observe myself some fine tuning that would be needed. There's not reference, of course, in the paragraph that refers to additions to the possibility of excisions from the National Park System, even though there are units in it, as you yourself referred to such as Steamtown, which are not deserving of inclusion.

The bill, as it reads, would suggest perhaps that the Director could not be reappointed after 5 years; though I do not think that is its intent, the bill as it reads perhaps could, as has been suggested in some of the testimony and discussion, give rise to politicization through Congress itself.

I, for one, as a student of National Park Systems around the world and of this system in particular, would far rather see the degree of intelligent compromise that emerges from the congressional system than the risks that are inherent in the possibility of dictatorial and political appointments.

For this reason, I commend the bill.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to comment on it. [Prepared statement of Mr. Winks follows:]

STATEMENT OF ROBIN W. WINKS

RANDOLPH W. TOWNSEND JR. PROFESSOR OF HISTORY

YALE UNIVERSITY

AND

FORMER MEMBER AND TWICE CHAIRMAN

NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM ADVISORY BOARD

MAY 10, 1988

I am pleased to testify with respect to, and to support, H.R. 3964. speak for myself, as a past member and twice Chairman of the National Park System Advisory Board, and as an active member and often board member of a number of conservation, historical preservation, and business history associations.

A national park system

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any national park system

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is a symbol of what a people take pride in, for to consciously preserve a cherished landscape, the scene of a great historic moment, a cultural resource of transcendent value, is a political act of the highest order, one that stands far above party. Further, the national park system of the United States, surely the most extensive and finest in the world, is also a great national university, each of the 342 units of that system being, in effect, a branch campus of our finest educational institution. I have visited 320 of these units and have studied and visited national parks in over a hundred nations, and from personal observation I can attest to the unique character and quality of our system.

as no

Just as no university worth that name would permit political interference, university faculty could allow itself to be politically manipulated, lest the educational function be contaminated by the momentary passions of political strife, so too must the national park system of the United States be above politics to the degree that this is possible.

The National Park Service is a professional service of confidence and pride, properly akin to the U.S. diplomatic corps or to the space agency. It, like they, has recently suffered serious attacks upon its objectivity and professionalism. Whether these attacks stem from political purposes or not, it is widely perceived both within the service and by the attentive public that this is the case, and as any historian can attest, people are motivated less by objective facts than by what they believe to be true. People believe the professionalism and intellectual independence of the custodians of our greatest national university to be at threat.

The greatest threat to our national park system is, to be sure, public ignorance. Most Americans are unaware of the extent and nature of the system; most Americans do not know whether a particular cultural resource is within the park system or not, whether a great natural wonder is administered by the

National Park Service or as part of National Forest or Bureau of Land Management properties. Those who are knowledgeable understand that the crowning moments of the American experience and the most illustrious landscapes in which that experience has occurred are, or ought to be, honored by inclusion in the system of national parks we have so carefully and tenaciously created and protected. The wider ignorance about national park values, an ignorance naturally enough often shown by our elected and appointed officials, not only poses a threat to the system but also permits other, more precisely identifiable, threats to arise. For this reason, political partisanship must not be allowed to add to ignorance, create indifference, or confuse the public.

A major threat to the national park system in the future is revealed by our nation's changing demographics. The pressures of population change with respect to individual units of the system as our people continue their restless movements about the nation. The park system is fully alert to these demographic changes. But it appears to me that neither Congress nor the custodians of the system are sufficiently alert to demographic changes that hold greater significance to the future of the park system. After all, despite population shifts geographically, the nation is now virtually at a steady state in terms of numerical growth. To focus on this fact is to focus on the wrong problem.

Over half the units of the national park system are historical in their principal intent. (Of course, all units, including such national parks as Yellowstone, are also historical, just as units created for historical purposes, such as Manassas, also offer their vast sweeps of restful greensward so essential to the human spirit.) Will there continue to be universally-held transcendent values in our participatory democracy by which these historical parks, these shrines to a collective past by which each generation may place its hands on the shoulders of the nest, will these units continue to be cherished in the future? Unless the park service can continue, indeed can intensify, its educational mission, there will be many Americans who will say, as they stand at the rude bridge that arched the flood, in Minute Man National Historical Park, this was not my revolution; as they look upon the flowing waters at Shiloh, this was not my Civil War; as they walk the surviving ruts of the Oregon Trail, this wan not my westward movement. There will be a declining sense of wilderness values as we become more and more an overwhelmingly urban nation, wed to urban forms of social discourse and entertainment. There will1 be no laying on of hands.

This threat to the park system is also a threat to democracy. As it develops, the combative party-oriented political process of the future could destroy the integrity of our park system. Of course the parks can never be fully removed from the political process, nor should they be, for that process is also, in its purest and abstract expression, a statement about the evolving aspirations of the American people. Of course this bill will not completely remove the parks from politics. Certainly specific provisions in the bill are in need of additional thought. But the basic purpose of this legislation is sound and the mechanism for protecting the park system, as presented in the bill, is subject to some alteration a desirable mechanism. I believe, therefore, the H.R. 3964 or a bill very like it, deserves the support of all who cherish the multiplicity of values and the rich particularity of our democracy to which our system of national park units testifies.

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Mr. VENTO. Thank you very much, Mr. Winks. I, brought you up at this point because, I was understanding of the fact that you had a scheduling conflict and we have obviously gone at some length this morning with the first two witnesses.

And so, as a consequence, if you have a difficulty with time, I certainly do understand that. We do not intend to keep you very long.

I do appreciate your testimony in favor of the legislation I have submitted. I think you said it well when you said that it sends a signal at the very least. It does send a signal and I think that signal-not just to the administration and the American people, but also of course to the Congress.

One of the concerns that I have is that as politicization occurs in terms of representation of interests, that very often we will find that the case in the Appropriations Committee adding items. And if that is the basis, it simply gets to be a game to add or to modify things.

We've had proposals in the last continuing resolution actually start modifying boundaries of some land use areas. The Director in his comments said we already have a board. We have the National Park System Advisory Council. I was not listening closely enough when you were talking about the advisory council.

In the past, it has been a useful reference point to evaluate some issues. Unfortunately, the advisory council doesn't always have a recommendation on each piece of legislation that we have before the Congress, as does the National Park Service and some other groups.

What is the ability or inability of the advisory council to deal with some of these? They are just advising the Director, are they not, Mr. Winks?

Mr. WINKS. The advisory council actually advises the Secretary of the Interior, usually through the Director as a matter of procedure, but does not advise the Director as such.

I would have said that, even at the height of its strength, the advisory council was not sufficient, Mr. Chairman, to meet the needs that you have described in this bill. When it was working most ef fectively certainly it was drawn upon by Secretaries of the Interior or informally by Directors of the Service for advice on a number of policy issues. And sometimes individual members were used as lightening rods on quite specific issues pertaining to a single unit of the National Park System.

It is an advisory board. And the advice can be ignored.

Mr. VENTO. Do you have staff? How often a year do you meet? Twice a year?

Mr. WINKS. I cannot answer for the present advisory board. During the period that I served on the advisory board, we had the part-time staff of-we had one-half of an individual who provided the necessary agenda papers, took the minutes. We met twice a year. In terms of full board meetings, one meeting was in the field at a presumptively threatened unit; and the other meeting was here in Washington.

In the early period when I served on the board, the board was augmented significantly by the exceptional experience expertise of