A Man of Consequence: The Conflicts of a Conservative Conservationist

• Author: G. Tracy Mehan III
• Pages: 46-48

46 Best of the Books: Ref‌lections on Recent Literature

A Man of Consequence:

The Conflicts of a

Conservative Conservationist

By G. Tracy Mehan III

Conservati ve Conservationis t: Russell E . Train and the Emergence

of American Envir onmentalism, by J. Brooks Fli ppen. Louisiana State

University Press. 278 pages.

From the July/ August 2007 issue of The Environment al Forum.

At a conser vation prize ceremony in the

Rose Garden, President Reagan report-

edly joked, “I don’t need to welcome

Russell Train of the World Wildlife Fund.

Russell’s more at home here than I am.”

J. Brook s Flippen, author of Conserva-

tive Conservationist: Ru ssell E. Train and the

Emergence of Ame rican Environmentalism,

cites this vignette as evidence of t he abilit y

of a political ocial to co-opt, maybe for

mutual benet, a conservative conservat ion-

ist to provide political cover for policies less

than f riendly to the environment.

Yet, this jest actu ally speaks volumes about

the divide between post-war American conser-

vatism—not to be confused with the Republi-

can Party— and the environmental movement.

Russell E. Train is a classic Rockefeller Republican, a Washington insider,

and a n exceedingly consequential gure in modern environmentalism. He

was present for t he creation and wholesale federa lization of environmental

policy during the Nixon and Ford years which, in turn, generated a counter-

reaction within as well as without those and subsequent administrations.

Reagan embo died t he counte rvail ing movement encompassin g the

Sagebrush Rebellion; stiened congressional resistanc e to new environ-