Hickel Heckled

As a public figure in the forefront of the fight to better the U.S. environment, Secretary of the Interior Walter J. Hickel might have expected a friendly welcome at Princeton University last week. Environment, after all, has become the No. 1 issue on campus. Moreover, Hickel had prepared a speech that called for creation of "an environmental task force along the lines of the Peace Corps." It would be called ECO (an acronym for Environmental Control Organization), he said, and could start by conducting an exhaustive inventory of all publicly owned lands and making "recommendations for their highest use --whether it be recreational, or resource-producing, or just plain scenic."

But some of the Princetonians seemed more interested in disruption than effective planning. Before the speech began, they handed out leaflets headlined HECKLE HICKEL, listing the shortcomings of the Secretary's record. "What about the oil?" they chanted in unison. "What about the Indians?" "What about the war?" They were not willing to listen to any answers--or to grant the Secretary his freedom of speech. In fact, they jeered so much that hardly anyone in the audience of 1,800 could hear Hickel say that improving the U.S. environment "will take a generation of men and women who will study both ecology and economics, biology and philosophy; who are broad enough in their exposure to have a balanced judgment."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.