Legacy of the Yosemite Mafia: The Ranger Image and Noble Cause Corruption in the National Park Service - Softcover

Paul D. Berkowitz; James (-J.T.-) Reynolds

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1634241266 ISBN 13: 9781634241267

Publisher: Trine Day, 2017

Synopsis

Calling upon his unique experiences as a criminal investigator in the National Park Service (NPS), Berkowitz proves how an over-emphasis on image (the ""ranger image"") has led to an NPS culture that accepts misconduct. Citing verified news accounts, internal agency documents, and personal notes, this dramatic case study challenges conventional wisdom and official accounts of agency history. Agency culture set in motion nearly a half-century ago, beginning with a group of employees known as the Yosemite Mafia, includes a demonstrated bias against professional law enforcement and a reluctance to hold senior managers accountable. This book fills a gap in existing literature dealing with noble cause corruption and corrects popular assumptions about the NPS, its history, and its law enforcement responsibilities.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Berkowitzis the author of the award-winning The Case of the Indian Trader. JT Reynolds'40-year career as a steward of America's publicly owned lands system has extended from Florida to Alaska and included every aspect of management and protection.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Legacy of the Yosemite Mafia

The Ranger Image and Noble Cause Corruption in the National Park Service

By Paul D. Berkowitz

Trine Day LLC

Copyright © 2017 Paul D. Berkowitz
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-63424-126-7

Contents

cover, 
Title page, 
Copyright page, 
Dedication, 
Foreword, 
Acknowledgments, 
Prologue, 
Introduction, 
PART 1, 
1) Hidden History (Myth-busting), 
2) Public Lands – Protected Places, 
3) A Tale of Transition, 
4) Parklands Reclaimed, 
PART 2, 
5) A Foot in the Door (Indiana Dunes), 
6) Paradise (Yosemite), 
7) Seeds of a Legacy (The Ranger Image), 
8) Trouble in Paradise, 
9) Technicalities, 
10) Eavesdropping, 
11) System Failure, 
12) Fallout, 
13) Troublemaker, 
14) The G.A.O. ("Objective, Fair, and Balanced"), 
15) A Certifiable Cover-up, 
16) Outrage and Defiance, 
17) Double Cover (The O.I.G. Covers Its Tracks), 
PART 3, 
18) Noble Cause Corruption, 
19) Unjust Rewards, 
20) The Price of a Legacy, 
21) Lessons Not Learned (The Legacy Lives On), 
22) A New Legacy (A Call to Action), 
Appendix: Testimony of Paul Berkowitz, presented before the House Subcommittee, 
on Parks, Forests,, 
and Public Lands, October 15, 1985, Yosemite,, 
California1, 
Index, 
Contents, 
Landmarks, 

CHAPTER 1

Hidden History (Mythbusting)

There are any number of good reasons to study history, not the least of which is the ability to identify significant patterns that might otherwise elude detection. There are patterns in government that are revealed only through a close examination of the historical record. But where the historical record is incomplete – or worse – where the record has been manipulated to conceal important historical events, those patterns may not be revealed or detected. That can have grave consequences, including the acceptance of tactics and even policies that, while appearing successful in the short-term or at the local level, may lead to long-term harm. The lengths to which a government agency will go to conceal that record and to promote those kinds of tactics and policies can, in and of itself, reveal a lot about the culture of that agency.

I became intrigued with this phenomenon in the early 1980s, while researching the history of law enforcement in the National Park Service. Contrary to my own observations and experiences, the NPS maintained that law enforcement did not become a significant problem in parks until the 1970s and 1980s. According to official accounts, rangers did not historically carry or even need firearms and other defensive equipment until then, and had not previously engaged in serious law enforcement activities. As late as 1989, the agency's chief ranger and other officials in Washington, D.C., even claimed that three separate officer-involved shootings that year were "believed to be the first by rangers in the Park Service's seventy-three year history," adding, "it's surprising rangers haven't used deadly force before." Surprising, indeed, because none of it was true.

My own research and that of a colleague, ranger Jeff Ohlfs, supported by dozens of interviews with old-timers as well as hundreds of old newspaper accounts, photographs, and even long-buried reports and agency memorandums, flatly refuted those official accounts. The files in my collection contain documentation on literally dozens of incidents prior to 1989, involving the use of deadly force by – as well as against – park rangers. The numbers beyond that date reveal a continuing pattern of violent crime in parks, including assaults against rangers.

* * *

Yellowstone's first superintendent under the NPS (1919 - 1929), Horace Albright, had proclaimed in a form letter to ranger-applicants that "The Ranger is primarily a policeman," and "The ranger force is the park police force, and is on-duty night and day in the protection of the park."

In 1926, while attending the Park Service's first chief rangers' conference (when the agency was only ten years old), Yellowstone chief ranger Sam Woodring declared "We are the police force of the national parks and are charged with the enforcement of law ..."

Notably, Woodring was also strongly opposed to the adoption of what is today the single most iconic symbol of the NPS and its rangers; the Smokey Bear flat hat. Expressing a complaint heard to this day from rangers across the country, he bluntly proclaimed,

I think the most unsatisfactory part of the present uniform is the hat. From the practical standpoint it is the poorest type that could have been adopted. The stiff brim is an impediment to a ranger while at work as it is always in the way and is continually falling off. Working or riding through the brush it is worse than useless, and it is practically impossible to get in or out of a car without knocking it off.

Attending the same conference, Yosemite chief ranger Forest Townsley echoed Woodring's sentiments about the law enforcement duties and challenges his rangers faced, observing that "The greatest problem in Yosemite relates to traffic and police work." Reinforcing this point with surprising candor, while simultaneously foretelling future conditions in the national parks, Townsley explained

The increase in travel will also complicate an already difficult police problem ...

It will bring in many people of a class which is not favorable from a park standpoint, being mostly people who are out to have a good time, and are not in the least interested in the scenic features of the park ...

The above are the class of people who are found in any cheap beach resort, and I expect them to cause considerable trouble in the future in Yosemite. The crowded conditions in the valley will no doubt attract criminals ...

In addition to statements like these, I discovered a long and continuing pattern of crime in parks going back more than a century, and an equally long record of rangers, both armed and unarmed, attempting to combat that crime, often without the meaningful support of park managers.

The popular media has long been a willing participant in the perpetuation of the ranger image and the various myths portraying an historical absence of serious crime in parks. My personal video library now contains dozens of recordings of TV documentary and news accounts going back decades – as far back as the 1970s and all the way up to the present – each successively claiming to expose newfound revelations about "crime coming to the parks." Many of these pieces feature the two very parks, Yellowstone and Yosemite, about which chief rangers Woodring and Townsley had spoken in their own 1926 discussions about crime that had already come to these same areas, where at least they understood that "the ranger force is the park police force." Yet, almost all of these television pieces – year after year and decade after decade – contain misleading statements offered by NPS officials claiming that such trends are a new phenomenon, for the first time (each time!) forcing the agency to arm its rangers and train them to assume an increasingly heavy law enforcement role in the parks.

While the NPS still attempts to downplay the levels of crime and violence that occur in parks and the historic law enforcement role that park rangers have performed, there has been some progress, in many instances the direct result of my own and ranger Ohlfs' efforts to uncover and expose this history. But as I will demonstrate with examples throughout this book, that limited progress has not come easily, and the NPS still struggles and pays a very high price in its often-fierce resistance to acknowledging the need for professional law enforcement, not to mention the need for (and the benefits derived from) accurately preserving the unembellished, unfiltered, and sometimes unflattering historical record. And while the focus of my research has been on law enforcement within the NPS, by inference and reference, much of that same research reveals a great deal about the NPS as a whole, and the underlying culture of the agency.

* * *

It's no great leap to move beyond the fiction of historically crime-free parks and unarmed rangers, to the representation of an NPS workforce that is free of misconduct, with agency leaders who are nothing less than wise, benevolent, and free of corruption. But this, too, is a persistent myth that has been embraced and frequently orchestrated by the NPS to help promote the ranger image. During a 1986 television interview, one senior NPS official acknowledged this long-held belief, quoting some of his own predecessors who professed, "Don't they know that I'm a ranger? Therefore I must be good." And by the same reasoning (such as it is) that there is no need for law enforcement or armed rangers where there is no crime, surely there is no need for program oversight and strict accountability where everyone is "good."

These two myths fuel and feed off of each other. A direct relationship can (and will) be shown between the Park Service's dismissive approach to law enforcement and the devaluation of law enforcement personnel and programs, generally, and the perpetuation of an environment where serious misconduct is readily tolerated but seldom acknowledged.

Advances in electronic communications over the past few decades have made recent controversies, political conflicts, and troubles in the NPS, itself, far more visible than they might have been in the past. Consequently, there has been a tendency to also characterize matters related to agency misconduct and cover-up as only a recent, twenty-first century phenomenon; a departure from a more tranquil and less contentious time, the result of only recent changes in leadership in the NPS. But once again, such conclusions are wrong. This book takes a broader, historical approach, connecting the dots between the past and the present and what may at first seem like disparate topics and events, to reveal how the agency's long-standing approach to not just law enforcement, but agency attitudes and priorities, generally – its culture and its mythology – has compromised professionalism and agency credibility; an unfortunate legacy for which the NPS is increasingly paying a very high price.

At this point, then, it is useful to step back and review some of the conditions and events in our nation's history that first compelled Congress to set aside and protect public lands and resources and, in turn, to designate the first national parks and establish the NPS. That discussion will aid in understanding the political forces at work in the case study presented later, illustrating how "confused values and misplaced priorities" in the NPS have, indeed, "contributed to the erosion of public trust and, ultimately, diminished support for national parks and the mission of resource protection." It will also, I believe, help to demonstrate why, in spite of the many shortcomings we will discuss, agencies like the National Park Service remain an essential part of our government, and why the protection and preservation of our national parks and other public lands remains vital to our national interests.

CHAPTER 2

Public Lands – Protected Places

Most Americans take it for granted that we have a national system of special natural and historic places "set apart as ... public park[s] for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." But the development of that system and the growth of a larger national conservation movement was in many ways a reaction to widespread land fraud and abuse that accompanied the expansion and settlement of the American West. Controversy and conflict over the manner in which those special places are managed – and even more so over the manner in which some of those places are acquired – has plagued conservation efforts since the earliest of times. Many of those conflicts have been hard-fought with guns and even fire-bombs, as well as lobbyists and lawyers; from as far back as the 1830s in Arkansas and the 1860s in California, to Pennsylvania in the 1970s, and back to California as recently as 2014.

Most of the great national parks of the American West – the icons, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Olympic, Grand Canyon, Crater Lake, and others – were in a very real sense carved and created out of public lands "withheld from settlement, occupancy, or sale ..." and "set apart as a public park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." Notwithstanding historic controversies over the manner in which the United States acquired title (a matter beyond the scope of this discussion), the major land base from which these protected sites were established has been in the public domain, owned by the federal government and held in trust for the American people.

In the westward expansion that followed the American Revolution, the United States grew from the original Thirteen Colonies to eventually encompass what we now consider the existing territorial borders spanning from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, Canada to Mexico, and eventually Alaska, Hawaii, and the various territories.

From 1780 to 1802, most of Trans Appalachia – some 233 million acres of land – was ceded to the new federal government by the original (seven of thirteen) states that held claims to lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains extending to the Mississippi River. Those lands were, in turn, divided up into new states according to terms defined in the Ordinance of 1784, the Ordinance of 1785, and the Ordinance of 1787; collectively known as the Northwest Ordinances. Thereafter, pursuant to Article IV, Section 3 (clause 1) of the new U.S. Constitution, through these and various other acts of Congress, the rest of the states we now recognize were carved out of a series of expansions realized through purchases or military domination and treaties with other nations or sovereigns. In most instances, and particularly in the West, those states, through legislation, agreed to "forever disclaim all right and title in or to any unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof ... until the title thereto shall have been extinguished by the United States, [and] the same shall be and remain subject to the disposition of the United States ..." As such, the new states recognized the exclusive title of the United States over these lands as "the common property of the nation."

The authors of the U.S. Constitution contemplated that the federal government would own property. In Article I, Section 8, they made provisions for a federal district that would serve as the seat of government, authorizing Congress

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings.

The founders also made provisions for the management of that and other federal property in what is referred to as the Property Clause (Article IV, Section 3, clause 2):

Congress shall have the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.

Congressional power to make those needful rules "without limitation" or deference to the states, and to set aside and administer lands from the public domain, has been affirmed in several significant Supreme Court cases.

Noteworthy among those cases are two decided in 1911. In Light v. United States, the court affirmed Congressional authority to permanently establish and retain federal preserves out of the public domain. In United States v. Grimaud, the court affirmed Congressional authority to create federal agencies to administer those preserves and other public lands, with authority to prescribe, through regulations, the types of activities that can and cannot take place, therein.

More recently, in Kleppe v. New Mexico (1976), the Supreme Court reaffirmed Congressional authority to retain and assert control over public lands as well as wildlife and other resources, therein, state law notwithstanding, stating

While Congress can acquire exclusive or partial jurisdiction over lands within a State by the State's consent or cession, the presence or absence of such jurisdiction has nothing to do with Congress's powers under the Property Clause. Absent consent or cession a State undoubtedly retains jurisdiction over federal lands within their territory, but Congress equally surely retains the power to enact legislation respecting those lands pursuant to the Property Clause. ... And when Congress so acts, the federal legislation necessarily overrides conflicting state laws under the Supremacy Clause.

Principal responsibility for management of that territory (i.e., public lands) and other federal property initially fell upon the Department of the Treasury. In 1812, that responsibility was vested in a newly created agency within the Treasury Department, called the General Land Office (GLO). The GLO was charged with the duty to "perform all acts and things touching or respecting the public lands of the United States." Among its primary responsibilities was to assess, survey, and then, in an orderly manner dispose of public domain lands in the mid-West and West. The GLO was later incorporated into the Department of the Interior (DOI) when that new cabinet-level department was created in 1849. Next, with passage of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, the U.S. Grazing Service was created to manage the public rangelands. Finally, in 1946, the Grazing Service and the GLO (and their dual missions) were merged together under a new agency, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), also within the Interior Department. Under management of these various agencies, more than one billion acres of land have been transferred from federal to state and private ownership. But in 1976, Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, changing national policy to generally retain the remaining lands in federal ownership.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Legacy of the Yosemite Mafia by Paul D. Berkowitz. Copyright © 2017 Paul D. Berkowitz. Excerpted by permission of Trine Day LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Trine Day
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1634241266
• ISBN 13: 9781634241267
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288