Russell E. Train
Russell Train | |
---|---|
Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality | |
In office January 1, 1970 – September 12, 1973 | |
President | Richard Nixon |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Russell W. Peterson |
Personal details | |
Born | Russell Errol Train June 4, 1920 Jamestown, Rhode Island, U.S. |
Died | September 17, 2012 Bozman, Maryland, U.S. | (aged 92)
Political party | Republican |
Spouse | Aileen Bowdoin Travers |
Parent |
|
Relatives | Charles J. Train (grandfather) Charles R. Train (great-grandfather) |
Education | Princeton University (AB) Columbia University (LLB) |
Russell Errol Train (June 4, 1920 – September 17, 2012) was the second
Early life, education, and military service
Train was born on June 4, 1920, in Jamestown, Rhode Island, but grew up in Washington, D.C. His father was an officer in the United States Navy who was frequently away on assignment. The youngest of the three sons of Rear Admiral Charles Russell Train and the former Errol Cuthbert. His paternal grandfather was Rear Admiral Charles J. Train, and his great-grandfather Charles R. Train had been a U.S. Congressman and Massachusetts Attorney General. An ancestor, John Trayne, had emigrated from Scotland to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635.
He was trained in the ways of Washington from an early age. His father had an office at the White House, where he served as President Herbert Hoover's Naval aide. In 1932, Mrs. Hoover invited Mr. Train and his older brothers, Cuthbert and Middleton, to spend the night at the White House, where they slept in the Andrew Jackson bedroom and breakfasted with the president and Mrs. Hoover on the portico overlooking the Ellipse and the Washington Monument.
"I think what made the greatest impression on me," he wrote years later, "were the tall glasses of fresh California orange juice. I had never seen anything like those large glassfuls before."[1]
Young Russell attended the
Over the following two years Train attended
Early career
Early in his career, Train served from 1949 to 1956 as Attorney, Chief Counsel, and Minority Advisor on various Congressional committees and from 1956 to 1957 as Assistant to the Secretary and Head of the Legal Advisory Staff for the
In 1954, Train married the former Aileen Bowdoin Travers; they became the parents to four children – Nancy, Emily, Bowdoin and Errol.
He was a judge for the
World Wildlife Fund
In 1959, Train founded the
When the
In 1966, Train became a member of the National Water Commission, charged by Congress with reviewing national water policies.
In 1968, Train was selected to serve as Chairman, Task Force on Environment for U.S. President-elect Richard M. Nixon. His selection, and the creation of the task force, signals the growing acceptance by the incoming administration of the "environment" as a public policy concept.[7][4]
Train served as Under Secretary of the
EPA Administrator
During his time as
As head of the EPA under Presidents Nixon and Ford, Train is generally credited with helping to place the issue of the environment on the presidential and national agenda in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a key period in the environmental movement.[4]
Train opened a dialog on global environmental issues with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, marking the birth of modern American environmental diplomacy [8][9] Nixon pursued environmental diplomacy to garner domestic political support.[10]
Return to World Wildlife Fund
After leaving EPA he served as president of the
Through Train's efforts, in 1983 the WWF-administered
In 1985, Train became chairman of the board of directors of World Wildlife Fund and
During 1988 he also worked as co-chairman of Conservationists for Bush, making reference to George H. W. Bush, and from 1990 to 1992 as chairman of the National Commission on the Environment.
In September 1994, Train was elected WWF chairman emeritus. That same year, WWF launched the Russell E. Train Education for Nature (EFN) Program to help build capacity for conservation in Africa, Asia, and Latin America by supporting academic and mid-career training. To date, EFN has awarded over 1,200 scholarships and training grants totaling 11.3 million since its establishment.
Train was named chairman of WWF's National Council from 1994 to 2001.
In 2003, Politics, Pollution and Panda: An Environmental Memoir by Russell E. Train was published. A chronicle of his career, the book is also a history of the birth and growth of U.S. national interest in environmental issues.
Death
Train died at his farm in Bozman, Maryland, on September 17, 2012, aged 92.[1][11]
Awards and honors
In 1981, Train was awarded the
In 1991, Train received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his work in conservation.
In 2001, Train received the 7th Annual
In 2009, a species of gecko,
Collector of books, manuscripts, and artwork
Train collected printed books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, artifacts, and artwork on African exploration, big-game hunting, natural history, and wildlife conservation, dating primarily from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 2004, the Russell E. Train Africana Collection was acquired by the
See also
References
- ^ a b c Juliet Eilperin (September 17, 2012). "Russell E. Train, former EPA head, dies at 92". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2012-09-18.
- ^ "Russell E. Train | EPA History | US EPA". Epa.gov. 2006-06-28. Retrieved 2010-08-21.
- ^ Rawlings, Nate. Milestones. Time magazine. October 1, 2012
- ^ a b c Rinde, Meir (2017). "Richard Nixon and the Rise of American Environmentalism". Distillations. 3 (1): 16–29. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
- ^ Train, Russell Errol (1941). "The United States versus Japan: A Study of Sea Power in the Atlantic".
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(help) - ^ Harold Dubroff and Brant J. Hellwig, The United States Tax Court: An Historical Analysis (2014), p. 159.
- ^ a b c "WWF - Who We Are - Russell E. Train Timeline". Worldwildlife.org. Retrieved 2010-08-21.
- ^ Russell E. Train, "The environmental record of the Nixon administration." Presidential Studies Quarterly 26.1 (1996): 185-196.
- ^ J. Brooks Flippen, "Richard Nixon, Russell Train, and the birth of modern American environmental diplomacy." Diplomatic History 32.4 (2008): 613-638.
- ^ Stephen Macekura, "The limits of the global community: the Nixon administration and global environmental politics." Cold War History 11.4 (2011): 489-518.
- New York Times.
- ^ "Public Welfare Award". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 18 February 2011.
- ^ The Heinz Awards, Russell Train profile
- ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Russell Train", p. 230).
- ^ Smithsonian Institution Libraries. "The Russell E. Train Africana Collection, 1663-1996". Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives.
Further reading
- Flippen, J. Brooks. Conservative Conservationist: Russell E. Train and the Emergence of American Environmentalism (LSU Press, 2006).
- Flippen, Brooks. "Richard Nixon, Russell Train, and the birth of modern American environmental diplomacy." Diplomatic History 32.4 (2008): 613638. online
- Gilmore, Nicholas. "The Republican Who Brought Environmentalism to the White House: As a Republican EPA administrator, Russell Train centered the environment in American politics in an era when talk of conservation and regulation was bipartisan." Saturday Evening Post June 4, 2020
- Greenberg, Michael R. "Russell E. Train: a leading environmental figure of the 1970s." American journal of public health 100.4 (2010): 606. online
- Houck, Oliver A. "In Memoriam: Russell E. Train." Tulane Environmental Law Journal (2012): i-iii. online
- Macekura, Stephen. "The limits of the global community: the Nixon administration and global environmental politics." Cold War History 11.4 (2011): 489-518.
Primary sources
- Nicoll, Don. "Train, Russell oral history interview." (1999). online
- Train, Russell E. "The environmental record of the Nixon administration." Presidential Studies Quarterly 26.1 (1996): 185-196. online
- "Russell E. Train: Oral History Interview" at Environmental Protection Agency
External links
- Biodiversity Heritage Library scans of books from the Russell E. Train Africana Collection in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries