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Sunday, September 19, 1999

The 1900s have seen New Mexico grow from an out-of-the-way U.S. territory to a state known for science, sports, literature and the arts as well as for its unique cultural mix and brand of politics.
While many people have contributed in these areas, some have had a larger-than-usual impact. Some are known far and wide: Smokey Bear, Georgia O'Keeffe, the Unser family. Others might not have as high a name recognition outside New Mexico, but leave a legacy that helped define the state.
And in most cases, their influence has been felt far beyond New Mexico's borders.
Here is one of the 20 individuals or families who helped make New Mexico what it is today.

Clinton P. Anderson -- 1895-1975
As political figures go, few loom as large in New Mexico and the nation as did Democrat Clinton P. Anderson, a three-term U.S. representative, one-time secretary of agriculture and four-term U.S. senator. He was a key player in Washington's power circles, a friend and confidant to Presidents Truman and Kennedy.
Anderson came to Albuquerque as a tubercular, seriously ill young man from South Dakota -- 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighing 133 pounds. His career belies the health problems that plagued most of his life.

Clinton P. Anderson

Anderson worked as an investigative reporter for the Albuquerque Journal and uncovered some of the scandalous details of Secretary of Interior Albert Fall's (another New Mexican) dealings in oil royalties, later to be known as the Teapot Dome scandal.
Anderson was elected to Congress in 1941, then twice more before Truman tapped him in 1945 as the post-war secretary of agriculture. He resigned in 1948 to run for the U.S. Senate from New Mexico, serving through 1972.
Anderson gave impetus to the adoption of Medicare, advised Kennedy extensively on the limited nuclear test ban treaty and was the prime backer of the 1964 Wilderness Act, setting aside certain lands to preserve in their wild state.
Anderson (like his colleague, Sen. Dennis Chavez) played poker with Truman, thought his friend Lyndon Johnson was flawed in his conduct of the Vietnam War, had no use for Dwight Eisenhower and liked Kennedy a lot.

 

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Compiled by Fritz Thompson, Leslie Linthicum, Bill Hume and Dennis Latta