THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Caroline Isber Reuter
“The women’s movement, when I encountered it, had wonderful, interesting, smart, fearless women, and I admire them.”
Interviewed by Mary Jean Collins, VFA Historian, May 2024
MJC: Would you please state your name and where you were born and when you were born?
CIR: My name is Caroline Isber Reuter. It is pronounced Carolyn. I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1940.
MJC: Can you describe your early life, the influences, siblings, et cetera, just in general?
CIR: I am an only child, and my early life was fun. I lived in the heart of the Harvard faculty neighborhood. John F. Kennedy, was our congressman and then Senator and President. People were involved with writing speeches for Adlai Stevenson, and when Kennedy won the presidency, everybody it seemed on the next block, was going to Washington with him.
MJC: Were your parents faculty members?
CIR: No, my father was a lawyer. He had gone to Harvard and Harvard Law School, and he enjoyed going to lectures. It was all very interesting.
MJC: And how about your mom?
CIR: My mom was a French teacher and taught piano
MJC: Okay. Describe that early life and how it led you to the women’s movement, if you could.
CIR: Well, it was a nice life, very free, got around by bicycle and bus. I went to a progressive school in Cambridge, a half block away, then I went into Boston, [to] a girls’ school. It was very good. It emphasized that girls could do anything. And was very demanding, or I thought it was very demanding in terms of our literature and our classes. And so, there was not a feeling that there was anything we could not do. I went on to the Winsor School. And I went to Mount Holyoke College, which was also a women’s college. I think the combination was, Don’t be afraid of anything and go after what you’re interested in doing.
MJC: So, being in womens’ institutions you think had an influence on your development?
CIR: I do. I think I was the [of] kind person who didn’t worry about barriers, particularly. I might have gotten angry there were some, but you just kept plodding along, and so that is what I did.
MJC: So, at Mount Holyoke, and you’re graduating, and now what happens?
CIR: At Mount Holyoke, I arranged to charter planes to go to Europe and earned money . I didn’t have money, but by chartering the planes, I could afford to send myself to Europe for three months in the summers. So, I did that for two summers. I also was the head of the New York Times distribution. So, this was my way of making my ability to go places and do things, since I didn’t have any money from my parents for this, and I then kept going.
MJC: You were quite entrepreneurial at an early age.
CIR: Yes, I was encouraged to be entrepreneurial. I was fortunate that I could do it. The school wasn’t too sure I should do the planes. I chartered planes for the four colleges in the area, but they didn’t stop me. They said, “Well, we’ll have to give [you] permission.” I didn’t get permission. They knew I was doing it. And that enabled me to explore all sorts of places that I wouldn’t have been able to afford.
MJC: Amazing. Where did you go?
CIR: Well, I went one summer to England, France, Italy, and Yugoslavia. Some of my efforts and adventures had problems because, for example, I accepted a ride over the Alps on a motorcycle. We got into an accident and things like that, but by and large, I had a fascinating time. Went to Yugoslavia, and one of my colleagues from the Mount Holyoke plane told me to get in touch with her if I was in Florence or came near Florence.
Turned out that she and her family had a big villa up in Chianti. We decided with two Amherst men, Amherst College was part of the 5 colleges group, to go to Yugoslavia and meet her cousins. She was not allowed to go, but we went, and we found Yugoslavia as a very rigid Communist country. Her father had shared the Presidency of Yugoslavia with Tito. Then he’d bee forced out. He was a history professor at a college in the US. That was fascinating to see the other side of the Yugoslavian world, the Communist world.
MJC: So, the education you received at these institutions, plus the education you provided yourself, was quite useful.
CIR: Yes, it was very useful.
MJC: Now we are at graduation. What are your intentions, what do you try to do, and what happens?
CIR: I have this idea that I want to be a journalist. I was an editor of the newspaper, and my Harvard friends who were on the Crimson were getting jobs at the New York Times. So obviously, I wanted to go to the New York Times. Not that I expected to get it, but I tried. I went to New York, I got an interview, and I said that “I was interviewing to be a reporter.”
And the person interviewing me said, “I’m sorry, we don’t hire women as reporters.” That’s it. I kept talking, thinking maybe I could talk them into it. And finally, he listened to me politely and he said, “Caroline, you could be emptying wastepaper baskets for 20 years, and you’re still not going to be hired as a reporter.” Well, I was shocked. I was not shocked to be turned down for the job, but he was very forthright about that.
MJC: He was also very wrong over time.
CIR: Over time, fortunately he was very wrong. Now, things have changed completely. So that was it. I tried some other jobs, which I didn’t get in New York, and I came back to Cambridge, Massachusetts and I called the Boston Globe. I called the city editor, and I talked to him politely for 30 days every day. He talked to me, and finally, he asked me to come in and I could start.
The Boston Globe had people on this women’s page. I didn’t want to go to the women’s page, so I talked them into going to the city room. There were only three women. I was the third, and the Globe didn’t really know what to do with me. It was a very different place. It was a good education for me. Briefly, I got sent to Catholic Mass , Marion Day in South Boston. I was a misfit from Cambridge. People were very nice to me but there was no story just getting me away from what was happening.t did to me. know where South Boston was. I had been to Paris and London, but I did not really know the location fs South Boston
After a while, I decided to break a story about artificial cigarettes/t tobacco. I had a source at a well known research company. I wrote a story that said there was a research taking place to develop non tobacco cigarettes by a well-known research company. I wrote it. I had my sources. I handed it in; because I was not getting good assignments, so I assigned myself. The managing editor came over to me and said, “Caroline, it’s a very good story, but we’re not going to print it.” “Why aren’t you going to print it?” “80% of our newspaper advertising is from cigarette companies, tobacco. But you can talk to the owner.”
I went to talk to the owner of the paper, again, very polite, and he said, “Caroline, you’re right. I know you’re right, but we’re not going to print it,” He said, “80% of the newspaper revenue is from tobacco.” So, I called my father, who always wanted me to be realistic, and he said, “What do you expect?” I was in a pay phone, putting dimes in. I called every radio and television station, and newspaper. They all said, “We don’t hire women.” But one, WGBH, the public radio station said, “Come in, we’ll talk to you.”
So, I got a job there, and I had a really wonderful job. I could do whatever important program I wanted to. Make;Whether it was about Vietnam, or a weekly show on Massachusetts politicsI, covered the Statehouse. I was there for five years, and that was a beginning of my work. It was pre-NPR. I was on every night with Susan Sandberg for the Eastern Education Network, and so I got good training.
MJC: I’m sure you did. Good for you. So, five years there. How many other women were employed there when you got there?
CIR: One other.
MJC: One other. Out of how many?
CIR: Perhaps 20 as reporters. It depended upon the the job title, basically, there were four of us. I was the only one in radio. There was somebody a few years later who worked IN TV, and, of course eventually, they had Julia Child doing her show. After work, they would invite us when she was taping, to come and we could sit under the table and pass food to her because everything required three versions of it. And then they’d give us a delicious dinner. So, I loved doing that once a week, and I would invite friends who liked it.
MJC: Well, that’s fun. That’s a bonus. All right, so now what’s next?
CIR: Well, I then start working in television, and I worked with the Westinghouse Station after working in Educational Development Center as the head of the movies. I made films. One on Jerome Bruner and some others, and some anthropological films. I was the executive director.
MJC: Hang on just a minute. Let me ground us a little more in terms of timeline. The first NPR- What year, and then what year did you go to this filming job?
CIR: I went to the filming in 1968.
MJC: Okay. So, the other times with public radio, are before 1968. Is there a time when you become conscious of the women’s movement? You are a women’s movement all by yourself, but in addition to that, how much did you become aware of other women’s organizing?
CIR: Probably at the end of the ’60s. At that point, I was working at the Westinghouse Station making a series of children’s television programs financed by the federal government and WBZ ,the Westinghouse Station. I produced a show called Yes we Can, and I was the emcee for it. We were stressing that this was not picking one woman over another, this was showing what women could do. That was very important in our minds. I also got to know Margaret Heckler, who was a Congresswoman. We got along very well, both as friends and hard work, and she was a great influence on my life and opportunities.
MJC: What year did you meet Heckler? Do you remember?
CIR: I met her in ’1970. What happened was, Senator Brooke had recommended me to be the press secretary for a wonderful person who was a Black lawyer, who was running against Louise Day Hicks in Boston, and I was recommended to him. He was a Democrat, and I was his press secretary. He lost, and he became a federal judge after that. Anyway, I got a call from Margaret Heckler saying that Ed Brooke had recommended me and if David Nelson lost, would I come talk to her? But meanwhile, she wanted to meet me. So, I said, “Well, I could not work for you. You are a Republican.” And she said, “Meet me at 11:00 at night at Route 128 at the Howard Johnson’s.” So, I thought, “Why not?” I met her, and I was somewhat arrogant, politely. “Where are you on the SST? What do you think about this and that? Vietnam? Laos?”
MJC: So, you interviewed her?
CIR: I interviewed her. She interviewed me. She looked at her watch after a half hour and said, “I have to be on an 8:30 plane to Washington.. Why don’t you come with me and you can see what it’s like in my office.”
MJC: Smart woman.
CIR: So, I said to her, “Okay.” I figured I had friends in Washington and that would be interesting. Anyway, we got along, and I went to work for her after David lost. I worked in Boston. Two relevant things for women; as we got along, we tried to insert women’s rights, women’s daycare, all sorts of things together. I had this idea that the factory workers in Fall River, the textile workers, who were all women mostly from the Azores, they were making the textiles and sewing the clothes. They were doing all the work. And I thought they would like to have a hearing.
So, we did have a hearing with Margaret Heckler to lean how many people we could get and see what the problems were. The people who were the heads of the Union were all male. The International Ladies, Garment Workers Union, you know this? Not a woman there. And they said, “No. The women wouldn’t want this.” “I couldn’t get three people for the hearing.” And “Nobody cares about Margaret Heckler.” This was her district. The owners of the factory said it was fine. I think they were having troubles getting workers.
Anyway, the upshot of it was, I organized a hearing, 500 women workers showed up. Remember, the workers were women who had what you call latchkey kids. Latchkey kids meant they did not have anybody to greet the child after school. They let themselves into their homes. Margaret Heckler put the hearings into the Congressional record about why we needed daycare and so forth. We still haven’t passed a national daycare bill, but they’re talking about it now. Other things were the two Republican Conventions, for trying to get women vice presidents. Again, now we have one, but it took a long time. Because at these conventions, one in Miami, one in Kansas City, they locked it up so tightly, so that there were no issues. We became the only topic, by accident.
MJC: They had tight restrictions on the convention, and they did not let controversial issues come to the floor except yours? How did that happen?
CIR: I got into an elevation Miami to go up to the platform people, or to watch it, they certainly weren’t going to let me talk, and Dan Rather gets into the elevator with me. There are only two of us. He followed me and said, “What’s going on?” So, I had the pleasure of telling him what we were doing. How we needed a woman vice president, why the platform should at least endorse the idea of the possibility of having one, and that I was going on to talk to them. I got off.
And then by the time I went down in the elevator and sat waiting for Margaret Heckler, the major people from the networks were sitting with me and asking questions, and then she arrived. Well, it was perfect. And then there were people like Jill Ruckelshaus and Bobby Kilberg who were helping. We had planned this, and they were pulling people in. And so, to the annoyance of the Republican Convention, they did o’t have any news, so we were the news for two days.
MJC: So, that backfired on them, their strategy.
CIR: That backfired their strategy. And there was something like that in Kansas City, and that was our effort. Margaret Heckler and I, of course particularly her. One anecdote from her, and Iwill be quick about it. She went to Vietnam, and then during the war she was driven around by the ambassador, and he was calling in, on the phone in front of her, bombings in Laos. She didn’t say a word. He figured she was a woman and what would she know what he was doing? So, she came back, she called me and said, “Caroline, I got to tell you about this.” She was really , upset. And so, she put in the Congressional record for the first time. Member of Congress listens to ambassador calling in bombing raids.
MJC: Oh, my goodness.
CIR: So, I learned a lot from her. There were only 13 women in Congress at the time. There was no bathroom for women near where the house floor was. They shared a bathroom and a little ante room, the Democrats and Republicans. And so, they became friends and worked together. Other things that were going on, was that there was a Congressional swimming pool, men only. Women, I think they got one hour a week, or something like that. The men did not want to wear bathing suits and so they couldnot have women swim.
MJC: It took a while for them to get acquainted with reality. Would you just comment on the Democrats and Republicans working together in this time in politics because it is so different.
CIR: It was a very different era. Democrats and Republicans, both in Congress and in the Senate – I’ll tell you about my Senate experience – worked together. And certainly, they were friendly. As you notice, I worked for a Democrat and a Republican, and this kept going in my life. I was moving to New York City with my husband, we had been commuting for a year.
MJC: What year did you get married?
CIR: In ’71. In ’72, we moved to New York City and in anticipation of that, Margaret Heckler decided to find me a job – on her own. I had not thought of asking her. She called Senator Javitz, who was then the New York Senator. So, I went to New York, I had an interview with Jacob Javitz, he looked at me and he said, “Well, you seem very good and very intelligent, but really, I need a man, because I need a tennis partner.”
I did not know what to say. There was nothing I could do. So, I did o’t get the job. I told Congresswoman Heckler, and then about a month later, he called Margaret Heckler and said, “I have somebody I want to put in your office. I will take Caroline.” So that’s what happened. He called back, and I went to work for Senator Javitz, who told me that “I had very intelligent things to say, but I had to learn to yell.” Massachusetts and New York, you had to speak up.
He was very interesting to work with, and I persuaded him that he needed to have a hearing about women. He was very good on civil rights; he was o’t so good on women. He hadn’t thought about it. When people came to him, for example, a group of people who were deans of medical schools came to him about needing more admissions to help press for Jews to be admitted to medical schools, I said, “What about women?” And they were startled. They did not know what to say. They hadn’t thought about it, or they didn’t think it was important, whatever it was. Anyway, we had a hearing with all sorts of women with Senator Javitz, and he was very pleased with it, and said that it had educated him and it had gone across the issues. I was very pleased.
MJC: So, you’re with Javitz. How long did you stay with him?
CIR: I stayed with him a short time because we were then moving to Washington. I got a job at Corporation for Public Broadcasting to study women in public broadcasting.
MJC: Okay. Now we’re really into women as a specific topic of your work.
CIR: Exactly. This was a national study of public broadcasting. It was a program content analysis for what was on the shows across the country, and it was also an analysis, with some travel and interviewing people, at finding out who was employed and in what positions. And it was like all these things. When you do them, you need a good board. So, I called Gloria Steinem. I had met her, there was a woman’s salon in Washington that I had gone to.
So, I called her and asked her if she’d like to be on the board, and she said “No,” she couldn’t do it, but she recommended Joan Shigekawa, who is still a close friend, and a couple of other people who were mostly New York people. That was very helpful. They accepted, you may have heard of some of them, but anyway, the point was, that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting wanted the job done, but they didn’t really want it done. They wanted to show they were doing things, but at that stage – again, things have changed completely.
They gave me a small budget. I was able to hire a consultant who was a professor at the American University whose specialty was media. We started doing a program content analysis in both television and radio, in which we found that all voices of authority were male, and various other things to do with narrators. The people who were invited to speak were basically male. I then went and interviewed Joan Ganz Cooley, who was the head of Sesame Street and Children’s Television Workshop. She was a great interview, was very interesting.
When we did the program content analysis of Sesame Street, all the voices of authority were male. If you asked any of them what they wanted to be; any of the characters when they grew up, they would say, if it was female, a witch. If it was male, they’d have firemen or something like that, policemen or whatever, logical for little children. All the Muppets were male, and I couldn’t figure out why the Muppets had to be male.
I traveled around the country and did case studies. I had an advantage having been at WGBH because I was pretty well known in the field, and so people were happy to be interviewed with me. The rest of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was very supportive and knew that I was being undermined. They tried to stop the money so I couldn’t pay my people or myself, but then other department directors, who controlled their own money donated it to the cause. A lot of men did that.
We were able to come up with the study which was the first in the country, on women in broadcasting in general. The problem was putting it out to the public, because the Corporation for Public Broadcasting pulled all their publicity people and took them to a conference on the day I was supposed to do it,So there were no publicity people. The publicity people called me and said, “We’re going to leave you all our lists and telephone numbers of whom you should call.” The president of the corporation was not available, but I knew the vice-president who called and said, “I’ll do the press conference.”
There weren’t very many women reporters of major newspapers, but I did have a friend, Peggy Simpson. She was with a wire service, and she pulled together five people, such as a reporter from the New York Times, and others whom you may have interviewed, for a dinner party at her house. I brought the copies of the study which had been printed and gave one to each reporter, and then I briefed them on what was important. One of the things that happened was when they came to the press conference the next day, they were well briefed on what to talk about and it got enormous publicity. It was in all the wire services, and it was on the news and in the New York Times. In fact, it was more publicity than anything that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting had ever gotten before, and they were a little surprised.
The leader was about Children’s Television Workshop. That all the Muppets were male and other aspects to it, which led to Ms. Piggy. I felt badly for Joan Ganz Cooney. I hadn’t meant for her to be the lead story of doing something badly, so I called her and she said, “That was all right.” She’d just talked to Jim Hensen and asked him why all the Muppets were male. She hadn’t thought about it. And he said, “Well, all the Muppeteers are male. I hadn’t thought about it either.”
So, there’s an example. That’s the story of the study, and there was a lot of interest from other women’s groups. It got published by Cambridge University Press. A few years later, Corporation for Public Broadcasting had me go to Congress to testify on their behalf, showing they had done things for women.
MJC: Such a perfect example of how things happened and how much happened as a result of actions like yours and others. Beautiful story. How long did you stay in that position?
CIR: It was a couple of years. Until it got published. I moved on to WETA as a television producer. And then at a certain point, after WETA, somebody recommended me to the Carter White House. Even then, Margaret Heckler helped. Anyway, I was recommended to work for the Council on Environmental Quality, which was in the White House, as the head of public affairs and legislative liaison.
This is a different topic, but really fascinating. They did check my references, and then they called, among other people, Margaret Heckler, and said, “Caroline Isber is a finalist for this. Do you recommend her?” It was at night. She was on the house floor. It was put through, and she said, “You better call her now because she’s got three other opportunities,” which was not true. And so, at 10:30 at night, I got this call offering me the job.
When I went for the interview before that happened, I was pregnant. My friends divided over whether I should go to the interview, but I wanted the job. Somebody said, Put a coat over your stomach or something. Anyway, I had the interview, and I was asked all the wrong questions, which were, “Do you have a babysitter?” “Where do your parents live? ”Are you afraid of science?”
This person who asked me is a good friend now, and I just said, “No, I’ve got people to take care of everything.” Anyway, I got the job, and it worked out very well. So, that was the transition to the environment which I’ve gone into, and continued for a long time. Then, unfortunately, I got what they call riffed when Reagan came in, and I started with Bill Dragan, an environmental organization called, Save EPA, which was about the budget cuts of EPA under Anne Gorsuch.
And then, Margaret Heckler lost her election and was invited by Reagan to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. So, she called me and said, “You want to come work with me at Health and Human Services?” And I said, “But you couldn’t have been asked by the President. You have the lowest voting Republican for the initiatives in the House.” She says, “Are you coming or not?” So, I went to work for her, and I worked on a lot of things that had to do with women.
She had wanted to do a study on Black and Minority Health, particularly women’s health. It had not cleared OMB, so she decided to do it herself using the leaders of NIH, which was just the right group. And so, she made me her representative pulling this all together, which was absolutely fascinating. We always stressed women’s health as well, in every minority group. It’s got 13 volumes, The Heckler Report, and so that’s what I did mostly with her. We also did other things that had to do with women, of course. I don’t know if you want to go back to the ERA?( The Equal Rights Amendment)
MJC: Oh, yes, the State ERA. I think that’s an important story to include.
CIR: We’re going back to Massachusetts. I had been appointed to the Women’s Commission in Massachusetts.
MJC: Now, what year are we?
CIR: We’re in 1972, I think. It could be ’73, but I think it’s ’72. Margaret Heckler and I wanted to pass the state of Massachusetts, ERA, to ratify, and so did many, many women. And so, on this Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination that I was on, the Governor’s Commission, had a person who was the chief aid to the Senate President of Massachusetts, Kevin Harrington. Kevin Harrington was a very good Senate President, and we asked him to get it ratified quickly, and he said he would.
There was a problem, which was every day he said he would do it, it didn’t get done. After a few times, the chief aid started trying to figure it out. Every morning, she’d put it on the top of his desk, and every day, he’d lose it. And so finally, she went through his desk, which she was permitted to do, and she kept finding it at the bottom of the pile, underneath his shoes, in the drawer. And she would take it out, put it on his desk. Nothing happened. It would remove itself again. She said to him, finally, “I’m going to quit this job if you don’t pass it.” And he did. So that’s the story of the ratification.
MJC: That’s beautiful. So, you’re describing men of both parties acting similarly over beating feminism.
CIR: That’s right. And how to delay after you agree what you’re going to do? You make a promise, and then you delay.
MJC: And then a personal threat to your personal convenience gets it done.
CIR: Yes.
MJC: Good. Well, Massachusetts was really early in passing a state ERA. I’m glad you included that story. Let’s go back.
CIR: We’re leaving Health and Human Services?
MJC: Right. The Reagan administration, yes.
CIR: We worked on AIDS. We worked on all sorts of things. Clarence Thomas called her and she asked me whether she should talk to him. She asked me to call Clarence Thomas and talk to him. I called Clarence Thomas. He talked to me for an hour about how he was getting rid of class action suits.
MJC: He didn’t know who he was talking to, I guess.
CIR: He did not. I said I worked with Margaret Heckler, and she’d asked me to call him. That was true. I reported the conversation, and she did not call him back, but we kept track of him.
MJC: So, you had an early warning system on Clarence Thomas.
CIR: That’s right.
MJC: By his own hand.
CIR: Right. Quite interesting.
MJC: Heckler is so interesting because this whole period of these Republican women, and Democratic women coming together in that period of time, is a story in itself, isn’t it?
CIR: It is an important story.
MJC: What happens from here?
CIR: Well, Margaret Heckler gets fired, and I move on.
MJC: How long did Heckler serve? Do you remember?
CIR: I think it was two years, or two and a half years.
MJC: You mean she got fired from the Reagan administration?
CIR: Yes.
MJC: Okay.
CIR: She transferred to be the ambassador to Ireland.
MJC: Oh, that’s right. I remember that.
CIR: They didn’t like the fact that she was shaking hands with AIDS people. Fauci had come to her and said, “This is not the way things are transferred” and “AIDS people need some sympathy. Nobody wants to get near them, and if you shake hands with them, that will illustrate that this is not the way it transfers.”
MJC: So, she modeled good behavior?
CIR: She modeled her behavior on good hygiene, which was fine, and that one shouldn’t ostracize AIDS people.
MJC: Right. Excellent. That’s a wonderful story, too. So, was she pushed out of the administration?
CIR: Yes. She was called in and told that they wanted her as an ambassador to Ireland, which she enjoyed. When I had been at CEQ, we had done a report on climate change, water, and issues like that; desertification, toxics, and so forth. Then, from Vice President Mondale’s office, this gets to climate change is where I’m going, I was asked to brief the senators and members of Congress about our report, and the problems of these issues.
The only person in the Senate or Congress; and I was doing this out of the vice president’s office, who was interested, was Al Gore. I had gotten to know him. Later on, as a senator, he was running a program which had a bipartisan group of senators, Heinz, Chaffee, Kerry, who wanted to have something done about the environment, to add climate change. He hired me to be the issues director. I dropped him a line and said, “I’d be interested,” and so I worked in the Senate as the issues director for those issues. And that was very nice. Again, bipartisan.
MJC: So interesting.
CIR: And the wives were all involved. Theresa Heinz, who is now married to John Kerry. As you know, Tipper Gore, and so forth. And so, it was a really wonderful, not only bipartisan, but it was issues-oriented with the wives, who did different aspects of that. We put out a study, and I then went from there to EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, and worked on writing the oil pollution laws after the spill in Alaska. I was head of the regulatory group, which were mostly smoke jumpers who put out fires, and went from place to place, and we wrote those regulations on oil spills.
We went out to Galveston, where I was part of this conference, chairing it for, writing it, and I was the only woman, of course. We went out to dinner with Red Adair, who is a famous earthy fellow. Everybody gave me the keys to their car because I should be the one driving their car if they got drunk, Nobody got drunk. But I said I couldn’t drive 15 cars at the same time. They told me that I should not talk about environment, I should talk about economic opportunity. The Galveston Bay. It was very interesting.
I’ve also worked at NOAA in the Office of Climate Change, putting on an international conference when Dr. Jim Baker was the head of NOAA. I’ve had a variety of things. Eventually, I retired, and I worked for the Garden Club of America as their legislative person in Washington for 11 years. They are very effective on the environment, and they are effective politically in persuading Republicans. For example, I had worked a long time ago on writing the Alaska Lands Act when I was the Council on Environmental Quality, which passed, and was thrilling. Frequently, there’s an effort to get rid of it, and the Garden Club of America was very important in persuading the Republicans to get the key vote to save the Alaska Lands Act.
MJC: Oh, good for them. That’s something I didn’t know.
CIR: It’s been in and out of interesting things with women, and the environment, and television, and radio.
MJC: I’ll ask the obvious question. Do you feel that the women’s movement affected your personal and political life?
CIR: Definitely. The women’s movement, when I encountered it, had wonderful, interesting, smart, fearless women, and I admire them. People like Ronnie Eldridge, and Joan Shigekawa, and Gloria, but all over, both Republicans and Democrats. It’s been strategic, and I’m thrilled with what’s happening now. Where they arere in all these jobs and places in life where they’re very effective and not afraid.
MJC: Well, I think your interview is a hopeful memoir of what can happen when people work together for common goals and find those commonalities. I hope that we’re coming back to another period where that will be more possible. Let’s hope for it anyway. Is there anything that I haven’t covered that you would like to add?
CIR: Yes. When there was going to be a change of administrations with Trump’s presidency, on the fifth day after he won, I co-founded with other people I’d worked with in the past, the Environmental Protection Network. Which brought you very much of the same problems that had happened when I’d done Save EPA. A lot of the people came together, and we have grown into a larger organization. It was just a few of us, without any money, and we have employed lots of young women all over the country, and men. It’s very interesting how this generation is working all over the country to make sure that we protect the environment.
MJC: Is there anything else you’d like to add? This has just been delightful, wonderful.
CIR: Well, you’re a good interviewer.
MJC: You have a wonderful tale to tell. This is really interesting because last week, or a week ago, two weeks ago, I interviewed Barbara Mikulski, and this is such a similar period in Washington. She talked about the Republicans that she worked with, particularly in organizing the women when she first got there, and the lunches they would have and the way in which they would work together. It just feels like that same kind of energy. The ability to get stuff done, to actually accomplish goals, was at its height in a way, partly because of the women, but also, the other more bipartisan approaches to the problems. It made me envious.
CIR: She’s marvelous. I mean, she really is a dynamo and so effective. She’s wonderful.
MJC: Yes. She mentioned all the women, and she particularly mentioned the Republican women from the Senate. I can’t remember who they are now, but women that were in the Senate at that time on the Republican side. Anyway, you had that similar experience, which is why I brought that up.
CIR: That’s right. And we helped each other.
MJC: There’s probably a whole story there. You, and other women who came on to staff the members of Congress who were women, who would never have had a chance, perhaps in another period when there weren’t very many women in the Congress.
CIR: Absolutely. The fact that I had a mentor who looked after me in such an interesting way. We helped each other, but she really thought about it.
MJC: Well, you were strategic from the time you were a kid, so God bless you. Anyway, thank you so much for doing this.