As Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Stewart Udall helped to oversee the enactment of several major conservation laws. Before joining the cabinet, he had represented his home state of Arizona for four terms as a member of Congress. Udall left Washington in the 1970s and returned to practice law in the Southwest. In 1978, he studied several communities, situated close to the Nevada Nuclear test site, that had suffered high and early death rates. Udall brought a series of lawsuits against the government on behalf of hundreds of Nevada citizens. In 1990, he helped create the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which works toward the awareness of the health effects of atomic testing and establishes compensation for affected individuals and families.
1920 January 31, Born, St. Johns, Arizona
1944 U.S. Army Air force
1948 LL.B, University of Arizona
1948 Admitted to Arizona State Bar
1948-1954 Partner, Udall & Udall, Tucson, Arizona
1955-1960 U.S. Representative from 2nd Arizona district
1961-1969 U.S. Secretary of the Interior
1969-- Chairman of the Board, Overview Co., Washington D.C.
1969-- Activist in New Mexico
1969-- Adjunct Professor, Yale University
2010 March 20, died, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Author
The Quiet Crisis, 1963.
National Parks of America, (with others), 1966.
1976: Agenda for Tomorrow, 1968.
Natural Wonders of America, 1971.
America’s Natural Treasures, 1971.
The Energy Balloon, 1974.
The National Parks, 1974.
To the Inland Empire: Coronado and Our Spanish Legacy, 1987.
The Quiet Crisis and the Next Generation, 1988.
Arizona, Wild and Free, 1993.
The Myths of August: A Personal Exploration of our Tragic Cold War Affair with the Atom, 1994.
Source
Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: The Gale Group, 2003. http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC