Overview of the Collection
Access
Administrative Information
Biographical Note
Scope and Content
Arrangement
Indexing Terms
Overview of the Collection
Title: Frank Wheat Papers
Dates (inclusive): Approximately 1950-2000
Bulk dates: Approximately
1985-2000
Collection Number: mssWheat papers
Creator:
Wheat, Frank, 1921-.
Extent: 154 boxes (64.22 linear feet)
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Manuscripts Department
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2129
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: This collection contains the personal and professional papers of California lawyer and political activist Frank Wheat (1921-).
The papers chiefly date from the mid 1980s-2005 and cover his work on the California
Desert Protection Act; the California Desert Miracle, The Fight
for Desert Parks and Wilderness (1999), and other environmental issues, particularly
including mining's effect on the environment; the Alliance for Children's Rights,
the Center for Law in the Public Interest and Human Rights Watch and his involvement
with Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. The collection also contains information on
Wheat's legal career, including his presidency of the Los Angeles County Bar
Association, his tenure as an SEC Commissioner, his expertise in securities and
corporate law, and his involvement with the California Citizens Budget Commission
and California Commission on Campaign Financing.
Language: English.
Access
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services
Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.
Administrative Information
Publication Rights
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to
quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such
activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is
one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item]. Frank Wheat Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino,
California.
Provenance
Gift from Mrs. Nancy W. Wheat, May 10, 2001.
Biographical Note
Frank Wheat (1921-), California lawyer and political activist. Born in Los Angeles,
California, on February 4, 1921, Francis Millspaugh Wheat graduated Phi Beta Kappa
from Pomona College in 1942. During World War II Wheat spent three and a half years
on destroyers as a gunnery officer on active duty from 1942-46. He received his law
degree cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1948 and joined Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher that year in Los Angeles, becoming a partner in 1955. One of the top
securities lawyers in the nation, he was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in
1964 to the Securities and Exchange Commission and moved to Washington, D.C.,
returning to Los Angeles and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in 1969.
In the late 1960s when activism was thriving on numerous fronts, Wheat was impressed
by the work of law students outside the traditional legal world, students who were
voluntarily providing legal assistance for those in need, pushing for legislative
reforms, opening community clinics, even working with prison inmates. Frank Wheat
rode this wave of public interest law (ca. 1970-1980) that blossomed through the
efforts of many organizations seeking to address social ills. The spectrum of the
public interest would compel Wheat to help found (in 1992) the Alliance for
Children’s Rights which provided legal services for disadvantaged children and
motivated his pivotal participation (1985- 1999) with the Center for Law in the
Public Interest (CLIPI, founded in 1971).
This native son’s quest for political reform at home made significant headway when
he joined the California Commission on Campaign Financing whose studies resulted in
voter-approved initiatives in 1988 (Proposition 68) and 1996 (Proposition 208).
Wheat easily segued into the California Citizens Budget Commission which utilized
his expertise in all things financial and produced reports on healthcare reform and
budget reform. He committed his energies to Human Rights Watch, which monitored
injustices globally, and the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, which provided financial
support for many of these philanthropic groups.
But in the world of Frank Wheat, the most significant “law in the public interest”
was the California Desert Protection Act of 1994. Wheat’s passion stemmed from his
exposure to a place where he often renewed his energies, the beautiful but fragile
territory where he hiked and explored with his family, and which became the subject
of his 1999 book,
California Desert Miracle.
Bibliography
Lingenfelter, Richard E.
Death Valley & the Amargosa
– A Land of Illusion.
Berkeley: University of California Press, c1986
Unrau, Harlan D.
A History of the Lands Added to Death
Valley National Monument by the California Desert Protection Act of 1994
– Special History Study. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of the Interior,
National Park Service, 1997
Wheat, Frank.
California Desert Miracle - The Fight for
Desert Parks and Wilderness.
San Diego, Calif.: Sunbelt Publications,
1999
Scope and Content
Personal and professional papers of Frank Wheat, with particular emphasis on his
political activism and philanthropy. The papers cover his effort for the California
Desert Protection Act (CDPA); the work on his California Desert Miracle, The Fight
for Desert Parks and Wilderness (1999), and other environmental issues, particularly
including mining's effect on the environment; the Alliance for Children's Rights,
the Center for Law in the Public Interest and Human Rights Watch and his involvement
with Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. The collection also contains information on
Wheat's legal career, including his presidency of the Los Angeles County Bar
Association, his tenure as an SEC Commissioner, his expertise in securities and
corporate law, and his involvement with the California Citizens Budget Commission
and California Commission on Campaign Financing.
The dream of comprehensive legislation to protect California’s desert and its
resources was kept alive during the 1980s and 1990s by a congregation of volunteers
and their representatives. After twenty years of effort, climaxing with a filibuster
in the United States Senate broken by a single vote, a bill that had seen many
manifestations was finally enacted in October of 1994, the California Desert
Protection Act (CDPA). That is the story of
California Desert
Miracle,
The Fight for Desert Parks and
Wilderness,
the book Frank Wheat wrote about fostering the act into law.
As a result of CDPA’s enactment, approximately 7.7 million acres of Federal lands
were designated wilderness and roughly three million acres were added to the
National Park system, including lands adjacent to the Death Valley and Joshua Tree
National Monuments (designated as National Parks), plus the establishment of Mojave
National Preserve. This amounted to roughly one-quarter of the state of California
and made Death Valley National Park the largest such park in the lower 48 states.
Beyond the parameters of the California Desert Protection Act, Wheat investigated
many environmental issues. Foremost among these would be mining, which can be found
in several areas of the collection. Mining’s effect on the environment, particularly
the desert – the irreversible damage from open pit mines - is reflected in documents
on the cyanide heap leaching process for mining gold. Other documents discuss the
Bureau of Land Management’s position on reclamation measures versus the obligation
to foster mining as part of its “multiple use” policy. Of an even greater concern
was reform of the U.S. Mining Laws of 1872 (43 CFR 3809). These regulations allow
anyone to claim hard- rock minerals on public land, file a plan of operations, and
remove valuable minerals without paying a cent to taxpayers; Wheat felt they needed
to be substantially revised. In consideration of that reform, he investigated the
Glamis Mine in Imperial County, California, for possible litigation purposes. So
while Wheat focused his efforts on getting the CDPA enacted, he juggled other
important causes.
While the collection’s main focus is represented in 25 boxes of documentation
regarding the Desert Bill crusade, it also includes rich resources about a plethora
of environmental organizations, such as the California Desert Protection League – an
amalgam of various organizations including several Sierra Club chapters, the
Wilderness Society, Desert Survivors, several Audubon chapters and the Izaak Walton
League.
The spectrum of public interest law not only covers the environment, but the social
problems addressed by such organizations as the Alliance for Children’s Rights, the
Center for Law in the Public Interest and Human Rights Watch, all represented in the
Wheat Papers, along with those funding this important work, like the Ralph M.
Parsons Foundation.
Frank Wheat’s penchant for organizations extended to those reflecting his
professional life. Foremost among them would be the Los Angeles County Bar
Association, which he served as president and who honored him with its Shattuck
Price Award in 1985. Due to his expertise in securities and corporate law, Wheat was
associated with even more organizations that offered forums and professional
engagements for Wheat as a speaker, and drafts of those speeches are found in
abundance. Topics include accounting standards and practices, disclosure,
regulations, hostile take-overs, accountant-client privilege statutes, tender offers
and Arthur Young & Co.
Wheat’s experience as an SEC commissioner was a considerable attraction for many
organizations seeking insight into government regulations and procedures. It also
afforded Wheat an insider’s perspective on the way our government works, undoubtedly
useful when he became involved with the California Citizens Budget Commission and
California Commission on Campaign Financing. These volunteer, blue-ribbon groups of
business, legal, education and labor leaders produced comprehensive studies on the
state’s most critical problems, offering recommendations and solutions, some of
which resulted in initiatives (Propositions 68 and 208). Wheat’s papers about these
efforts and the many manifestations of the Desert Bill lend considerable weight to
the federal and state legislative portions of the collection.
In addition to his work on these commissions, Wheat’s activism prompted him to write
scores of letters to his representatives and to pivotal players in the government.
Some were form letters used in specific campaigns and others more personal in their
approach. In Wheat’s push for the California Desert Protection Act, frequent
correspondents were Senator Alan Cranston (D-CA), Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA),
Congressman Mel Levine (D-CA), Senator and later Governor Pete Wilson (R-CA),
Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Assistant Secretary of the Interior John
Garamendi, BLM Director Ed Hastey, Senator Dale L. Bumpers (D-AR), Senator Barbara
Boxer (D-CA) and Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). Environmental activists such as
Deborah S. Reames, Elden Hughes, Jim Dodson, Judy Anderson, Norbert Riedy, Jr.,
political reformers such as Tracy Westen and Robert M. Stern, and other prominent
individuals such as former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and writer Neil
Morgan appear repeatedly in these files.
Correspondence is certainly the predominant format of the collection (letters,
memos, e- mails), along with versions of his many speeches (handwritten and
typescript), transcripts of testimonies from Wheat and others before various
governmental committees, promotional materials and press releases from many
organizations, manuscripts and notes, reports, publications (books, pamphlets,
periodicals, legislative bills, CEQA [California Environmental Quality Act]
reports), articles and excerpts from magazines, newspapers and newsletters, a few
photographs and many maps, particularly of the California desert and surrounding
areas.
Arrangement
Organized in the following series:
- Environmental (Boxes 1-63)
-
California Desert Miracle (Box 1-Box 26, Folder 3)
- Organizations (Box 26, Folder 4-Box 45)
- Background/Issues (Boxes 46-63)
- Governmental (Boxes 64-123)
- Environmental (Boxes 64-90)
- Non-Environmental (Box 91-Box 109, 7)
- Legal Profession (Boxes 109, Folder 8 - Box 123, Folder 15)
- Personal Materials (Boxes 123, Folder 16 - Box 138)
- Political Organizations (Box 123, Folder 16- Box 125, Folder 11)
- Other Organizations (Boxes 125, Folder 12 - Box 137, Folder 2)
- Areas of Interest (Box 137, Folders 3-12)
- Personal Matters (Box 138)
- Supplemental Publications (Boxes 139-154)
Indexing Terms
Subjects
Wheat, Frank, 1921- --
Archives.
California Budget
Project.
California Citizens
Budget Commission.
California Commission
on Campaign Financing.
California Desert
Protection League.
Center for Law in the
Public Interest.
Democratic Party
(Calif.)
Earthjustice Legal
Defense Fund.
Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher.
Human Rights
Watch/Americas.
Izaak Walton League of
America.
Legal Aid Foundation
of Los Angeles.
League of Conservation
Voters.
Los Angeles County Bar
Association.
National Parks and
Conservation Association.
Ralph M. Parsons
Foundation.
Sierra
Club.
Sierra Club. Legal
Defense Fund.
Trust for Public Land
(U.S.)
United States.
Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wilderness Society
(U.S.)
Campaign funds.
Cause lawyers -- California --
Archives.
Desert conservation -- Law and
legislation.
Environmental impact analysis -- Law
and legislation.
Environmental impact statements -- Law
and legislation.
Environmental law -- History -- 20th
century -- Sources.
Insider trading in securities -- Law
and legislation.
Lawyers -- California.
Political activists -- California --
Archives.
Natural areas -- Law and
legislation.
Public interest law.
Research natural areas -- Law and
legislation. Securities.
Anza-Borrego Desert
(Calif.)
California -- History
-- 20th century -- Sources.
California -- Politics
and government -- 20th century -- Sources.
Death Valley (Calif.
and Nev.)
Mojave
Desert.
Forms/Genres
Personal papers -- California -- 20th
century.
Professional papers -- California --
20th century.