92 



and me with hostility because we were in the fore 

 front of opposition to their moves to gain unwarranted 

 rights on the national forests. 



I enjoyed working with Watts. We found that our 

 thoughts about many matters concerning the Service 

 often coincided. 



Watts for years suffered a great deal of pain 

 Scorn spinal trouble, but it never made him irritable 

 in his dealings with his associates. He was an 

 excellent chief. 



Richard McArdle 



I had retired before McArdle succeeded Watts 

 so can judge him only by occasional observations 

 from the sidelines. However I was aware of the fact 

 that he piloted the Service through a very difficult 

 period in the first years of the Ezra Benson regime 

 as Secretary of Agriculture. Benson came on the job 

 expecting to find an overstaffed bureaucracy in 

 the Department and determined to clean house. The 

 members of his staff who dealt with the Service 

 most directly were hard to get along with. McArdle 



