Scope and Content Note
Part I
Part I of the papers of Russell Errol Train (1920-2012) covers the years 1898-2005, with the bulk of the collection concentrated between 1957 and 2005. The papers include diaries, correspondence, judicial opinions, governmental and organizational records, speeches and writings files, biographical material, news clippings, photographs, and topical files. Part 1 is organized in ten series: Diaries, Field Notes, and Appointment Books; General Correspondence; Government File; Organizations; Speeches, Statements and Writings File; Miscellany; Classified; North Atlantic Treaty Organization Classified; Oversize; and Digital File.
Train's early career in tax policy and law culminated in his service as a judge on the Tax Court of the United States from 1957 to 1965. His judicial opinions comprise a grouping in the Government File series. However, most of the papers focus on his second career as an environmentalist.
The first glimmerings of Train's environmental career are documented in the Diaries, Field Notes, and Appointment Books series. He became interested in wildlife conservation while on safari in Kenya during 1956. This safari and others he took over the years, as well as other private and official travel, are documented in the chronological file of the series, as are daily journals Train kept between 1969 and 1983. Also in the series are field notes Train kept on other trips from which he derived diary entries and reports, particularly for the World Wildlife Fund (U.S.) that Train served successively as president and chairman during 1978-1994.
The General Correspondence series reflects Train's activities as a government official, an officer of several public interest organizations, and as a private citizen communicating with family, colleagues, governors, cabinet members, White House officials, foreign environmental leaders, heads of state, academics, and others. Correspondents include Tom Bradley, George Bush, Earl L. Butz, John Ehrlichman, Boyd Gibbons, Arthur Godfrey, W. Averell Harriman, Linwood Holton, Lady Bird Johnson, Henry Kissinger, Charles A. Lindbergh, Richard Lugar, Robert S. McNamara, Daniel P. Moynihan, Sidney Dillon Ripley, Laurance Spelman Rockefeller, William K. Reilly, Elliot L. Richardson, William P. Rogers, William Doyle Ruckelshaus, Donald Rumsfeld, Maurice H. Stans, Shirley Temple, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Peter Edward Walker, George C. Wallace, Barbara Ward, and Caspar W. Weinberger.
Train's service as undersecretary of the Department of the Interior, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society, and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford administrations is documented in the Government File. There are extensive chronological files with memoranda and correspondence arranged in reverse chronological order covering Train's daily activities in the Department of the Interior, the Council on Environmental Quality, and the NATO Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society files.
Train was the first chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality where he defined its roles of coordinating national environmental policy and negotiating with foreign governments on environmental matters. There is material in the Council of Environmental Quality file on Train's diplomacy with Canada leading to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1972 and with Spain, China, and Germany. However, most of the material related to foreign affairs in this file focuses on the Soviet Union and the establishment by treaty of the Joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. Committee on Cooperation in the Field of Environmental Protection. Train's Soviet counterpart was academician Yuri A. Izraėlʹ, and Train's negotiations with Izraėlʹ and other Soviet scientists and officials is documented in the file relating to United States-Soviet Union environmental treaties and agreements.
Moved by the fragility of the African ecosystem he observed while on safari, Train founded the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, later the African Wildlife Foundation, in 1959. He expanded his interest in environmental issues beyond wildlife conservation, becoming president of the Conservation Foundation in 1965. One of Train's mentors in this process was Fairfield Osborn, longtime president of the New York Zoological Society and a pioneering environmentalist whose papers are also in the Library of Congress. Files on the African Wildlife Foundation and the Conservation Foundation, including correspondence with Osborn and other environmental and public interest organizations, comprise the Organization series. The preponderance of the series relates to the World Wildlife Fund (U.S.), which Train served as president and chairman of the board after his government career.
The Speeches, Statements, and Writings File covers most of Train's public career as a conservationist and environmentalist from 1965 to his emeritus years after his retirement from the active chairmanship of the World Wildlife Fund (U.S.). Most of his oral presentations, including statements and congressional testimony as a government official or public interest organization leader, are in the Speeches, Statements, and Writings File rather than the Government File or Organizations series. Included is contextual and background material and some correspondence. Similar material is in the trips and events file of the Miscellany series. The Digital File is comprised of diaries and a scrapbook.
Part II
Part II of the papers of Russell E. Train spans the years 1777-2012, with the bulk of the material concentrated between 1969 and 2009. The material supplements Part I of the collection, providing expanded insight into Train's work at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other governmental agencies as well as his work at the World Wildlife Fund. Also included is material relating to his and those of his wife, Aileen Bowdoin Train's, families. The papers include correspondence, subject files, journals, genealogical material, and other miscellaneous material. Part II is arranged into the following nine series: Correspondence; Diaries, Field Notes, and Appointment Books; Government File; Organizations; Speeches, Statements, and Writings; Miscellany; Train Family Papers; Oversize; and Digital File.
The Correspondence series spans the years 1928-2011 and includes letters from Charles A. Lindbergh discussing the need to protect the environment, letters from family members, and letters from Senator Edward M. Kennedy regarding a memorial dinner for Robert F. Kennedy.
The Diaries, Field Notes, and Appointment Books series records some of the trips that Train made while president of the World Wildlife Fund, including trips to Vietnam, Mexico, Panama, Thailand, Nepal, and Zimbabwe, to support environmental conservation. Also included are materials documenting the development of World Wildlife Fund policies pertaining to the consolidation of other United States conservation groups into the World Wildlife Fund as well as funding proposals for international operations.
The Government File includes material from Train's time as a member of the Council on Environmental Quality under the Nixon administration through to his service as the second administrator of the EPA during the Ford administration. The series is largely comprised of photographs documenting his tenure in various agencies and meetings with President Nixon at the White House as well as scrapbooks documenting major events, such as the Apollo 11 mission, trade talks in Japan, and notable accomplishments as the EPA administrator.
A major series in Part II is the Organizations file, which contains letters exchanged between former staff of the EPA and other political contacts discussing government policies related to the environment and its impact on climate change while Train was president of the World Wildlife Fund. Other topics include environmental policy decisions made during the Carter and Reagan administrations and the policies of the World Wildlife Fund. The correspondence includes letters to Richard D. Cheney while he was the secretary of defense, letters from Douglas M. Costle, EPA administrator during the Carter administration, and letters from Yuri Izrael, a Russian environmental scientist.
The Speeches, Statements, and Writings File contains Train's typed and handwritten speeches, beginning with a speech given at the Conservation Foundation in April 1967 titled “A World Heritage Trust.” The bulk of speeches represented in this series occurred between 2005 and 2010. Many focus on conservation and environmental issues. Writings in the series center on the books A Memoir, Non-Sequiturs, and Politics, Pollution, and Pandas and include drafts, correspondence, and book publicity material.
The Miscellany series further documents Train's interest in conservation, the environment, politics, and family events.
The Train Family Papers series focuses on Train’s family members. It includes correspondence between Aileen Bowdoin Train's parents, Emily Ligon Foley and Edward H. Foley, while her father was serving in the army during World War II as the joint director of finance for the Allied Control Commission in Italy. The series also contains journals belonging to Admiral Charles Russell Train and Admiral Charles Jackson Train, Russell E. Train's father and grandfather. The journals of Charles Russell Train covers from his time as a naval cadet in 1898 to the late 1940s documenting his travels and day-to-day life in the United States Asiatic Fleet as well as his service as a naval aide to President Herbert Hoover.
The Digital File series largely contains videos of trips taken by Russell E. Train, starting with safaris he took in the 1950s to photograph safaries with his family in the 1990s and 2000s. The videos also include those created specifically for the WWF including interviews of Train talking about his work with in the organization.