UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #249
RUNGE, CARLISLE P.

RUNGE, Carlisle P. (1920-1983)
Professor of Law and Urban and Regional Planning
At UW: 1951-1981

Interviewed: 1982	
Interviewer: Donna Hartshorne
Length: 7 hours

Background; Undergraduate life; War career; Law School; Political and anti-McCarthy activities; Assistant deanship of Law School; Memorial Union; ROTC; Directorship of UW National Security Studies; Importance of ROTC at UW; Service in Washington, D.C.; CCHE; Center System, Merger and Governor Patrick Lucey; Extension; Council of Economic Growth, Technical and Public Policy; Law and society course; Urban and Regional Planning Department; Institute for Environmental Studies; Center for Public Policy; Work for United Nations in Yugoslavia; Liaison with National Guard during student protest era.

First Interview Session (June 8, 1982): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	[begin Tape 1/Side 1] Background.  Native born.  Father's family from Germany. Landed at Manitowoc.  Artisans.  His grandfathers and their occupations. Politically liberal democrats. Great uncle, on his mother's side, college graduate of class of 1886. He became a prominent judge and alumnus of UW.

00:09:00	His schooling. His father a LaFollette Progressive. Friend of Gaylord Nelson's father. More on schooling. Family well off.

00:14:49	College days.  Nathan S. Heffernan, Leon Epstein, Dick Leonard, John Reynolds, Ed Newman, Arthur Nielsen, all were close friends.  Walter Merisch.  Some first-rate people out of Jewish community in New York.  Lampman was president of Wisconsin Union, CR of WSA.  CR majored in American Institutions.  Selig Perlman was his advisor.  First-rate program: Witte, Hesseltine, Hicks, Garrison, Hurst.

00:21:34	CR elected as sophomore to WSA board. Belonged to Sigma Phi in Harold Bradley House.
00:23:55	CR’s ROTC experience. Commissioned in June of 1942. Postings in Wyoming, then Philadelphia, where Arthur Nielson became one of his best friends, then to Vancouver Barracks in Washington.

00:28:06	After service in the US, CR serves in the UK staffing the Midlands depot. Explanation of his operating stations in Paris supporting the 3rd Army after D-Day, and in Germany handling the largest ration depot in the US army during the final days of the war.

00:36:31	On leave in England, September 1945, gets an invitation to join a group of Americans at Oxford during the fall term. Meeting Leon Epstein there

00:40:30	[end side 1; begin side 2] Reasons CR went into law.

00:41:33	CR met wife, who was a graduate student in English.

00:42:13	Friends in law school.

00:42:56	End of Progressive Party, 1946, Portage, Wisconsin.

00:44:33	First job after graduation.  Assistant to U. S. Attorney of Western District.  Followed James Doyle.

00:47:10	Democratic Party.  Irish Catholics.

00:49:09	Three years later, invited back to UW to help with practical program.  His colleagues.  Rundell a wise man.

00:51:46	1952: McMillen or Morris Reuben to pave way to defeat McCarthy.  Books on McCarthy's record.  People on committee.  The risks they ran.  Sold 100,000 copies.  Was run serially in three state newspapers.  Put profits into Tom Fairchild's campaign.  Warren Kohler put heat on them.  Not a courageous man.  

00:58:17	His mother caught heat from McCarthy followers.  Saloon people, tough.  They were worse than McCarthy.

01:02:05	[end tape 1; begin Tape 2/Side 1] CR became assistant dean of law school.  Nellie Davidson.  He handled student admission, job placement.

01:04:14	Mission was to place good students upstate.

01:07:36	Was on Union Council.  Porter Butts' principality.  Harold McCarty did same thing in WHA.

01:09:50	Discusses Union.  Voting and non-voting membership.  Butts' control of Union.  McCarty like Butts terribly trying.  Lee Dreyfus' encounters with McCarty kept things lively.

01:13:39	ROTC.  Three services operated independently of UW.  Effort of Committee on ROTC to reorganize curriculum.  Fred still president.  Wanted to give UW education.  Services willing to listen.  Edward Coffman brought here to teach military history.  Business school and political science had courses with mixed students.  Changed attitude to cadets.  Military did not pay.  CR also active with National Guard.

01:21:45  End of interview session.

Second Interview Session (August 14, 1982): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	Tape 2/Side 2

00:00:15	The academic effort at UW with respect to National Security Studies.  Following Howard's lead.  CR was director.  Business, political science, history, economics, maybe engineering.  Carnegie grant.  Small research staff.  Had joint seminar to discuss issues in national security policy.  Example.  Defense procurement procedures.  Taken over by David Tarr when CR went into Defense Department.

00:07:45	Making ROTC voluntary.  The upper levels were always voluntary.  Had been required for 75 years for freshman and sophomores.  No problems when it became voluntary.

00:10:45	Question regarding credit.  When became voluntary gave credit for all of four years.  Made military personnel truly part of faculty.  All ROTC classes are open to all students, not just ROTC.

00:14:40	Discusses ROTC on other campuses during war protest years.  Risk of ROTC being dropped.  Princeton simply abandoned ROTC during this period.  Armed Services getting no liberal education.  Proposed a compromise and recommendation to the Armed Services on what they needed to do to get back on campus.  Harrington in on this.  CR tried to stabilize ROTC during protest years.  CR was chairman.  University Archives has records.  A success.

00:22:06	Key element was that we must not rely only on the military academy to train the officer corps.  Some ROTC graduates do become professional officers.  Provide a broader base for officers than those who just attend the military academies.

00:25:50	Comments on the proportion of minorities in the new volunteer army.  Feels they should try to involve all ranks of society in the military in the interest of democracy and fairness.

00:27:44	View of West Point type training.  Strengthening civil offerings, i.e., social studies especially support officers doing graduate work at civil colleges and universities.

00:31:38	Active in the Democratic Party and activities regarding the election of Kennedy.  Assistant Secretary for Manpower.  This position involved both educational and reserve matters.  Wisconsin prominence in labor relations made him acceptable to AFL-CIO.  Supported Johnson before the convention.

00:36:48	The Kennedys were very disparaging of Johnson and people knew CR had supported Johnson for president.

Tape 3/Side 1

00:38:25	Assistant Secretary of Manpower discussion policy, Coordinator of Army, Navy and Air Force.  Discussion of duties of jobs.  Problem with Strom Thurmond accusing the office of putting out documents which were soft on communism.  One was nominated for an Academy Award.

00:47:40	Health care problems, not enough doctors and dentists to supply the needs.  General personnel policy responsibility.  Problems in the National Guard.  Reserve system.  Some still not resolved as of yet.

00:55:37	Had a call up of several thousand reservists when the Russians tried to take over Berlin.  Called 32nd division in Wisconsin to assist in the Berlin airlift.  Fort Lewis in Washington ran into grave problems because Fort Lewis was not ready to receive the Wisconsin 32nd Division.  They were identified as the Crybaby Regiment because they were citizen-soldiers.  Their congressmen solved the problem.

01:03:00	Civilians did not have necessary skills in war.  Relations with McNamara, characterization of him.

Tape 3/Side 2

01:06:38	McNamara comments continued.

01:13:49	Comments on President Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy.

01:15:04	Return to UW in fall after war.  Cost of maintaining a family in Washington; very prohibitive.  Elvehjem had become president of UW.  CR on his staff, duties in that capacity.

01:17:29	Years as assistant dean of law school during 1950s.  Oliver Wendell was dean, Ritchie succeeded him.  High point of law school strength.  Very able, older faculty, Hurst, Cerlbach, Dick Eflund and others.  Nathan Heffernan an old friend would become Chief Justice of Wisconsin Supreme Court.

01:22:30	1950s better in law school, as far as faculty went.  Group of faculty members who joined in 1960s not as congenial, more left wing.  Also, financial problems of the UW in the late 1960s with salaries so low that some of the senior faculty was lost.

01:25:54	Issue of ABA accreditation problem happened after CR was no longer associated with the law school.  It was an attempt by ABA to help the law school get more funding by threatening to withdraw accreditation.

01:28:13	Activities after return to Wisconsin.  CR staff representative for the Coordinating Committee on Higher Education.  Formed to coordinate the change from colleges to members of the UW system.  CR took Ira Baldwin's place on the committee.

01:31:14	Problems with personalities and regents.  Fights for programs.  The problem of trying to build up Milwaukee.

01:38:05	The two-year centers problem.  CR and Ira Baldwin insisted on liberal arts not on vocational technical training.

Tape 4/Side 1

01:40:26	The supervision of the center system.  The development of Madison Area Technical College.  Lax support of the center systems.  State support as opposed to local tax support.

01:46:40	Views on the two-year program.  Usually people who went to private school outside the state were the ones who supported the center system.

01:47:28	Establishment of the two new campuses.  Fred Harrington, Gaylord Nelson, and George Molinaro (Speaker of Assembly from Kenosha) very committed to building a campus in Racine-Kenosha, and in Green Bay.  Studied it, and could justify the Green Bay campus much more than the one in Racine, since there was no public college in Green Bay.  Green Bay washed out in the legislature due to Democratic preponderance in assembly.

01:50:44	Discussion of Parkside campus.  Green Bay campus development.  Site of campus served Sturgeon Bay area much more than Appleton area of Wisconsin.  Low enrollment a possible problem because of this.  Wanted four major four-year campuses: Madison, Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Eau Claire, with extensions of each, and graduate programs.  However, pull of the Parkside advocates strong.  CR feels that the Lucey integration program not necessarily the wisest for the state.

01:59:36	Did not really have a chance to present his ideas about the Wisconsin system.  Ideas on that.

2:00:49	CR assigned by Elvehjem to the coordinating committee and Harrington reaffirmed.  Was a law professor but did not teach.  Was a full-time special assistant to the president.  Merger was the ultimate end of the coordinating committee.  David Adamany was the principal advisor to Lucey on that matter.  

2:05:21	The system has worked better than anyone thought, but the strengthening has come about in the old UW system, not the Madison campus.  The total sharing of the budget has hurt the Madison campus.  Further comments on the integration of the system.

Tape 4/Side 2

02:11:32	Trying to tie the applied professional activities to Extension again.

02:13:30	Relations of Extension to the state system.

02:17:38	Council of Economic Growth, Technical and Public Policy, was effort to treat upper Midwest as a region and enlist the cooperation of various Midwestern universities to focus on problems of the region.  Big Ten colleges and University of Chicago involved.

02:20:00	University of Minnesota did not want to participate.  Difficulty in setting an agenda.  Many institutions could not spare the faculty time.  University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and UW took this seriously.  Problems not all that clear in the late 1960s, i.e., economic problems.  The program was probably ahead of its time, and did not have the commitment necessary for it to work at the time.

02:26:32	More on council and what it did and did not do.  Comparison with France's system and with regional and federal politics.

02:34:35	Council lasted three years.  Did several studies on water use and problems.

02:36:40	International Great Lakes Commission.  More on the problems of water usage, and regionalism vs. federalism.

Tape 5/Side 1

02:42:21	More on regionalism and federalism.  CR's opinion of Reagan, and the Johnson administration.

02:50:00	CR stressed the need to update the Wisconsin idea in the 1960s.  The idea of a research park, trying to get business to locate in Madison to be near the faculty and research facilities.

02:56:36	Argonne University Association, and CR's work with that organization.  Also teaching law.

03:00:40  End of interview session.

Third Interview Session (August 15, 1982): Digital File

00:00:04		Teaching and other activities.  Taught basic law courses with a degree of concentration in property and land use controls, regional planning and environmental law.  Taught water law course, and special series on environmental policy law.

00:03:46	Senior internship summer substitution.  Other courses that CR taught, law and society and workmen's compensation.  Mentions Hurst, Lloyd Garrison, and Beuscher as law school authorities on water and land use.  

00:09:35	Tired of the traditional law school teaching format, so he got interested in Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Center for Public Policy and Public Administration.  How he got involved in these programs.

Tape 5/Side 2

00:12:35	The growing pains of the new program.  Steve Kleene the dean who had problems with the department.  His differences with other members of the faculty, especially Irving Fox.  Members of the planning faculty came to CR and asked him to chair the department with the support of Chancellor Young and Dean Kleene.

00:16:28	CR tried to encourage the people to work better together.  Lucey's land use survey shared by Warren Knowles.  Involved in starting Institute for Environmental Studies (IES).

00:19:20	Formation of the IES, really an umbrella unit, and an operating unit for central control.  Restrictions that it operated under.  Questions of integrating, since at first it was only for graduates.

00:29:51	Water Resources Management Program, and Land Resource Program—generated from agriculture college with M.A. and Ph.D., but administrated by IES.  Remote Sensing Program—generated from Engineering.  The programs are working well and they are training first rate people.

00:31:05	Organization of IES really a hybrid, in that it allows faculty of many departments to participate in the program.

00:33:08	The undergraduate program was requested by L&S and finally rejected.  CR elected chair of instructional program of IES.  Arranged a certificate program for undergraduates to take credits over and above his/her other academic work.  These credits could be the elective credits.

00:38:25	A Ph.D. program was never formally set up for IES, but CR feels it certainly should be.  Discusses possible requirements for a Ph.D. program.

Tape 6/Side 1

00:43:28	Discussion of the breadth needed to deal with the complex problems in upper-level government.  The lawyer's role in policy making.

00:47:46	Wisconsin has always tried to see problems and attempt to do something to address those problems.  Madison's role in this.

00:49:00	UW must move forward even with the limited funding or they will fall behind and lose more status.  Discusses problem of long-term national policy making and the present administration's lack of interest in the future.  

01:00:05	Clara Penniman was director of Center for Public Policy administration.  This program born in state government.  Did not generate much research support. 

01:06:15	Bok at Harvard is also convinced that there is a great gap in the American educational system of training people for government positions.  More on urban and regional planning.  Graduate training for foreign students in school discussed, public affairs school idea.  CR thinks it would probably be done because it would not cost much.  His idea to name it the Robert LaFollette School of Public Affairs.

01:57:09	Thinks it should happen soon, because groundwork has already been laid, and it has support of legislature.

Tape 6/Side 2

02:00:15	CR's wife taught in the first Integrated Liberal Studies as a graduate student in English.  Three children, one a doctor who was killed in WWII.  Remarried in 1966 after first wife died of multiple sclerosis.  Had two more children.

02:05:32	Enjoyed his years at the UW.  Assesses his years here, as well as impact of UW on state and nation.

02:08:20	More on Center for Public Policy and Administration.  How faculty dealt with problems in the state government.

02:15:02 	End of interview session.

Tape 7/Side 1

02:15:11	Discussion of Ph.D. program for the Center for Public Policy and Administration.  Feels this Ph.D. would best serve those interested in high government positions.

02:16:25	CR's experiences in Yugoslavia.  United Nations Development Program.  Yugoslavs concerned with environmental problems on the Asiatic Coast, the center of their tourism.  CR with group that made recommendations to them.

02:24:28	The UN staff operated with the local staff.  His feeling about the experience, and his experience with totalitarianism.  Trip took place during early 1970s, and the difficulties he encountered at that time.

02:31:52	Conflicts between scientists and the communist bureaucracy.  Some places had no sewage systems, even in larger cities.

02:32:21	Discusses progress made on journey and health problems encountered.  Problem of Italy on other coast with no pollution controls and no hope of getting any.
02:36:07	UN Environmental Program, and the problem of Mediterranean pollution.

02:37:49	Lucey's land use program.  How it failed to understand the sensitivity of the landowner and so ultimately failed.  Our societal views on land ownership and policies, and government intervention.

02:43:28	After CR's return from Washington D. C. he was inactive for several years following the death of his first wife and his immediate family concerns.  Became more involved in national politics, because of his interest in Senator Jackson's career.

Tape 7/Side 2

02:46:00	Discussion about Senator Jackson, and his policies, and his efforts in the environmental planning.  Did some campaigning for him in 1976.

02:55:01	During protest years on campus, CR worked with Ed Young as his liaison with the National Guard, which was called in twice to control riots on campus.  CR thought the National Guard handled the situation very well. 

03:00:20	Problems CR encountered.  Young was not about to have the UW closed down.

03:01:52	Sewell's chancellorship vs. Young's.

03:03:50	More on National Guard involvement.  CR observer at early 1950s nuclear explosion.  Discussion of nuclear war.

03:12:11	Moved out of Madison last years after retirement to Brule, grew up in that area.  Reasons for moving, other activities since retirement.

03:16:36  End of interview.
END