Cecil D. Andrus, 85, Interior Secretary Under Carter, Is Dead

Cecil D. Andrus, a four-term governor of Idaho who as interior secretary under President Jimmy Carter helped set aside vast expanses of Alaska for parks and reserves, died on Thursday at his home in Boise, Idaho. He was 85. The cause was complications of lung cancer, his daughter Tracy Andrus said. Mr. Andrus liked to portray himself as having stumbled into public life — he was a “political accident,” in his words. It was a sophisticated bit of self-branding, positioning him as passionate rather than opportunistic in a state where the notion of Western authenticity had always played well. ...Halfway into his second term he received a call from another rural Democrat, Jimmy Carter, the former governor of Georgia. They had become friends over the years while attending meetings of governors’ groups. “We got along very well,” Mr. Andrus said, “because both of us understood the need for protection of the land that the dear lord has provided to us.” Mr. Carter had just been elected president and had Mr. Andrus in mind for secretary of the interior. “Cece was the only person I considered for the cabinet post,” Mr. Carter said in a statement on Friday. The call came in around 6 p.m. By the next morning, after hopping a short flight to Seattle, a red-eye to Atlanta and, finally, a tiny Cessna to an unpaved landing strip in Plains, Ga., Mr. Andrus was shaking hands with his future boss. “I come from the old school that says when the president of the United States asks you to do something, you do it,” Mr. Andrus said. Mr. Andrus never liked Washington, but he believed in his work. Over the next four years he helped reduce the impact of mining in Appalachia and protected rivers in California. But his most notable work happened in Alaska, which had been admitted to the union just 17 years before Mr. Carter was elected...more