He ‘did what he set out to do’
One day in the fall of 1967, Peter S. Paine Jr., 32, went hunting for grouse at his family’s Essex County estate. He was with his father and Laurance Rockefeller, a family friend since Paine Sr. and Rockefeller had been classmates at Princeton. Laurance, 57, was chair of the New York State Parks Commission, younger brother and best friend of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, and one of the richest men in the world. But that didn’t stop Peter Jr. from speaking frankly.
The three men spent the day walking through grasslands and marshes at the mouth of the Boquet River, pausing occasionally to admire breathtaking views of Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains. After they returned home, Rockefeller asked a question. He was puzzled about reactions to his recent proposal that New York donate 1.7 million acres of the Adirondacks to the National Park Service. Specifically, he couldn’t understand why New York’s environmental activists hated the idea.
The younger Paine spoke with the eagerness of a prized pointer headed for a wounded bird.
