Noting his past achievements, the Carter administration asked Richmond to return to public service as HEW assistant secretary.

He agreed on the condition that he would also be appointed U.S. Surgeon General, widely recognized as a spokesperson for public health.

According to Richmond, his dual authority effectively improved HEW’s managerial capabilities in setting public health initiatives.

“For the first time, we set health goals for the next 10 years from reducing heart disease to improving mental health services,” Richmond says.

After the Reagan administration assumed power in 1981, Richmond returned to his work at Harvard Medical School, where he developed health care policy courses that combined elements of science, politics and economics.

An Unexpected Appointment

Hale Champion, former Harvard vice president for financial affairs also left Cambridge to take a top post as undersecretary of the department of HEW.

Champion, a former financial reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and a Harvard Nieman Fellow from ’56-’57 said he did not expect to work in the Carter administration.

In 1976, he ran in the Massachusetts primary as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, pledging to support not Carter, but Rep. Morris K. Udall (D-Ariz.) for president.

“I just thought he was the better democratic candidate in terms of experience and knowledge,” Champion says.

Though he had supported another candidate, Champion was unexpectedly offered the HEW sub-Cabinet position.

“The secretary, Joseph Califano Jr. wanted to get someone with the appropriate government and financial experience and I guess I was that someone,” Champion says.

Champion describes Carter as an intelligent man but criticizes him for looking at issues as “a governor of a small state and not as a president.”

“The administration was not well-organized to make full use of all utilities and did not know how to divide responsibility in government,” Champion says.