
Our forbear.
AGENTS’ ORANGE:
the Unabridged Political History of Orange County, 1960-2000.
INTRODUCTION.
This book was written in order to record the individuals and events that shaped the stages of one California county’s rise to a position of pre-eminence in the nation’s political landscape. Its subsequent turmoil in local governance and fiscal irresponsibility led to bankruptcy and decline as a reliable source of decisive vote margins for conservative Republican candidates. While Act One began with players more oriented toward the Democratic Party, the theme soon became obvious. It revealed that the driving forces behind those who would gain control of Orange County were motivated by the pursuit of corporate profits, and party affiliation was simply a matter of convenience rather than conviction. As Republican registration increased, it became easier to elect Republicans to critical positions in city councils and on the Board of Supervisors. For the short period in which Democrats held sway, they found willing Republicans to accept their campaign donations, in return for favorable votes on matters relating to their interests. It became easier, during Republican ascendancy, for cooperative candidates to change registration rather than do battle against increasing numbers of voters joining GOP ranks. The most devastating result of dollar politics was that Republicans and Democrats abandoned their core party principles. The temptation was just too strong to win elections with the unlimited funds available to those who passed the litmus test. The special interests were soon able to control the county and some cities when computer technology replaced motivated volunteers as a decisive force in winning elections. Muddying the political waters further, a relatively small group of Republican incumbents began to exert influence at the state level, by pre-selecting candidates for State Assembly and Senate. The criteria for their selection process was a willingness on the part of a hopeful to accept and embrace the incumbents’ view of what constitutes a “proper” conservative. Once they passed this Biblical/Philosophical vetting, those Republicans who made the cut would have the assurance of sizable donations plus professional management of their campaigns. This all-knowing, all-powerful group became known as “The Cavemen,” who by virtue of being incumbents had the capability of extracting money from lobbyists in Sacramento, a literal bonanza for all ambitious politicians. In addition, several of the Cave Men had their own personal funds and did not hesitate to commit them when the situation warranted. Whether it was the financial support of the special interests or of the GOP incumbents, the net result was that in many cases individuals were elected to an office for which they were totally unqualified. Add to that the motivation of their sponsors and you have an unfolding plot which would eventually lead the county to bankruptcy, and the GOP to splintered ineffectiveness. The requirement for any history book is to record a detailed and authentic compilation of facts, individuals, and events that occurred during the subject period. Those are set forth in the following pages by category, but in order to read Agents’ Orange as a narrative, a “Reader’s Guide” is provided as a path for the person who would prefer to follow certain correlated events from each section in a chronological order. A sequential reading of each section’s background text will also provide a digest of the contents of this unabridged history. It is the author’s belief that, although a history, Agents’ Orange is also a mystery story with a huge cast of characters with numerous protagonists as well as guilty parties, and given the details, perceptive readers will be able to sort it all out.[Skipping the “Acknowledgements,” we will proceed to the “Reader’s Guide.” Each of these bullet items will have a link, to a chapter once we print them.]
Reader’s Guide
1960- Orange County population surges, and the profile of new residents establishes the base for a conservative electorate.
- The Barry Goldwater (right)
campaign and Proposition 14 define the philosophical inclination of county voters.
- Mysterious newcomer runs a behind-the-scenes campaign to gain election to the Board of Supervisors. Ron Caspers is elected in the 5th District, changing the direction of politics in Orange County.
- Ralph Clark is also elected to the board making a third vote for the emerging special interests. This new group of wealthy individuals is called The Coalition, and they begin to exert power in Orange County.
- Consulting firm Butcher-Forde plays an important part in that change.
Ralph Diedrich (right) is elected to the Board of Supervisors. Diedrich spends his own money in the campaign and becomes the de facto leader of the supervisors in dealing with developers.
- A yacht belonging to Fred Harber, the county’s top Democratic strategist, disappears at sea on a return trip from Baja California. Missing along with Harber are eight passengers, including Ron Caspers. No trace of the vessel or the bodies has ever been found.
- The grip of developers on the Board of Supervisors is tightened, and the building binge goes on without consideration of impact on the county. Citizens’ Direction Finding Commission issues report warning dire consequences if unlimited development continues unabated.
- Ralph Diedrich indicted.
- San Joaquin Hills Road
proposal floated by Board of Supervisors.
- Lou Cella indicted. End of The Coalition.
- TIN CUP (Shirley Grindle’s reform) enacted, making it much more difficult for special interests to control county.
- More sophisticated players enter the stage.
- Building goes on at a furious pace. Citizens are shut out of decision-making process, and the supervisors, under the umbrella of special interests, treat irate community groups with arrogance and scorn.
- The Republican incumbents enter the scene as major players in the selection of GOP hopefuls for state assembly and senate races. Motivation in this instance is philosophical/religious, as only individuals who subscribe to a pre-determined definition of “conservative” and adhere to certain biblical principles are backed.
- Supervisors realize that roads must be built if runaway construction is to continue. A sales tax proposal is approved by OCTC to finance a road system designed to
accommodate high-density projects at taxpayers’ expense. Proposition A is put on the ballot as a one-cent county sales tax increase to raise $5 billion for roads and other means of transportation. Developers spend millions to pass Proposition A. A coalition of anti-tax Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, independents, and county environmentalists is formed to oppose the corporate welfare giveaway.
- The defeat of Proposition A at the polls has absolutely no effect on the board. They continue to grant entitlements as if the $5 billion were in the bank. Traffic worsens.
- A watershed year in Orange County politics. Citizens, fed up with a Board of Supervisors operating as if they were employees of the special interests, draw up a ballot initiative which would force the board to require adequate road systems as a condition for approval of major building projects. A sufficient number of signatures are gathered by an all-volunteer coalition, and the issue goes on the ballot as Measure A, the Sensible Growth and Traffic Control Initiative.
- Fearful that Measure A will pass, supervisors and developers work around the clock to enter 18 “pre-development agreements.” These contracts permanently commit a large portion of the vacant land in the county to high-density development, no matter what the outcome of the vote on Measure A might be.
- A race in the 72nd Assembly District between Republican Curt Pringle
and Democrat Christian Thierbach would have repercussions felt throughout the state and nation. The local Republican Party, in conjunction with Pringle’s campaign advisers, hires uniformed security guards to act as poll watchers in targeted Hispanic precincts. After lawsuits, FBI lawsuits, and censure by the Republican National Committee, the matter was settled for $400,000, a figure that pales when compared to the permanent damage suffered by the GOP amongst Hispanic voters.
- 1988 is also payback time for developers who line up to reward two favorite elected officials who have the reputation of being amongst the Heavy Hitters’ staunchest allies in local government. Dave Baker, former mayor of Irvine, and Harriet Wieder, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, decide to run for Congress in their respective districts. Megabucks are showered on the two, along with best wishes. (After all, they may be useful in Washington DC too.
- Two local legislators, state senators Marian Bergeson and Josh Seymour, run for the Republican nomination for Lt. Governor. The machinations involved in this routine contest are quite subtle. In the chase for dollars, both locals turn to developers for campaign funds. In the process, Seymour tries mightily to outdo himself as the Building Industry’s number one boy, and he sponsors two highly controversial developer-friendly bills, one of which actually passes.
- Pete Wilson
defeats Mayor Dianne Feinstein for governor. The vacancy will occur in the Senate after Wilson takes office as governor in 1991.
- Wilson appoints State Senator John Seymour to fill his Senate vacancy in Washington DC. Payback time to the power of 10. Seymour proves the point that the county special interests take care of their lackeys. A mortal blow is struck to the Republican Party in California.
- Developers tangle with Cave Men in the special election to replace Seymour in the 35th State Senate District.
- Cave Men win with
John Lewis.
- Seymour is required to run for election against Dianne Feinstein. Disaster for the GOP, while Democrats enjoy a huge success.
- Bill Clinton does well in Orange County. Many grassroots volunteers switch to Ross Perot‘s Reform Party while those erstwhile Republican opportunists see greater returns from Clinton and support the governor from Arkansas.
- The chickens come home to roost. Decades of control by self-serving special interest groups have insured that Orange County is governed by incompetents, and the County files for bankruptcy.
- Earlier in the year mogul
George Argyros, a Heavy Hitter who lives in the flight path of departing commercial aircraft at John Wayne Airport, puts up his own money to place an initiative on the ballot to convert El Toro Marine Base to an international airport.
- Measure R asks voters to approve a $3.5 billion sales tax increase to bail out the county from its self-incurred financial bind.
- Cave Men recall Assemblywoman Doris Allen, who they consider to be on the wrong side of their political street, and replace her with Scott
Baugh.
- Cave Men, really feeling their muscles bulge, move in a candidate to capture an open senate seat from Gil Ferguson, a popular assemblyman from Newport Beach. Ferguson felt he was the logical and only qualified candidate to run for the vacated Senate seat, but he fails to win the approval of the conservative incumbents although he’d had a consistent conservative voting record in Sacramento.
- Volunteer citizens fight back and qualify their own initiative on the ballot that would nullify Argyros’ Measure A. It’s no contest in this battle of the bucks.
- An outsider uses his own money for a run at the Board of Supervisors; Todd Spitzer is elected and some citizens see a ray of hope.
- No one in the GOP needed a crystal ball to see this disaster coming: A total blow-out as Democrats pick up a state senate seat and an assembly seat. Top of the Republican ticket receives the second smallest voting margin in 40 years.
- The official Republican State Committee spends a fortune in nonpartisan race for
mayor in Anaheim!
- The local County Central Committee denies any part in the Disney Town fiasco, and insists that the party is “strong and vibrant” under the shared influence of the Cave Men.
- Former Governor Pete Wilson is appointed to the Board of Directors of the Irvine Company.
- Anti-airport citizens fight back and qualify another ballot initiative for vote in the primary election of year 2000. Called the “Safe and Healthy Community” ballot proposition, it is given the designation “Measure F” by the Board of Supervisors in a 3-2 vote.

Tom and wife in the 80’s

I’ve been an abject failure,” Tom Rogers said as he drew an imaginary bead on the new connector bridge to the San Joaquin Hills Toll Road.
“No you haven’t. . . .” I replied, but his laughter cut me short before I could dig his ego out of abjection.
“Shit, just look,” he said.
Under construction at the intersection of the San Diego Freeway near San Juan Capistrano, the bridge angled north through carved-up terrain. Fresh asphalt painted a line of black into the distance through the countryside. Running 15.5 miles and $800 million from where we stood north to the city of Irvine, the toll road’s construction is the prize of a decades-long war. The victors? Corporate superpowers, chief among them the Philip Morris companies.
“What they learned in the cigarette business,” Rogers said, “they brought to real estate.”
And finally, Professor Roy Bauer on the Shooting Star mystery and discovering Tom Rogers.
In the 70’$ Dr Louis Cella did “under the table”daals with both Republicans and Democrats, Anaheim Councilman William I.Kott was forced to resign in early 1979, Mayor John Seymour nominated Ben Bay to the open seat and was appointed by the city council for the remainder of the council seat, (I was at that meeting)
1974 after Ronald Caspers and the others where declared legally dead following Their disappearance at sea off of Mexico, Then-Governor Ronald Reagan (in his last months as Governor) appointed Brigadier General Tom Riley from Camp Pendleton, to fill the seat of Ronald Caspers in the 5th District.
The Orange County $upervisors have had a ‘dark’ history, beside Dietrich there was Robert Battin and Phil Anthony.(Note:) in the last 50 + years there has been only two $upervisors defeated for Re-Election,1st District Phil Anthony 1980 by Rodger Stanton and 4th District Dr.Cynthia Coad by Chris Norby in 2002.
Phil Anthony went on to be a great water board member, as I wrote in my tribute to him last year:
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2018/08/remembering-phil-anthony-oh-the-water/
Thomas Felton Riley (July 6, 1912 – February 19, 1998) was a decorated officer of the United States Marine Corps with the rank of brigadier general. He is most noted for his service during the Guadalcanal Campaign as the commanding officer of First Aviator Engineer Battalion. Riley completed his career as Inspector General of the Marine Corps in 1964 and then served as Orange County Supervisor 1974–1994.[1][2]
*Additionally, Gil Ferguson was a CAVEMAN, but under Democrat Speaker Willie Brown he was not given any good Committee Assignments or given a large office like that of Senator Marianne Bergeson! Gil was a prior VP for the Irvine Company and worked with the Blue Dog Democrats at the time which included Gary Condit,
a so-called very Conservative NRA Supporting Democrat.
*Finally, Gil and Anita Ferguson started a Political Action Information Group called “Principles over Politics”. It retained its Conservative roots, but offered real information about what was going on in Sacramento and around the country. Current Senator John Moorlach was offered to take over the group upon Gil’s passing, but he was still sitting as an Orange County Supervisor, so that didn’t happen!
If anyone wants more information about the Shooting Star, Caspers, OC Supervisors in the 70’s, or similar email me at veronicaraesav@gmail.com. I have an extensive historical archive of newspapers, documents, pictures, and even a fictionalized book about the sinking.
Looks great, Vern!
Hey bro, THERE you are! Three instalments so far. I’ll be doing the fourth real soon.
I came by your office at IVC back in March, did you get my note?
You know that this needs to be extended into the past two decades. Roy should be part of that.