Lansing Bennett, C.I.A.

On January 25, a man carrying a semi-automatic rifle got out of a car and began shooting into vehicles making the turn into Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Two people died there. Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani who is believed to have fled back to that country. One of the victims was Lansing H. Bennett, who worked for the CIA but for whom those initials might easily have stood for Conservationist In Action.

I was shocked when my friend called from Boston to say Lansing Bennett was one of those killed in the CIA sniper case in Virginia.

Newspapers had identified the two victims as "analysts of covert operations or undercover spies." But we had known a different Lansing H. Bennett: Years before, in our historic seaside town of Duxbury, Massachusetts, he was a physician, an enlightened conservationist with whom we had worked as he set unprecedented national standards, and a friend whose horses my daughter took care of when his family was out of town.

Bennett had come to Duxbury in 1952, after having searched the New England coast to find a town in which he wanted to practice. Two scenes had shaped his conservation thought. As a boy, he had frequently ridden a pony over a large hill that later became the city of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. And he had first practiced medicine in a town where, to quote him, "whole orchards were bulldozed down, and row houses sprang up in a week. It was frightening."

He wasn't going to let that happen to Duxbury. In spite of a busy medical practice, he became Conservation Commission chairman after an expressway opened in the mid-1960s that put the town within reach of Boston.

The depth and scope of his work were astonishing. Aided by residents drawn by his magnetism, he oversaw the town's commitment to conservation, thus preserving its irreplaceable salt marshes, inland forests, and waterways, and ensuring that future generations enjoyed the beauty John and Priscilla Alden had found there in colonial days.

A February 3 editorial in the Duxbury Clipper reminded the town of its debt:

"... What you bought when you chose Duxbury ... is almost entirely attributable to the tireless work of Lansing Bennett. If many others shared his vision of a town spared from running amuck in suburban sprawl, Bennett stood out as the clear leader of modern-day resource conservation and wildlife protection. He was the one who strategized the passage of countless land-acquisition proposals at town meetings; he was the one who persuaded voters to invest in growth management as an alternative to endlessly financing the effects of unchecked development. What made Bennett's work so memorable and unique is that he had no personal gain from the outcome of more than a decade of conservation and public-health leadership in this community. Bennett did what he did because it was the right thing to do.... What he gave Duxbury has a permanence that far surpasses the time he lived here."

Boyishly handsome, Lansing had a quicksilver mind. He read a lot, wrote far into the night, and had a restless energy and adventurous spirit that told him, at age 50, it was time to move on.

We went to his going-away party before he left town to join the U.S. State Department. Over the years, we heard he was in the Far East, then the tropics. We heard he had divorced, remarried, and then, two years ago, had had a serious operation. But clearly, he was back in the saddle the day he met his fate.

He once told a friend of mine that while visiting nursing homes, he always hoped the old folks there "had memories to cherish." The memories are ours now: of a man who gave his last full measure to his country.