Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

possible nuclear annihilation, thrilled at eavesdropping on their father after dinner, when he filled in generals with end-of-day briefings on the kitchen phone. Back at headquarters, Don gave tours to reporters and visiting public officials, often working in mentions of his bevy of children and his beloved Academy falcons. Colonel Galvin “was apparently gone on birds,” wrote a columnist from the Daily Star in Hammond, Louisiana. “He kept telling the group how he trains falcons (to hunt) and was instrumental in getting the Academy’s sports teams named the ‘Falcons.’ ”
    The greatest of all the good things happened in 1966, when Don retired from the Air Force and started a new career as a grant-in-aid man, overseeing programs funded by the federal government for the benefit of the states—first as the vice chairman of the Colorado State Council on the Arts and Humanities, and then as the first full-time executive director of the Federation of Rocky Mountain States. This new organization counted seven states in the American West as members, from Montana down to New Mexico. Soon enough, Arizona would make it eight. The Federation was a quasi-governmental group, formed to help the region attract industry, banking, the arts, and major transportation projects. The governors of each of the member states took turns heading the group. But the real man in charge, day to day, was Don Galvin. He was putting both his political science degree and his military experience into action as a sort of domestic diplomat—a liaison between the government and the private sector and nonprofit worlds. The older boys who were still at home were in awe of him. “He was telling governors what to do,” said Richard, the sixth son, who was twelve when Don started the job. “You knew he had the presence, but man, when you heard his voice, it resounded.”
    With his new career, Don’s—and, by extension, Mimi’s—horizons were only broadening. What was once a quiet life in Colorado among the falcons now seemed like a stepping-stone to the world stage. In Washington, Don lobbied for a new railroad from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Cheyenne, Wyoming; and a pipeline to bring water south from Canada or Alaska; and the western United States’ first public television station. The Federation pooled risk capital for experimental industrial projects, worked to find new mineral and water resources, formed a science advisory council for technological development, and promoted tourism with touring art exhibits and support for the Denver, Phoenix, and Utah Symphonies and the Utah Civic Ballet, which Don renamed Ballet West. The new name actually was Mimi’s idea: “ Utah Civic spells Mormon all over it,” she’d said with a roll of her eyes. But Howard Hughes had just named his new airline Air West; maybe if they followed his lead, Mimi suggested, Hughes would donate one day?
    With money from the National Endowment for the Arts, Don started offering residencies to the East Coast’s most prestigious and accomplished dancers and choreographers and conductors. By the late 1960s, Don and Mimi and whichever children were too small to leave at home on their own would travel to Aspen and Santa Fe for concerts, fund-raisers, conferences, and galas. Which was how, with the Federation, Mimi’s old dreams of a life of art and culture and the best of everything really were coming true—first the dream house, then the dream life.
    In Santa Fe, the Galvins were regulars at parties where the guest list often included Georgia O’Keeffe—in her signature black hat and long black skirt, her hair in a long braid down the middle of her back—and Henriette Wyeth, Andrew’s sister, who demanded to paint Don and Mimi’s little girls, Margaret and Mary, in their gossamer organdy dresses that made them look like they’d stepped right out of a double portrait by Gainsborough. For Mimi, very little could match the thrill of visiting Henriette Wyeth’s ranch in