Set in both the arid lands of Arizona and the political backdrop of 
Washington, D.C., Vision in the Desert documents the life and career
of longtime Arizona senator, Carl Hayden. One of the most powerful 
figures in the United States Congress, Hayden's public service career, 
centered on water and its distribution, is inseparable from the history 
of the West and the development of arid lands.

    Elected to the House of Representatives in 1911, Hayden began a 
fifty-seven-year career in the U.S. Congress, serving as a Democratic 
House Representative for fifteen years and then as a Senator from 
1927 to 1969.

    The issues of the development of the Colorado River occupied the 
majority of Hayden's congressional work. The authorization of the 
Central Arizona Project (CAP) in 1968, at the end of the senator's long 
career, highlights all of Hayden's efforts concerning this lifestream of 
the Southwest, making possible the distribution of water to the growing 
urban areas of Phoenix and Tucson.

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Historian, Fulbright scholar, and native Arizonan, JACK L. AUGUST, 
JR., is director of the Arizona Historical Foundation and has served as 
a professor of history at Arizona State University and Prescott College. 
August has published extensively on the American West.