Gilbert F. White
improvements. It happened after the 1937 memorandum; it happened after
the Coordination Act of '43; it has happened with respect to the NEPA
preparation of environmental impact statements.
Q: Of course, sometimes it happens under a great deal of political pressure.
Again, I'm thinking of the upstream-downstream controversy and the kinds
of concerns expressed by the Corps of Engineers and the Soil Conservation
Service, particularly dealing with the Arkansas, White, and Red river basins.
A: Yes.
There seemed to be no meeting of minds within the committees, as I recollect.
The meeting of minds, such as it was, was hammered out in Congress.
That's right. Irving Fox was very much involved in trying to get that
reconciliation.
I suppose there are limits to how far an agency can bend, or be willing to
bend.
Well, Eisenhower comes into the presidency. His Bureau of the Budget
established what I think is seen by the Corps as a fair number of constraints
on Corps civil works and planning. The Bureau of the Budget seems to be
in favor of small projects rather than large projects, cost sharing; seems to be
in favor of limiting the planning cycle, shortening it sometimes. As a matter
of fact, there are some parallels between the Eisenhower administration and
the Reagan administration, I would think.
Yes.
Well, did you get involved in any of these deliberations or do you recall the
response to these kinds of initiatives on the part of the Bureau of the Budget
in particular?
I was just on the peripheries of those discussions and I was unsympathetic
with any effort to make the Bureau of the Budget more of a managerial
agency because I was and am more traditional in the view of what the
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