Ernest Graves
Secretary of the Army. While in that position he attended the Advanced Management Program
at the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In September 1968 Colonel Graves assumed command of the 34th Engineer Group in the
Mekong Delta of Vietnam. The five battalions in the group supported the 9th Infantry Division
and the IV Corps Area Adviser and rebuilt major sections of QL4, the main highway
extending south into the delta.
On returning from Vietnam in September 1969, Graves became Deputy Director of Military
Construction in the Office of the Chief of Engineers. This directorate was in charge of
approximately
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billion of military construction annually, including the entire Army program
and a large portion of the Air Force program. Graves' responsibilities also included direction
of Corps of Engineers construction for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and
Corps support of Army facilities engineers worldwide. During this period Brigadier General
Graves also served for six months as president of the Air Defense Evaluation Board tasked to
recommend whether or not to undertake engineering development of the Patriot air defense
missile system.
In December 1970 Graves became Division Engineer of the North Central Division of the
Corps in Chicago, Illinois. He was responsible for Army Corps of Engineers water resource
activities in all or parts of 12 states, including the Upper Mississippi River basin and the Great
Lakes. Major activities during his three years in Chicago were the program of diked disposal
of dredge spoil, flood protection against record high levels on the Great Lakes, and reaching
decisions with his Canadian counterparts in his capacity as Chairman, U.S. Section, of five
different boards under the jurisdiction of the International Joint Commission for U.S.Canadian
boundary waters.
In December 1973 Major General Graves returned to Washington to become Director of
Military Application in the Atomic Energy Commission, then the Energy Research and
Development Administration. In this position he was responsible for all U.S. nuclear weapons
development, testing, and production, as well as cooperation with the British government's
nuclear weapons program. His job was to put the program together each year, defend it before
Congress, then oversee its execution by the weapons laboratories at Los Alamos, Livermore,
and Albuquerque; the test site in Nevada; and the production contractors throughout the United
States.
General Graves became Director of Civil Works in the Office of the Chief of Engineers in
September 1975, with responsibility for directing a .5 billion annual program of investigation,
design, construction, operation, and maintenance of works for navigation, flood control,
hydroelectric power production, water supply, water quality, recreation, fish and wildlife
protection, and beach and shore protection. Of the many issues addressed during his two years
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