Ernest Graves
Also, this system had a surface-to-surface capability. All this was mixed in together.
Sort of in the way of R&D, they had listed all of the conceivable things that you could
get a missile like this to do, if you're going to pay millions and millions of dollars for
it. This system was going to have the capability to do all of these different things. But
it made it extremely expensive.
The conclusions of this study were that, if we bought this system and deployed it, it
would be more cost-effective. If you wanted to defeat an enemy attack to the same
degree, it would require buying many more improved Hawk systems than SAMD
systems. The cost of the additional IHawk systems would exceed the cost of
developing and deploying the new SAMD systems. You'd have to decide how
effective you wanted to be. Per kill in the scenario we selected, SAMD cost less.
Q:
Now this was in 1970? And Nixon was President?
A:
Most of 1970. Yes. That's right.
Q:
And in fact, of course, he had been inaugurated in January of 1969, before you went to
OCE.
A:
That's correct.
Q:
What did this mean to you in the Corps of Engineers? Did it mean anything--that
change of administrations?
A:
During that administration there was another effort to reorganize the government. I
wasn't engaged in this directly. Nixon came out with a reorganization proposal. In
OCE, particularly civil works, the top people were very much engaged in the debate
within the administration about whether there would be a department of natural
resources that would absorb much of the civil works mission.
Another impact on the Army was Vietnamization of the war, which caused the Army
to contract. From the peak of 60 battalions of engineers, the level of engagement in
Vietnam was reduced greatly. That really affected the Corps, which had had so much
of its troop strength deployed there.
Of course, the tailing off of NASA construction was part of the scene. They'd had their
decade of the '60s when they'd done their big thing. Add up the retrenchment at
NASA, the retrenchment in Vietnam, and the reorganization proposal as three things
that I remember affecting the Corps.
Q:
And they're all of a piece, in a way.
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