Ernest Graves
The problem was how to get Bob Seamans back to the White House for this meeting.
From my experience on the Great Lakes, I knew about the people involved in this, so
I telephoned Coast Guard headquarters, reached their emergency action lieutenant
commander, and told him what the problem was. We also called Andrews Air Force
Base [Maryland] to see if they could send a helicopter to get him, Bob Seamans, if we
located him. Also, we called Dover Air Force Base [Delaware] to get them to send a
car. We did reach Seamans by radio telephone, finally.
The Coast Guard located him, and they sent a Coast Guard cutter to go alongside his
boat. He had a radio phone on the boat, but for reasons that I don't recall, we couldn't
get that working. So he had to use the radio telephone on the Coast Guard cutter. I
talked to him and explained to him what was required.
He said, "All right." The transportation would meet him at the entrance to the
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, where he was headed, in the morning at five o'clock.
They sent the helicopter from Andrews and the driver from Dover. The helicopter
couldn't land because of the fog. So Bob Seamans got in the sedan from Dover, which
drove him to Washington. He got to the meeting on time--showed up in his sailing
togs, to the amusement of President Ford and the others present. It didn't seem like
much at the time. I was able to call on my experience to get all these people into gear.
I got the first call at home around supper time, and I called all these people at night. I
got a lot of cooperation from all of them.
Q:
Quite an operation, really.
A:
Yes. It is an amusing incident. Bob Seamans and Bob Fry, his deputy, were really
impressed. They never forgot it. It demonstrated that, if we had to do something, we
did it.
But all that was cut short by this offer to go to civil works. I enjoyed that job, but I
went off on another path.
Q:
How much of that job was diplomatic in nature?
A:
We had a program with England that involved helping them develop the warheads for
their Polaris missiles. Unfortunately, the timing of my tour was such that I never visited
England. We would have home-and-home visits. Their people came to Washington and
I remember we had them to supper. Nancy had a very nice dinner party for them.
I had a lot of contact with the British Embassy. They had a man here in their embassy,
Jimmy Harrison, who handled this--all the arrangements for the support we provided
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