Engineer Memoirs
Q:
You told him that?
A:
Yes. If he wanted to stop the projects, he would have to send notices to Congress
because we could not legally stop spending the money simply on an order from him. He
had to impound the money. To impound the money he had to send notice to Congress
that he was impounding it. Well, that was an interesting thought that hadn't occurred
to any of them.
Q:
How did he react to that?
A:
The President didn't pick that one up immediately. Lance, I think, picked up on that.
Also, Stu Eizenstat, who was his counselor for domestic affairs and the staff leader for
this action.
Q:
Wasn't there a woman named Kathy Fletcher who was--?
A:
Well, Kathy was the action officer, but Eizenstat was the one in charge of this for the
President.
When we had gone all around the table, Carter said, "Thank you very much," but he
was going to do it anyway. However, in view of what we said, he would let us advise
him about the projects that should be stopped and the ones that shouldn't.
Eizenstat produced a memo with a list of projects to be stopped. I have the original in
my files. Jack Morris and I were referring to the memo during the discussion. At the
end it was left lying on the table, and I picked it up with my notes on the meeting.
On this memo were 35 projects. Carter left, and we were left to sit there around the
table discussing the projects that should continue and those that should not.
Of the 35 projects, we concluded that there were 20 that should be included in the list
of projects to be stopped. We gave that information to Eizenstat and Frank Moore, who
was congressional liaison. Then we left. I think Eizenstat wrote it down in longhand.
They determined that they were going to announce this list on the 21st of February,
which was a Monday. The 22d was George Washington's birthday. So maybe Monday
was a holiday, too.
Saturday, Frank Moore reached me, and he started asking me about the Richard B.
Russell Dam. The Richard B. Russell Dam had been on the list, and we had
recommended that it be removed from the list mainly for two reasons. One, we thought
that the dam was in the category of the ongoing projects that were economically
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