Ernest Graves
Q:
Sure.
A:
We finally got it down to the point that we recommended eliminating 17 projects. We
held hearings on more than that. We held a hearing on the TennesseeTombigbee
Waterway. It was not on the list of 17.
After the hearings were over, we prepared a report in which we appraised each project
and recommended whether it should continue or not. We delivered this report to the
Office of Management and Budget and to Eizenstat. Then the White House staff did
their own thing. They wrote their own project appraisals. They paid almost no attention
to the material we produced. I went alone, with my notebooks, back to the cabinet
room and met with President Carter, Bert Lance, Stu Eizenstat, Hamilton Jordan, and
Jody Powell.
They were all there. They asked me about some of these projects. They asked me about
the TennesseeTombigbee Waterway, and what the justification was. I told them it was
coal. I told them about the power plants that used the coal. Carter said he didn't believe
any of that. He thought it was all fabricated.
Then I told him that we had had quite a hearing on the TennTom and that there were
six million people there. I meant to say six thousand. They all had quite a laugh about
that. But that misstatement of mine got quoted by Bert Lance to a bunch of people and
showed up in the newspapers. It was never attributed to me personally, but I felt,
frankly, that their repeating that mistake of mine was a cheap shot.
Q:
Because they did pull their punch a little bit, didn't they?
A:
Well, you know, they set the thing up. We did the revocations, the Budget
Impoundment Control Act actions. We went through a great drill. On the ones that
Carter wanted to stop, we made up notices, and they went up to Congress, and we did
stop some. The stoppages did affect some permanently. But basically it was one of
many things that President Carter did that was flawed in concept and execution and that
destroyed his ability to govern.
Q:
I was going to ask you to get to that point, because you know, Dick Curl had been
involved in all--
A:
He was in Kansas City.
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