Engineer Memoirs
honeymoon with him, which wasn't correct at all. But while he was Under Secretary
of the Army, one of his jobs was chairman of the board of directors of the Panama
Canal Company.
He used to have a meeting down in Panama early in the year, which was the dry season.
Dave and his new bride went together to this meeting. We flew in an executive jet down
to Panama by way of Puerto Rico, then after the meeting back to Puerto Rico. Then
they were supposed to take a sailboat and go to the Virgin Islands, to Saint Thomas.
However, he got called by McNamara to come back to Washington for some personnel
study. So he didn't get to go on his own honeymoon. And neither did I, of course.
I was with them during this whole plane ride. So I had known Dave for nearly three
years during the Johnson administration. He was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs and the Director of the Defense Security Assistance
Agency [DSAA] reported to him.
When it came time to select a successor to [Lieutenant General] Howard Fish of the Air
Force, who'd had the job for nearly four years, I was a good strong candidate. It was
sort of the Army's turn.
I didn't know that much about military assistance. I had not had a job in the program.
I had had a string of jobs involving foreign contacts--Panama Canal business and, as
we discussed, a lot of work with England about nuclear weapons when I was with the
AEC. I'd been in SHAPE for three years. So I was not a novice to jobs where contacts
with foreign governments were important. But foreign aid itself I had not done.
Q:
Were there other things that you were thinking about, other possibilities that looked
interesting to you?
A:
There was a three-star job as Director of the Defense Nuclear Agency [DNA]. But at
the time, a Navy admiral had that job. So I really wasn't a candidate.
Q:
That would have been an appropriate place for you.
A:
That would have been, although when I was the AEC Director of Military Applications,
we used to think that DNA didn't really have much to do, compared to what we did.
But I think that was a little unfair. It's a very important job and they've done a lot of
good things. But the timing was such that, if I were going to do something more, the
DSAA opportunity was the main thing.
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