Engineer Memoirs
A:
I wasn't around anymore. And the guys that were running it probably didn't have that
conviction.
The agreement that was made was the following: we would come up with the first 0
million, and the Israelis would come up with everything else. That was the deal that
Weizman had made at Camp David.
When we got over there to negotiate this agreement, there were some second thoughts
on the part of the Israelis. They said, "You, not we, made the estimate of what these
fields are going to cost. How do we know that you have accurately estimated the cost
of these fields? Therefore, you're asking us to make an open-end commitment to pay
for larger fields, more money. And we've never had a chance to come up with our own
estimate of what this will cost."
My response was that the thing that will cause a change in the cost is if Israel wants
more elaborate fields. We have made an estimate which we were very confident of, if
you stick with the requirements of the Hartung study. But if you come up with a lot of
other things that aren't included in the Hartung study, then they'll cost more.
Obviously, it's up to you to pay because the agreement that was made at Camp David
was between Brown and Weizman for a certain type of airfield. If you want a fancier
field, you can have one. But you should not expect the United States of America to pay.
Our obligation is limited to 0 million.
What happened once the construction began was the following. The Israelis saw the
way we were doing, and they saw what we were spending for some things, such as the
billets for our personnel and a swimming pool and some other amenities. They hadn't
quite grasped before that these were going to be included and that the money we were
spending that way would not be available to spend on some other features that they
would like to have.
They felt that they should have a voice in how this was done. I wasn't there making the
arguments. But when I heard about these disagreements, I thought that the money we
were spending to take care of our people was not out of line with the estimates we had
made in the first place of what it would cost to build these fields. Therefore, the Israelis
didn't have a valid basis for challenging our management of the work. I don't mean that
there may not have been some things that weren't done right. But I did not buy the
basic idea that we were spending too much on some things and, therefore, they were
being deprived or were having to pay too much.
As a minimum, they would not get the savings of an underrun. That was the source of
this whole management argument which, in my opinion, the Americans should not have
entertained.
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