Ernest Graves
Q:
Extremely close.
A:
The arguments over the money at the end had all to do with change orders and things
that were relatively small. Among other things, they had to do with arguments over the
amount of money that various things that were not yet costed out would cost. In other
words, there wasn't enough money, if they cost as much as they might. But in the end,
I think most of them didn't cost as much.
The Corps didn't want to be in the position of being left without a contingency down
at the end when they were trying to wrap the job up. But they didn't really need the
contingency, as it turned out.
Retirement, 1981
I read on the front page of the Post that your successor, who was [Lieutenant] General
Q:
James Ahmann of the Air Force--was he your successor once removed?
A:
That's right. My immediate successor was Eric von Marbod, who had been my deputy.
But he was in the job only about five months and then retired. Then Jim Ahmann, who
had been his deputy, took over.
The thing that surprised me, and it was on the front page of the Washington Post, when
Q:
he had retired from DSAA, he had gone to work for Northrup and was on the front
page of the Post, criticizing the Carter administration's arms policy--which I
understand is vulnerable to criticism--advocating the sale of more arms. Well, he was
an arms salesman at the time. And I wonder about the propriety of that kind of thing.
I remember the story about your father and the National Press Building, and there
seems to be a different set of values at work here.
A:
There are two things that need to be said. First, I think that there is no question that if
you go back to my father's time or to my grandfather's time, they had a much more
reserved view about their role.
I have to tell you this story about my grandfather, my mother's father, who was Colonel
Rogers Birnie, a very eminent ordnance officer in his time and one of the people
involved in the original concept and design of built-up guns.
I don't know if you're familiar with this subject, but at the time of the Civil War, all
cannon were cast. There's a limit to the strength of a cast cannon. A built-up gun is
made in such a way that the inner tube is under compression and, therefore, capable of
withstanding much higher pressure.
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