Vernon
Lloyd Duscha
Q ..
Well, didn't he tend to favor operations anyway?
A
Well, surprising to a lot of people, he wasn't as interested in engineering, for example,
as he was in planning and operations. But he was one of the most ardent supporters of
Lloyd Duscha, who he brought in from MRD. Practically twisted his arm to get him into
Washington. He was the one who really pushed him for being the top civilian in
headquarters, which he was for a while. He was really the top civilian. I think he had the
highest grade of any civilian in headquarters for a while.
John Morris was the one who was pushing him. So you couldn't really say that he wasn't
concerned about engineering. It might have been that he was so used to having Lloyd out
there, who was very competent doing a real good job that he didn't have to spend much
time worrying about it. That most of his administrative duties led in other areas, you
know, where he had more problems then he did in engineering. So that might have been
why people were saying, "Well, he is not as interested in engineering as he is in
planning.
Q ..
You tend not to be worried about things that you know are handled right.
A
I think that's true. If you've got somebody in a job who is really doing a great job and
you know it, and you hardly ever have a problem there, why are you going to spend a lot
of time working on that area when you've got a bunch of problems in other areas. It's just
that the engineering didn't require his attention as much and so, I think, that is probably
why he got that reputation.
Francis
and Wendell Johnson
Q ..
You talk about Lloyd coming out of MRD. So did a lot of other ones including yourself,
but I mean people like Francis Slichter and Wendell Johnson, they came from
A
They came from MRD. Well, I think MRD for many years, in the early years when they
had the Pick-Sloan Studies going, they were the biggest organization of the Corps as far
as doing big engineering studies and interagency activities. They were probably more
active than any other division in the country at that time. So they were obviously the ones
that probably had the most competent people to come into Washington.
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