We come up with, well, let's see, who was the assistant secretary? I can't think of his
name right off hand, but he came up through the Corps. He was one of the few that
actually worked for the Corps his whole career. He worked over at the Rivers and
Harbors Board.
They were looking for some technical assistance over there, and he said, "Well, I'll try
it out and see. He applied for a job, and he got the job and shortly after he had been
there for, well, he'd been there for some time. But the assistant secretary left, and he
ended up acting for awhile and then he actually got the job for awhile. Then he went over
to EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], I think, when he lost the job. But what the
heck was his name?
Q ..
Well, he must have been one of the early guys because he certainly wasn't one of the more
recent ones.
Gosh, I know--Jack--I just can't think of his name right now for some reason. But he was
A
one of the fellows that reviewed projects over at the Rivers and Harbors Board for quite
a long time. I remember when he was working for the Assistant Secretary of the Army,
[they] told him there was a change in his job from a conventional civil service job to one
of these political appointee jobs. Ford, Jack Ford.
Jack was saying, "Hey, I don't want to be a political appointee, I want to stay. The A.S.
told him, "Hey Jack, everybody else can be fired anytime. Why are you so concerned
about it? Just because you've been working for the Federal Government, if you have any
confidence in your abilities you shouldn't be worried about whether you can be fired
tomorrow or not." He said, "You're going to be on one of these Presidential appointment-
type jobs.
Then when he became acting Assistant Secretary and, I think, I'm pretty sure he actually
got the job for awhile. Then the Presidents changed or something, and he went over to
EPA. But I worked with him on this urban drainage thing to come up with hydrologic
criteria that would define when the Federal interest ended and where it began. The
community interest that was worked out had certain size drainage areas or a certain
probability flood where, when it was exceeded the Corps would come in and work.
Q ..
On a case like that, what's your guideline on making a decision on what the actual point
will be? I mean, is it a political policy decision?
Previous Page
