Vernon K. Hagen
Q ..
I'd say so.
A ..
I think the Chief of Planning was a
and they promoted him to a 17 or something
like that.
Q ..
Tell me about that.
A ..
I forgot it's crazy things like that that really foul up what a general can do with his
organization. He can't very well have Tofani working for somebody who is a lesser
grade, so he has to give him his own division.
Q ..
I know Joe. I've talked to Joe a number of times and Joe lamented to me frequently about
the lack of aggressiveness and lack of push in the civil servant today. He said
would
have never stood back and waited. We would have manipulated the situation."
A ..
He was great--well, the thing is he had so much, I think, backing over in Congress, some
of the senators and representatives and so forth, that if some general would have taken off
on him he would have probably gotten himself in a lot of trouble. He probably never
would be Chief of Engineers if he had gotten on Joe Tofani. He was one of the few
civilians that ever had that kind of power, I think, in all of Civil Works. I don't remember
anybody that was that influential
He just had the kind of a personality that he did get things done.
Q ..
And took a back seat to no one that I can tell.
A
He was quite a guy all right. Well, Wendell was a lot like that, too. He and Wendell
were quite similar in being on top of the situation and always kind of being the lead, when
they walked into the room they didn't wait for something to happen, they made things
happen. They didn't wait for a general to ask them how to do something or what should
come next. They'd start telling them what should come next.
And SO anyway, there weren't too many people like that. I'm trying to think of somebody
like that, perhaps Henry Weinkauff. I didn't really know him that well, but he was kind
of an unusual type of guy. He was very concerned about his own professional image. If
something went contrary, to make him look bad, he'd get all excited about it. He was
always trying to present the top image no matter what the situation was. He seemed to be
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