Water Resources People and Issues
A: Yes, the FIREBRICK actually got out the "Green Book, the first Green Book.
George was a tough man to deal with-we had a lot of meetings with George,
and also with Joe Brennan. Joe Brennan was in the corresponding position to
me. He was chief of reports-this was before he went up on the Hill to be on
the staff of the House Public Works Committee. He was chief of reports and
Ken Bousquet was the budget man for the Corps at that time. We didn't have
too much to do with Bousquet because we were not working on budgets, but
we used to call them the "Three
And we had a great deal of respect for
them.
Gene Weber kind of came along after that, and took over, but I can't remember
just when that happened. But those were the people we worked with on the
Corps' staff. We had clashes on projects like the middle Rio Grande in New
Mexico. I think the Bureau may have wanted to build Abiquiu and the Corps
was moving in on it too. I think the Corps eventually built it. There were some
other clashes on the middle Rio Grande, as we tried to coordinate the work of
the Bureau and the Corps. Now, this is just me talking, and the way I
remember it is that we went into meetings, with George Beard representing the
Corps and Jack Dixon representing the Bureau, and George always just
somehow seemed to close in on Jack Dixon and win the argument, and I'd be
sitting there and feeling that it wasn't right to interrupt and correct your
boss-or at least, it wasn't the proper thing to do. At that stage, I was probably
a little more inhibited than I am now-but, the Corps would usually win the
arguments because of George Beard. I thought he was just terrific; I have the
greatest respect for him.
We had some of the same arguments on the Missouri basin. Now, if you can
remember, the Missouri Basin project was approved in the `44 act and the
initial stages were authorized, and I think they were as specified in the report,
the initial stages.
Of course, this included the main stem dams for the Corps, but it was not as
specific on the Bureau. So when the balance of the comprehensive plan was up
for authorization in the 1946 act, George Beard argued that the Garrison
Diversion into the Dakotas was authorized to the Corps. It was the only time
we ever won an argument with George Beard, when he agreed that it should be
a Bureau project. Maybe he just used it as a bargaining chip that he was
prepared to yield on or maybe he knew that it wasn't a viable project.
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