Theodore
I think Senate Resolutions 248 and 281 were in separate Congresses. I think
came first, and then 248, and they both were attempts to liberalize policy.
The Bureau of the Budget testified against them, although these were not laws.
These were merely Senate resolutions which the President didn't have a view
on, but we were consulted, and Senator Kerr seemed to delight in attacking the
Bureau of the Budget; Bob Merriam stood up beautifully against Senator Kerr,
and there was a lot of interesting repartee. Senator Kerr was always a great one
to ask his staff for a dictionary and quibble about some word.
He was a very well-educated man, as well as a brilliant man, and I can
remember one exchange where Kerr said, "Well, this word means so-and-so
to me,
and Bob Merriam said, "Well, Senator, I have to accept the
dictionary's definition, as long as it's a Merriam-Webster dictionary." Bob
Merriam, as well as his father, was very much involved in public
administration. I enjoyed working with him. Incidentally, Bob died just a few
months ago. I had been briefing Bob on water policy, so he was well versed on
the issues and he had several sharp clashes with Bob Kerr and Senator Ellender.
It soon became evident that Kerr and Ellender were not really very conversant
with the issues we were talking about. It was all very theoretical to them, and
they had been prodded by staff people to hold the hearing, and when the staff
people weren't there, they weren't able to make much of a case at that
particular time.
Senate Select Committee on Natural Resources
Anyway, about a year after I went up to the Library of Congress, I was very
surprised to get a call from Don McBride, who was Senator Kerr's principal
staff man in the water resources area, asking if I would come over and talk to
Senator Kerr about serving as staff director of the Senate Select Committee on
Water Resources.
Okay. Now, just to get the chronology straight, in April 1959 you had Senate
Resolution 48, which, of course, calls for these studies of water resources and
some 20 months or so afterwards, I guess it's 1961, is when the report is
finally submitted. Okay.
Well, let me go into the background of that. I should have mentioned that first.
Senate Resolution 48 was introduced by Senator Mike Mansfield. It stemmed
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