Theodore
They're all gone now. Nobody can ever prove or disprove that and I doubt if
anybody else but me remembers or cares about it.
But Ed Ackerman had worked out a rough outline of how to attack the
problem. Of course, it was very thoughtfully and professionally done. It was,
I might say, very academic, remembering that Ed Ackerman had been a
professor of geography at the University of Chicago. It was a good program;
it was to be accomplished in two phases. The first phase was to lay the
groundwork and develop all the physical and economic information, and the
second phase was analytical.
This plan was given to me by Senator Anderson and it looked good to me. Ed
Ackerman was a friend of mine and he met with me several times to discuss his
ideas. At first I pretty much worked as an individual on this because I was used
to working as an individual. Later, I got a gentleman with whom I'd worked
in the Interior Department named W. G. Hoyt to assist me. Hoyt was an
timer with the U.S. Geological Survey who had been the executive secretary
of the Water Resources Committee of the Interior Department, and I had very
close relationships with him on all the work I did through the FIARBC.
He was retired and had been living up in Connecticut but had just moved back
to Washington, so I took him on as a consultant. I think we paid him about
a day, because he was a federal annuitant, and the rule was that you deducted
the amount of their federal annuity from their normal pay.
I also took my assistant from the Library, Barbara Jibrin, over with me, and
Senator Kerr assigned Paul McBride-not Don McBride, but Paul McBride
from his staff-to be the administrative man for me. I think that Paul McBride
was supposed to keep an eye on me, but he was not the kind of a person that
was very intellectual in the water area; he was really the only committee clerk,
so we called him the "Chief Clerk."
We also had a secretary, Maggie Duckett, who had formerly worked for Robert
Kennedy on the staff of the Labor-Management Relations Committee. She was
a very good secretary. We also had another secretary, and that was the extent
of the staff. We didn't have a lot of money. I think the resolution provided
only 5,000 for the first year, and we were supposed to get help from the
federal agencies. I was able to enlist the aid of Abel Wolman, Gilbert White,
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