Theodore M.
A: Really, just for about 20 months, from May 1959 through January 1961, and
then I went back to the Library of Congress. Of course, there were all kinds
of things waiting for me to do. I was still the senior specialist in the
engineering and public works field, and I had a lot of other responsibilities in
the public works area, but most of my work was in water resources. I did a lot
of work with the House Interior Committee. One of the first reports I did when
I started work in the Legislative Reference Service was on the accomplishments
of the reclamation program. It was published as a committee print. Later I did
another study highlighting the problems of the reclamation program. They
decided not to publish it because it unmasked the idea that this program was
reimbursable by just laying out the economic facts that showed that some
projects were paying back 2 percent and some projects were paying back or
20 percent, but the average was somewhat less than percent, probably even
less than 10 percent of the total economic cost.
I guess Wayne Aspinall, God rest his soul, didn't think that would be helpful
for what he wanted to get done in Colorado and what the committee wanted to
get done in the West, so that report was never published. But I still worked
with the committee quite a bit on specific projects, but if you asked me, "What
did you do, what did you contribute between 1961 and
Public Works and Water Resources, Library of Congress
Q: That was my next question.
-it's hard to really put my finger on things. But just to get some levity into
this discussion, which has been so serious for the last few minutes, I remember
I used to lecture to the planning associates or whatever they called them at the
Corps of Engineers and also the district planning officers. One time they asked
me to go down to Dallas to talk to the group. Of course, they said they would
pay my way and make the reservations. But the Library demanded that the
Corps not pay for my ticket but that I buy my ticket and that the Corps would
reimburse the Library which would reimburse me. So the Corps made the
reservations for us all to fly on American Airlines to Dallas. I think it was
American Airlines because I remember it was what they called a champagne
flight on a Lockheed Electra and we sat up in the front there, four of us at a
table drinking champagne with our lunch because the Corps had made
reservations travel first class.
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