John
Morris
Well, when we got to the president's conference room, the table was full of people. On the
right of the president was Secretary [Cecil] Andrus, the Secretary of the Interior, and next
to him was Secretary Alexander, and then so forth and so on. I was sitting directly across
from the president. General Graves, director of Civil Works, was with me that day.
The comments went around the table. First, the president asked Secretary Andrus what he
thought about his plan to stop some projects. Andrus suggested sending up one and see what
happened. He came to Secretary Alexander, who said, "Well, we should do this but in
conjunction with the appropriations cycle, so everybody knows what's going on and there's
no surprises to the Congress."
To Secretary Andrus the president indicated that it was not his intent to just send up a trial
balloon, and to Alexander he indicated, it meets the objectives but takes too long. He didn't
want to wait but wanted to do this now and make an impact.
I was the last one and when asked if I had any comments I noted, "It sounds to me like there
is a list of projects." Besides the newspaper accounts, I'd never seen such a list. So President
Carter said there was and for me to see it. Mr. Bert Lance went out and brought in a list, gave
it to me, and I looked it over. There were 19 projects, as I recall, 11 of which were Interior
and 8 or 9 were ours. I reviewed the projects on the list. As it turned out, the Corps had
planned to recommend minimum or no funding for all except two projects. The two projects
were the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and the Red River Waterway.
I suggested he drop the two navigation projects because his criteria didn't apply. His criteria
were to retain only those projects that had immediate benefits and also meet all the
environmental criteria. I stated that the navigation projects may meet the environmental
criteria but they rarely give immediate benefits. Navigation tonnages have to build up over
a long period of time, unlike flood control, where you can get benefits at once.
The president agreed and indicated we probably should review his list.
Then I noted that one project in California provided electric power and they were having an
energy crisis. This could create a political problem because of its need. He said, "Thank you
very much," and then announced that, "Anybody who wants to challenge any of these
projects or add to it may do so, but I want this list ready to go and to include a requirement
to review all other unlisted public works projects not completed." President Carter departed.
So the next thing I knew, somebody was leaning over my shoulder. It turned out to be Mr.
Burt Lance. "General," he said, "you made a very good impression on the president with your
presentation. You seem to know what you're talking about and he needed that kind of help."
So I said, "Well, thank you very much." I wasn't feeling too well that day. I thought I was
getting the flu. Well, it turned out I was. Friday I worked half a day and for the only time
since 1960 I went home and went to bed.
Saturday morning I stayed in bed and decided to write a letter to the president about the
meeting on Thursday. Ms. Velsmid came to my home, and I dictated a letter to the president.
The letter basically stated that what he was going to do was necessary and very courageous,
but it was going to lead to a lot of problems for him politically because of the sensitivity of
those programs to the Congress. I was most supportive of his directive that all projects be
reviewed. I said also in the letter that the review, when complete, would have a very positive
impact because the Corps of Engineers could then divert its great talent of solving
tomorrow's problems instead of just fighting yesterday's decisions. That was the thrust of
the letter. I closed with the thought that I wished I had time to sit down and talk to him
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