LTG John W. Morris and President Jimmy Carter
after a meeting in early March 1977 to discuss Corps'projects and the future.
We then discussed my ideas of things the Corps might do to support the nation's needs. The
meeting ended on a good note. I walked out with Jack Watson, who sat through this whole
thing and indicated he thought that was a very interesting meeting. He felt the president must
have been interested because he scheduled only 15 minutes and used over an hour.
subsequently had some confirmation that that was a very good meeting. I also caught hell
from the Secretary of the Army. When he found out I'd been over there, received a call
from him with emphatic words to the effect that, "You don't go see the president of the
United States without my knowing about it, General." So I said, "Yes, Sir, I'll never do it
again."
Well, the sum and substance of it was that the president suggested to his cabinet that they use
the Corps of Engineers.
The seeds of success which led to the Corps' not being organized out of business were
planted, I believe, during that face-to-face, one-on-one conversation, particularly when we
got Sprewell's Bluff clarified. While the Secretary of the Army was upset, and had every
right to be, the event happened so early in his tenure that we were able to soften that issue
as we accomplished a lot of things together later.
An afterthought-when the president had his open house in January immediately after the
inauguration, Vice President [Walter] Mondale said to President Carter, "General Morris and
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