Engineer Memoirs
That was just one example of the constant pressures that OMB brought to bear on the office
of Civil Works, and then, if the issues were important enough, the Chief of Engineers
personally would become involved. Military programs activities involving OMB were
handled by the Army staff at the Pentagon.
A similar situation was true with the Assistant Secretary for Civil Works, but the Chief's
involvement was less frequent in that arena during my term in OCE. The Assistant Secretary
for Civil Works, of course, is a political appointee, and he's under certain external pressures
that neither the director of Civil Works nor the Chief of Engineers know about.
As covered in some detail in the section on my term as director of Civil Works, Victor
Veysey built the office of
with the help of Jack Ford. They did a good job in
general and were followed by Mike Blumenfeld.
As Chief of Engineers, I didn't deal regularly with the Assistant Secretary for Civil Works;
even so, I realized Blumenfeld was much different from Veysey. Veysey, a former
congressman from California, was also an engineer who tended to get into the operations of
the civil works program.
Blumenfeld, on the other hand, didn't have the same desire to run the Chief of Engineers'
civil works affairs. He had a keen awareness of public interests and a very astute political
mind. He was almost ideal for the job, in my judgment, because his primary purpose was to
deal with the public, the Congress, and the Executive Branch on political matters.
He was followed by William Gianelli, another California engineer with excellent credentials
in the water management field. I had retired by the time Gianelli came, so my thoughts about
him are derived from infrequent and brief contact and observations. For all his good work,
which was substantial and far reaching, he became quite possessive of the Corps' activities.
Subsequent assistant secretaries seem to have only increased their inward management of the
Corps rather than outward dealing with the political forces. Gianelli was known to deal
directly with the district engineers, bypassing OCE and the division offices. I think Bill
slowed the decision-making process and brought the Chief more directly into
operations than appropriate.
Bob Dawson followed Gianelli. I knew Bob very well and saw a lot of him even though I had
retired. He called all the Chiefs in the
area, plus General Graves, and asked us to give
him a hand getting the Water Resources Act of 1986 passed. Bob had been an administrative
assistant in the Congress and certainly knew his way around the Hill. I thought Bob paid
attention to the political winds quite well. He got the 1986 bill through to his great credit. I
give Bob good grades. He was very serious, very conscientious about his job, and since he's
left the service-the federal service-he's stayed in closer contact with the Corps than any
of his predecessors-quite loyal.
My only reservation was that I thought he subordinated, perhaps unknowingly, the position
of the Chief of Engineers by taking General Heiberg with him on trips when I think he should
have taken the director of Civil Works. The Chief is big enough to stand alone. Besides, the
Chief has more things to do than just civil works. I must admit he and General Heiberg made
a very strong and effective team. Vald Heiberg was the director of Civil Works when I retired
and a great presence for the Corps.
Bob Page was good. Bob was an
an understanding engineer. He instituted some
procedures which put the Corps in good stead: the educational arrangement at Huntsville
between the University of Alabama and the Corps, an outgrowth of the study of Corps
training mentioned earlier; the CPAR [Construction Productivity Advancement Research]
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