John
Morris
Q ..
You mentioned Mr. Tofani. Did he leave the Corps during the time where you were the
Chief?
A
Joe left while I was in Civil Works. He kept talking about retiring for years, and finally he
did. I do remember we had a nice party for him at the Forrestal Building cafeteria. President
Nixon signed a letter for Joe.
Several people retired right after I became Chief. Perhaps they didn't want to work for me!
Joe was a good friend, and also an outstanding Corps person. As I said earlier, I think he was
the most respected man in Washington, as an individual, in the water resource program and
water policy.
Q..
As Chief of Engineers you also worked with foreign countries. What other governments were
you involved with?
A
The only things we haven't talked about in terms of relationships would be the foreign
governments. How to handle that one.
As you recall, as director of Civil Works, I was sent off to Egypt and to Russia under the
auspices of the United States government. Egypt was a special project associated with the
Suez Canal. Russia was a type of technical exchange. The Corps also was sending people to
China, but not under the civil works aegis.
sent me to Saudi Arabia. In the course of that
When I became deputy chief, General
trip, I went to Italy and some other places.
The point I'm getting at here is that during the time that I was in the Office of the Chief of
Engineers as the director of Civil Works, deputy, and later as Chief, there was a growing
attention to the Corps' technical ability in the international arena, and I found I was spending
an unusually large amount of time receiving visitors from various countries.
So we set up the International Projects Office. I asked Colonel Bill Badger and Ms. Olga
Lansing to start the project. It took over the liaison that I had been doing personally and
handled it even better because they had time to devote to it.
chief engineer for
joined the Corps. Frank had been the
Later on, Frank
assistant project manager for the job at Goose Bay, Labrador, when I was there some years
before. I knew Frank from that and had a high regard for him. So he ran the office for some
years with Olga's help.
The Chief of Engineers had to operate properly in the international field. I don't know how
it is now, but during my time, the international program was quite important.
Out of the international program came several specific events. One had already started, of
course-the Saudi Arabia construction program. That probably was the catalyst for setting
up the international organization.
The Suez Canal project was important and should have developed into a much greater
involvement with the Corps than it turned out. We could not obtain adequate congressional
support and the funding needed to go beyond technical advice in the Suez Canal.
The same thing is true, to some extent, in China. Our involvement in China goes back into
the 1970s. It's been hot and cold, obviously. It's never really developed into any major
program for the Corps' engineering capability. There's been some, but it's been a little
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