John W. Morris
rebuilding the country. I mentioned how the Corps could help the Department of
Transportation rebuild the Northeast railroad corridor. Joe Tofani had worked up a "Red
Book" on the subject. So if anybody saw the show, they might remember that the last thing
Morley Safer said referred to the Corps of Engineers' having built so much of this country,
et cetera, and then commented to the effect, "They're not done yet. They've even got a red
book on how to rebuild the railroads." That's what came out on television. I thought it rather
humorous, but we got a lot of publicity out of that that we didn't necessarily expect and I'm
not so sure we wanted. We heard from the Department of Transportation.
The last event of national TV significance involved General Clarke's 1970 interview by Lem
Tucker. Tucker is still active. In any event, the program really did a job on General Clarke.
It wasn't a live program. They managed the film to show the Chief at bad angles with the
bright lights. They showed dead fish in the river that had nothing to do with him. The scenario
was put together in a way to make General Clarke and the Corps look like villains. That was
in 1970.
Almost ten years later, in early 1979, the network considered a follow-up. They phoned and
asked if I would participate in a ten-year review. I was delighted. Mr. Tucker came over and
we sat in my Forrestal office. It was a very good interview. We got along fine. There were no
rough spots to speak of. The conclusion had to be that the Corps had done a much better job
than they had anticipated when they put the earlier program together.
The reprise was never shown. Later, after I'd retired, I was on a trip to Chicago and a group
of reporters were also on the plane en route to the funeral of the well-known newsman, Max
Robinson. Mr. Lem Tucker was among them, and I asked him about why he didn't produce
the 1979 interview. He indicated the Corps had done such a good job that there really wasn't
anything that would be of national interest. He seemed sincere when he indicated he would
have liked to put it on, but his bosses wouldn't let him show it.
The important point is that the Corps was a whipping boy for a long time, but as we began to
get our act together and to do better environmental work, better understanding followed and
criticism diminished-" diminished," not "ended."
The Corps as a public institution owes the public an honest face so that the public can see the
Corps for what it really is. It's almost as bad to fail to produce the honest picture as it is to
tout something that you're not, in the hopes of getting some kind of credit.
So that's why I wanted to discuss the public relations program. I think the Corps' image did
improve over that period. Similarly, the same thing happened with the Congress. Our
relationships with the Congress remained at a high level professionally in spite of the fact we
had some extremely difficult projects ongoing: Tenn-Tom, Lock and Dam 26, the Ohio River,
on and on, plus the permit program.
Q ..
What other agencies of the federal government, outside of the Defense Department, did the
Corps work closely with during your term as Chief?
A ::
With the formation of the Department of Energy and with the development of the EPA, there
were two new organizations on the scene during the decade of the 1970s which needed
engineer support. The Corps made an effort to be available to those people. The Corps does
a lot of work for EPA now and hopes to do more work for the Department of Energy.
At first, our work with the Department of Energy was difficult. When General Gribble retired,
the last thing he said to me was, "Jack, in a few days you're going to get a contract to do the
strategic petroleum reserve for the Department of Energy." The people he was dealing with
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