John
Morris
Second, there was less money appropriated by the Congress than needed, so the
Israelis had to provide the last 0 million. This meant that every dollar saved up to
that amount was their money.
Third, there was no logistics or base upon which to build and there was no labor
market to draw upon.
Fourth, we needed a cost-plus type of contract because there were so many
uncertainties.
If there was a fifth, it would be that the plans for the existing airfields in the Sinai,
which we were to replicate, were in Hebrew and the as-builts were very incomplete.
So there we were. We didn't have any design, we didn't have a logistics base, we didn't have
a labor base, we had a very tight deadline, the money was short, and so on.
As I mentioned, General Bumell had begun to gather critical data by sending a team to Israel
to evaluat e the situation. There were, however, several key and basic decisions to be made.
One was the money. First off, the Congress of the United States did not act immediately on
the Camp David agreement. In other words, it was three or four months before they
appropriated the money to execute the program. We really couldn 't afford to lose three or four
months in our planning. Then, we had another problem. Air bases were an Air Force-type
program, but the Corps was going to do all the work. I was convinced the Corps needed the
money, and we took the position from the outset that we had to control the money. The Air
Force insisted it was their program and they wanted the money in their budget. This grew into
a very interesting and crucial issue.
To me, it was a critical problem. If we didn't have the money, we would not have the control
we needed to do the job. Well, the thing finally got up to the Secretary of Defense's office.
Mrs. Shay was Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, as I recall. She was the senior person
from the Air Force present at a meeting. She appeared with her group. I was alone. Mr.
McGiffert was the Assistant Secretary of Defense who dealt with this project. I'd known
McGiffert when he was the Under Secretary of the Army. As soon as the meeting started, I
think he realized that I was very serious about solving the money matter correctly.
Fortunately, General Graves, who had been my deputy in the Corps, had become McGiffert's
military adviser. As we all know, General Graves is very perceptive.
After considerable discussion, Mr. McGiffert indicated he didn't want to have to solve this
problem by a directive and for the Air Force and the Army to come to some understanding.
So Graves put a proposition on the table that the money would be put into the Air Force
budget with the proviso that it would be passed through without change directly to the Chief
of Engineers. That's what we did.
So that was the first, I think, fundamental decision that had to be made. That was not an easy
decision but DOD got that right.
The next decision related to the kind of contract we needed. As it turned out, the Military
Programs staff devised a completely new type of contract, the only one of the type we've ever
had and may never have again. A consortium was to be formed wherein the construction
contractor would be the principal, but he would have to put on his team a well-known, highly
respected design engineer firm. We had to do a fast-track job by designing as we went along.
These aspects, plus many other uncertainties, dictated a cost-plus contract. We just couldn't
identify all the risks, particularly since we didn't have the plans and specifications. Still, we
Previous Page
