Engineer Memoirs
certain changes. Because of my long background on this project, I ended up testifying. The
Tennessee-Tombigbee was a hot project for almost my whole time in Washington.
I testified over a two-day period for 11 hours in Greenville, Mississippi. I think I'm the only
Chief of Engineers who ever testified in court. I had been with the Tennessee-Tombigbee
Waterway problem as director of Civil Works, deputy, and Chief. I had signed all the papers,
one way or another, and I probably knew more about Tenn-Tom than any other senior person.
I couldn't send somebody else because I felt I owed it to the Corps, and also, I was the one
that knew the most about it.
To prepare, I asked that we set up a straw court. Mr. Seltzer helped me with that. He had
people on each side of this issue in my office. We spent a whole day listening to the charges
and the defenses, trying to get a feel for how the thing might go.
Ultimately, we did a good job. The judge concluded the plaintiffs had dilly-dallied around and
waited too long to raise their protest, but the fact is that we had presented our case very well.
I think, on balance, and even later in my discussions on the plaintiffs' team, the Corps was
credited with having satisfactorily justified its actions.
There were two things that I think are relevant. One is that General Itschner, while he was
director of Civil Works and later Chief of Engineers, had said openly he didn't think the
Tennessee-Tombigbee project was a worthwhile project. I've talked to him since then. He
indicated that now that it's built, he would not argue it, but at the time he just didn't think we
should spend the money.
When I was district engineer in Tulsa, we had eliminated one of the three locks on the
Verdigris River. The money we saved on that lock gave us enough funds to extend the head
of navigation to a more favorable location.
That was all done with a general design memo. We presented this change to Congress in the
annual budget, but we didn't go back to Congress to get it reauthorized. The history of various
decisions in the past, General Pick's testimony, and all the rest, supported such decisions and
were helpful in the Tenn-Tom authority debate.
Another issue became very sticky when one of our civilian employees in Mobile District had
prepared a memorandum concerning an annual budget-it had to be about in 1975. H e
indicated the project was going to exceed a billion dollars and that he thought that, for
political reasons, we should leave the budget item somewhat below a billion because he
believed the Congress would react adversely to a billion-dollar project. That piece of paper
was unbeknownst to me.
When the project came up to OCE at over a billion dollars, the annual budget had been
finalized in the Congress. I personally went to the House of Representatives and to the Senate
and explained to them that the newest total estimate was over a billion.
The total cost didn't affect the funding for the next [budget] year. It was, however, a number
that impacted future project appropriations. The committees of Congress decided that they'd
talk about it in the hearings, but they wouldn't change the budget, which was at the printing
office, as I recall. That was done as an administrative expedient because of the timing.
Well, during the discovery process for the trial, the mentioned memorandum was located, and
immediately the Corps was accused of withholding information from the Congress. Whoever
wrote that memorandum all of a sudden became the most important man in the Corps. He had
more authority and knew more about the world than the Chief of Engineers or anyone else.
This memorandum was held up as an indication that the Corps was devious in its business.
190
Previous Page
