John W. Morris
On the other hand, I was anxious to try my hand at something new. I had accepted a position
in a major international construction company as the director of international business. The
company was headquartered in Rotterdam, Holland.
Q ..
Your successor as Chief of Engineers was General Joseph
Could you talk about the
choice of the next Chief of Engineers and what role the sitting chief plays in that selection
process?
A
Well, as discussed earlier, the process to select the Chief of Engineers is spelled out fairly
carefully. A board of five generals, including myself, all senior to anyone eligible to be
selected was chaired by General John
then Vice Chief of Staff.
We considered all colonels and higher and selected the three candidates considered best
qualified in our collective view. Major General Joseph Bratton stood alone at the top. He was
ultimately recommended to the Congress by the president. As a matter of interest, age was a
deciding factor in the case of several excellent major generals.
There was an interesting story associated with selecting my successor. Keep in mind General
had spent most of his career in the nuclear business and was less well known than
others in the Corps during the mid-1970s. Commencing 1 July 1976 and into late 1979, there
were four leading candidates whom I had begun to consider: Major General Richard E.
McConnell, division engineer, North Pacific Division; Major General Carroll LeTellier, who
was division engineer in Atlanta; Major General Charles McGinnis, director of Civil Works;
and Major General Wesley Peel, commanding general of Fort Leonard Wood. By late 1979,
steps had been taken to add to General Bratton's Corps experience. You have to understand,
the Chief of Engineers only gets one vote on this, but because he knows these people so well,
his recommendations are respected. Every one of those four generals had to leave the service
before I did and therefore were not available. McConnell had serious health problems.
LeTellier had had surgery, which wasn't prohibitive but it did lead him to retire earlier than
expected. McGinnis decided he needed to undertake another career for a variety of reasons.
Peel's father was tragically killed in an accident in Texas and he felt that he had to retire and
go home for family reasons. So those four candidates were removed.
Fortunately, a couple of years earlier General
had returned to the Corps and was
rapidly becoming reacclimated to Corps operations. Harry Griffith, an outstanding general
who was well trained, had just been selected for promotion to lieutenant general to fill a key
position in the Defense Nuclear Agency- a job for which
was exceptionally qualified.
There was some discussion whether or not it would be better to try to switch him and Griffith
for the Army's benefit; however, the die had been cast.
The only other consideration that I recall was should we bring in a lieutenant general as
opposed to promoting someone into the job. There was one truly outstanding lieutenant
general who would have been a great Chief of Engineers. Still, everyone was happy with
and there was an advantage to promoting someone up to the job. One of the reasons
why generals are retired relatively early from the Army is so others can move up-not
laterally.
Q ..
Did you have an opportunity-1 guess informally, rather than formally-to pass on some
advice to General
any major points that you wanted to make?
A
I have to say I think I passed more advice on to him than General Gribble did to me, but
remember that I had spent over three years working closely with General Gribble. Here's what
we did with General
When he emerged as a potential candidate for becoming Chief,
we made some assignments rather quickly to increase his Corps experience base. First as the
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