________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
A:
No, I didn't get involved too much with Chicago politics, nor did the district engineer in
those days. We were all active in the Society for American Military Engineers. I remember
getting really involved there. On the home front, our second child John was born.
Q:
You mentioned earlier doing quite a bit of military construction work in the Chicago District
during this time. What sort of projects were going on there?
A:
I don't recall many of the military construction projects. The Savannah Depot one I
mentioned. I remember another big real estate activity we had at the time was at Camp
Atterbury, Indiana. This was where I really became involved in the politics of things and
sensitivities. There was an outfit called the Amateur Rocketeers of America. They wanted to
build model rockets and have a firing range at Camp Atterbury and set them off. They had a
very aggressive entrepreneur who was heading that organization. He had written to ask for
these approvals, and he had been denied repeatedly by us because of safety problems. He had
called upon political friends to bring pressure on us to yield to his wishes. I was designated--
this is when I was deputy--to be the point of contact to deal with him. The district engineer
would not talk to him, and each time I talked to him we had the district counsel in the office.
We started referring to this person, in jest, as the "Amateur Racketeer of America" because
he really was fleecing a lot of people. He published a magazine, supposedly monthly, which
came out about every time he felt that he needed more contributions. We were very
concerned with safety. He was going to take kids out on Army property and going to fire
rockets--I mean, we're not talking about your everyday model airplane club.
We had asked him to submit plans on how he intended to take care of safety, and he would
submit plans for a block house. We would evaluate the engineering and come back and say,
"No, that's inadequate. You need glass ports. Viewing ports need to be this size and this
thickness," and all these other things. He would argue back and then he would advertise that
there's going to be a great rocket firing on X date. There was no way we were going to give
them permission to build before that date. Then he'd bring pressure on us to let them fire
anyway in spite of the fact that safety construction hadn't been done. It was really
tempestuous, and he was really trying to put the Army out on a limb. He wasn't so worried
about his own limbs or the limbs of the youths that he was going to bring out there. So, he
advertised and marketed a greater game than the operation that he followed up with. It just
happened to be on a military installation, inactive as it was, but a problem for us.
I'm trying to think of what other military projects we had.
Q:
An ordnance facility at Joliet during this time?
A:
I don't recall work there.
Q:
What about work for others? Were you working for any other agencies?
A:
Not that I know of.
Q:
Not any other work.
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