________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
change them. I'd rather have the old type Vu-Graph--running it through the copy machine,
black on yellow. If all of a sudden I determine, "Hmm, those words are going to turn
somebody off and it really doesn't say it the way I want to say it," then it's very easy to
change that chart. So, the key is to really convey the message you want to convey, rather than
look pretty.
So, I learned a lot from that year, from all those kinds of aspects, and in dealing with people
and trying to deal with a whole bunch of different kinds of issues from organization to the
media.
Q:
Again, it was an assignment that exposed you to the whole Office of the Chief of Engineers
staff, I mean, at various levels throughout the organization.
A:
Yes. The Office of the Chief of Engineers staff and the field, too, because I went out to a lot
of different things and went with General Gribble on several trips. The Tennessee
Tombigbee Waterway was an issue that year because costs were higher than projected. I
accompanied General Morris down to visit South Atlantic Division headquarters for General
LeTellier to explain why projections were different from what was being experienced.
So, I did get to participate at a pretty high level, in what was a very intense year of education.
Q:
Lock and Dam 26 was--
A:
Lock and Dam 26 was really up there as a hot issue and a very high visibility.
Q:
The wetlands regulations.
A:
The wetlands regulations, right. All those were things that were moving along. So, it was a
good time to watch all those hot Corps issues. Hardly anybody got to mess with Lock and
Dam 26 besides General Morris. He really was orchestrating it, pulling things together, and it
was fairly well pulled together as far as the game plan at that time.
Q:
You already mentioned the fact of Victor Veysey becoming the first assistant secretary at that
point. Is there anything else in that relationship--I mean, did the strength of the Corps
organization improve sufficiently then? I don't recall right now how long he was in.
A:
In terms of public affairs, whereas the Director of Civil Works went to see him on the civil
works program, I went over to see him initially on the public affairs program and had him
explain to me what he thought we needed. Then I want back to brief our public affairs plan to
get the Corps up on public affairs.
General Gribble wanted me to do that. He wanted a dialogue between me trying to show
Secretary Veysey what we were doing in the Corps and that we had a proactive plan to try to
make things better.
Victor Veysey, like many others since then, had a feeling that if you didn't read good news
about the Corps in the Washington Post then it wasn't good news. That's really a fallacy. I
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