Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
mean, there were lots of words printed out in the hinterlands about the Corps--giving them
credit for good works and harpooning them for different kinds of things that were going on.
In this town of Washington, though, what the Corps of Engineers does or doesn't do is not
always first-rate news as far as the Washington Post is concerned. When you go home and
watch your news channel at night, that's national news, not the locals, and they're not always
interested.
I mean, the five o'clock local news, before the national news, might cover Four Mile Run
flooding back when it was flooding south Arlington, but now that the Corps has built Four
Mile Run, there are no longer floods. I mean, it's not news any more, so you don't get the
positive story in the Post.
Q:
Yes.
A:
Victor Veysey felt--and of course he had Marco Island and all these things up on the
screen-- "Why isn't the Corps getting inches of news space showing that we really are for
the environment?"
It was a very difficult thing. I was going back and forth to see him for a while until he must
have figured we were at least working at it--and lost interest in dealing with me, so I stopped
going. He would never say we were really there in Public Affairs, but he at least wasn't
fussing at us for not trying.
Q:
Did you get involved in the public meetings that were going on in the field?
A:
That's handled by the field. I did that when I was in the Chicago District, as I mentioned.
Q:
Then as Chief of Public Affairs you didn't really need to--
A:
No. We would know and would be kept advised of major things, and we always knew when
the meetings were going on in Marco Island, for instance, and that sort of thing. In our
decentralized USACE organization, that's really a division and district thing.
Q:
Did you find the suspicion of Public Affairs in the Office of the Chief of Engineers?
Sometimes an organization that's under attack from all sides sort of closes in on itself.
A:
I think it was that way. There was a suspicion of that. The organization closed in on itself,
didn't stand up to be counted, and did a few things like saying "We can't support you, Civil
Works, with speeches." That had caused General Morris to set up his own communications.
They then became competitors with Public Affairs.
Q:
It still exists.
A:
They then became competitors, and thereafter it was vogue to say bad things about Public
Affairs, whether you wanted to or not.
180
Previous Page
