Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
most of them are in the continental United States. So, we in the Office of the Assistant Chief
of Engineers were really at a disadvantage.
So, the tensions I was talking about largely came from a running tempo--like we just weren't
getting supported with timely responsiveness and facts and prep. By "prep" I mean
developing the chart that articulates what we want to say that will win the argument with the
Program Budget Committee--without my having to do it. We just didn't have that process
greased. We hadn't operated this way before with two generals, one doing the Hill and one
being able to concentrate on the Program Budget Committee. I had some time now to
concentrate and try to get this one right--because before we just tried to ad hoc it and get the
best we could. That's what I meant by the tensions.
There might have been some others, which is almost a perennial thing on trading
information--whether a project's going to make 35 percent design by a certain date because
they had to deliver that or adversely affect the program--before congressional testimony.
There were no tensions between Read and Wray. It was really--I think as I mentioned, just
the fact that we were transitioning. We were trying to be a more responsive, a bigger hitter on
the Army Staff.
Now, the ACE was always a big hitter in the program arena, but these many initiatives that
have been happening in Europe that I described before which came out of the administration,
the master restationing plan in Europe, more construction in Europe, the ammo program, the
rapid reinforcement of NATO program, plus Korea construction, all these kinds of things
were initiatives and the ACE was to be the facilities player for these things. If you want to be
a player, you have to go to the meetings. The meetings take a lot of time and you're there for
a long time. So, I think we were a little more austerely manned in the ACE's shop than the
fellow deputies of operations, log, personnel, and the rest. They were really burgeoning
bureaucracies in comparison to the austerity found in Al Carton's Programming Office and
our tiny Environmental Office. We were at the point where, you know, a couple of absences
because of sickness or vacation could really leave us in a void.
So, we were building and the tensions came. Bill Read brought me in to up-gun our
contribution to these Army programs, I believe, raise the level of contribution and
participation. To do that required staff work so that we could input and have the homework
complete. Those were the kinds of catalysts that contributed to the reorganization that
occurred one or two years later.
Q:
What about testifying before Congress? Would the Military Programs Office have
responsibility for the committees dealing with issues of O&M and housing, for example? The
question is, is there a problem in the relationship with congressional committees related to
the Corps' organization?
A:
I don't think so. I believe General Read did the testimony on all those aspects. They, of
course, contributed design status and those kinds of things. Well, for example, I was the one
testifying on the cost overruns at Walter Reed rather than the Director of Military Programs.
General Read was the Deputy Director of Military Programs, so he was the person to testify,
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