Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Deputy Chief, General Johnson, said, "General Morris has told you you're going to the Ohio
River Division, now, hasn't he?" I said, "No." He said, "Oh, well, maybe he better tell you.
I'll let him talk to you on Monday." So, on Monday General Morris called and said, "Yeah,
you're going to the Ohio River Division. I mean, Harry Griffith's leaving, and you get to be
the new commander out there, you're up."
Now we were into the fall, other things had happened, and that was really kind of an
unwanted surprise. Much as I wanted to go to command a division, the timing with respect to
my family was poor. My son John was into his senior year in high school. Then I hadn't had
the opportunity to get into civil works to do the headquarters aspect too. So, anyway, I went
over to Civil Works for a relatively short period, four months, and then went on to the Ohio
River Division in January '81.
Q:
Did you leave your family, then, in Washington, until--
A:
I left them here until the summer of '81 and then moved them to Cincinnati. I commuted
back whenever I could to see them, which is often when you're in the middle of testimony
time and getting to meet your congressmen and that sort of thing. Division engineers come to
Washington often enough, but especially during the first months you can find yourself back
here quite often.
Q:
In your short stay in Civil Works, what things would you recall as being the hot issues at that
time?
A:
To put the perspective on the time, the fall of '80 was the end of the Carter administration, to
include the election, so the first couple of my months there were filled with things pertaining
to programs that the Carter administration wanted to put forth as initiatives. Private
hydropower development of public dams was a big issue. Certain federal dams were to be
made available for private interests to develop the hydropower potential. That had really
come to a focal point, and the Carter administration was portraying this as an initiative for
returning things to the private sector. It had a lot of visibility.
There were other things, such as trying to open up the U.S. ports to facilitate coal sales to the
Japanese and other folks. I found myself at the White House three or four times at these
things that oftentimes became "events." The administration was calling folks in for a high-
visibility presentation and event.
Q:
Another thing that happened in December was the so-called "Stockman Manifesto" by
President-elect Reagan's soon-to-be budget director. There were some memos in the Civil
Works files from December 1980 from Programming Division related to what they saw as
the coming problems with the new administration's plans in cuts, for example. Do you recall
getting into that?
A:
No, what I recall is that we were very interested in hooking up with a transition team for the
new Reagan administration and eager to learn who would be our new assistant secretary.
Mike Blumenfeld was assistant secretary in the Carter administration. He and General
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