Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Q:
Well, you were only in that Deputy Director of Civil Works job a short time, but do you have
any comments or feelings about how it was to be Deputy ACE and how it was to be Deputy
Director of Civil Works? Similar? Two very different jobs?
A:
Some of both, I guess. Anytime you're deputy, of course, you're number two, and number
one calls the shots. So, you fall in with the style of the principal and you're taking on those
things the principal wants you to take on. It was rather specific the way General Read divided
things up. That is, he took the congressional side and dealt with the Army senior leadership; I
took the Programming Budget Committee "put it all together" side.
Then you have to be able to cover in the absence of the principal. That's not always the
easiest thing to do when you have to step in because number one is very comfortable where
he is, knowing what he knows. Then he steps out for a couple of days or a week and number
two steps in knowing the basic business but maybe not knowing all the nuances that the
principal was dealing in. So, there's always a little bit of anxiety, "Do I know everything I
need to know to carry it like he would have wanted it carried?" Not just the rudimentary
stuff, but to play the nuances. So, in the ACE's shop I was very much involved in the
processes, ongoing, intense kind of processes.
The Civil Works shop was quite different. First of all, I'd been General Heiberg's deputy
once before so I knew him and he knew me. It was a brand-new arena. That is, I went to the
ACE's shop right out of Europe, where I was dealing with the same things, so I mean I really
had a feel for the issues. The environment was different only in that it was the Army Staff
environment. When I went into Civil Works, many of the people I knew from my days in
Public Affairs--Bory Steinberg, Alex Shwaiko--I knew them from that time frame, but now
the issues were different and I would be dealing on a higher level. TennTom was a big
issue, you know, with lots of articles in the newspapers, environmental programs,
hydropower, private development. I mean, here were macro issues and I was coming in at the
highest level of policy formulation and yet I had not been down at the bottom coming up like
I had just moved from Europe to the ACE.
You know, it was working with people, the familiarity was there, the easy kind of way
General Heiberg has, his daily sunrise service meeting. George Robertson had been the
Executive Director in Civil Works. Once I was announced to go to the Ohio River Division,
General Heiberg made George a deputy as well, so he was working with two deputies. We'd
have a sunrise service, as he called it, every morning at 7:30. We would sit around and talk
about things for the day for 20 to 25 minutes, then we'd all go off on our separate ways.
In the ACE, the Army Staff was intense and you knew you were going to come in and be
engaged in combat all day long on issues. In Civil Works, since I was new and learning and
getting involved, I had time to advance my learning, but yet I might get a flash assignment
with little warning.
For instance, one day I participated with the then Chairman of the Council of Economic
Advisors and a whole bunch of folks at the White House. The Carter administration had
invited all the hydropower people to come over and have a meeting at 10:00 that would be
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