________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
followed by a reception and that afternoon with a big press conference in the East Room
where various cabinet folks would talk about what the administration was doing in
hydropower. It was at the sunrise service that morning, 7:30, that General Heiberg said, "I
don't think I'll go to the White House meeting today. Why don't you go for me?" I had about
two hours to prepare to go to that meeting. So, I mean, there are challenges and then there are
challenges. [Laughter]
So, I went over to the meeting chaired by, I believe, Alfred Kahn, Chairman of the Council of
Economic Advisors. He really was a sharp individual, good wit, obviously a top-flight guy in
command of the situation. He had a command presence as he ran the meeting, was really in
charge, could put himself down, had a sense of humor and everything else. I remember at this
meeting I didn't make the table--I was sitting in a row of chairs on the wall. After Alfred
Kahn had given a short briefing, the first question came up. Now, the administration had
identified something like 94 to 96 federal dams, almost all in the Corps of Engineers, which
could be made available for private development. We had a bigger list, up to maybe a
thousand, with various stages of difficulty. The 95 were the ones that could be done without
too much problem, and we were not hot on allowing development of the rest of them.
There's a lot of practical problems when you do this.
The question was, "Well, Mr. Chairman, tell me, is this going to be the only list? Are there
going to be more of these made available? What I really want to know is, is this just a Carter
administration ploy for the upcoming election, or do you really mean it and is this going to be
an ongoing program?"
That was the hot question. So, Chairman Kahn said, "No, of course not, we really mean to
make this an ongoing program. General (pointing to me), I want you to tell him about what's
coming next." [Laughter]
Since I knew what the answer was--I had met briefly one of the executive people for this
committee as we started and knew he had been the coordinating person--so I said, "Well,
that's correct, and so-and-so over there has the list of those also being considered, so why
don't you take it from there?" [Laughter]
Q:
That's an iffy time to be at the White House, isn't it, right before an election.
A:
Well, so we went down to the reception afterwards where we had cookies and sweetened iced
tea. I was standing there when one of the staff came up and said, "Here's a couple of Carter
supporters from the White House, General. Why don't you tell them what you're doing for
Texas?" I was happy to get back to the headquarters!
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