EP 870-1-5

November 1979

ENGINEER MEMOIR§

Interviews

with

Lieutenant General Frederick J. Clarke

Historical Division

Office of Administrative Services

Office, Chief of Engineers

Washington, D.C. 20314

Table of Contents

Frederick J. Clarke: A Biographical Sketch................................ iii

The Interviewers.l ...................................................................... xii

Interviews by Staff of Public Works

Historical Society ........................................................................................................................................ 1

Interview by Dr. Albert Cowdrey l.................... 251

Index . ................. .................................................................................................. 292
REPLY TO

ATTENTION

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY

OFFiCE OF THE CH!EF OF EffGINEERS

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20314

OF:

Few retired officers or civilians of the U.S. Army Corps

of Engineers ever set down a summary of their careers with

the intention of sharing their acquired knowledge with

others. Our organization and the engineering profession

have lost valuable &formation through our failure to

record and publish the remembrances of leading military

and civilian members of the Corps until now. The

Historical Division within the Office of the Chief of

Engineers has embarked upon a systematic . program to

capture this wealth of experience.

l

This volume, the first in a projected series of Engineer

Memoirs, is an effort to acquaint active military

engineers and their colleagues with the untapped fund of

military, leadership, management, and personal experience

possessed by one of the men who has shaped the Corps of

'Engineers. It is published in the realization that the

reflections of one individual on a lifetime of his own

successes and failures often produce for others a valuable

perspective on present and future decisions.

Presented here are transcripts of two interviews with

Lieutenant General Frederick J. Clarke, Chief of Engineers

from 1 August 1969 to 1 July 1973. Since his graduation

from the U.S. Military Academy in 1937, Fred Clarke's

military and civilian engineering career has spanned more

than four decades. His active duty years encompased World

War II and two limited conflicts in Korea and Vietnam,

command in a specially established engineer district

overseas, and a number of demanding executive assignments

in the Army at home and abroad. I have had the privilege

of knowing Fred Clarke for many years and of serving under

him as Director of Civil Works in his last year as Chief

of Engineers. His tour as Chief was a period of profound

change for the Corps. I recommend this volume to

thoughtful officers and civilian members of our Engineer

family as a distillation of Fred Clarke's noteworthy

service to the nation, the U.S. Army, and the Corps.

Lieutenant General, USA

Chief of Engineers
A Biographical Sketch

FREDERICK J. CLARKE

Frederick J. Clarke, Chief of Engineers from 1 August

1969 to 31 July 1973, was born of Irish and Dutch ancestry

on 1 March 1915 at Little Falls, New York, some two

hundred miles north of New York City. His. birthplace was

notable for its industrial development in the early

nineteenth century and its situation on the Erie Canal,

though its prosperity had declined markedly by the early

twentieth century. His self-educated father worked for

the local dairy equipment manufacturer as a machine shop

foreman.

Clarke attended a parochial elementary institution and a

public secondary school in Little Falls, where he favored

technical and mathematical subjects. He worked as a

teletype operator for the Western Union Company during

high school and for a year afterwards until his entry into

the U.S. Military Academy. In 1933, Clarke surpassed a

field of some thirty other aspirants in a competitive

examination for the appointment to West Point from New

York's 33d Congressional District by Representative James

W . Wadsworth, Jr. When he graduated from the Military

Academy in June 1937, fourth in a class of 298, he

received his Bachelor of Science degree and a commission

as a regular army second lieutenant.

Three months later, he reported for duty as a company

commander with the 5th Engineer Regiment at FortBelvoir,

Virginia. In September 1938, he married Isabel Van Slyke

Morrison in the Military Academy chapel a t West Point.

General and Mrs. Clarke have a son and two daugthers.

With two years of troop assignments and schooling,

Clarke began a one-year Army sponsored term at Cornell

University at Ithaca, New York, in 1939. His study of

structural and soil engineering earned him a Master of

Science degree in Civil Engineering the next year. He

immediately returned to field service at the rank of

captain in a burgeoning army with the 15th Engineer Combat

Battalion, then assigned to the 9th Infantry Division at

iv
Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Engineer.

Transferring to the 38th

Regiment (Combat) at Fort Jackson, South

Carolina, in June 1941, Clarke participated in the

Carolina maneuvers that Fall. After the Japanese attack

on Pearl Harbor brought the united States into the war

against the Axis powers on 7 December, he was ordered to

the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth,

Kansas for an accelerated course. He then took command of

a battalion of the 38th Engineers. In February 1942, the

unit sailed for Ascension Island, a tiny British Atlantic

possession 600 miles south of the Equator. At this t

outpost, he supervised the construction of a n American

airfield guarding the approaches to South America and

providing one of the many stops on a ferry route across

the southern Atlantic to Africa, the Middle East and

India.

Six months later, in the midst of this project, new

orders suddenly diverted Clarke to his main wartime

assignment with the Planning Division of the Headquarters,

Army Service Forces. His intensive work in global

logistics planning after August 1942 took him to all the

American theater commands active during the war, to South

America, and to the headquarters of American occupation

forces in Germany and Japan. In May 1945, with only eight

years of service he was a full colonel with six separate

service, campaign, or occupation medals.

Early in 1946,

Hanford, ’ Clarke was assigned as area engineer atWashington, for the Army's Manhattan Engineer

District which then controlled the design, production, and

storage of the nation's atomic weapons. At Hanford, he

managed the facility producing plutonium and also dealt

with the engineering problems in the town of 25,000 people

that had grown up around it.

Atomic Energy Commission

Although the new civilian

absorbed all atomic facilities

and functions in January 1947, Clarke remained at the

Hanford works until September. At the personal request of 

Lt. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, the head of the wartime atomic

bomb project and now commander of the Armed Forces Special

Weapons Project, he then transferred to its Sandia Base at

'Albuquerque, New Mexico. With this joint service agency,

he oversaw, the construction of facilities, training

programs for atomic weapons assembly crews, and research

and development of smaller nuclear devices and their

delivery systems.

Posted overseas in November 1949, Clarke arrived in the

V
Ryukyu Islands the following month as the executive

officer of the Okinawa Engineer District under Colonel

Warren Underwood and later under Colonel Thomas A. Lane.

Occupied by American forces from 1945 to 1972, Okinawa in

late 1949 suddenly loomed large in American efforts to

establish a formidable western Pacific base network to

counteract the newly proclaimed communist People's

Republic of China. Clarke was involved in a $500 million

construction program to expand the military facilities on

the island. The onset of the Korean war in mid-1950 added

to the urgency of the construction but also raised

.

difficulties, since much of the material destined

Okinawa was diverted to the active war zone. By the

of his tour in February 1952, Clarke saw the result

much of his labor. From enlarged air installations,

Air Force conducted operations against enemy forces

northern Korea, over 800 miles distant.

for

end

of

the

in

After a four-month course a t the Armed Forces Staff

College at Norfolk, Virginia, Clarke returned to army

logistics staff duty as Chief, Atomic Section, Research

and Development Division, under the legendary Lt. Gen.

Williston B. Palmer, then Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4.

Within five-months, Palmer tapped him as his executive

officer, a post he held f rom April 1953 to February 1954,

when he left for a three-month advanced management program

at the Harvard University School of Business. He then

headed the Construction Management Branch, G-4, chiefly

concerned with the funding, the manufacture and the

emplacement of NIKE missile batteries. He later ran the

Production Mobilization Branch with responsibilities for

the readiness of the national munitions and armament

production lines. Before leaving the G-4 in August 1956,

he served as a trouble-shooting Special. Assistant to Lt.

Gen. Carter B. MacGruder, Palmer's successor. Clarke then

attended the National War College before his last major

overseas assignment.

In June 1957 Clarke became District Engineer, Trans-East

District, with his headquarters a t Karachi, Pakistan, a

city he had visited during World War II. Established in

1954 to carry out American Mutual Defense Assistance Pact

commitments in an area of pronounced neutralist sentiment,

the District bore responsibility for American projects

across the southern rim of the Asian continent. These

involved military and civilian construction work. The

larger of the civil projects during Clarke's tour were the

Karachi Airport, Dhahran Airport in Saudi Arabia, and

vi
design studies on a motor road from Rangoon to Mandalay in

Burma. Military construction programs in Pakistan alone

amounted to $140 million and included construction of U.S.

Air Force facilities supporting reconnaissance flights

over the western Soviet Union. b

After an intervening year's duty as chief of staff of

the U.S. Army Engineer Training Center at Fort Leonard

Wood, Missouri, Clarke took up an assignment as the

Engineer Commissioner for the District of Columbia on 1

August 1960, a post he held until July 1963. One of three

commissioners who administered the capital city under a

system that was ninety-six years old in 1.960, Clarke had a

central role in the city's future development. He was a

member of eighteen separate planning or executive agencies

concerned with sanitation, water-systems, public

utilities, zoning, traffic flow, and safety. He

frequently represented the city in all these matters

before the Congress.

As a member of the National Capital Planning Commission

and chairman of the weaker Regional Planning Council, his

influence and advice carried beyond the limits of the

District of Columbia. He was directly involved in the

often controversial planning for the modern, integrated

rail and bus system that began serving the national

capital area in the mid-1970s as the Washington

Metropolitan Are

system

a Transit Authority, or Metro. Though the

functioned successfully, events have proved

Clarke's frequent criticisms of its financial underpinning

prophetic. Among the even more heated issues of his

tenure were the highway program that included a freeway

leg passing southwest and southeast

quadrants

through the poorer

of the city and proposals for an additional

bridge over the Potomac River near Georgetown.

Clarke's experience in Washington reflected the

frustrations of a

constantly

regional planning process that

fell

interests.

afoul of parochial and political

Comprehensive designs based on wedges of open

space separating highways or rapid transit corridors

remained unrealized a decade after his departure from the

board. A concentrated attack on the city's water supply

problems is still in the future.

In July 1963, General Clarke was installed as Director

of Military Construction in the Office of the Chief of

Engineers As director, he oversaw the general planning,

Vii
the policy formulation, and the execution of military

construction programs for the Army and the Air Force, with

the greater part of the latter being concentrated in new

intercontinental ballistic missile bases. He was also

concerned with all National Aeronautics and Space

Administration work at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and

elsewhere. Overseas, his directorate extended its sway * over $75 million in contracts in Saudi Arabia and Agency

for International Development projects in the Middle East

and in Africa. with such far-flung interests, the

directorate was highly decentralized; only broad policy

decisions were made at the headquarters. This system

served well as Clarke's office effectively mounted a

disaster relief operation after the devastating Alaskan

earthquake of Good Friday 1964 because executive authority

lay with a Corps officer on the spot. Clarke received his

second star while in this assignment.

For the eighteen months after July 1965, General Clarke

held a dual command. He took over the installation at

Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and the Engineer School located

there. At the outset of the massive American buildup in

South Vietnam, Clarke supervised both the field units

training on the post and the ten-month educational program

that prepared individual officers for battalion command or

division level staff work. Shorter basic officer courses

turned out platoon leaders, and he re-established an

Officer Candidate School to qualify picked enlisted men

for commissions and positions of company command.

In December 1966, Lt. Gen. William F. Cassidy, Chief of

Engineers, made Clarke Deputy Chief. They had been

personally close since their days on planning staffs in

Washington during World War II. Clarke shared with

Cassidy a common approach to decentralized management.

Through Clark's tour as Deputy, the principal problem

facing the Corps was the support of Engineer activities in

Southeast Asia. He oversaw the continuation and expansion

of many programs and innovations to which he had

contributed at Fort Belvoir. He helped make decisions on

the division of labor among American troops, contractors,

and locally hired workers in Vietnam. New complexities of

international finance and limited troop strengths further

complicated the process as American military engineer

forces turned over a growing number of tasks to the

Vietnamese in preparation for their own withdrawal from

the ill-fated war zone beginning in mid-1969.

viii
following his nomination by President Richard M. Nixon

on 3 February 1969 and his subsequent confirmation by the

Senate Armed Services Committee, Clarke

of Chief of Engineers on 1 August.

assumed the post

He thus took the helm

of

!

he world's largest military and civil engineering

organization without having held command in any of the

Corps' major civil works divisions or districts within the

United States.

engineering

He applied his usual energies to an

program that by 1973 included annual

expenditures of up to $1.8 billion in civil projects and

$1 billion in military

barracks

construction, primarily for a

reconversion program to meet the needs of a

projected volunteer army. In addition, the Corps managed

a nearly $600 million construction job to provide the

newly chartered U.S. Postal Service with modern bulk mail

facilities across the country.

Remarkable among the aspects of Clarke's service as

Chief of Engineers was

upon General Cassidy's

the extent to which he enlarged

efforts to attune the Corps of

Engineers to the goals of the large and vocal

environmental movement of the late 1960s. Taking office

only months before the passage of the National

Environmental Policy Act, the new Chief actively sought to

inte grate

t

its spirit into civil works and military

construction activities. Amid even incredulous outcry on

his own staff, he assembled a committee of the sharpest

critics of the Corps from leading environmentallyconscious groups to evaluate the Corps' operations. He

further emphasized his concern for environmental

safe uards in 1970 by his promulgation of Engineer

Regulation 1165-2-500, "Environmental Guidelines for the

Civil Works Program of the Corps of Engineers." He began

a series of environmental reconnaissance inventories

designed to protect the historically, ecologically, and

socially valuable sites in any given area, but especially

in river basins. Under his influence, the Corps expanded

efforts to involve the general public in a region affected

by a projected public work in the planning for it.

Clarke's early measures and his constant reiteration of

environmental

organization

principle within the Corps brought his

a more than grudging respect from resolute

consrrvationists

d

outside it. A landmark legal precedent

embo ied in Zabel vs. Tabb (1970), handed down during

Clarke's tenure as Chief, confirmed the Corps' powers to

halt development in wetland areas and coastal marshes.

Later in the same year popular conviction and

ix
. : congressional pressure resulted in new interpretations of

the Corps' responsibilities for regulating the dumping of

dredged materials or effluents into navigable waterways in

the United States and for establishing a permit program

under Section 13 of the old Refuse Act of 1899. This and

subsequent legislation placed the Corps squarely into

regulatory functions that some felt deflected it from

usual missions. General Clarke's own foresight, however,

carried the Corps a long way toward meeting the

enlightened spirit of the times by combining necessary

engineering works with new restraints that sought to

guarantee the best result for man and nature.

General Clarke's retirement on 1 July 1973 brought to a

close a military career of thirty-six years. out of

uniform, he continued to reside in the nation's capital

and remain active in engineering circles. He became

executive director of the National Commission on Water

Quality, an advisory body chaired by Nelson A. Rockefeller

to examine long-range water policy and pollution abatement

programs. He chaired the water policy committee of the

American Society of Civil Engineers and has been an active

consultant to Tippetts, Abbett, McCarthy, Stratton,

Engineers and Architects, of New York and the District of

Columbia.
Career Summary

1915

1937

1940 ’ ’

1942-45 ,;

1945-47 ’

I

1947-49 ~

IL]

1949-52

1952-53

1953-56 ’

1957-59

1960-63

1963-65 ‘.

1965-66

1966-69 1

1969-73 ’

1973-76

Okinawa Engineer District, Operations Officer

Student, Armed Forces Staff College

Research & Development Division, Office of the

Chief of Staff, Logistics, Department of the

Army

District Engineer, Pakistan (Trans.East District)

Engineer Commissioner, District .of Columbia

Director of Military Construction, Office,

Chief of Engineer

Commandant, Engineer School, Fort Belvoir, Va., and

Commanding General, U.S. Army Engineer Center

Deputy Chief of Engineers

Chief of Engineers

Executive Director, National Commission on Water

Quality

1973- Consultant, Tippetts, Abbett, McCarthy, Stratton

Born in Little Falls, New York

B.S.fl U.S. Military Academy

M.S.f in Civil Engineering, Cornell University

Army Service Forces (Washington, D.C.)

Manhattan District (Area Manager, Hanford,

Washington)

Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, Sandia Base,

Albuquerque, NM

Commissions and Committees

Executive Committee, National Capital Area Council,

Boy Scouts, 19619

Member, National Capital Planning Commission, 1960-63, 1969-73

Executive Committee, U.S. Committee on Large Dams, 1969-73 5

Professional Societies

Fellow, American Society of Civil Engineers

Society of American Military Engineers (President, 1969-70)

Member, National Society of Professional Engineers

National Academy of Engineering

American Institute of Architects (honorary)

Honorary Member, American Public Works Association

American Water Resources Ass% (honorary)

American Academy of Environmental Engineers.

xi
Promotion History

Grade Temporary Permanent

2nd Lieutenant

1st Lieutenant

ptain

Major

Lieutenant Colonel

Colonel

Lieutenant Colonel

Captain

Major

Colonel

Lieutenant Colonel

Brigadier General

Major General

Lieutenant General

Retired

12 Jun 37

12 Jun 40

1 Ott 40

9 Mar 42

22 Dee 42

15 May 45

1 Jun 46

22 ,Jun 47

15 Jul 48

29 Jun 51 .

1 Dee 60

1 May 64

(DOR 1 July 59)

1 Aug 69

1 July 73

1 tJu1 54

12 Jun 62

22 Aug 67

xii
The Interviewers

In 1975 the American Public Works Association (APWA)

sponsored the formation of the Public-Works Historical

Society (PWHS) to encourage

American

research on the history of

public works. Under, an agreement with the

Historical Division, Office, Chief of Engineers, members

of the Society interviewed General Clarke in the Spring of

1977. Suellen Hoy received her doctorate in American

history from Indiana University in 1975. She has taught

at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, and

served as an editorial assistant on the staff of Journal

of American Histo=. She is presently

p----e.

-.__ ~~.--~ .._- ~-_Z~~_~ --L--~.~--->~~~-~ the Executive

Secretary of the Public Works Historical Society. Michael

C Robinson was awarded the doctorate in American History

by the University of Wyoming in 1973. He currently serves

as research co-ordinator for the Society. Both

interviewers were associate editors of the

Public Works in the United States, 1776-1976,,

History of Ys- -. -*a .--L _m-_-p..>-.- _x_szB -m*~-w---ra>%cL ____w___J____ the APWA in 1976.

~~~-~--~p----:- published by

Ann Spray was an editor&l assistant

for PWHS.

Albert Cowdrey received his doctorate in American

history from Tulane University in 1971. He was an

historian at the Corps of Engineers' New Orleans District

in 1970 - 71 and worked for the Historical Division, OCE,

from 1971 to 1978. Presently he is the Chief, Medical

History Branch, Histories Division, U.S. Army Center of

Military History in Washington, D. C. He is author of The

-__. Delta Engineers -_z.,=--.Yz -_ c-,-w-- ---=-?zz--%QV-- (1971) and Land% End (1977)m both ---

histories of the New Orleans EGz<geTETstrict, and of A

xiii
Interviews by Staff of the

Public Works

Historical Society

18,20 April 1977

9,16 May 1977
Hoy: We're going to begin at the beginning and talk

to you about your life in Little Falls, New York. You

knowf I didn't know there was a Little Falls, New

York. I knew there was a Little Falls, New Jersey.

Where is Little Falls? How big of a place is it?

Clarke: Little Falls sits on the Mohawk River. If you

do any research on it, you will find that it got its

name because of the fact that there were the falls in

the river. Actually it's an old, pre-revolutionary

town. I suppose there was a portage there at one

time, way back in the beginning. It became an

industrial because water power was used to power

all kinds of early industries, primarily the knitting

mills in the late 1800s. 1 remember as a boy looking

through the windows of the knitting mills. They were

all driven by water power with belts to drive the

knitting machines. I guess it made an impression on

me. It was a very difficult system, but of course,

free power. And that's what really started the town.

Hoy: How far is that from New York City?

Clarke: It% about 220 miles, I would guess. It's

seventy-five miles west of Albany. It came into

further prominence when they put the Erie Canal

through. Because of the falls, there was a series of

locks there initially. And they finally put in one
({big lock to take care of the drop in the river, which

.

was tibout forty feet. It was'a mammoth engineering

undertaking. It was the highest lock in the world

,at that time. Today, by our standards, it wouldn't

'cause much comment.

Spray: Is that where you got your interest in engineering?

Clarke: 4 Oh, I don't know. I suppose no. It% a little

!! hard to say. I wanted to be an engineer. I think

really it came out of a lot of work with the Boy

l Scouts when I was a boy. We seemed to have a very

active group. We went out and we builtlittle timber

bridges and this sort of thing. I think more than

L anything that got me started.

HoY: c 1 notice that you‘ve remained somewhat involved

.’ with the Boy Scouts as you've grown older. Is that

1 why?

Clarke: 1 Well, I had spent alot of time as a boy in it.

1 And when I came back to Washington (D.C.) as cornmissioner, it was sort of traditional that the engineer commissioner take an active interest in the

Boy Scouts, and particularly in putting on their

annual scout circus. By tradition, the engineer

, commissioner was the chairman of the scout circus

committeef so that got me into it. Then I became

2
interested in some of their long-range planning for

camps, and I worked with them on the establishment

of one that they have down in southwest Virginia.

I was trying to get them started on a new camp for

the 199Os, but we ran into the same problems you

run into in any organization. They didn't have

enough money to go that far. I think they're still

paying off one that we did down in southwest

Virginia. Eut I have not been active in it for,

I'd say, the last five years. I think I'm a .member

of their advisory committee, which is sort of an

emeritus status.

Actually, I had wanted, .when I was getting out

of high schoolf to go to the University of Michigan

to study engineering. Several of my friends had

gone there. This was right at th.e height of the Depression. And I figured if I had $500 I could get a

start out there. Tuition, I think, was $100 a year --

some tremendous sum. But I thought with $500 and

working I could get through.. I was having trouble

- getting $500. So I happened to read in the paper one

day that there was a competitive examination for West

Point and I took that. That put me into West Point

instead of the University of Michigan.
Hoy: I’

Clarke:

Hay:

Clarke:

I

, Hoy:

1

,I

1 .’

Clarke:

Spray t

Clarke:

How did the appointment come about? I remember

in talking to General [Herbert D.] Vogel, he had an

uncle who knew the congressman.

Ours was a little different. The particular

congressman that we had at the time (Wadsworth was .

his name, but he only served one term) decided to

run just an open, competitive examination. He put

a notice in the newspaper and anyone who wanted to

could apply for it. - I applied for it and went up

and took the competitive exam.

How many were there? Were there many who took it?

Oh, I suppose about thirty took it. And I was

lucky enough that I came out on top. So from there I

went to West Point.

Back to Little Falls, is that a fairly small town,

l

then?

It's now about 7,900. It was about 10,000 when I

was a boy. It's one of the towns in upper New York

that has been decreasing in population. It% part

of the distressed area, industries have moved out. /!

I'd call it a small town.

Did most of the people work for the textile

industries?

Well, the industries in the town were textiles,

leather, and l- when I was a boy -- the biggest

4
industry in town made equipment for dairy farms.

Now that has also moved out. All the dairy farms

moved to Wisconsin. And the particular firm that .

built the equipment -- my father had worked for it --

moved to Wisconsin, too. This was just before World

War II. During World War II, all those plants made

shells and fuses and this sort of thing. And of

course the knitting industry and the textile industry

all moved south. They closed in the Depression and

moved south. I don't know where the tanneries went.

It really left the town with very little. It had a

bicycle manufacturing plant, but that was sort of

passe in the 1930s. I guess today it's probably

coming back in popularity.

Spray: How large was your family?

Clarke: Well, my mother died when I was a small child.

She died in the influenza epidemic in World War I.

I was three when she died. My father and a sister,

both of whom are now dead. My father had come from

a large family and there was a myriad of aunts and

uncles around. -My sister became a nurse in World

.War II and married; she died in the 1950s. My father

died right at the end of World War II.

But you lived your whole early life in Little

Falls and you didn't really move around at all?

Hoy:
Clarke: 'I Yes, right.

Hoy: And your father worked for the dairy company?

Clarke: Yes, the dairy equipment manufacturing company.

1 He was the foreman of the machine shop in that

1 particular plant. My father's side of the family

i were the Irish who had come over in about the 188Os,

j I would guess. He was the thirteenth of thirteen

' children.

Hoy: i Kind of like my story. My grandfather might

1, have been on the same boat.

Clarke: i And my mother% side, they were what we called

Mohawk Valley Dutch and had-been in the Mohawk

Valley, I guess, since the 1700s. I never tried to

trace them back. My grandmother, who lived to be

I ninety, did trace back at least to the Revolution,

and she had her D.A.R. certificate. If I understand

it correctly, the wealthy Dutch came and settled

along the Hudson, and the other' Dutch went up into

the Mohawk Valley. And that's where we were.

It was a small town. The high school I was in

graduated eighty people.by the time we had gotten

through high school. And,-of course, in the Depression not every boy or girl was finishing high

school. An awful lot of them were getting out and

trying to work-at anything they could get at

6
that time. It was a poor town, really, dependent

upon industry, which just collapsed during the Depression.

Spray: Did you have a job when you were in high school?

Clarke: Yes. I went to work for Western Union about the

time I finished the junior year of high school; and

I was a combination teletype operator, counter man,

and delivery boy. Then I worked for them after school

during my last year of high school. And during the

summer I went up to one of the resorts in the Adirondacks. They opened up a summer office (there

wasn't anybody there during the winter), and I operated in that office for the summer. And then

there was a year's gap after I got out of high school

and before I went off'to West Point. I worked full

time then for Western union largely as a teletype

. operator. This was back in the days when the first

teletypes were coming on the line and we had both a

key in the office and a teletype machine. I never

did master the key, but I did master the teletype

machine. And then I found that to get into West

Point I had to go back and take at least one high

school course. I did that during that year, too.

You ask what drives YOU into engineering, or

what causes you to go into it. I guess on the

7
’ mathematical side, we had courses in drafting, and

I’ a pretty good science course in high school; and I

seemed to gravitate into those courses rather than

into history and English. And I think it stood me

‘I4' in good stead when I finally got to West Point.

Hoyg :I s Plus the more practical things with Boy Scouts,

: so you had a combination.

Clarke: , Well, yes. And actually it was a good basis.

'In the high school that I went to, they had one curriculum which was so-rt of collect college preparatory,

which is the one that I was in. It was heavy in , mathematics and high school science. They had other curricula: just sort of a general get-through-school

curriculum; then business application, which would

ihave been bookkeeping ,and typing and that sort of

,thing. Mostly girls took that, I guess with theidea

,of looking for s,ecretarial or bookkeeping positions.

Spray: LL Were there any particular people -- teachers or

relatives -0: .who influenced you?

Clarke: Well, there were a couple of teachers who I

,remember in particular. One of them wasthe woman

who taughthistory. She was an elderly woman named

Mesick. I was sort of a half orphan, and she took a

particular fancy to me. She used to kick me along-and

make sure I did the right things, and encourage me.

8
I give a lot of credit to some of the people that

we.had as scout masters, too. And my father was

interested in my pushing ahead. Unfortunately, we

were a family without too many resources.

Hay : He could have asked you to quit school and go to

work.

Clarke: No I that was never

Emy :

Clarke:

real possibility. My father

had never finished high school, but all the time I

was a boy I remember him taking these international

correspondence school courses, which I think still go

on. It seems to me that their main office was in

Scrantont Pennsylvania. He was always taking courses,

and he was pretty well self educated. I don't mean

in the sense of a real college education, but as a

practical mechanical man, he had really pulled himself

along.

I find that so many people, like your father and

like my father, had this tremendous faith in education

as a way of bettering.one% life.

I think they probably did. My father was born in

the. U.S.# but many of his brothers and sisters were

born in Ireland as well as his parents. I think the

whole group -- and I suppose it% true of all immigrant groups coming in, about the second generatiun --

had a great faith in education as a Iday of getting

ahead.

9
The town that I lived in was really an immigrant - towna It was filled with a lot of Irish, and an

awful lot of people out of Eastern European countries

who had come early in the twentieth century. A lot

of Italians.

Hoy: Did they all have their separate churches?

Clarke: We had an Italian Catholic church, we had a Greek.

Catholic church, we had a Ukranian Catholic church,

and there was the Irish Catholic church.

Hoy: I taught in Plattsburgh, New York, and they had

three Catholic churches. A French, an Irish, and

then a newer one.

Clarke: Well1 I don't think we had any French. The big

church was Irish. Then there was an Italian, a Greek,' a

&d a Ukrainian church. There was also a separate

l

Russian Catholic church, and there probably was a

,!

Polish Catholic church.

Hoy: 4 When you think of such a small town, that% always

interesting.

Clarke: That's right. And really, a poor town, when you

stop and think of it. But they supported all that.

The Italians, I recall, built a church when I was a

boy. It wasn't a grand edifice or anything, but

they wanted a separate facility so they built their

own l I would suppose the town was highly Catholic.

10
I suppose better than 50 percent of the people in

Hoy:

Clarke:

the town were Catholic, and that accounted for their

churches. We still had the Methodists and the Presbyterians and the Episcopalians and a few Baptists.

Did they all have schools?

They had a Catholic school and a public school.

They were the only schools. I went to the Catholic

school for eight years and then I went to a public

high school. I guess they still have both. I

haven't been back th:ere much. After my father died

and my sister moved away, occasionally I went back.

Then my grandmother died. She lived about twenty

Hay:

miles outside. Really, I had no close ties any more.

I still have one elderly aunt up there who is ninetythree, whom I have a great deal of affection for. I

know one of her children fairly well who happended to

be in high school with me, who, obviously, now is in

her early sixties. But aside from that I don't really

feel that I have any ties with the community.

What a change for you to have lived your whole

life in one place, and then the career that you chose,

never l l

Clarke: Well, my wife, after I had retired, woke me up one

time and saidt "Do you realize we have moved twentyeight times?" But I don't think I've moved around in

I

11
service as much as lot of people that I kcow. I

l seem to have had several jobs where I stayed -- or at

least stayed in the same location (it might have been

for different jobs) -- for as much as five years at a

time; and that% quite a lot in the military.

When I was looking at schools, as I said, I wanted

to go to the University of Michigan. I guess I was impressed by a couple of friends of mine who had gone

there and talked a great deal about the school and

seemed to think it was a good engineering school. And

I guess it was. I had applied there, but I had also

looked at other schools in the immediate area. Cornell

had a pretty good engineering course. Rensselaer was

right down the road and that was a possibility too.

But when I finally got wrapped up with West Point, I

dropped all the others and ended up there. So I guess

,I was interested in West Point, but it wasn't until I

saw a notice that I could apply. There wasn't much of

a tradition of West Point around my home town. There

was only one graduate in the town, and he was a man who

had graduated from West Point thirty years before I

did. He did have some good advice for me, going down

there. And he did give me a letter of recommendation

to the congressman. But that% about the only association I'd had with West Point up until that time.

12
ioy : So you took the exam and then you were just

notified that you had come out on top?

Xarke: Well, then there was a follow-on to that. After

winning the competition, I had to go down to New

York City to take a validating exam to get into West

Point, which I did do. I also had to take a physical. After passing that, then 1: finally got the

notification. It was the first time IId ever been in

HQ~:

New York City. It was a lot of fun, too.

Was it really? Well? I guess when you think of

200 miles.

Clarke: Two hundred miles and no reason to go to New York.

I hit New York right at the height of the Depression.

It was the bank holiday, which you historians should

know about. And I was down there with a check in my

pocket to pay for my expenses in New York, and there

wasn't a place in New York which would cash a check.

I was staying at a YMCA hostel down there, and they

were good enough to give me credit, for the

time I was there. You're going back farther than I've

Hoy:

thought about in a long time.

Is that right? It's kind of interesting, the

little things that compare in some ways to General

Vogel. I noticed when you said drafting, that was one

thingfl he said, that interested him in engineering.

13
He liked to draw. He used to draw these cartoons

for the high school paper. And then he liked the

drafting part.

Clarke: Well, I didn't go quite to the cartoon, but I

,did like the drafting. I don't know why, it just

appealed to me.

Hoy: Yes, that's what he said.

Clarke: I guess it goes back a little bit. My father,

\,as I told you, had been taking these courses, and he

spent a lot of time at home drafting. After all, in

a machine shop, you're making funny little mechanical

things, and you have to design them and machine them I

and put them on the equipment. , So he was doing that

at home. And I guess that meant that we had some

drafting equipment at home. I remember that he had a 11

set of drawing instruments that I used and a drafting ,

board. That started me into that side of it.

Hoy: When you got to West Point, did you find that you

had had a good education in high school?

Clarke: Pretty good. I did find that, even in one year

of being out of school, I had gotten out of the study

habit a little bit. Once I got back into it, I never

really had any problem. II And the mathematics came

very easily, ‘1 so I'm.sure I had a very fine foundation

in mathematics. In carrying on in the drafting, when

14
I got into the courses that they had there in

topography and drawingr that was right down my alley.

I loved that course and had absolutely no problems

with it. I had taken French in high school, which

gave me a good lead into the French. I think really

that the program that New York State had then, and I

think still has, of the New York State Regents

setting up the standards and the common examinations

throughout the state to evaluate students, must have

been a pretty good system. I really had a minimum of

trouble with academics at West Point. It just seemed

to come easily.

Spray: When you first got to West Point, what were your

impressions? Was it as you expected, or was it .

completely different?

Clarke: WellV 1% not sure that I knew what I expected.

It was a little rough. I had heard enough about it.

Particularly those first few months, which are

arduous, physically and a little mentally. The

physical part of it wasn't too bad. Again, I had

stayed in pretty good shape. I had been enough of an

athlete and all so that that part didn't seem to

bother me. I think I did lose about six pounds in

the first couple of months that I was there, but that

came back in a hurry. .

15
The hazing, or the beast barracks treatment, was

Ii11 probably a little sharper than I would have antici1, pated, but never to the point that it seemed to

ii bother me or any of the others around. We just took

it in stride. We knew it would end. It was a sort

of game in a way. (It's been interesting reading

I about these poor young ladies who are up there. I

: don't know whether you read the New York Times

yesterday, but apparently it% having more of an

emotional impact on the young ladies than it has had

l on the men. It was a little rougher than they had

expected.) One thing about all this harsh treatment,

,I it was never brutal and I never felt it was particularly demeaning. It was a sort of game and a facade

that was put I guess it tested people and pushed

:l you, physically anyway, as far as you probably could

,1

, w 0 But I never felt that they were punishing people

~ when they were doing it. .

Hoy: 1’ What was life like at West Point during the

1: Depression? Do you suppose that it was very much

11 different before, 'or even after?

Clarke: ~ I'm not sure I can answer that. I'll tell you,

:l the sensation that I had was that most of the people

who were at West Point during the Depression were not

from wealthy families or even the better than average

16
well-to-do, although there were a few in that cate-

%3c=Y” I think most of them, during the Depression,

came there with little resources of their own. One

of the reasons I remember this, they had asked when

you became a cadet to put down a deposit of $300 to

sort of carry your purchases until your pay caught

UP@ I had managed to do that, with my father helping

and all/ but there were a large number of cadets

there who did not have the $300. They just carried

them8 and they were in debt a lot longer than the

rest of us. Of course, the pay as a cadet was very

small, and you payed for everything that you got --

your uniforms, your textbooks, your meals -- out of

your pay. There were quite a few there who did not

get out of debt for at least a year and a half while

they were there. So that was one reflection of the

times.

Of course, the cost of doing things was considerably different than it is now. We used to go for a

weekend in New York City when I was a firstclassman

with $15 in our pockets. That would pay for meals,

a hotel room, and transportation down and back. NOW~

those days have gone! You could stay at a hotel in

New York, the Astor Hotel, for $3. As I recall, our

pay was $90 a month.

17
Hoy: q I wonder if it was better for some people than it

might have been even at home? Sometimes in difficult

times you can be protected very nicely by a larger

institution if youIre a part of it. You have better

meals than you might have at home. I don't know that

that% true.

Clarke: I don't know that I was eating better than I had

at home. I suppose I was eating a more balanced diet

than I had at home. Because in our household, with

a father and by this time two children pretty well

grown, we were sort of three people going three

different ways, and cooking and doing whatever we had

to do on our own.

Once you got into those walls there, at that

time, you were pretty well sheltered from the rest of

the world. Your whole life existence was within that

reservation. At the time I was there -- and if you

go back to General Vogel, IUrn sure it was the same

way -- we did not get away from there for a year and

a half. The first vacation when you could leave there

was a year and a half after you went, the second

Christmas. So except for trips to a few football

games -- perhaps four a. year -- I don't think I was

ever away from West Point before that year and a

half.. We had visitors, the family would come down

18
to visit occasionally, but our whole life was there. l

NOW this sort of thing has changed, and I think

changed for the better. We were so isolated from

what went on in the world; I don't think I read a

daily newspaper for a matter of probably a year after

I got there. We were enmeshed in studies and the

cadet life.

I think it was really too restricted. I think the

changes that have come about are for the better. And

even after we had gone away for that second Christmas,

we came back and were enmeshed again. Finally, at the

end of the second year, we did get one summer off --

ten weeks leave during the summer. From then on, it

was a little more relaxed. But that was the only

lengthy vacation in the four-year period. I think

that, too, has changed now. Again, I think for the

bettert to allow people out of there.

You asked what it was like. I guess my first

-impressions were that suddenly this group of young

men that I was thrown in with came from all over the

United States and parts of the United States that I

had absolutely no knowledge of. The first roommates

that I had there -- one out of Massachusetts and one

out of Wisconsin, and I didn't really know much about

either one of those places; and the boys across the

19
hall -- one from the west coast and one from the

South, it was a matter of even learning to understand people from the deep South. The intriguing

thing to me was that we also had a considerable

variation in backgrounds. There were people like

myself who had come out of high school all the way

on to people who had already graduated and had a

I degree from a university, and all shades in between.

One of my later roommates had had three years in a

university. And he was the man who had the greatest

difficulty with the academics. I don't think it

spoke very well for some of the southern university

systems at that time. Then there were other friends

of mine -- 1 had one who had graduated with honors

4 from Armour Institute in Chicago. He was going to

West Point and repeating courses. Every cadet took

every course. There were no electives the way they

have set them up now, which a,gain is for the good.

So when he went back to take elementary mathematics,

it was just a cinch for him.

Hoy: Were you treated differently if you came from a

family who had had uncles and fathers who had been

in the Army?

Clarke: Not treated differently, no. I think perhaps

some of them had a little better understanding of what

20
Kay :

Clarke:

we were trying to accomplish as we went through. And

that might have been different in their viewpoint for

perhaps the first year, but not after that.

Or even later with assignments?

No 0 I don't think it had any bearing at all

latert on assignments or on anything. Perhaps it might

have helped some of them with their knowledge of military life -- not through preference but just because

they displayed more knowledge -- to become the early

cadet officers that we had. It certainly didn't help

them academically. And I think by the time the first

and the second years were over, all the differences

had been erased. I never had any doubts in my own

mind but what the systems that were employed, in almost

everything up there, were fair and impartial. And

I think we all pretty much understood the basis on

which selections were made for various things. Those

cadets who made the early cadet leadership jobs, I

think we sort of recognized that yes, they were the

ones who seemed to show up best in the early phases.

And by the time we had finished, individuals then

began to show on their own merits; and by that time,

we all had sort of a common base, so the selections

for what might be called the choice cadet jobs always

appeared to me anyway to be impartial -- people that

21
we ourselves recognized were the people who should

be in those jobs. So I never questioned the fairness

of the system.

It's been interesting trying to recollect now,

going back, because of the recent honor questions and

all. It was so simple, we thought. The rules, alHoy:

though they were not written,were clearly understood.

That's kind of the impression we got from General

Vogel, too.

Clarke: Now we had a few people who tied things up and

left because they were out to beat the system. 1

remember one poor chap who had come from the state of

Utah and had been in a university for a long time.

He was the man who, for the first two years we were

there, had been number one academically in each year.

Then, all of a sudden, he sort of ran out of the

things that he had studied before. And the pressure

to stay number one worked on him, and he finally got

caught in a cheating situation. It was an individual

thing as far as we knew. His roommate was the man

tiho called it to the attention of the authorities.

He left -very quietly and very quickly two months

before graduated. But it was a real open and shut

case. It wasn't one of these now that seem to be

confused by numbers and all that sort of thing.

22
out to be a kleptomaniac. A lot of things of no

intrinsic value or little value -- records and underwear and socks, this sort of thing. Obviously the

poor man was a kleptomaniac and just sick.

On the honor code itself, we understood the rules

pretty clearly, and it was not unusual at all for

people to turn themselves in for unintentional things.

Hoy: Do you have any feelings why it has happened, why

the honor code is causing so many problems?

Clarke: Well, I think numbers have a lot to do with it,

it's gotten so much bigger. You mean this current

episode?

Hoy: Yes.

.

As a matter of fact, ironically, the same man turned

Clarke: I suspect part of it was the anti-Vietnam feeling

throughout the country. Andr of courset they have

this type of program, that electrical examination

that they were giving, which was a running type thing,

and you were supposed to do your own programming and

use the common computer terminal that was available.

I think it made it so easy. And I guess the numbers

grew and@ all of a sudden, there was an acceptance

that that was the right thing. 1 suspect that the

breakdown comes 'from the numbers involved. And the

other thing that I've sensed -- and I haven't studied

23
the Norman report, but I did read it -- was an

attempt to use the honor system to enforce some of

the regulations. Now that was not so when I was a

cadet. They did not use the honor system for

making people live up to the regulations. As a

matter of fact, there was a pretty clear distinction

between what was involved in the honor system and

whqt was involved in the duty side of the house.

*

The simplest example that we had there was -- I

don? know whether they still have it or not -- an

honor card listing all the places you could go to

be out of your room at certain periods, daily study

periods for example. We had a button that you just

moved down. If you were going to the library to

+ study, you just moved it down to indicated the

library, or anything else -- if you were going off

to church service or something like that. And all

it did was indicate yes, you were out of your room.

It was pretty clearly understood that,that button was

sort!of like a written statement -- "1 certify that

1 amlat the library studying*' -- and it's legitimate.

Well@ if you left that button in the wrong place, at

that time, you were reauired * to report yourself for

it. If you came back and said1 @'Ohf my Godt I didn't

go to,the library, I went to do something else,'* that

24
might have been equally legitimate, you turned

'yourself in and got two demerits or something for

being careless. But if you wanted to go out and

do something that was completely illegal, you just

didn't mark your card. You just went out and took

your chances that nobody would inspect during that

time.

As I say, these little 'ground rules weren‘t all

written down, they were just understood. We had no

problems with it. Well, curious little things. When

I was a cadet you couldn't ride in an automobile

after a certain hour; I don't know that that was a

rule. If you were going out and going to ride in an

automobile for some purpose or other, you just didn't

mark your card. And if you got caught riding in an

automobile, you got punished. On the other hand, if

you marked your card and went out and did it, you

turned yourself in for it. So I guess in a way they

were using it to enforce a regulation which probably

didn't have much point to it, but at least it was

one of the regulations on the books.

Anywayt I suspect in General Vogel's time it (the

honor system) was about like when I was there. It

was pretty easily understood, and we had a minimum ,

of problems with it. Aside from the one individual

25
I, mentioned? I don't think we ever had a problem

with our academics and the honor aspects of it.

I spent a lot of my time there in later years

as an academic coach to classmates who were having

trouble in various things. We had the sgme system

then that I think they still have. If we had a

course in electricity, we'd have it one day for one

group and anothe'r day for the next group. And I

know that if I had had the first day's course, I had

to be very careful in coaching my roommate to be sure

I wasn't pointing him too directly at whatever the

examination was that we had had that particular day.

You have to go back and remember at West Point in

those days you got marked every day in every subject.

You took an exam of some sort, maybe just going up to

the blackboard and ,wor,king out a problem. . But you

got a mark every day in every subject, which keeps you

on your toes.

Hoy : Shows that you're prepared.

Clarke: You don't go to class without having read 'the

l@sson.

Hoy: Did you have adequate time to prepare?

Clarke: I think so. I did. I had no problems. My

roommate and the young man across the hall were

convinced in some subjects there wasn't enough time

26
available to bring them up to speed. But they got

through.

Hoy: Have you kept in contact with many of your

classmates?

Clarke: Oh yes. I stay in pretty good contact with them.

There are quite a few of them here in the Washington

area.

Hay.: Who are some of them, as a point of reference for

us?

Clarke: Frank Taylor, who is president of International

General Industries; General George Olmsted of

Financial General, hens here; Bob Gildart, who has

just retired as the administratcr of the Montgomery

County Community College; Finn Unger, who is the

governor of the Old Soldiers* Home, he's in the area.

Then there is Roy Lutes, who has just retired as a

teacher in the Alexandria school system -- after he

got out of the Army he went into teaching. A man

named Delk Odenf who has just come back from Iran

where he was with Bell Helicopters, training the

Iranians to use helicopters; Bud Underwood, tind I'm

not sure exactly what Underwood is doing, but he was

very active in the Association of the U.S. Army.

Then, of course, I've maintained quite a bit of

contact with some of my friends who are not here in

27
the Washington area, who are spread around the

Spray: I Do you have any recollection of any big events

Clarke: ~ Oh, I don't know. If I want to go back to the

kountry. We are going back together the first of

June for our fortieth reunion from West Point. There

will be a pretty substantial number up there. I

think' indications are we'll have over 100 returning

out of 297 who graduated with our class. And, of

course, quite a few of them are dead by now.

One of my classmates is just ending up a tour

as ambassador to Pakistan. He% had six- jobs as an

ambassador. Anywayr I'm looking forward to seeing

allot of them. I guess there are about twenty-eight

ctassmates in the Washington area; most of them are

working on a second career, although not all of them.

Some of them are fully retired. That% a pretty good

collection. But I guess even all through the years, -

and particularly our later years in serv'ice, we

probably had about that same number working in the

Pentagon or some other military assignment in the

ar!eae

that happened? When you get together with these

people do you mention "I*11 never forget the time

that l l .“?

plebe eraf I think one of the things that made the

28
biggest impression on me was going to a funeral in

the middle of December, and it was the coldest day I

could ever recall. We all stood around and froze our

ears. This is the type of thing we are likely to

remember.

I think we remember certain of the instructors

up there with a great deal of nostalgia for them and

a great deal of affection for them. Many of these

are people that we had seen later in our careers. I

particularly recall when we were plebes in mathematics, and they were trying to illustrate to all of

us the benefits of theoretical mathematics., A group

of the instructors went.together on one of these

campaigns that department stores have to guess how

many pennies are in a jar, and if you did you won an

automobile. They went at it very scientifically.

They went to the store with surveying instruments and

measured the size of the jar. I‘m serious now. Then

they went back and studied *'dropping pennies into the

jar“ to get the densities that would go in and established a range of probabilities about the number

of pennies that were in the jar. Then they got all

their friends to go in the store and buy one thing,

so they covered this whole range. Well, to make a

long story short, they tied for it the first time,

29
I then they had to go back through a runoff. And

I they went at it again in a very scientific mathe1matical way and they won an automobile, which

\ probably was worth all of $500, a brand new automobile. They paid $50 to the person who had given

i them that particular number. Wellt this made an

impression on all of us.

Hay: t I can imagine.

Clarke: And those particular instructors did. Cadets

l in a way could be rather cruel toward some of the

instructors and the tactical officers. Of course, we

1 collectively adorned them with pet nicknames, and

i some of them were rather cruel. We actually -- I say

~ ” we I ‘* the entire Corps of cadets -- drove one officer

1 out of that place because we didn't quite appreciate

1 his attitude toward the cadets. It got to the point

I where life for him was so miserable that he left.

i You know I you wonder in retrospect, this group of

'brash young men being so critical of somebody who was

iprobably trying to do a wonderful job for us. And we

just never appreciated it. Now that sort of thing

sticks in your mind.

,

I The leaders that we had -- Pm talking about the

iofficers there -- made some very deep impressions on

iall of us. Most of them favorable. Certain very

30 s
stern individuals we had great respect for; and

later, when we were serving under them, we learned

to appreciate them even more. But I'm not sure we

fully appreciated them as cadets. The commandant

that we had there one particular time -- Lieutenant

1

Colonel Buckner, who later was killed on Okinawa as

a lieutenant general -- impressed us. All winter *

long I it could be the coldest day of the winter (and

it can get cold up there), he never wore an overcoat.

Well, we again gave him little pet names and people

wrote risque little songs about him. But basically

we had a great deal of respect for the man.

Oh, if you stop to think of the things that

really made an impression of us, it would be hard to

single them out. An awful lot of our life at West

Point revolved around the athletic teams and their

chances -- all of which doesn't seem quite so important

any more. The cadet shows that we put on, they seemed

to be big events. Of course, we had a pretty good

social life there too.

1 LTG Simon B. Buckner, Jr. (1886 - 1945). U.S.

Military Academy, 1908. Infantry. Commandant of

Cadets, U.S. Military Academy, 1933 - 36. Commanding

General, Alaska Defense Force, 1940 - 41, Alaska

Defense Command, 1941 - 43, and Alaska Department,

1943 - 44. Killed by Japanese shellfire while

commanding general, Tenth Army, Okinawa, 18 Jun 1945.

--

31
1 noticed that you married about the year after

you left West Point and I wonderedR perhaps@ if you

had met your wife there?

I met my wife there. She was working for the

World Peace Foundation at the time I met her. The

old League of Nations Association. When the U.S. did

not join the League of Nations, the people who were

sponsoring the U.S. entry into it formed this League

of Nations Association. She worked for them in New

York as a combination secretary and research assistant. 1 met her through my roommate. She came up

to West Point about a year and a half before I graduated, and we got married a year after I graduated.

Every Saturday at the Point they had a dance

they called a hop. There seemed to be a great number

of girls who showed up at West Point, and in those

day% they paid their own way and their own meals.

We didn't have any money. I always remember when my

wife came up. We'd end up down at the hotel for

dinner on Sunday; the standard menu down there was

$1.50 for dinner, and IId say, "I wouldnlt pay that

much if I were you2' She would come up about once a

month or so.

Then, I think, the other things that made an

impression on us were some of the maneuvers or summer

32
travels that we had. Particularly, in our first

class year, they moved us around and took us down

for some flying training and then moved us down to

Georgia to Fort Benning for a time and to Fort Monroe

in Virginia. Those were impressionable trips. I

guess when we go back and reminisce we remember that.

We remember the night that Joe was supposed to be in

camp and he sneaked out for the night and got caught

coming back.

Hoy: Escapades such as those I'm sure you'll talk

about.

Clarke: It's hard to remember graduation speeches, but I

guess that's true of any university. Very few people

remember what was said at their graduation.

Hoy: I think that's true. There are so many other

things on their minds.

Clarke: You form very close associations up there with

particular individuals. I had quite a few roommates

because 1 lost several of them through academic

attrition.

Spray: You were talking about your roommates?

Clarke: Wellfl I had stayed with two roommates -- there

were three of us in a room, which meant we were

double decked. There were normally two beds, so we

double decked on one and we rotated that around.

33
I became very close to those two people. One of

thernir unfortunately, was killed early in World War

II 0 The other one got out of the service right

afte!r World War II. But I think my closest friend

was b chap who lived down the hall. We just seemed

to h;ave more of a kinship. We ended up doing things

toge'therfl double datingt and always seemed to be with

one pnother.

I

I guess this is true any place in life.

~ But, within a group of about twenty five, we all

lived together in that same group for the four years.

We shifted roommates to some extent. With each one,

we became very very close and have maintained pretty ,

close relationships even now, by comparison to other

relationships anyway. Of course, the way the Army

is constituted, you keep running into these people

periodically. You are stationed with them and get

to know their families pretty well. So I would say

out of it came some very strong friendships that we

have, maintained over the years. And my wife has

gotten to know them and we've gotten to know their

children. I guess this same thing would happen in

other universities. I've been watching my son and

the relationships he maintains with the people he's

goneito school with.

,

34
Hoy : I don't think it*s the same in a university, to

be honest. Because you don't live like you live when

you cannot leave.

Clarke: We ate together, we were in the same barracks

area.

Hoy: Exactly. And you don't go on vacation, you don't

have all the separate experiences that you do when

you're in college together.

Clarke: Well, for four years there, we were together in

one way or another for all except four or five months,

so I guess it does throw you a lot closer together.

But it stands you in good stead. During World War II,

l

I had an occasion to make a trip by myself from the

U.S. all the way across South America, Africa, Italy,

and on into China. Every place I stopped, I don't

care where it was, there was somebody I knew there,

and knew well. Every stop along the way, even into

the far reaches of China. Usually they were part of

this fairly close group that I'd been associated with.

It made it a lot easier to transact whatever military

business we were transacting, plus all the reminiscences. So I guess it paid off in that respect.

Spray: A certain logic behind the system.

Clarke: In a way, yes.

35
.

to Western High School where they had had a cadet

corps and he'd been a leader in the cadet corps -- 1

think it sort of pushed him into the leadership

positions at West Point. He was our cadet company

commander. But after we got out of West Point, I

don't think it made a bit of difference as far as

Hoy:

Clark

that particular background.

How did you get to Cornell?

.

e’ : Well, of course, the engineers alwayssent their

young officers off to school. At the time I went,

there were only three schools to which they sent

officers -- MIT, Cornell, and the University of

California at Berkeley.

Hoy: Berkeley? That's where General Vogel went.

Going back-to your question earlier about the

military background of certain individuals. One of

my roommates that I lived with for the last two

years came from Washington. His family was military.

He could go back 100 years to one of his ancestors

who had graduated from West Point. 1 don't think

that by the time we graduated he knew any more about

the Army than the rest of us did. But while he was

a cadet, because of this background, I suppose, and

maybe because of his earlier schooling -- he'd gone

36
Clarke: They only sent them to those three schools. So

it was a question of which one of the three. Cornell

was in the geographic area that I'd grown up in; this

was one aspect of it. It was a very fine engineering

school. I knew this from others who had gone there,

so I elected to go to Cornell. Thenf at the last

minute8 1 tried to change my mind. I decided I wanted

I

to go to California because of the hydraulics there.

Unfortunately, it was a little late and we didn't have

much money in the Army for travel. The transport had

already sailed from New York. (That's the way you

went to California under military orders in those

days, because it saved money to go to New York and

ride the boat through the Panama Canal to California.

Several of my close friends were going out there.)

But anyway, they didn't have the money to send me

directly across country, so I went to Cornell, which

was my original choice.

I did want to major in structures and soils and

Cornell had a good -department in that. In retrospect,

I'm very glad I went there. I think it suited my

purposes more than had I gone to California and

specialized in hydraulics..

37
Hoy: They certainly selected three very prominent

universities. I was impressed by the fact. They

could have sent you just to get a masters someplace.

Clarke: Well, in those days -- again you have to

Hoy :

Clarke: Yes. But, over a period of many years, they had

remember this was back in the 1930s -- there weren't

too many engineering schools with high reputations.

Now, there were othersf obviously. Iowa State was

coming into prominence and a few people had gone

thereV and that was in hydraulics, too. I don't know.

I guess the Army may have had some favorable contract

I terms or something with these three schools. TodayV

of course, they will send an officer to the school of

l his choice -- actually they encourage him to go the

university in his home state because it's cheaper to

, send him there. The tuition makes that much differ-

, ence. I don't think the tuition was much of a factor

back then because tuition at a university was very

low. I think tuition at Cornell may have been $300

for the year. What is it now? It's $4,000 or

something like that.

Particularly Cornell is very expensive.

been sending people to Cornell, MIT, and Berkeley,

and they seemed satisfied with the output. They did

not prescribe what courses we would take. That was

38
left up to the individual. You had to take engineering courses, obviously. And you were there to

get a masters in engineering.

.

Hoy : But you were able to select, for instance,

whether you were interested in hydraulics, or as you

said, structures and soils?

Clarke: Yes, you could specialize. I think, in all

cases8 they wanted a course in structures, which is

what I wanted to go there for anyway. Then I branched

out and took structures and soils. In fact, I wrote

my thesis on soils, again because they happened to

have a very fine department in that. And the

structures man at Cornell, Leon Urguhart, was probably

the preeminent structures man in the country at that

time. He took a great interest in his Army students.

There were, I think, fourteen of us at Cornell that

year.

Hoy: Eid you find that even there you stayed pretty

much together?

Clarke: Yes, but not quite as much as at West Point, because by now we were all married, or at least most of

us were, and babies were beginning to appear on the

scene in some of the families. The group that I went

there with was generally a different group than the

ones I had known at West Point. Not necessarily even

39
Hoy:

from the same class at West Point, although I had

six of my West Point classmates there. But they

were people that I had not known particularly well

when I was a cadet. So I got to know a whole new

group of people there, plus people from other universities who had come into the Army and other classes

at West Point. So it was a little broadening. Generally I for the year that we were there, our social life

pretty much revolved around that group, some of the

faculty who were there, and a few other people -- some

neighbors we had met at the apartment we stayed in who

were young faculty members. But I suppose most of our

oontacts were within the fourteen that the Army had

there.

Had your courses at West Point pretty well prepared you for what you had at Cornell?

Yes. Again because Cornell and MIT and

California had been receiving the products of West

Point. They knew pretty well what our background

was. There were certain areas of mathematics that

needed some strengthening on the part of most of us,

and they pushed that. But so far as the general

engineering, I think we were pretty well prepared.

How about the humanities? Did you spend much

time at West 'Point studying history and literature?

40
Clarke: Well, of course, we had two years of English.

It was pretty good. We had three years of languages.

I suppose two years of history, which was a good

course. Pm trying to remember what else we would

classify in the humanities. I think that was probably

about it. So you end up on the average with two or

three courses in the humanities, if you take English

and foreign languages and history -- a little better

than two courses continually out of five courses that I

you would be taking; so 40 percent of your time in

English or foreign languages or history. But I

wouldn't say it was a program that was heavily accented toward the humanities. It was much more the

technical engineering and mathematics that we went

through. I had two years of French, one year of

Spanish, two years of history, and two years of

English. Looking at the courses that my children

have taken, I suppose that's more English than the

average college student gets these days. Although

my son, who was at Yale taking engineering, took a

lot more history; he also took courses in religions.

Hoy: Political science and things like that probably.

Clarke: I guess he had one course in political science.

He seemed to go off on his own. He felt he wanted to

41
~study religions and he pushed himself in that area.

On the other handr he had far-less in the languages

than we had had. And far less in what I'd call

Hoy:

basic college English.

One of the things we discussed at some length

with General Vogel, and I suppose we don? have to

discuss it as long with you, was Arthur Morgan's book

-L-- Dams and Other Disasters because he had met Morgan

and because of Vogel% connection with TVA. One of

khe things Morgan criticizes is the education that

cadets receive and says that it% so regimented that

it stifles all creativity. How does that kind of a

criticism strike you?

Clarke: 1 That would be a hard one to answer. Of course,

x have a biased view too. I don't think it stifled

creativity. 1 Morgan, when he reached into his histories to be critical of the Corps, went back and

fiicked a couple of partcular examples. Here again, I

Herb Vogel knows much more about this because of his

association with the Waterways Experiment Station and

his later TVA experience. I think Morgan picked out

an example of the arguments that had gone on between

42
2

(James B.) Eads and (A. A.) Humphreys in an emerging

science, or an emerging art, on the transport of

materials in river bottoms. And perhaps Humphreys

was a little less innovative or a little less willing

to accept some new results than Eads had been. I

never did go back and study that question in detail,

but I read Morgan's book on it. I had asked our

historians to see if they could ferret out from our

records the substance of all the arguments that went

on which had to do with the transport of material in

the Mississippi. That led to ihe discussion of the

control of the Mississippi outlet.where Eads apparently came up with,a much more practical solution

than the Corps had been able to come up with. If you

just look at that particular case, I guess you could

sayt ye% there was a group who disagreed with a man

who was innovative, and the innovative man had

2 James B. Eads and BG Andrew A.

In 1873 a dispute began between Eads,

Humphreys.

a private civil

engineer, and BG A. A. Humphreys, the U.S. Army Chief

of Engineers, over the best method to deepen the Gulf

of Mexico entrance to the Mississippi River. Eads

insisted that jetties, constructed from the mouth of

Southwest Pass, would contract the current and force

it to scour out a channel to the necessary depth.

Humphreys, an acknowledged expert on the hydraulics

of the Mississippi River, preferred a ship canal to

the Gulf as a solution. Eads won approval of his

project and in 1877 the jetties proved to be a

complete success.

43
a solution. Now, whether you would condemn the

whole system for that, I don't think so.

Morgan also condemned the Corps for not going

into the creation of a laboratory and testing and

modeling early enough. Of course, that's when Herb

came on the scene.

Hoy: General Vogel says Morgan was an old man when he

wrote a lot of this.

Clarke: I think he plagiarized from other material, too.

I don't think a lot of that was independent research

and analysis. t

Hoy: I kind of summed up a few of his charges. He was

saying that the Corps has a history of overestimating

costs, of blocking scientific progress, of covering

its blunders by classifying information.

Clarke: Well, you don't even want to take the time to

refute some of these statements, or at least 1

wouldn't. It isn't worthwhile.

Hoy: The only thing that somehow caused us to question

it was that these same arguments are the things t-he

Corps seems to be quite heavily criticized for today.

Maybe it% not more so than before, maybe it's just

that we're more aware of it. But it seems that

critics have picked up on at least what he says, some

44
of hisarguments. Wasn't it Adlai Stevenson that

wrote the introduction to his book?

Spray: No I it was (Senator) Paul Douglas.

Hoy: But I was surprised, for instance, that he would

write the introduction. That kind of indictment. As

you say, you almost wonder if you should refute it.

Why someone in that position would write the foreword

to it. And again, as I said, so many of the things I

he says generally crop up again in newspaper articles

and things that are said about the Corps. I

Clarke: You know, many of these criticisms, particularly ,

the underestimation of costs, you can refute, but you

have to go back -- it% very difficult to talk about

these things in generalities. You have to go back to

a specific project and trace the history and indicate

what happened on it. Now, you could rationalize in

general. The thing that I used to say was that many

of the projects of the Corps for which they are

currently being criticized were projects that were

conceived back in the 1930s. They were authorized by

Congress at that time based on an estimate in the

1930s but not built until the late 1940s or 1950s or

1960s. By that time, things had changed and the

requirements were a little different. So the example

we used to use was that in 1930s we got Congress to

45
Hoy:

Clarke:

,

,

authorize a Model T Ford. In the 196Os, we built a <

Cadillac because of new requirements. Now, you

can't go back to the estimate of the 193Os, which

might have said that this dam will cost $60 million,

and all of a sudden now it's $250 million. It isn't

the same project any more.

Plus it takes a lot longer time to build a dam.

Or inflation. Lots of things have happened.

Plus new requirements are added. Anyone, for example,

who was designing a navigation system in the 193Os,

based on the projections of commerce at that time, then

then built it in the mid-1950s or the early 1960s --

the whole economic pattern of the U.S. has changed, the

demands have changed. And you probably don't build

the same sized thing. You may not even put it in the.

same location. A lot of the criticism, I think,

stems from that particular problem -- of the length

of time and.the changing concepts as to what is

required. But if one were to refute the statements,

you'd have to go back to the individual projects.

I used to scream at our district engineers on

their estimates on things. The Tennessee-Tombigbee

Waterway is an example. When that was originally

conceived, I think the cost was maybe $200 million.

What is it now? It's a billion plus, I'm sure.

46
But thirty years have gone by, and it is a different

type of project. I used to scream at the district

engineers, and they'd come in and say, 'But sir,

the cost of moving dirt has gone up a little, we're

building a little bigger waterway now than we originally talked about, our locks are more costly than

the original designs." And every year we would be

reporting the increase to Congress; and here I was

jumping on them saying, "We can? have been that

stupid that we came up with this estimate." And

they're proving to me, by escalation and added

features and all, why the costs have gone up.

Lock and dam twenty-six on the Mississippi went

through the same pattern. That original lock and

dam, I think, was built in the 1930s for $38 million.

Now we're going to replace it, or want to replace it.

And I think the costs are pretty well up around $500

million to replace a $38 million structure. But

again, it isn't quite the same type of thing. There

has been tremendous industrial development along the

edges of it, the railroads in there have to be bought

and movedt and the costs have gone higher. We are

now talking about much bigger locks than we had.

We're talking about dual locks. This sort of thing

creeps into it.

47
I never found -- and this is from my side of

the fence -- any deliberate effort to underestimate

costs for the purpose of getting a project authorized.

You can say we were stupid, that we made the wrong

estimates, but I think they were honest efforts. But

the same thing is true no matter what you do. If you I

tried to build a house -- if you go out to build a

house today and you bring an architect in, he'll tell

yo,u I 'Well, 1 can build it for you for $75,000." And.

all of a sudden you start building it, and your wife ,

wants to move the wall out about two feet and a few

other things, and it suddenly is a $100,000 house \

instead of $75,000. ,

When they accuse the Corps of lack of innovation

or imagination, this is a little harder to refute.

Because you never know exactly what they're trying to

p,ut their finger on. If they are saying that the

Ctorps does not give enough consideration to alterna- ,

tives -- of course, today this is the name of the

game.with the environmental assessments and all, to

be sure that you have evaluated the alternatives. I

think this was done in the past, but largely it was

not put down on a piece of paper so that you could

trace through all the alternatives that were considered. Insofar as the use of new design techniques,

48
new construction techniques, I think the Corps is

as far advanced as anyone in this field. But it‘s

a hard thing to refute; it's an easy charge to make.

Hay : I think you‘re right. It's very difficult to

make statements such as that. You have to force the

other person to be specific and then say what are the

facts.

Clarke: Then you have to have the other person say,

"This is what you should have done in lieu of what you

did do." It% very difficult to refute. When I used

to see these types of charges, my blood pressure would

go up and then I would sit back and say it% not

worthwhile trying to refute them. If people are going

to believe that, if they're not willing to come in and

talk to you about it and to evaluate what different

might have been done on particular projects . . . .

But there are certain things, and I guess the Corps

is like all engineers in this. If something has

worked you're inclined to try it again and again., and

try to make modest improvements in it.

I do think Herb Vogel, in creating that laboratory when he started, was probably one of the best

things that ever happened to the Corps -- to get a

group down there who was out of the stream of being

directly responsible for things being done and who

49
could think about new approaches to problems. And

there are several other groups that the Corps had

instituted over the past two decades to do the same

thing -- the Institute of Water Resources, which is

really a think tank down there at (Fort) Belvoir.

That's its job in life, to think of new approaches to

water problems of the country. And it is. It's not

really a novel approach, but this idea of flood plain

management (where you're thinking of other than

structural measures for getting rid of flood hazards)

really came out of the Institute of Water Resources.

It has been pushing it for a long time. One of the

problems is that you can come up with fine theoretical

solutions, but they're not necessarily politically

acceptable.

Again 1‘11 go back to some of the preaching I

used to do to our district engineers when we were

getting all this criticism, and we could see that

certain solutions were not acceptable. I said, "We

could be the best engineers in the world, and we could

produce all the drawings and designs for almost

anything, but if the public doesn't want it, we've

wasted our time. I think, from my observations over

the last decade or more, the approach of the Corps

has been to try to solve a problem in a sensible way

50
that the people will accept. Now when you say

"that the people will accept," then you have a real

problem. Who are the people? I finally rationalized

that the only group that we could look to to speak

for the people were the elected leaders of the

people -- the congressmen, the ones who are accused

of being in the pork barrel. But there is no other

group that I know of where you could say, well, they

represent the people of the country.

Hoy : That's where you get the authority to do what

you're doing. I guess you would go to that person . . .

Clarke: Well, I had a specific case in a discussion I was

having with one of the public interest groups. It was

on this structure on the Rappahannock down here, the

Salem Church dam, which I guess will never be built.

They were saying, "You really should take it back to

the people." And I said, '*All right, tell me which

people do I take it to?“ They said, **Well, the people

in the area are concerned, and the people in the state

of Virginia are concerned. But on the other hand, the

interests are even broader than that? So I said,

"That's what we do. We work with the local groups.

We take it to the body of Congress where all the

people have put their representatives, and we ask

51
them to say yes or no." And we don't care whether

they say yes or no. It didn't make any difference

to us.

; Oh, periodically I'd wake up and feel frustrated.

When Mr. (Richard M.) Nixon stopped the cross Florida

3

bar:ge canal, again my blood pressure went up. Then

I s,at back and said, "Why should I care?" We're only

the, engineers to advise the country. If they don't

wan,t it, fine. We'll try to work up some other

solution. It was interesting to me on Tacks Island,

whe,n the state of New Jersey withdrew from supporting

it.1 I happened to be up in New York -- this happened

after I had retired -- and I was talking to Jim

Kelley, the division engineer up there. I asked Jim,

"What are you going to do?" He said, "All I want to

do inow -- they've spoken, they don't want that solution -- I'm recommending to Congress that we accept

the, state view. We say we're never going to build

anything at Tacks Island, and get it de-authorized

and get it off the books so that we don't have that

argument and now we can do other planning to solve

3 The Cross-Florida Barge Canal.

of local boosters,

Long a dream

coastal shipping firms, and engineers, it was finally begun after World War II, but

canceled on ecological and environmental grounds by

President Richard M. Nixon in 1971.

52
other problems of the area." I think this is the

right approach to take.

Well, I keep looking as I‘m on the other side

of the fence here now in the private consulting

business. A customer hires us to do a job, and we

come up with a solution. If he doesn't buy it, we

.don't care. He pays us for what we've done, and if

he doesn't like that, we'll try something else.

In the type of thing that Arthur Morgan and the

other writers publish -- who have been so critical

not only of the Corps but of the whole water resource

problem -- there aren't very many new ideas being

expressed in all that writing. If you go back over

the last ten years8 you811 find that they read each

other's articles, and it comes out in different words

and says the same things. Arthur Morgan has been

very critical of the work of the Corps on this reser4

voir in Pennsylvania on the upper Allegheny. It had

all the emotional problems mixed up in it that you

could think of. It had the Indians, it had the people

4 Kinzua Dam.

ation project,

This flood control and recreknown as Kinzua Dam or Allegheny

Reservoir, was long a subject of controversy. Its

construction involved breaking a long standing treaty

with the Seneca Indians and the eviction of many

citizens from their homes. The dam is located in

northern Pennsylvania, near the New York State border.

53
who were being displaced from their lands, and all

the arguments against it that you get on any reservoir; But I think if you go back to Pennsylvania

nowf 'after the project has been completed, you'll

find that people accept it. It‘s part of the natural

landscape. But Morgan was very critical of that, and

he was retained as a consultant by some of the people

who were opposing it. He spoke out very strongly on

that'issue. And I suppose there were more hearings

on that particular reservoir than on any other up

untiX that time.

The man that used to have the morning program

for NBC, Hugh Downs, was deeply involved in that at

one time and was about to castigate the Corps.

Whoever my predecessor was at that time invited him ,

down' to go over all the records that the Corps had --

all 'the hearings and all the arguments that had been

made and the refutations. And he finally decided he

was going to staysilent on it. He just wasn't going

to-get involved, on that morning program, in that big

argument. But at least he was convinced that we were

tryi,ng to do an honest job at that time.

You know, there is no project that the Corps

builds that doesn't hurt someone or someone doesn‘t

fee*1 aggrieved about. And they can be very very

54

.
vocal about it. It's hard to find a project where

someone doesn't feel that they've been injured, or

at least that they haven't benefited as much as

others. And they speak out and this is their right.

This is where the political leaders have to make

their judgments in the final analysis of what lies in

the best interests of the country. This is the type

of thing that Mr. (Jimmy) Carter is going through

at the present time. I've been talking to General

(Jack) Morris5about these projects in sort of a

general way, and General Morris' attitude very

plainly is that if the President wants to rejudge

these projects by his criteria,. fine. This is not

a matter for the Corps to get into an argument on.

One of my predecessors got into an argument with

one of the secretaries of war -- this was back about

1940 l The particular man made the recommendation to

the secretary of the army that a particular project

5

Academy,

LTG John W. Morris (1921 - ). U.S. Military

1943. Corps of Engineers. Engineer Aviation

Battalion, Far Eastern Air Force, 1944 - 47. Engineer

School, Europe, 1949 - 52. Deputy District Engineer,

Savannah, 1952 - 54.. Commander, 8th Engineer Battalion,

1st Cavalry Division, Korea, 1960 - 61. District

Engineer, Tulsa, 1962 - 65. Deputy Chief, Legislative

Liaison, Office of the Secretary of the Army, 1967 -

69 Commanding General,

1969 - 70

18th Engineer Brigade, Vietnam,

1970 - 72:

Division Engineer, Missouri River Division,

Director, Civil Works, 1972 - 75. Deputy

Chief of Engineers, 1975 - 76. Chief of Engineers,

1976 - present.

55
was a good project and should be approved. And the

secretary of war said, "You haven't answered the

next question. Should this project be built when we

have all the other demands in the nation for doing

things?" And my predecessor said, "That's not my

job as chief of engineers. That's the political

leaders' job, to decide. we're saying it makes sense.

There are a lot of other things in this country that

we could put our resources into that make sense. The

priority of this as compared to educating children or

doing other things is a political judgment."

Hoy: I really think that% where the confusion lies,

to be honest.

Clarke: I agree.

Hoy: If one doesn't understand the political process,

I think that's where the criticism comes.

Clarke: There are so many good things -- that appear to 1

be good, anyway -- that could be done. This program

that the Corps is involved in is just one part of the.

whole national scene. And I think the Corps has been

very fortunate, generally, in that it has managed to

stay out of the political argument. It has tried to

maintain itself more or less as a professional

engineering group.

56
Periodically we would get a district engineer

who became an advocate. I know in my experience,

and when General (William) Cassidy was chief,

occasionally we'd have to call a district engineer

or division engineer and say, "Now, relax. Let the

politicians fight the battle. You just come up with

facts and figures and indicate whether or not the

project makes sense. But don't get into the argument

as to whether it should be built or not built."

Hoy: If you get them too late, though, that can really

do a lot of damage, can't it? If one of your district

engineers, for instance, gets into the political fray?

Clarke: Oh yes, it can do a lot. And at about that time

we would move him I pull him out of there. Now I'm not

sure whether the Corps has the best system in the

world. On this idea of moving district engineers on

6 LTG William F. Cassidy (1908 - ). U.S.

Military Academy, 19310 Corps of Engineers. Commanding Officer, 815th Engineer Aviation Battalion,

Air Force Service Command, North Africa, 1942 - 43.

Commanding Officer, 21st Engineer Aviation Regiment

and Area Engineer, Italy, 1943 - 44. Mississippi

River Commission, 1947 - SO. H& Far East Air Force,

1952 - 53. National War College, 1954, Division

Engineer, South Pacific, 1955 - 58. Director of

Civil Works 1959 - 62 and Deputy Chief of Engineers,

1962. Commanding General, the Engineer Center and

Ft. Belvoir, 1964 - 65. Chief of Engineers, 1965 -

69 0 Retired, 1969.

57
Hay:

Clarke:

i; Sure. You could become so identified with a

, project that you would see it almost as yours.

, That's right. We had a terrific argument going

on outin the state of California about DOS Rios dam.

~ It was authorized and on its way toward being funded.

And our people out there began to get deeply enmeshed

in the local politics of it and were called on people

to support it. We said to wait a minute, to back off.

Hoy: , Well how would you find this out as the chief,

for instance? Does it get back to you when somebody

says so and so called him, or does it get back through

the newspapers?

Clarke: I You find it out from the newspapers, this is one

about a three-year cycle, I think there is some merit

to it. They do not become too attached to whatever

the particular project is, and they don't become too

parochial about what the local interests want. And

iI they are a little more objective, I think, than in

iI some of the other departments where the man stays for

a lifetime.

way you find out. y And actually, in this particular

caset the district and division engineers told us what

they were doing. They weren't doing it under the table

or anything like that. We just said to back off; it

is not the Corps' role to get into these arguments.

58
Hoy:

If the people in California want that project, it

will go ahead; if they don't want it, it won't.

Is this something that you learned through your

experience, or as a cadet? I guess that's what I

think is the value of history -- to understand the

role of the Corps throughout various decades. Is

that kind of a course, for instance, taught; or is

it something that you begin to learn just through

experience? Maybe you can't teach it.

Clarke: I think you pick it up more. I don't know

whether it comes out of the cadet life. I suppose

the thing that sticks with you from the cadet life

as much as anything goes back to the honor system.

You report factually and honestly what you think

should be done. But this trying to live in a political atmosphere, Pm not sure that comes out of the

cadet life. 1 think that comes out of later experience. I guess the system that the Corps has, having

been in existence more or less from 1820 until the

present time, the organization and the system.that

has been developed fosters this somewhat objective

role. Because certainly the experience of the Corps

over the many years has been that more projects have

been suggested by far than have been recommended.

59
I think the record is something like only one out of

every three projects that ever gets studied in detail

is recommended. This leads you to be sure that your

facts and figures are appropriate, and it keeps you

 from putting too much of a political bias on the

 judgments and recommendations.

The Corps set up a very fine group in a board

1 of engineers to review projects to be sure that obi jectively they were sound projects and not just pot litically motivated.. And surprisingly, over the years

 the Congress and, I think, the executive department

1 and the public at large have accepted that the

judgments of the Corps are fairly objective. When you

 get through all the chaff of the criticism by people

,

 like Morgan, you find down underneath it a pretty good

~ respect for what the Corps does.

It was intriguing to me, in this two and a half

1 years since I retired, in working with the water

1 quality commission and going around the country

meeting with all kinds of groups on the water quality

~ problem, to note the great respect that they had for

1 the the Corps operated -- pretty effective,

~ pretty professional, and very objective. This came
out time after time in the hearings that we held.

Perhaps I am deluding myself, but I am vain enough to

think that by and large the Corps does enjoy a very

fine reputation.

I had occasion to talk to later Vice President

(Nelson) Rockefeller because I worked directly for

him on that commission. It was very interesting,

listening to him. He had his arguments with the Corps

about projects in New York State, but he had a great

respect for it. He had respect for its integrity.

I don‘t think he would have said that Corps engineers

were the "finest engineers that you could ever find

in the world," but he said they were honest in their

approaches. It was very interesting, one day -- it

was a sort of tragic day in his life, in a sense; it

was the day that (Spiro T.) Agnew quit. Rockefeller

was still governor of New York at the time, and I had

an appointment with him that afternoon. Agnew had

quit and the press was after Rockefeller, and he had

to have a television show. As a result of that, my

appointment with him was delayed. So instead of

meeting with him, he came out and said, “I'm awfully

sorry, but I've got to go down to Washington.'* I

saidr "I'm going back to Washington." So he said,

“Ride down with me" (in this little jet that he had).

61
There were just the two of us going down in the

airplane, and riding out in the car. I suppose w e I

had a couple of hours together. The Agnew thing

obviously was bothering him. We were sitting there

in the airplane and he said, "Tell me, Fred, how do

you get the integrity that you get in the military?"

Well, it was a real tough question, sort of what

you're talking about. I said, "Well, I suppose as

compared to political life, as you grow up in the

‘, system (and I'm not talking about just West Point;

that's just one of the hurdles)P you're continually

tested and evaluated. People know each other

throughout the system. And every time you're

looking for someone to do a job, you look at what

people have done. t People keep jumping hurdles to

: get advanced. And there are so many tests along

1 the way that those that rise to the top, by and

large, are pretty well tested professionally and

obviously for their integrity." And he said, "I

sure wish we could do something like that in the

rest of the system."

I think within the Corps the same thing happens.

,The people who get to the top get there because

, they've passed a lot of tests. They have been judged

62
Hoy:

for their professional ability, their management

ability, and their integrity.

One of the things, though, that now comes to my

mind that Morgan said, along with this idea, something

about the fact that because you know each other so

,well, there's such an esprit de corps there, that it

becomes difficult to draw the line. You have

somebody, and you might feel that what he% suggesting

is not the best, but . . . . That you support one

another l l .

Clarke: * Oh, no. Let me cite a couple of things that

might dispel this a little. I used to have, and

they still have, these division engineer conferences

every six months. They hold them either in

Washington or out in one of the areas. We had one

at Jekyll Island down in Georgia. I invited down

the undersecretary of the army, and he brought along

with him a colonel who was his military assistant.

So there we've got our eleven division engineers and

me and these people observing and participating. We

started along, and this man caught me at the first

l

intermission. He said, "I have never been in a

conference like this where people are allowed to

speak their minds so much and criticize each other."

And it was true.

63
Again I go back to the Board for Rivers and

Harbors. These meetings are now open, of course, to

I the public. But they were held in executive session

before. Those things almost became acrimonious.

: People tackled proposals that had come up through one

 of the members of the board, and he'd already endorsed

it and couldn't vote on that particular one. Other

people were tearing it apart to find whether it was

I

good or bad. There may not have been any personal

criticism -- you say, "well, you‘re stupid" and

I a& but really tearing it apart intellectually to

see whether or not the best solutions had been

I arrived at.

One of the things the Army did for me was to

send me off to the advanced management program at

Harvard.

Hoy: ~ That was one of our last questions for today.

Clarkek It was really a course in human relations --

how do you get things done through people. That's

what management is all about. No individual personI

I ally does very much. He% got other people, and

eventually you get down to the people who are getting

things done. But the most difficult problems in the

, industrial world -- and I think they are difficult

in the military and the Corps of Engineers as well --

64
are having to deal with the man who isn't quite doing

as well as you would like to have him do. But I

think the military is more direct in solving those

problems than what I observed from my friends out in

industry who resorted to all sorts of subterfuges

to move "John" out of his job and move him over to

some other place. At least in the military, we could

order him to another job where he might be, and he

would expect to be, .moved in a period of time. This

is a problem in dealing with people. There is a

matter of being sure you don't harm the individual

and( at the same time, trying to get the job done.

I think all of us in our careers have had to face

this problem of how you move people around without

destroying the individual and still get the job

done the way you want it. You can go back to that

old line, "the brave man does it with a sword, the

coward with a kiss." You're always torn between

these two aspects of it. We have moved people.

Sometimes it's done. pretty bluntly, and sometimes

it's done in a little more polished manner.

Hoy: You went somewhat later, in the 1950s wasn't

it, to the Harvard Business School?

Clarke: That's a short course, the one I went to.

65
Hoy: i,

Clarke<

Hoy:

Clarke:

,

,

Hoy:

Clarke:

It's a summer kind of thing?

Wellf it% a three-month course.

Were many of you sent to that? That has a very

good reputation also, the Harvard Business School.

This particular course that I went to is for

people in industry, usually at the assistant vice

president level who had fifteen to twenty-five years

experience. They were people who were going to move

on up in the companies, some of whom had gone to the .

regular course at the Harvard Business School maybe

fifteen years earlier. Insofar as the military was

concerned8 at that time we had, out of a total class

of 130, ten from the military services. So there

weren't very many there. I was the only Army

engineer there. We had others from ordnance and

transportation.

Did you find your problems similar when you

began talking about management?

The problems were identical. There wasn't any

difference at all, really. There was a much greater.

emphasis in industry, of course, on the profit motive

which we didn't have in the military. On the other

hand, we had to be cost effective, because we were

going through budgets and this sort of thing.

66
When I came back from that course, my boss said,

"How was it, what was it like?" And I told him, "It%

a course in human relations, working with people and

and to do it more effectively." I found the problems

in industry and the problems in the military were

almost identical. How do you get things organized,

how do you pick people to get into the right jobs,

and if you've made a mistake how do you get the right

person in there. Some of the things we talked about

sounded a little bit silly. We spent an hour one day

on the coffee break. What do you do about the coffee

break? It's a problem.

Hoy: I know from offices I've worked in, those are

the problem areas -- those little things that you

think are not important become very important.

Clarke: We spent one session discussing how to deal

with the boss' secretary who is a little arrogant.

How do you get to the boss through the secretary or

around the secretary. It doesn't sound like a very

important thing, but it was a common problem in all

those outfits. We had great discussions on how

heavily do you organize down the command channel and

how do you organize the staff functions so that they

fit the command lines, which is a continual military

problem. Everybody was saying, well, the military

67
Hoy: I think there is that stereotype, though. And

way is the such and such way; and I'd say, "Just

describe to me, what is the military way? Because

I've been trying to find it out for years." They

have a concept of a boss up there who is just acting

in imperative manner and forcing decisions down

on people. It doesn't work that way in the military

any more than it does outside.

it comes through in things like what Morgan writes,

that somehow you have no will of your own.

Clarkei That you have all these staff officers who

are yes men? Well? this is what my friend down in

Georgia was saying he didn't understand -- how

subordinates could speak up that much.

Hoy: . We don't have any more time left. I guess we

might as well stop for today and come back.

Hoy: You wouldn't want to tell us what your nickname

was for Lieutenant Colonel Buckner, who never wore

an overcoat?

Clarke: Oh, I have to stop and think back now. Usually

we referred to Buckner by his full name, always the

cadets did -- Simon Bolivar Buckner. Of course, he

was named after that South American patriot, Simon

Bolivar. That's about all I recall for him. We had

68
others that we called by less endearing terms, such

as "Paddlefoot."

During the last interview, a couple of times we

talked about professional groups and the fact that

you wanted the Corps to be viewed as a professional

engineering group. It struck me, as I was looking

over your resume, that you've been very involved in

professional associations. Be.fore we leave the

general topic of your education, I thought we might

talk a little bit about those associations, and when

you first became involved in some of these groups,

ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) and

others.

Clarke: I don't know that I became deeply involved in

them. I guess I joined ASCE about 1960, so it was

rather late in my career. Then about the same time --

this was when I was commissioner in Washington -- I

applied for a professional license in the District

and I joined the (National Society of) Professional

Engineers. And I can‘t say I was really active in

it. I used to make speeches to them, but that was

because of the position I occupied; I think they would

Hoy:

have invited me anyway.

I really have become more active in the professional groups since I retired from the Army.

69
Hoy: I wondered if theyphave programs, for instance,

Ihave more time to devote to them. Particularly with

the American Society of Civil Engineers. I've ended

up as chairman of its water policy committee. It

takes some time, but fortunately now I've got the time

-1,can devote to it. There is a lot of correspondence

with a lot of people -- suggesting ideas, trying to

develop policy statements, and testifying before

Congress. While I was in uniform I could never have

testified in front of Congress for a professional

outfit.

that might be helpful to a district engineer. Do

many of them belong?

Clarke: Well, I think most of them join about the time

they become a district engineer. Part of this is a

matter of knowing the people that you're working with

in the district -- knowing the engineers with whom ’

you'll. be associating. It develops first name

relationships. It% much easier to deal with people

when you can call them on the phone and say, "Hey,

Joef I want to talk to you about something.'* I think

this is one of the real benefits.

The programs that the professional societies

have -- it% a little hard to put your finger on

anything that is a direct benefit. I think the

70
benefits come in the acquaintanceships, talking about

3 ’

the common problems that you have. And eventually

those begin to solidify into, hopefully, accepted

solutions. This starts out at the grass roots, local

level. I think you would find that most district

engineers have become licensed professional engineers

and have joined various groups -- basically so

they'll know the people.

Of course, we've always encouraged people to

belong to the (Society of American) Military

Engineers. Most people join that early. Part of

the pressure comes from their bosses; they feel

it's a good association. It has a good purpose. It

isn't quite in the same category of professionalism

as the civil engineers or the professional engineers

arer because the qualifications for membership in the

Society of American Military Engineers aren't as

strict. You don't have to have the professional background that you have to have for the others.

Hoy:

Clarke:

Hoy:

They still have annual meetings?

Yes, and they have a substantial membership of

around 25,000. They have an annual meeting next week

in San Francisco. I'm going out to it.

William McMurren is on the Public Works Historical Society's Board of Trustees. We're also meeting

71
here I and he% going two places -- he% coming here

and then he% going back to San Francisco to attend

that.

Clarke: Yes. Bill is a wonderful chap. I've known him

for quite a few years.

Hoy: 1 What part of,the armed services was he in?

Clarke: I don't know that he ever was. I'm sure he

served in World War II, or I think he did. But you

see, he% been the president of the Morrison-Knudsen

Companyf and it does a lot of work for the military.

Of course, it was the lead outfit in all that construction work in Vietnam.

Hoy: Then it isn't restricted to someone in the

military?

Clarke: No 0 You see, the purpose of the society, SAME,

is to try to encourage an awareness of military

problems of building and to bring everyone who is

interested in it -- either from the military side

or the builders or the engineers or the lawyers

outside -- into association. So if there is an

, emergency, again you know with whom you're dealing,

and you can get things done.

Not only because of the military engineers

society, but over the years of assocation with a lot

72
of these people, I used to say that as chief of

engineers I felt very comfortable about an emergency

that might arise someplace in the world. 1 knew I

could pick up a telephone, and there were at least

half a dozen outfits I could call -- where I knew

the chairman of the board or the president by his

first name -- and say, "I want you to go to Funa Futi

and start building an airfield." And they would go;

they wouldn't even say, "How much are you going to

pay me/' or anything. They'd start, and then we

would settle later. The capability was there to do

it. It's a wonderful resource in the country, at

least from the engineering point of view, to have

companies like that. Well, the military engineers

society fosters that kinds of a relationship -- a

faith in each other, and trust.

The military builders (both the Army Corps and

the Navy)8 I think, enjoy the highest reputation among

the private engineering and building community -- the

highest reputation for integrity and fairness and

equity in dealing with people -- of any group in the

country. And part of it is in understanding each

other. They say we're hard and firm, but we're fair;

we pay for what people do. All the professional

societies foster this kind of a relationship.

73
The Society of American Military Engineers is a

little more narrowly focused for that purpose.

aoining societies just for the purpose of having it

on your record doesn't really do much good. It's

getting around meeting the people.

Hoy: I guess I was wondering if maybe you were .

encouraged to do this in your training, for instance

at West Point, or later on. As student historians.

we were very much encouraged along these lines8 to

pick out one group that might be of interest. If you

assume that one day you might be "among the ranks,"

it would be good to share ideas. As you say, it is

not so much the programs as just meeting with others

who share similar attitudes.

Clarke: I don't think it came out of our West Point

training. I think it came out of our early training

after West Point, where we were encouraged to start

joining. The first encouragement always came from

the military engineers side. To join the (American

Society of) Civil Engineers, you have to have a

background of five years or more of professional work

before it will admit you to membership.

In my own case, when we start talking about the

early days, of course, World War II came along. No

one was joining anything at that time. Then I found

74
myself in the Manhattan Project after World War II.

It really wasn‘t until I came back from Pakistan in

1959 that it came home to me that I should join some

of these groups.

Hoy: I guess APWA (American Public Works Association)

is more like the Society of Military Engineers.

Clarke: Yes( APWA in a sense is. It% got a -- I don't .

mean to say a narrow focus, but it does focus on the

municipal problems pretty much.

Hay : And it likes to bring in all kinds of people.

Clarke: RighL And they don't have to be professionals

in the sense of a professional engineer. They have

to have an interest in solving the problems of the

public entities.

But I can't trace that back to West Point, no.

I think the only advice they gave us was what kind of

insurance to buy.

HY0 : Is that right?

One other thing, before we start actually talking

about your career. The last time, we talked about the

stereotype of the military organization or structure.

I think there is also a stereotype of the military

mane One of the things that people say about you,

whether you know it or not, is that somehow you don't

fit what most people think is that stereotype.

75
1Maybe the whole stereotype is inaccurate, but :

Clarke: I don‘t think I was any more not a stereotype

Hay:

Clarke: I don't know what the military mind is, as

somehow, I think that% true, that somehow your .

perspective seems broader. How do you account for

that? You went to West Point and spent your whole

career in the Army, and yet . .. .

than other individuals that I think of. You know,

it's interesting. When I came to Washington and

became a commissioner and we began to meet a new

group of peoplei my wife was always struck by the

people who said, "Your husband is not a typical . military man." Her answer was the question "What is

a typical military man?"

Maybe that's it.

compared to other minds. I find in my associations

with the military and my associations with people

outside that I don't really see much difference. I

guess the one thing in a military organization as

compared to. a civilian organization that I've seen is

that, generally, the lines of authority are much

clearer. ,

76
7

I worked for General (Brehon B.) Somervell

during World War II. He was a fanatic on management.

But he boiled management down to very simple principles. He said, "It% very easy. Every man should

know for whom he works and who works for him." There

are a lot of organizations in the world where the

individual doesn't know who his boss is* or he may

have multiple bosses. He doesn't know for certain

whether the people under him really work for him, or.

maybe their allegiance is divided. The old biblical

statement "no man .can serve two masters“ is a good

management principle.

I don't think this is an attribute of the military mindr but I think most military people, when they

think about organizing something, do try to establish

fairly clear lines of authority and responsibility.

It makes it easier to operate. Then when they pick up

7 General Brehon B. Somervell (1892 - 1955).

U.S. Military Academy, 19140 Corps of Engineers.

Punitive Expedition, Mexico, 1916. Engineer Construction Staff, 89th Division, American Expeditionary Force, 1917 - 19. President, Mississippi River

Commission, 1930 - 31. Assistant District Engineer,

Memphis, 1933. District Engineer, Ocala Engineer

District, Florida, 1935 - 36. Works Project Administrator, New York City, 1936 - 40. Director, Construction Division, Quartermaster Corps, 1940 - 41.

War Department General Staff, 1941 - 42. Commanding

General, U.S. Army Service Forces, 1942 - 46.

Retired, 1946.

77
Hoy: The thing that comes to my mind, I guess, is

the phone and they tell someone to do something, the

man says, "Yes, that's my boss. I'll do what he

wants." I think the concept of a military mind is 1

that of a man who reacts sort of intuitively to a

situation and goes ahead and tells someone to do

something without considering all the consequences.

But I don't know that the military is any worse for

that.

som,eone whose interests and focus are narrower,

perhaps, because his training has been fairly controlled and regimented. I know I've talked to you

about your daughter's interest in music and history,

and you come across as having interests like that. I

don't know why I should think that when there are a

lot of people not in the military whose perception is

quite narrow.

Clarke: There are a lot of people who are not in the

military whose only objective is to make money, one

way or another.

Hoy: Certainly.

Clarke: You know, thinking about this, I guess I was

fortunate, in some of what I would call my relatively

early assignments. They were fairly broad. I worked
for a couple of bosses early in my career who sort

of turned me loose to do things. I used to make the

observation that I had more authority as a lieutenant

colonel in World War II than I‘ve ever had since, &o

do things and get things accomplished. P suddenly

found myself with a-really expanded horizon of activities in World War II, just by circumstances, and a

boss who said to go do whatever had to be done. It

took me into some very broad fields. Then when I went

with the Manhattan Project, suddenly I found that in

addition to the rather narrow administration of a

contract, I was in essence the mayor of a town of ’

25,000 people, with all the problems that went with a

town. It left an impression on me.

Hoy: We remarked yesterday that we thought your career

seemed different from others.

Clarke: . It's not what you think of as the typical career

in the Army. I used to say I was the renegade in the

Corps in that I'm one of the few officers who never

served in civil works. The pattern of my career was

such that I never got involved. My work with .

districts was always overseas, in Okinawa or Pakistan.

And in lieu of the normal step that one might have

taken of becoming a division engineer, they put me in

the District of Columbia as commissioner there.

79
Of course, the responsibilities there were for the

public works aspects of the District, but I was

also involved in all the activities of the city --

e ducation, welfare, hospitals, police force, and

everything else.

Hoy: , That might explain some of what I was trying to

get at by my question.

Clarke: 1 If you tried to probe for where it started, I

think it was probably in the assignment I had in the

latter part of World War II. And the early work with

8

the Manhattan District was a pretty broad experience.

I [think I got that type of experience much earlier I

than my contemporaries might have gotten it. They

might have been more narrowly focused into a purely

military assignment or a purely engineering assignment.

The truth of the matter is that after about the first

couple of years, you become more an engineer-administrator than a pure engineer. I'd hate to think of the

last time I picked up a slide rule and tried to design

something specifically.

I

I 8o Manhattan Engineer District. Established in

1942, this was the organization that constructed the

first atomic bomb. It was under the Office of

Scientific Research and Development.

80
Hoy: And all that drafting that you liked in the

beginning?

Clarke.: Yes* I don't think I've really touched a

drafting board, except for some home work projects,

in thirty-five years. Probably since World War II.

I worked on some design work then.

Curiously, we were discussing the. design of a

concrete tank last night in the office. I said, "Well

I could design that." Then one of these young kids

came along and saidt *'You forgot all about these

things that have to be incorporated/' I said, "No, I

take it back. I couldn't design that."

When I applied for a professional license in the

District (of Columbia) -- ironically I had a large

voice in appointing members to the board that examined

people. In essence, I appointed the people to it. I

went before them to get mY professional license, and

they only asked one question. They said8 "What would

you do if you went into practice tomorrow?" My answer

was, "I would go out and hire some brillant young

engineers fresh out of school to work for me." That

carries out a little bit of philosophy I have about

engineers in general. One of the attributes of a good

engineer is that he knows when he's in over his head

and when to 'call for help or more expert assistance

81
on whatever problem he has. Too often people get

caught with a problem, then try to struggle with it

themselves, and it just grows worse and worse before

they finally call for help. There are a lot of

instances of that, not only in the Corps but out in

the rest of the U.S.

Hoy: Do you want to tell us a little more about what

you did during World War II when you were with the

9

Army Service Forces?

Clarke: I had been overseas with a construction regiment

-- I had one of the batallions of it. We put an

airfield in on Ascension Island. This was back when

Rommel was pushing toward Cairo, and there was great

concern that we would lose northern Africa to the

Germans. In addition to Ascension Island, which was

a ferry field for light planes going primarily to the

Middle East, they started building a new string of

airfields across Africa. As a result of getting that

.

Job -- our regiment was to do it -- I was sent back to

the U.S. to pick up the plans for the fields.

9 The U.S. Army Service Forces, formerly the

Services of Supply, was the organization responsible

for all War Department technical and logistical

support bureaus during World War II.

82
I got back here and picked up all the plans,

and I was about to get on the airplane to go back to

Ascension and then on to Africa, and I got paged at

the airport. They told me to go back to the office.

They were looking for a major of engineers, which I

wast who had had a course at Leavenworth and who had

been overseas. I was the only man in the Army that

fitted that description. 1 went to work for what was

called the planning division of Army Service Forces,

under General Somervell. Except between me and

General Somervell, there were several echelons of

people.

I went into a small planning office. our

responsibility was to work on the plans to be sure

that all of the operations overseas were adequately

supported. We only had a small office; we only had

three people in it when I first started.

Hoy: That isn't very many people.

Clarke: But there were lots of other people in the

operating office who were pushing supplies. Ours was

a monitoring job and a planning job. After we started

into the program and got going, it was evident that

what you call the routine things -- the supply of food,

to some extent the supply of ammunition, procurement

of stand equipment -- was pretty well systematized.

83
The ~things that were causing problems were the

I

requirements of the Army over and above the normal

requirements.

,The tybe of thing that I was involved in was

trying to do the planning for long-range communications, airfield construction, port construction, I

road requirements, and hospital construction. Not

exclusively that, but our emphasis was on trying to

take:care of things that seemed to be unusual. When

I say we had a three-man office, at that time the

Army iwas organized into the-technical services -- the ,

engineers, the ordnanceI quartermaster, medics,

chemical, and all the others. Each of those had a

planning outfit, and our job was to coordinate their

planning.

The first operation we had was to be sure that

the amphibious assault on north Africa went off on

schedule and that they had the things that they

requibed. We worked with General (George S&Patton%

stafflin getting ready for that. And then, unusual

requirements began to develop. Finally we ,found ourselves in a funny position. The so-called strategic

planners in the rest of the Army staff, looking toward

the long range future, were inclined to draw "goose

eggsH 'and arrows on maps and say, "We'll go here."

84
It was our job to try to estimate what would be

required of an unusual nature to allow them to go

from here to here. Then we would begin to talk to

them about the size of forces and which allies we

would have with us. And from that, working with the

various technical services, we‘d try to come up with

a plan of support.

Eventually this had to be translated into items

that were going to be procured. It took two years

to buy many of the items that we were speaking of.

So we started a group of scenarios, I guess you would -

call them. They weren't quite plans, but in order to

tie down what should be bought, we sponsored in our

office (which these other two chaps and myself wrote)

some scenarios for what the war would look like over

the next year or two years. It was a crystal ball

operation. But we did do this and we started into

procurement, buying tremendous quantities of things.

One thing always impressed me. We were still l

fighting in north Africa and didn't know when we were

going to get out. So we wrote a scenario that indicated we would have a tough fight in north

Africa. Based on that, we ordered a lot of things --

a lot of railroad equipment, rail itself, trucks,

hospital backup equipment, and all -- and started it

85
into procurement. Well, by the time it was delivered,

we were in France; we'd made the landing in France.

It wasn't so badf thought because practically everything that we had put under order for north Africa

applied in France. The railroad equipment was

perfectly good, the rails were, the trucks and

trailers that we had ordered became the "Red Ball

Express*' which supported Patton when he was charging

across north France. So I think our planning paid

off.

We did the same thing in the Pacific -- tried to

order things in advance. We wrote a scenario, and

the one we actually chose was one that they never

fought. We came up with an advance up the Malay

Peninsula and all the requirements to support it*

But it was useful in the other operations. So this

was one type thing that we did.

We used to get some unusual requests. We were

fighting in China, and it looked as if our forces in

China+ might break through to the coast, in which case

wanted to support General Somervell called

us into his office one day and said8 '*When those

people break through to the coast, I want to be

certain that we have food, ammunition, added transportation, and medical supplies to take care of them."

86
We didn't know where they would break through to the

coast, so we didn't know what kind of a harbor they

were going into. And we weren't sure which forces

would break through or what exactly they wanted. We

came up with three shiploads of supplies that we

loaded and got ready, and finally they ended up out

in Manila.

Hoy : Did you regret that they called you back from

the airport that day?

Clarke: I was prepared, and the outfit that I left had

a wonderful time. They went all the way across

central Africa, and finally up through north Africa,

and into England, and finally into France. 1 kept

trying to get out of that office. But every time we

turned around and looked at the office, -1 was the only

man who had ever been overseas. Finally in the late

spring of 1945, 1 had worked out that I would be

transferred to the Pacific. I had been working on a

program to move supplies from Europe to the Pacific

for the invasion of Japan. I had worked very hard on

it, and I had been over to Europe and had been out to

the Pacific coordinating all of this. (Thank God the

war endedfl because the system that we had developed

wasn't very good.) About the time I was scheduled to

go out to the Pacific -- in fact the chap had come
Hoy:

Clarke:

Hoy:

Clarke:

back from the Pacific who was going to take my job

-- they dropped the first atom bomb. That ended

that trip.

So as far as the planning went, it all wasn't

actually done from your office. From what you were

saying, you made a number of trips.

When you talk about planning and all, you've got

a lot of coordinating to do.

I know. That's why I was wondering how it was

structured.

Well, this involved talking to all the people on

this side of the ocean who were involved in what could

you produce, and how fast could you produce it, and

how many ships do you have to move things in. And

talking to the people on the other end -- what do you

wantf what do you think the future holds for you. One

of the problems the overseas staffs had was that they

obviously were very very busy with the day-to-day

0pFrations. Long range to them would be thirty days

orq at the most, sixty days. Very understandable. On

the other hand, if you're talking about supporting

people from the industrial base back here in the U.S.,

it takes two years to get the things produced, get the

plants in operation, get the priorities and all. We

were trying to cover that longer range problem.

88
There were other people in the U.S. who were very

concerned about the thirty-day and sixty-day needs

of these people. But if it had not been planned for

and had not been produced, it wasn't in the system.

You know, although the United States was a

tremendously wealthy country and had tremendous

resources, it could not produce everything that

everyone wanted. So you got into priorities. Our

job was like all jobs; I guess, we were sort of the

middle man between the industrial base back here and

the needs of the forces overseas. I did make I don't

know how many trips to Europe to talk to the people

there -- three or four. I made one trip at one time,

very early, all the way from South America, Africa,

ending up in China, to talk to the people about their

requirements. And I came back with nothing very firm,

but ideas that they had picked up. 1 went out to the

Pacific to talk to those people, and I had to talk to 

all the port people. When I say "1,' had to, our

staff did it.

Somervell gave me another job. He sort of pulled

me off for a matter of about four or five months.

When it was.evident that we were going to win the war,

quite a bit before the end of it, he said, "I want to

work out a plan so that the day the war ends we've

89
shipped,everything overseas, we've emptied our depots,

all our ships are en route, all our trained soldiers

are over there." What he was talking about was

utopia. He wanted to end up precisely with the right

amount of men and supplies. He said, "You go back

and figure out how to do it." In essence that's what

he said. So he gave me two young men, recent graduates of the Harvard Business School. And we sat down

and tried to work out this balance. And it led into

some unusual areas.

For some reason or other, we got into the medical

system and the requirements for medical facilities.

One of the first things we tackled was the hospital

ship program. We looked at the requirements on that

and the numbers that were being built, and then tried

to match that up against expected casualities, duration of stay, severity of wounds, and where the

various stops should be. We worked very closely with

the Surgeon-General, who had a wonderfulstatistical

setup. Our little group concluded that if we started

air evacuation we could save an awful lot of doctors,

nurses, and ships. So we came up with a recommendation to stop the hospital ship program. Three kids

telling all these people that they ought to stop it.

Well, we went around and around on it, and we finally

90
ended UP in front of General Somervell with all the

other participants urging continuation. Somervell l

finally bought it and said, "Okay, we'll stop building

hospital ships." And we went to air evacuation of

patients. Fortunately, I don't think we ever lost a

planeload of patients bringing them back to the United

States.

That led us into how many general hospital beds

we needed in the United States. We recommended a

considerable reduction in the numbers. It was very

difficult to tie down all the factors. We had wonderful statistics on World War I -- how many people died

per woundt what they died of, and all that. But it

was hard to evaluate the medical advances since that

time and how severe the war was going to be. With

different actions you get different casualty rates.

I guess we gambled, and we were lucky. We cut back a

tremendous number of hospitals to be built here in

the United States.

We got into how many specialists of various

types should be trained to keep a balanced flow of replacements going to Europe. One thing that intrigued

meti when I got into this and was working with people

-- they said, "You ought to go over to the Air Force

and talk to a man up in the Air Force who has worked

91
Spray: You mentioned General Somervell and something he

out a very fine scheme of replacement of aircraft

engines, supply of ammunition, pilot replacements# to

fit the Air Force needs." So I did. I went up and

talked to him. It was Robert McNamara, who was a

lieutenant colonel in the Air Force at that time

and was doing the planning. I think he had a simpler

problem than the one we were trying to deal with.

But this is the type of thing we did.

Now I it goes back to the point that you raised

earlier. I think I got into some awfully broad areas

in the latter part of the war. And? as I said, I was

anticipating going to the Philippines and the invasion

of Japan. That all came to a quick halt August 8th,

1945 0 Instead I found myself shortly thereafter

z headed into the Manhattan Project.

had said about management. What are some of your

other impressions of him?

Clarke: He was a very dynamic, brilliant man with a

wonderful ability to see the 9 '*big picture." General

(George C.) Marshall depended on him very very heavily

for advice as to the capabilities of the United States

'to undertake certain operations. Somervell had under

him the training of many people: the whole logistic

support of the Army and essentially most of the Air

92
Hoy:

Clarke:

Hoy: You went to Hanford after the bomb was dropped?

Clarke: Yes. Most of the people in uniform who had been

Force, which was then part of the Army. I didn't

get to see him very much. He was way up the line.

If I saw him five times in two and a half years, I

guess that was a lot. The man who became my immediate boss and was finally the intermediary between me

and Somervell, I saw him practically daily. He is

still alive, .he% in town here.

Who is it?

His name is Roy Lutes. He has to be in his

eighties now. He had his fourth wife -- three of

them have died. He% the father of a classmate of

mine from West Point. He was a wonderful man with a

very broad perspective of what had to be done to win

the war.

So I can't say that Ifought the war, in a

sense. I was off building one airfield then I was

back in the staff job.

After August 1945?

associated with building the atomic bomb were reserve

officers. Not entirely, but most of them were. They

were somewhat specialized, but again not entirely.

When the war was over, they all wanted out. So

General (Leslie R l 1 Groves was looking around for a

93
whole replacement team to replace the large number ,

of people who were leaving. That% the group that

I got into.

Hoy: i There were two years there, and you were in

Hanford. Then you were in Albuquerque?

Clarke:' Well, I went to Hanford in the fall of 1945 and

left there early in the fall of 1947. Then I went to

Albuquerque and stayed there two years. Then from

there to Okinawa.

Spray: Was there construction still going on at Hanford

when you were there -- building the town and all?

Clarke: Not the major construction. Practically all of

that had been completed.' We were still making adjustments in the town. Actually, we were going

through a period when I arrived there where the number

of people employed in the plant was dropping. They

had gotten it into operation, and they felt more

confident in their ability to operate it. So they

were dropping. Some of the construction people were

still there. During the first year or so that I was

at Hanfordf the town suffered a reduction. Then we

started the planning and the work of expanding

Hanford. That happened during the second year I was

there. Then we began to build up again, and we

started in again to add to the town. When I left

94
Spray:

there, there was a fairly substantial amount of

construction underway on the replacement and the

expansion of Hanford. The last year I was at

Hanford I worked for the Atomic Energy Commission.

I was the last military man to be there.

How was that? What was the relation between the

Corps then and the commission?

I was just on loan to the Atomic Energy Commission for a year. I was still paid by the Army.

The Atomic Energy Commission was kind enough to offer

me a job if I'd get out of the Army and go to work

for it. I decided not to, because primarily I was

not a nuclear sci.entist; I was what I would now call

an engineer-administrator. Although I had some

familiarity with all the problems of Hanford and more

than a layman's knowledge of the physics involved in

it, I still was not an atomic physicist. I felt if

I were going to be an engineer-administrator, I'd

better go back to the Army, where I'd be used more in

that capacity.

I was curious how people that were still there,

who had worked on the atomic bomb felt (many of them

I guess didn't always know what they were working on).

You mentioned that they felt more confident about what

they were doing. I would think there would have been

95
a different feeling before and after August 1945,

in the sense of their work having been somewhat

successful, whatever part they played.

Clarke: Well, you're right in the beginning. The great

majority of people who worked at Hanford did not know

what they were working on -- up until the bomb was

dropped. There were a select few, of course, in the

top that had to know. But you must remember that

Hanford was a plant that was built in about two years

from some laboratory work on some microscopic bits of

material. They did not build a pilot plant; they

went into full production on a tremendous scale. < And

they weren't quite sure what all the problems would

be in operating that plant. Even when I got there,

i we were still finding problems and then beginning to

find solutions to the operation of the plant. By the

'time I got there, they had been in production for

about a year, and most of these problems were being

resolved. They didn't need all the people that they

had had originally.

The DuPont Company, which was the operator of the

plant (and the manager for the construction, for that

matter), because they were pushing into a new field,

had staffed that plant very very amply -- as a matter

o f prudence. We used to say they had gone in there

96
three deep in management, and as soon as they got

the plant in operation (and this wasn't exactly

true), they pulled out one team and left two teams

there. Wellr there were about two teams there when

I got there. They started reducing that down to one.

Then while I was there, we switched over from DuPont

running it to General Electric running the plant.

Most of the people who were there stayed and worked

for General Electric.

They were having problems in the dissolving of

the material as it came out of the piles; there were

gases coming out. They were learning about the

effects of those gases on local animal life. They

were out taking measurements and all. Eventually they

came up with a procedure that was relatively safe.

And there were things happening in the reactors themselves that were causing them concern. The graphite

was growing. It was a very interesting thing to me,

and again, I never understood all the physics of it.

Graphite has a very nice rectangular or cubical

structure. It is as if you piled a lot of things up

and they're all in perfect order in each dimension.

What happened when the graphite atoms were hit by the

neutrons was that those atoms were knocked out of

place. The best simile that I could think of, one we

97
usedJ was that it was like putting sand in between

the cards of a deck, and it grows. This was happening, and they were working on trying to resolve that.

We were trying to reduce our utility costs and

to simplify our water setup. We had two plants, that

had been built as a precaution, which were no longer

needed because of changes in the process. We were

dismantling those. But about that time, they decided

to expand the program. So we went in and statted

planning additional reactors. They were working on a

new separation process. Not only there but at the

University of California at Berkeley, and (the

University of) Chicago was working on it. We had

started planning a new process. So, although the

people certainly felt very proud of what they had

done and were continually acquiring confidence, there

was enough challenge in the new work that I think

they were able to retain a very fine spirit.

Hoy: I'll bet General Groves was one that felt a lot

more confident.

Clarke: I don't know whether he felt confident, but he

always expressed confidence -- that it was going to

be done. He was a hard taskmaster. A brilliant man.

Hoy: Did you ever meet him, either there or in

Albuquerque?

98
Clarke: Oh, I met him quite a few times. The reason I

went to Albuquerque was General Groves. He had

already picked his group to go into the Manhattan

Project. When 1 was closing out my activities at

Hanford, I was in Washington for a trip; and I was

under orders to report to a staff job at Washington.

I was wandering through the halls of the Pentagonr

and he saw me and said, "What are you doing here?" .

I said, "Well, I'm here getting lined up for my next

.

lob f’ 0 He said, "Nobody told me you were leaving."

So he stopped that "next" job. The next thing I knew

I was sent to Albuquerque for the special weapons

project, which was also under his command. I went out

there to become the base executive or chief of staff

-- whatever you want to call the job.

Hoy: Was that basically a research and development

program?

Clarke: At Albuquerque? We had several missions. Our

principal mission was to train military teams of the

three services -- Army, Navy, and Air Force -- in the

assembly of atomic weapons. Itwas a very complex

assembly procedure in those days. Our job was to

train teams to assemble the limited number of weapons

that we had at that time. Our second job was to work

with the people who delivered the weapons, the Air

99
Force and the Navy, on their systems, and to try to

adapt our assembly procedures to their delivery

procedures. Next, we were to work with the Atomic

Energy Commission to improve the weapons -- to reduce

the size and make them more deliverable and simpler,

to get away from this horrible electronic assembly

procedure that we had (getting it down to plugging

something in so it was either go or no go). Then we

began to work with other delivery systems -- air

delivery, missiles. And the Army had that cannon that

fired an atomic shell. (I don't know whether they

still have it or not.) We worked on the development

of that. Part of our people were at Los Alamos, and

part were'working with the scientists in the laboratory at Albuquerque -- working estientially for the

Atomic Energy Commission. I don't know that you could

set priorities, but our greatest effort went into the

training of assembly teams. We were building a new

base at the time to support all this, to provide the

facilities.

Hoy: How large was it, if one were to compare it to

the plant at Hanford?

Clarke: Much smaller. I think our total population at

Sandia Base, including even ,the contractor people who

100
were working there, was in the range of 3,000 or 4,000

. people.

Hoy: I see. And the other, you said, was about'

25,000.

Clarke: About 25,000. Now Hanford at one time had had,

purely for construction, I 55,000 construction workers

building it.

Hoy: What happened to Hanford when all these people

started leaving it?

Clarke: The construction camp that they had lived in was

a temporary type camp. We dismantled it and sold it.

It was in an area where we did not want people living

anyway. It was close to the reactors. And while the

construction workers were living in this construction

camp, they were building the town in addition to the

plants. The permanent people went into the town, and

the construction workers went off on some other jobs.

Going back to Hanford, there were 165,000 construction

workers who had worked on that project, out in the

middle of the desert. The total cost of Hanford was

about $300 million, which in today's work is peanuts.

Spray: Both of these places were pretty isolated,

weren't they?

Clarke: Well, Hanford more so than Albuquerque.

Albuquerquet for the state of New Mexico, was a good

101
sized town. We were right on the outskirts of

Albuquerque.

Spray: Oh, it was very near Albuquerque, then.

Clarke: As a matter of fact, our plant there was on the

site of the old municipal airport. So it was fairly

close to town. Hanford was remote, but not really

too isolated. There were two small towns within ten

miles of the main town of Hanford reservation. Then

you could drive forty miles to Walla Walla eighty

miles to Spokane, a couple hundred miles to Seattle,

and 1 guess about sixty miles to Yakima. I don't know

whether you‘d call that isolated or not. It was out

in the country. They picked it because it was generally an area of low population.

Spray: You talked about some gases escaping and their

effects on the animals. I just wondered about the

effects on people and if you ever had any problems in

the nearby towns. Of course, during the war, I'm sure

not as much as perhaps after, when there wasn't a war

effort going on. l

Clarke: Oh, no. Their production during the war . . .

well I I guess they were operating the reactors at what

was their peak level. Now compared to things that

have been built since, these were very small. We had

one interesting experience. Part of the radiological

1 102
monitoring that we did was to keep our own sheep

around the area and monitor what happened to them.

The real concern was radioactive iodine; it would

get redeposited on the ground and into the foliage.

The animals would eat it, and it would get in their

thyroid. It was a convenient way to measure how

much they were getting. Then we started trying to

find out how widespread the radiation was. We went

over to Missoula, Montana, which was about 200 miles,

and started puttLng counters against the thyroid of

the cattle over there. We were getting very high

readings. That's when we decided to change our

separation procedures.

We were very concerned not only about the

animals, but we were concerned about the water going

through the plant, the radioactivity in it, the

effects of 'it on fish life. We had an active monitoring campaign on the fish ip the river. We were

concerned about the propagation of salmon. We had a

very active contract with the University of

Washington; a Dr. Donaldson, in particular, set up

a monitoring program on salmon, to be certain we

didn't ruin the salmon industry of the Northwest.

The people who set up that program were very

thorough and were very competent people. When I

103
was there, we were beginning to get the information

I back on these things and to modify some of our procedures. NOW~ of course, this is the type of thing

that the Environmental Protection Agency and the

Nuclear Regulatory Commission are very concerned about

-- the escape of the least amount of radioactivity.

We didn't know much at that time. Some of our fish

monitors would go downstream in the Columbia, catch

a fish, bring it back to the laboratory, and lay it

on a piece of photographic paper; it would take its

own picture. You could see the scales and the bones.

That has all changed.

One of the aspects of that, of course, was that

we had our own town. It was a government-owned town,

1 government run, and not a very good situation. It was

b expensive to run; people were unhappy about not having

, much of a voice in their government, although we had a

~ council. One of our efforts was continually to move

, toward making it an open town where the people owned

their own houses, elected their own mayors or councilmen, and ran their school system. We had it worked

out with the state of Washington to take care of the

school system. And while I was there, we began

1 planning to turn over the town. It took about eight

104
years before it was all completed. Now the city of

Richland is just like any other city, except there

is a uniformity to the old houses because of the way

they were built. But they're all privately owned.

The government got out of the business of running the

town -- which is not a good business for the government to be in.

EIoy : One of the things that I was interested in --

how did you get your assignments to each place? You

mentioned you were back in Washington trying to work

out an assignment.

Clarke: Well, I never quite understood myself how I ever

got an assignment.

Hay: 1 guess I thought you were in one place and y o u 

got a letter that said move next month to . . .

Clarke: I never did really seek an assignment. I was

always told that there was some group up there that

worked out where you wanted to go. Every year, they

used to ask us to put in a preference sheet. I would

file the preference sheets routinely. I don't think

I ever got what I asked for. Assignments come about

in funny ways. After World War II, I know how I got

105
10

into the Manhattan Project. General, Groves set up

his criteria to bring people into the Manhattan

Project. His criteria boiled down to 100 officers

;that he would consider -- in his first g-o-around, 1

 anyway. He wanted them generally from West Point,

 although not exclusively so, graduating in a time

period from 1930 to 1940; and he wanted only people

~ that had been in the top ten academically. So that

 gave him 100 people. I fitted his criteria, and that

is what got me into the Manhattan Project.

The assignment that I was going to go to after

'leaving Hanford came because of a man with whom I had

worked in World War II, Major General Daniel Note.

He had asked for me to come .work for office. That

put me in that job, and then Groves got me back out

,,to Albuquerque.

Hoy: Were you beginning to think that you'd like to

,,do something that most of the other people were doing?

10 LTG Leslie R. Groves (1896 - 1970). U.S.

'Military Academy, 1918. Corps of Engineers.

,Nicarauguan Canal Survey, 1929 - 31. Chief, OCE

ISupply Division, 1934 - 35.

bchool, 1936.

Command and General Staff

Army War College, 1939. Deputy Chief,

Construction Division, Quartermaster Corps and Office

of the Chief of Engineers, 1942. Commanding General,

Manhattan Project, 1942 - 46. Chief, Armed Forces

Special Weapons Project, 1947 - 48. Retired, 1948.
Clarke: Well, I was continually being requested by West

Point to go back to teach. They wanted me to go back

and teach physics or mathematics, and I was perfectly

willing to go. But I never could get released from

the Manhattan Project. And about the time they were

ready to release me, after I had been in Albuquerque

for two years, it was obvious that I should go overseas* I had not been overseas in a long time. First

they were going to send me to Guam to command a battalion, but my boss at Albuquerque wouldn't release

me right at that time. That got deferred; and the

next time a request came along, it was to go to

Okinawa. I got shipped' to Okinawa in the fall of

1949, and I spent two and a half years in Okinawa.

From there I was ordered back to school. And

when I left school, because of my atomic background

and because of a couple of people in Washington who

knew me8 I got into the atomic R&D desk in Washington

-- I was requested for that. Because of my having

worked for somebody during the war who happened to be

in this large office of which my office was a small

Party I got moved8 at his request, to go up and work

in another job. Then I went to the War College. I.

was ordered to go to the (Army) War College in Carlisle

107
(-.I, but my boss wouldn't let me go that year. So

~I’ the next year I went to the National War College.

,, Again it was obvious that I should go overseas.

l

~, I had been talking to the career people in the chief's

office, and they kept telling me while I was in school

I that year (this was back in 1956-57) where I was going

 to go. First they told me I was going to go to

l Hawaii. And my wife and I rushed out and registered

our children in the Punaho School there; we put down

our $25 or whatever it was to get them registered.

That didn't work out. Then the people in the chief's

office told me that the man for whom I had worked in

Albuquerque was in Panama in charge of the Army, and

he had asked for me to come to Panama. They said,

"Yes, you're going to go to Panama." So I said that

was fine. Later, they said, "No, that's fallen

through because he had to fill the job before you'd

be out of school." They said, "What you need is a

troop assignment in Europe." And I said, "Fine.

That's exactly what I want." They said, '*Well, we're

going to send you over to command a group at

i Stuttgart." This was about in February.

The Army used to send someone from the Adjutant

! General's office over to the National War College.

It was on Valentine's Day I remember, in 1957.

108
This chap came over and was reading out all the

assignments. I knew.where I was going; I was going

to go to Stuttgart. He started down: Brown is going

to go to Alaska, and Chapman is going to go to the

Pentagon. And he came to Clarke, and he said,

“Pakistan." The personnel man from the Chief of Engineers was sitting next to me. I said, "Bob (Ploger),

11

what happened?" He said, "Honest, Fred. Up until

last night, you were going to go to Europe. But we

suddenly have a requirement to fill a job in Pakistan,

and your having been in Okinawa, YOU are the ideal

to go/ I didn't know much about Pakistan.

Hoy: How does your wife, with $25 down in Hawaii,

packed to go . . .

Clarke: Well, of course, she had long known that we

weren't going to Hawaii, but she did expect to go to

Europe.

11 MG Robert

tary Academy,

R. Ploger (1915 - ). U.S. Mili1939e Corps of Engineers. Commanding

Officer, 12lst Engineer Battalion, 29th Division,

1943 - 45. Omaha Beach Landings, 1944. Commanding

Officer, 354th Engineer Combat Group, 1953 - 54,

Korea. Division Engineer, New England, 1965. Commanding General, Army Engineer Command, Republic of

Vietnam, 1967 - 68. Director, Military Engineering,

Office of the Chief of Engineers, 1968 - 70. Corn--

manding General, Engineer Center and Ft. Belvoir,

1970 - 73. Retired, 1973.

109
Hoy: ,

Clarke:

.

Hay:

Clark e :

And then you came home and said Pakistan.

Wellf I thought before I went home and told her

I ought to find out a little more about Pakistan. So

I went down to the War College library and got out the

Baedeker -- which was probably dated in early 1930s --

about Karachi, where we were going. I remember this

very well. I took it home to my wife. There was a

little paragraph on Karachi. It said Karachi is a

fishing port and a seaport, then in India (in the

Baedeker)@ It talked little about the climate.

And it said one of the interesting things to do in

Karachi is to hire a camel and ride out to the well

about eleven miles outside town, where there are some

sacred crocodiles. And it said for a pittance, the

attendant will slaughter a goat and feed it to the

crocodiles. So I took it home. Anyway I we finally

went there.

When you went to Okinawa, did your wife go, and

your children? You had how many children at this

point?

Well, I had one child that was born on Okinawa.

But my wife did not come for fourteen months or so

after I arriv,ed. I got there in late 1949. My wife

was due to come in July 1950, because there was a

shortage of housing there. Of course, the Korean War

110
started in June 1950, and that pushed everything

back. She finally came in March 1951. In the

interim, I had been back to the States on a couple

of trips. I left there at the end of January 1952.

In that time, we had one child, who is now twentyfive years old.

Spray: What were the main things you did while you

were there?

Clarke: I was the executive officer for the district.

Okinawa had been sort of a neglected spot in the

Pacific, and in the summer of 1949 a typhoon went

through there and just tore the place to shreds,

ruined everything. At that time, you may recall, the

U.S. had said it was going to pull out of Korea.

Secretary (of State Dean) Acheson had said that Korea

was outside our defense perimeter. So they decided

to build Okinawa as a permanent base. We were there

as an engineer district to be in charge of the construction of all the facilities on Okinawa -- the

storage# the hospital, everything. We started that

program in the fall of 1949 with an objective of

developing perhaps $500 million worth of facilities

over a period of years. We started the planning and

got the initial contracts underway. That was my job.

111
I was the exec for the district, not the district

engineer. I was too young to be one at that time.

It was sort of a standard overseas district

assignment.

Spray: Did it change then, when the Korean War started?

Clarke: Well, we got a great bustle of activity and the

program started to move faster. We started putting

in some temporary facilities where we had planned

permanent ones. But we still did build many permanent

facilities. I guess we got more money, really, after

the Korean War started. It led us into a couple of

other activities that we might not have gotten into,

such as repairing a lot of equipment that was on

Okinawa to be delivered into Korea for there. The

Air Force, of course, was flying regular missions out

of Okinawa -- bombing missions into Korea. We were

supporting all that.

. But generally IId say the program continued on

about as they had planned with a little acceleration.

Occasionally it suffered because of other priorities.

Things that we thought were coming to Okinawa to help

us would suddenly be diverted into Korea. I'd say it

was pretty much a standard overseas district. Because of the problems of Korea and of trying to get #

equipment to do our program, we found ourselves going

112
to the Chinese mainland to get some items -- or

going to the Philippines. We wouldrPt normally

have done that. We would have gone back to the U.S.

for them. I don't know, I've seen a lot of overseas

districts since that time. It was sort of a standard

thing.

H

C larke:

H

C

oy: .

oy:

larke:

oy:

larke:

Then you were brought back to the United States.

Is that the usual practice -- you have an overseas

assignment then you come back?

Usually, yes. I came back for another school,

Armed Forces Staff College.

How beneficial was that year?

I think it was of some benefit. Again, I got to

know a few people in the other services.

We're getting the same reaction we got from

General Vogel.

You see, I had been in what essentially was a

joint command at Albuquerque -- Army, Navy, Air Force,

Marines. We had all those people there. And I had

been doing a lot of planning during World War II. 1

think the course was of more benefit to other services

than it was to Army people. And to be perfectly

honest, I felt that I could have spent the five months

to better advantage some other place. I had already

been working with a lot of people in the other

113
Hoy:

Clarke:

Hoy:

Clarke:

services and understood fairly well how they worked. s

It was pleasant. I enjoyed the lectures that we got.

They used to have us work on problems and write up

joint orders and all. This was pretty elementary,

I thought.

Does everyone go to the college?

Not necessarily. I think the reason I went

there is that I had not gone to Leavenworth for the

full course, because of the way my career had developed. Instead of going to Leavenworth, they gave

me constructive credit for going to Leavenworth. I

think that's the reason I ended up at Norfolk. They

felt this block on my card had to be punched.

You always kept coming back to this area.

Probably you've kind of made this your home, haven't

you?

Well, Washington is what I look at, really, as

a home. In my total career, I spent an awful lot of

time around Washington. I figured it out one time. \

I had two years at Belvoir, and just about three

years during the war. Then I was here five years in

the Pentagon and at the War College. Then I came

back and spent three years as a commissioner and two

years on the chief of engineers' staff. I went from

there down to Belvoir and lived at Belvoir for about

114
five years. Then I came back to McNair for three

years. Since retiring I've lived here four years.

So Pve spent more of my life in Washington than

in any other place -- or in the Washington area,

counting Belvoir. My wife and I have lived in four

different houses in the metropolitan area in that

time. I think we bought our last one, though, four

years ago. The last one in this area, anyway.

The pattern was normally overseas, a stateside

assignment -- maybe two stateside assignments -- then

back overseas again. I think this is pretty generally

what they're doing right now with people. I always

said that in my career there were some things that I

wish I had had more of, but I just never got to the

right places. One of the ways that you get to know

a lot of'people, particularly in the Army, is through

an assignment teaching at West Point. There is a

large group of teachers there who are your contemporaries, and you get to know them quite well. I

didn't get that. Leavenworth is another place where

you meet a large number of your contemporaries, and

you live very closely for about aayear. And I missed

that. The other is the Army War College, which is a

little different in its living pattern from the

National War College. The National War College is

115
Hoy:

Clarke: Well, that would not have been a career goal.

Hoy: ’ No I it would have been a choice of location, I

guess.

Yesf and I felt I could contribute at West Point

in teaching. And it would have been a pleasant

Clarke:

here in Washington. You've got people from all

services and the State Department there, and they

live dispersed over the area. So you see them

during class, but you don't see much of them after

that. Whereas at Carlisle, at the Army War College,

they live in acommunity and they get to know each

other quite well. There are advantages to it. It

goes back to the type of thing we've been discussing

of knowing people and being able to deal with them

on a first-name basis. So my career in the military,

I would say, was not what you'd think of as a

"typical career.“ 1 don't know how it got the way

it did.

Did you have, as you were going along, career

goals? You wanted to teach at West Point, you said

that.

location, a nice place to raise children.

I don't know. Back in the early 195Os, in the

office that I was in, we started trying to pick people

for what they called logistic careers. 1 volunteered

116

\
for that. It seemed that my experience and my

interest would have led me into that field -- the

administration of more than just the construction

programsr broader supply and maintenance programs and

all. But that just never seemed to work. I got back

into the engineer family when I went to Pakistan.

Then I went to Leonard Wood to the engineer training

center8 and I got picked to be commissioner in

Washington. So I got back into the engineer family

rather than the broader logistic family. And in

retrospect, Pm very happy that I did. When you talk

about having specific goals -- to say I want to jump

all these hurdles and have these types of jobs -- I

don‘t think I did. I made a rather fatuous remark,

but there was a great deal of truth to it: I never

had a job I didn't like; and with one mild exception,

I never had a boss I didn't like in the military. So

they were doing all right for me by whatever system

that they had. By the time the late 1950s came

aroundr it was obvious that some individuals in fairly

high places were keeping an eye on me and requesting

me for various jobs.

I wondered when one learns that.

But it wasn't necessarily the same individual in

all cases. People were asking for me to go to

117
different jobs. You could sense it just by the type

of jobs that were assigned.

Hoy: How useful was it when you were here for four

years in the research and development position? That

was logistics, wasn't it? 1

Clarke: Well1 I didn't spend much time in research and

development. I was only in that office five months

Hoy:

or so.

Where were you, then? We understood you were

there for about four years.

Clarke: Not in research and development, no. I was in

the same general office. I got a call from my

immediate boss, whom I had known very well, and I went

to see him. He said, "What have you been doing?" I

said, "I haven't d0ne.anything.I' And he showed me

what we used to call a "Palmergram" -- General Willie

Palmer sent these down, and he always put "P" on the

bottom of them, little 5 by 8 notes. All it said

was, "I want Clarke to be my exec. P." He said,

"What have you done?" I said, "I don't know. I

don't even know General Palmer. I've never met him."

So he said, "Well, you'd better go up and see him and

find out what he wants."

I went up to see him. I stopped at the secretary and she said to go on in. So I knocked on the

118
door8 and he said, "Damn it, never knock on the

door. If you want to see me, come on in and sit

down. When I'm ready to talk to you I will." He

was a gruff character, and under the surface the

kindest man in the world. So I sat down, .and he

looked up at me and said, "Who the hell are you?"

I said, "My name is Clarke. I understood you wanted

me to be your exec." "Oh yes. In three months the

current exec is leaving. I want you to take over

from him. Do you have any questions?" I said, "No

sir." "Fine."

I went up and sat with the current exec for a

little while, but I was still doing my other work.

Never saw Palmer in all this time. Finally the other

exec left. One of the jobs of the exec was to bring

all the people in for a staff meeting, shepherd all

these generals in and close the door, which I did.

He looked up at me again -- he hadn't seen me but ’

that once -- and he said, "Who the hell are you?" I

said, "I'm your new exec." "Oh yes. Come on in.

Gentlemen, I want you to meet Colonel Clarke, the new

exec."

We got along fine. About the third day I was

there, I did something which he didn't like, and he

called me in -- he could be rough and gruff. He went

119
up one side and down the other; and when he got all

finished, he said, "NOW if you had to do it again,

would you do it the same way that you did?" I said,

"Sir, with the knowledge that I had, I'd do it exactly the same way that I did it." He said, "That's

fine." We never had a problem after that. He was

absolutely wonderful. I enjoyed working for him. He

died about two years ago. He was a wonderful organizer. He was running the total logistics staff of

the Army.

Hoy: How long did you work. for him?

Clarke: I worked for him about a year. Then I went off

to that Harvard course to which he helped send me.

It was fine. I had told him when I went, "I've got

an assistant out here who is perfectly capable of

doing what you want. There is no point in putting me

back in this job." He agreed. So when I came back

from the course, they put me in charge of the mobilization branch of the production division. It was the

outfit that was concerned with all the industrial

production plants that the Army owned, which had been

closed down after World War II and the Korean War.

We were trying to keep them in a standby status so

that they could be opened up. I went in that for

about two months or so. I guess I've missed the

120 l
order of things. I did go down first to what was

called the construction management branch, which

was putting together the program on construction.

At that time we were putting in the NIKE sites, and

we had a big program in Europe. I spent my time

trying to get the program organized, preparing the

budget, and going in front of Congress to justify.

the budget. 1 did that for awhile, then I got called

over to the production division. I worked there ’

about a year, and enjoyed it, although it was a

little out of my line. During that time, I moved

into trying to get the missile production facilities '

budgeted and on line.

By that time Palmer had left, and another general, Carter B. McGruder, was in there. I had worked

for him before. He called me up to his office. I

was what was called a "special assistant." I had my

own little office. He said, "You can work on whatever problems you think are important, and come in

and tell me periodically what you think I should do."

That was what I did. I'd probe around in areas, then

maybe once a month or so I'd go in and say, "Here's

something I think you should be doing." And he

allowed me to sit in on all the meetings that were

going on. It gave me a . pretty broad view of what he

121
,

was doing. So in that four years that you have

!therefi I had a variety of tasks. I was going around

with the reputation of a man who couldn't hold a

'job.

Hoy: I guess we answered the question we began with,

about your different career and your broader

perspective.

Clarke: When I look at other of my'contemporaries,

people like Jim (James B.) Lampert (who incidentally

someday you should talk to, who is now vice president

of MIT)f when I look at him, or 1 look at people like

"Dodd (A. D.) Starbird -- these are rough contemporaries of mine -- the broad assignments that they had.

Andt of course, Andy (Andrew J.) Goodpaster is another

'who went through a "non-typical" career and eventually

12

mended up commanding all the forces in Europe. I

think among engineers there are more people who have

12 General Andrew J. Goodpaster (1915 - ).

U.S. Military Academy, 19390 Corps of Engineers.

Commanding Officer, 48th Engineer Battalion, Italy,

1943 - 44. Ph.D., Princeton University, 1950.

District Engineer, San Francisco, 1954. Commanding

General, 8th Infantry Division, 1961 - 62. Special

Assistant to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff,

1962. Commandant, National War College, 1967 - 68.

bupreme Allied Commander, Europe, 1969 - 74.

Retired, 1974. Superintendent, U.S. Military Academy,

1977 - present.

122
non-typical careers. A good question to which I

don't know the answer is: why do more engineers get

into these non-typical careers? They're not that

much more brilliant, but it% something in the way

their career patterns develop that they get a little

broader assignments. All of a sudden, they find

themselves in entirely different career patterns than :

others in the Army might have.

You know, there was a time when the engineer

corps commanded all the top graduates of West Point

because they had a very separate promotion system,

and they could advance faster. Obviously, people

went into it. Now that separate promotion system has

pretty well disappeared. I think the Corps attracts

the top people from West Point because it offers a

varied career pattern. The chances for promotion

aren@t that much better; I just think the assignments

they get are much more interesting and broadening. I

think the word percolates down through the system.

This is what continues the practice of the top people

going into the Corps, which upsets some of the other

people in the Army. But when I was chief, I used to

try to tell them, "These engineers are available for

any assignments you want to put them on."

123
1 That may be another aspect of it. When I was

chief, I worked very hard to be sure that our capable

senior engineers were available, and we pushed to

have them utilized in very broad assignments, feeling

that it was good for the individual and it was good

for the Army. I suppose some could say we were .

selfish, that we ended up with a lot of engineers

getting promoted. At one time when I was chief of

engineers, we had thirty-nine general officers whom I

I aalled engineers. Seven of them were lieutenant

generals, and they were spread in various spots. But

it Iwasn't because they were engineers that they were

in {those spots; it was because they were good people

and they had been pushed into a variety of experiences.

So !that when some very complex jobs came along, they

weren't the least bit fazed in taking them on. We had

the man in charge of developing the ballistic missile

system; we had the man in the defense nuclear agency;

and we had people out in the logistics commands,

deputy commanders in Europe, because they were broad

people.

I feel this way when I look at some of these

youfig men who are coming along (who are not quite so

any more). Like the son of General Grovesf who

124
is now a major general and should be a lieutenant

general. He% had very broad experiences and is

very capable. I had the best of all worlds when I

was chief. 1 had a group of division engineers that

I had the greatest confidence in. They were really

fine people. I had to run to catch up with them.

Your comment is interesting about being nontypical. I didn't know I was known for that in the.

military.

Hoy: Just comments that I've heard from people that

know yout or feel they know you a little bit anyway.

But maybe they all carry around this stereotype.

Clarke: These are not military people you're talking

about then?

Hoy:

Clarke:

Hoy:

Well, William Henson, who works in our (APWA)

office. And, General Vogel. He had very nice things

to say about you. He said there are not too many

chiefs that he's had . . . he said he's told you all

this, though.

He told me once, "No chief ever came up to the

standards of the Corps.@'

That% exactly what he told us. Except one, and

he mentioned your name as that one.

125
Clarke: Well, he was kind enough to be talking to me at

time. But I think he still has the same feeling.

He said I might have a chance to do it.

Hoy:

Clarke:

Well, he told us that you measured up.

That was a good statement, I thought. I have

'Hay:

great respect for him and I like him tremendously.

I never really knew him until the latter part of my

career. I don't think I ever ran into him until then.

We really enjoyed talking to him.

Robinson: General Clarke, in your last session, you stated

that you were surprised to be assigned to Pakistan

instead of Europe in 1957. Would you describe some

of your impressions of Pakistan when you first

arrived?

Clarke: When we first arrived, it was hot. 'Of course,

Pakistan has had its problems. When we arrived in

Karachi, it was filled with refugees. 1 had been

there in World War II; I had spent about a week

there. And I remembered Karachi as not too large.

I suppose during the war it had 200,000 people. -

When we arrived in 1957, it had a million and a half

PeoPler and it was still operating on the same infrastructure that it had had in World War II. That

meant a real lack of water, no power, and a lot of

126
open sewers, particularly from the refugee camps.

The poverty had a real effect on everyone going

through there.

Robinson: Were your headquarters in Karachi?

Clarke: Our headquarters were in Karachi. Most of our

work was upcountry. But Karachi was the main seaport,

the main airfield, the point-of-entry, and the seat of

government; so this is where we had our headquarters.

Robinson: Despite the unsavory conditions there, did you

have a comfortable working environment in Karachi for

your headquarters? . Clarke: Well, I 'guess so. We had a rule in our office

that if the temperature got over 104 degrees at noon,

people could go home for the day.

Robinson: I guess that's better than Washington, when the

rule used to be ninety-two degrees.

Clarke: Well@ it actually never got to 104 degrees at

noon. By 4:00 it might, but not at noon.

Robinson: . Did you take your family with you to Karachi?

Clarke: I took all but one son, who was going to school

here in the States. Two daughters, my wife, and I

went. One daughter left at the end of the first year

and went to school elsewhere.

Robinson: What were their feelings about living in this

foreign country?

127
Clarke: Well, the first daughter got sick; and that's

why she had to leave. We sent her to Switzerland.

It's like going into any new area. There was a period

of accommodation. My wife became very interested in l

working with a local woman Pakistani doctor, in assisting her in some of her hospital work. As a matter

of fact, when we left my wife said that she would have

been willing to stay for another year. She felt she

was contributing.

But we went through several bouts of illness that

seemed to hit practically everyone in our organization.

The big problem was amoebic dysentery. So it was a

little debilitating in that respect.

Robinson: Did you have frequent social contacts with

Pakistanis? Speaking now of your family.

Clarke: Well, it% hard to say. Most of our contacts

with the Pakistanis were with the Pakistani military

and a few other governmental contacts. And we saw a

lot of Pakistanis either at American parties or at a

few Pakistani parties. Some of the military, particularly the Air Force, was very good about inviting

Americans to their parties. We enjoyed our meetings

with them. NOW~ I don't think it would be fair to

say we had really close relationships with a lot of

Pakistanis. It just wasn't that kind of a setup.
Robinson:

And, of course, we were only there for two years.

Those that we met we got along with beautifully.

They were fine people. So many of them had been

educatedJ or the military had been trained, in the

United States -- they had a United States outlook, a

western viewpoint. So it was an easy relationship.

Was the Corps work in the Trans-East District

principally focused in Pakistan during your stay

there?

Clarke: The great bulk of it was in Pakistan. We did

some work in Saudi Arabia. While I was there, we had

two projects in Saudi Arabia. We did some additional

studies in Burma, which later led to some design work.

We did do work on a university in Burma. But the big

project that we were going to start was a road from

Rangoon to Mandalay. We designed it -- actually.the

design was completed after I left -- but it was never

built, because relations between the United States and

Burma broke down about that time. And we started some

very preliminary road work in Afghanistan. But the

big job was Pakistan. Next biggest, of course, was

the Saudi Arabian program, which now has mushroomed to

either $8 billion or $16 billion, depending on what T

figure you want to take.

129
Robinson: What were the projects in Saudi Arabia that you

were involved in?

Clarke: Well, we got involved first in the Dhahran air

terminal. That was a $5 million project arranged for

by President (Dwight D.) Eisenhower, and was, I * suppose, a payment to the Saudis for the continued

use of the Dhahran air base. We built the terminal

building there. We actually started it while I was

there; it was finished after I left. It was a very

impressive building. It won the first honor award of

the American Institute of Architects as the most

beautiful building designed by an American architect.

Minoru Yamasaki was the architect on it. I"ve always

said it's because of that building that the Corps is

still in Saudi Arabia.

Robinson: In Pakistan, was it your job to support the

Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) there?

Clarke: Yes, but we worked only for the military construction program under the guidance of the advisory

group.

Robinson: Specifically, what projects were undertaken in

Pakistan while you were there? .

Clarke: Of course, the program was started before I

arrived. We had five military airfields; we had an

armored division cantonment; and we built a Corps

130
cantonment with space for a brigade, several ammunition storage areas, naval warehouse facilities,

wharfs at the main port, and a tank repair shop. I

guess those were the main things. Later we took on

the design and construction of a new runway at the

Karachi civil airport. The total program probably

was, on the military side, $140 million; and the

civil airport at Karachi, about $5 million or $6

million.

Robinson: Were there any other civil works that you were

engaged in besides the airport?

Clarke: No, that's the only other program other than

military that we tackled there. NOW~ some of the

studies that we did in Burma, and an East Pakistan

(now Bangladesh) transportation study that we started

while I was there, would have been civil in nature.

The Burma program was. Andf of course, the program

that developed in Afghanistan was civil.

Robison: Do you recall any projects, or unique conditions

on projects, that stand out in your mind?

Clarke: There were several aspects of construction that

were unique. Onet of course, was the use of manpower

for jobs where you might use a machine here in the

States. Or the use of donkey power to move dirt. It

was ironic. You could hire a man more cheaply than

131
you could a donkey, because a donkey could carry

twice as much. But, thinking about construction

theref the total work force on our jobs ran somewhere

around 19,000 people. They found when they first

went into the area that Iof course, these were

poor people -- in addition to paying them, it was

necessary to feed them a good meal during the day in

order to allow them to work the full eight-hour day

(or a nine-hour day, and I suppose in some cases a

ten-hour day). And it was probably the best meal that

they got. There were also tremendous numbers of women

in the work force doing hard labor.

And bricks. In one of our project, I guess we

used 35 million bricks. They were all handmade in

little family-type operations. The bricks were molded

and then put into a race track kiln and coalfired. We

got exceptionally good quality brick. Those that we

rejected were sold on the local market and were still

a fairly high quality brick. We still used a lot of

heavy equipment for airfield work. It was a way to

get the job done faster and to control the quality of

it.

We were, as I mentioned,, in a high earthquake

risk area. One of our jobs was at Quetta. In about

1937, they had had a very severe earthquake there.

132
It killed 35,000 people. So we were always conscious

of this problem, and it had to be taken into considerration in our designs. But I suppose the most impressive thing was the use of manpower, human labor,

rather than using heavy equipment such as you would

here in the United States. .

We had concerns about water, always. It was an

arid region. To provide water for our facilities --

particularly the big camp that we had -- was an exercise in exploration, in trying to find new sources.

Fortunately, we found them. They were in what looked

like some dry streambeds that came out of the

Himalayas.

.

And we had other interesting incidents. Relations between India and Pakistan were not the best.

On one day, I know, and Indian observation plane was

shot down not too far from one of our sites. It

caused a little excitement to our people, but generally we were there during what you would call “peaceful

times." We had two revolutions while we were there,

but they were quite and peaceful -- except for the

tanks in the streets.

Robinson: You mentioned the labor-intensive work. Did the

government encourage this? In other words, did they

133
encourage you to hire a lot of locals to do this work

rather than bring in heavy equipment to do it.

Clarke: No I that wasn't a factor. It was our contractor

-- and we had basically one prime American construction contractor. In the economics of it, it

worked,out that this was the cheapest way to do the

.

lob l There were several items that the Pakistanis

were past masters in -- brick.laying, masonry work,

plastering, and this sort of thing. I got criticized

after I came back by the staff of one of the committees in its report because the quality of our work

was so high. What they were looking at was the brick

work and the plastering. And it was first-class work.

But that% the way the Pakistanis had been building

for a thousand years. And it was the cheapest way to

do it.

We had other aspects. It was termite country,

like so many other places. We used teak, which came

from East Pakistan, for all of our door framing and

window framing -- built-in lockers of teak for the

Pakistani soldiers. And, of course, it was beautiful

worke It's something you would have to pay considerably for back here; but over there it was an inexpensive solution to the termite problem, cheaper than

metal by far. We did try to keep down the amount of

134
.

material that we imported, and we tried to use local . material as much as possible.

obinson: You mentioned that there was one prime American

contractor. Were there also construction organizations in the country that could utilize, or did all

the organizations come from the United States?

larke: Well, we subcontracted a lot of work to what

could be called Pakistani firms. Most of them were

the vestiges of British firms which had been in the

country and had maintained an organization.

tobinson: Were these British-owned for the most part?

Xarke: I'm not sure of the exact ownership. I suspect

a substantial percentage of them -- well, there was

Gammont for example, of Britain, but this was a Gammon

Pakistan corporation. I'm not sure of the exact ratio

of ownership on that. We had Gammon doing structural

worke I can't recall the name of the firm that did

the mechanical and electrical work, but it was a local .

firm. Basically, the American prime contractor did

all the heavy earth moving, managed the job and controlled it, and ordered the materials that had to be

imported; the contractor also depended on subs for

supplying labor and foremen and for managing the

particular disciplines on the job.

135
Robinson: Did the climate over there present any special

problems in terms of construction?

Clarke2 ’ Well, I suppose you could say generally it was

favorable for construction. It was hot most of the

year, although it could get cold in the winter. Up

in the northern part of the country, it could drop

below freezing. But I think the heat, more than

anythingfi bothered us. You had to be concerned that

the concrete did not dry out too rapidly in that very

arid, hot climate. Putting down asphalt in hot

weather was a problem. On hot days, the usual asphalt

technique was to start about 4:00 in the morning and

stop at lO:OO, and then start at maybe 6:00 in the.

evening and stop at 1O:OO. So we got twelve hours of

work. But in the middle part of the day, the asphalt

was just too hot to put a roller on it. 24 :

For the Americans and Europeans working in the

areat we built construction camps at practically every

one of the sites. Fairly substantial ones -- these

were built out of brick. You never saw a brick construction camp, but it was the fastest way to do it.

I have one little aside on this. The Air Force

wanted an installation there, which we built. This

. friend of mine from the Air Force came in classmate

of mine [Major General Richard T. Klocko])l all

136
prepared to move in prefabricated buildings to house

his people. I told him, "We can throw up a brick

shelter with a good roof on it cheaper and faster,

using Pakistani techniques, than we could if you

brought in prefab buildings. Because the people know

how to work with it, and we can put a large enough

force on it." And we did, and built them very

rapidly. I think from the day we put our heel on the

ground and said we'll built it here, it was sixty

days and he had his forces in there. If he had tried

9 to ship pre-fabs in, he might have been sixty days

but not by much.

Robinson: Did you build projects in both East and West

Pakistan?

Clarke: No. The only things we built were in West

Pakistan.

Robinson: I see. What was the relationship of the Corps,

particularly the program you were involved in, with

the Pakistani government. What sort of liaison did

you have with the government?

Clarke: On the matter of requirements, it was all handled .

by MAAG. The MAAG people worked out the program; we

helped them. We would lay out the program with MAAG

guidance, take it to MAAG, and they cleared all the

arrangements with the local government -- the

137
criteria, the size, this sort of thing. At the same

time, we were talking directly with the Army people

primarily, although Air Force too, about the criteria.

We had a sort of curious- situation. We were definitely trying to upgrade the standards that were

applicable to the military facilities from=what the

Pakistanis had before. But we still had to be

B

> conscious of the dollar costs. So the final result

was somewhere between what they had had and what you

might consider full American standards. These

standards were discussed between our engineering

people and MAAG, and then discussed between the engineers and the Pakistani military. But the final

approval of the general criteria, negotiation of that,

defense of the budget, was a MAAG responsiblity. Our

concern, once we had the job, was dealing with the

Pakistani government to clear the way so we could get

on with the construction. . This meant site acquisition, which the Pakistanis did. We had a great deal

l

of trouble with our materials and equipment and the

personal effects of the people that we had there --

getting them through customs. We did a lot of work

in that respect. It was up to us -- a combination of

Corps people and contractor people -- to work out

arrangements with the railroads to haul things and

138
sometimes negotiate with the Pakistani government

on sources of aggregate and haul roads. It was not

too different from the types of problems you would

have back here.

3obinson: What is your assessment of the engineering

capability of the Pakistani military?

Xarke: 1 didn't really see much of the military in

action. I did go, on one occasion, to watch some

river crossing training that they were doing. They

were doing a very good job. They had a good training

site and mostly American equipment -- not exclusively,

some British. They were well trained in that particular aspect. I never saw their engineer troops in

action. They were not working with us on our jobs.

The Pakistani soldiers that I saw were very impressive

as individuals, particularly some of Pathans who had

gotten into the Army. They were big tall rangy people

people who seemed to have unlimited endurance. From

all the reports that I had from my friends who were

in the MAAG group, the advisors, they felt the

soldiers were a pretty tough outfit. I did see some .

of their tanks moving around a bit. They seemed to

know what they were doing. Judging from the types of

things that we ran into -- for example, the mechanics

who worked for us, not the military mechanics -- the

139
capability was certainly there. The Pakistani Army

wast of course, more British than the British Army,

in its whole operation. I suppose it was pretty 4

effective. (I must say I was surprised later when

they got whipped so quickly by the Indians.)

Robinson: Did the 1958 military coup have much of an

impact on the Corps' work and MAAG?

Clark: No, none at all, really. There were two revolutions that took place in 1958 within a matter of a

couple of months. I Ayub, who took over, had been the

chief of staff of the Army. And so far as our work

was concerned, it made absolutely no difference. And

I think the same is true with respect to the MAAG I

dealings with the government. We had been dealing

before that largely with the government where the

support for it was primarily in the military. I think

the revolution just merely made a fact out of what had

been under the surface. We were dealing with the same

people, essentially. I don't know of any particular

changes in the program.

Robinson: Are there any other events in Pakistan that stand .

. out in your mind that you would like to relate? .

Clarke: Oh, I don't know. I mentioned that we were criticized for building to too high a standard. One thing

we did do; I guess water was always on my mind --

.

140
- ~ ~_ .

-- - I- - ,_-

providing water for those cantonments. We thought

we had provided a pretty ample supply. We provided

at least 150 gallons per person per day for this

particular cantonment. Later I was chided, when I

came back, by one of my Pakistani friends that I ran

into. He said, "You didn't give us enough water."

But apparently, what they were doing was using it for

irrigation at the same time.

There were a lot of humorous incidents that came

about. We built them some fairly modern mess halls

with walk-in reefer boxes. I went up to visit one of

the camps one day, after we had turned it over, and

found that the cooks, in preparing the meal that day,

had slaughtered the goats and all and were cooking

outside. They weren't using the reefers as we intended; the cooks were sleeping in the reefer boxes.

We did provide, I think, some very fine facilities for them. I suppose many of them are still in

use. Some modern sewage treatment facilities, a fine

hospital, and some beautiful shops for repair of

equipment. I think we set a standard that I hope

they're following in what they do in their construction now. The airfields were very well constructed. Most of them were built to handle the F-86

jets at that time. (One of them was the one that

141
 Gary Powers used to fly on his ill-fated flight over

' Russia.)

I was very impressed with the capabilities of

1 the American contractor that weThad. He seemed to

get work done on time; we met all our schedules; we

1 stayed within our budgets. I give him a lot of

, credit for it.

Clarke: 

,

,

RobinsonIt

This was a combine headed by the Oman Company --

What firm were you working with?

1 Oman out of Nashville, Tennessee, and supported by

i Farnsworth out of New Orleans and Wright out of

' Columbus, Georgia. But Oman was 90 percent of the

 effort on that. .

I

From 1960 to 1963, you were engineer commissioner for the District of Columbia. What were

, some of the duties and responsiblities of the engineer commissioner?

Clarke: ~ The engineer commissioner was one of three

commissioners. They were essentially equal in their

general authority over the city. We did elect one to

i be the president of the board. He became, I suppose,

1 the "equal among equals." But we did divide the

 duties of the District government up among the com-

 missioners. The engineer commissioner, as the name

1 would imply, had responsibility for keeping an eye

I

,

142
on all the public works programs of the city and a

few other items that were not directly related to

public works. For example, I had the veterans because of the military association. .

You asked what were the duties. The duties were

to carry out the responsibilities of city government.

It involved planning, programming, defending budgets

before Congress, and then supervising the departments

of the city that had to carry out the programs. Most

of my concerns seemed to fall into the areas of sanitation, highways, and transportation. There were

several additional jobs. The engineer commissioner

was the president of the zoning commission. He was

also a member of the public utility commission. Then

while I was there we formed, under a compact agreement

with the states, a metropolitan area transit commission. I became a member of that and became

chairman of it. Also, automatically I was a member

of the National Capital Planning Commission and the

Regional Planning Council.

One time I added up all the extracurricular

activities. There were eighteen official or quasiofficial additional assignments for the engineer

commissioner -- working on the regional sanitary

committee, and the traffic safety committee, and this

143
sort of thing. I also found out from the com-

.

missioners that it fell on the engineer commissioner

to be the participant in the negotiations for a

compact that finally led to the transit authority --

the subway builders.

Robinson: In an earlier interview with Dr. Bert Cowdrey

(Historian, Corps of Engineers), you mentioned that

many of your problems came in dealing with outside

agencies. For example, what was your relationship

with the National Capital Planning Commission?

Clarke: Wellt I was a member of it. All of the projects

of the city with which I .was concerned had to be

approved by the National Capital Planning Commission.

Robinson: How were the members of the commission chosen?

Clarke: I'm not exactly sure of my numbers here.

Several were ex-officio. Then there were five public

members. By statute, two members of the House and two

members of the Senate were members of the commission,

but they never participated. Then the other exofficio members came from the National Park Service,

the Bureau of Public Roads, the General Services

Administration, the engineer commissioner, the chief

of engineers -- Ilrn missing one. And then, of

course, the five public members. I went in there at

the end of the Eisenhower Administration. The five

144
public members changed when the Kennedy Administration

came in.

We had our problems. Particularly, I think, our

main concerns were with transportation planning for

the city. The never ending question of rapid transit

versus highways was the big concern. The city had

embarked on an extensive highway program, had much of

it planned, quite a bit of it underway. But it was

beginning to run into trouble in 1960 and 1961. I

always said it was when we started putting the

bulldozers in the bedroom. The previous highway

planning and execution had been tied in with the urban

renewal programs of the southwest. So the area had

been decimated anyway, and it was easy to get the

highways through there. Now the extensions of the

highway beyond that began to involve relocation of

people a.nd businesses. That is when the real problems

of building highways within the District began.

We were beginning to talk more positively about

rapid transit. From then on, I don't think the

problem was any different from any other city -- the

arguments of rapid transit versus highways. But we

had a great deal of trouble, I would say starting in

1961t in trying to advance the highway program further

145
through the city. There are several monuments still

left to that argument that never were resolved. 0

Robinson: Was this argument principally confined to the

planning commission itself, or were there often a lot

of outside groups and interests creating much of the

controversy?

Clarke: It was not confined,to the planning commission,

no. This was a total community concern. The

neighborhood associations, save-our-neighborhood

groups, were very concerned about it. Before I came

aboard, one of the District highway plans had carried

a highway through northwest Washington. The objection

to that was so great that there was actually a restriction in the laws from Congress saying you will

not spend a nickel on considering a highway through

this particular corridor of Washington for I forget

how many years -- five or six years, anyway -- which

precluded any consideration of building that one.

Then, as we started looking at alternative

routes1 other neighborhoods that might have been s

affected became concerned. They saidt “Why protect

that particular corridor? Why pick on us?" And the

result was that to serve the area to the north, the

northwest, and the northeast, no superhighways have

146
been built through the District, and probably never

will be.

Robinson: What position did you take at this time on

highway construction? .

Clarke: I was pushing for additional highway construction. I was not trying to stop the transit, but

I felt we needed both. I was very impressed with

some of the predictions that were made by the transportation planners. If I recall correctly, we had

laid out five highway systems for the District --

concepts of them -- and five transit systems, from

fairly meager to fairly elaborate in each case. We

ran each of those systems against each other according

to the best prediction techniques we had. And the

variations in ridership on the transit system as compared to the highways, in all of these permutations

-- twenty five of them, five against five -- were only

3 percent. You still had a transportation problem

when you got both of them in. I felt it was our responsibility to ease the transportation problem, and

that we should go for a fairly elqborate system of

transit. But we also needed a fairly elaborate system

of highways, just to ease the lot of the person who

had to move by highway.

147
Robinson: What were some of the problems you had with the

National Park Service?

Clarke: Well, the park service, I suppose very properly,

jealously guarded every bit of green space that it

had. And I can understand that, because if you gave

it up, there was no place to get more. So every

highway project that went through the area was looked

at very closely. I guess my first problem with the

park service was to work out a solution for the

Virginia end of the Roosevelt Bridge. General (A. C.)

Welling told me as he left, 'Yve got the bridge

designed and under construction halfway across the

river2 The Virginia half had not been designed, so

we had to work out a solution to it. That took a

matter of quite a few months.

'Robinson: Was there much opposition on the Virginia side

to having the bridge completed?

Clarke: No 0 ‘It was more the park service in this case.

In Virginia itself, we were dealing with people within

Arlington County. I don't recall any particular opposition there. This was almost entirely park service.

We had long discussions, and I thought we had

agreement on the Three Sisters Bridge with the park

service. I recall working as closely as I could with

Connie Worth, who was head of the National Park

148
Service, in laying out the bridge approaches through

park land. We had an agreement which we all faithfully initialed -- Connie and myself for the District,

the Virginia people, the state highway department of

Virginia -- but that agreement lasted about a week,

then it blew up. Well, as you know, they finally

started the Three Sisters Bridge, but then all work

on it stopped in the flood of 1972 or earlier than

that. .

One of my main concerns was the water supply of

the District of Columbia. Still, of course, there is

no satisfactory solution to that problem.

Robinson: It's been in the news recently.

Cmlarke: It% been in the news recently, but nothing has 0

been done since the beginning of time to really solve

the water problems of the District and the growing

metropolitan area. It% a little ironic to me. Because later, as chief of engineers, I saw the same

problem between northern Virginia, Maryland, and the

District. Every solution that you could conceive of

has been batted down. Northern Virginia at one time

was going to use the Rappahannock as a source of

water1 and that project has been stopped. Essentially, all the projects in the Potomac area have been

stopped. This is what Maryland and the District were

149
* counting on. And now Virginia, having'stopped the

project on the Rappahannock, is looking to the

Potomac. Nothing has been done to increase the

quantity of stored water.

Robinson: Would most of the solutions have involved

creating large storage reservoirs?

Clarke: Well, I don't know whether you'd call them

large or not. Certainly storage is the answer. The

size of it, I think, depends on how much of a drought

period you want to figure on. The Corps at one time

had come up with a pretty thorough plan for the total

development of the Potomac Basin -- sixteen large

dams and a series of small, soil conservation type

dams. Out of all that, only one dam has been built

or is being built at Bloomington (Md.). The problem

with it is that it's twenty-two days up the river

from the District of Columbia, and water releases up .

there will hit here three weeks later.

The only real solution to the metropolitan

problem, the one that makes the most sense, is the

one that runs into the greatest objection. That's

the construction of a dam on the main stream of the

Potomac fairly close to Washington. But that runs

into the parks, and there are objections from the .

wealthy landowners. think one of the primary

150
.

objections to it is the fact that it would provide

a public recreation area, still water, right in the

middle of some beautiful hunt country. And people

don? like that. If there had been a change in the

ownership policies along the banks of federal reservoirs, 1 think there might have been more acceptance

of it. Under what we called the Kennedy policy, if

you buy a strip of land along the side for public use

and public recreation, that just doesn't sit. I

.think this was the same problem on the Rappahannock,

to some extent.

Robinson: Speaking Corps-wide, do you feel this is often a

reason for the opposition storage reservoirs almost

universally encounter now?

Clarke: It% one of the reasons. Obviously, in many

areas of the country, if you build a reservoir, there

would be substantial enhancement of the value of the

lands around it, if the lands have access to the

water. When you preclude that access, you cut out

that enhancement. And the landowners, who then are

deprived of their land and access to the water --

they had had access to whatever stream that was there

-- are resentful; and it becomes pretty powerful at

times. I think it would ease the problem if the

shores were owned by the landowners whose land you

151
were taking for the reservoir. But I must say, deep

in my heart, I agree with the policy that the lands

around the reservoir should be open to the public.

But it does create problems in trying to get one

authorized.

Robinson: If, in fact, dams were built up the Potomac or

on some <’ other stream for water storage, could these

structures be used for other multi-purpose benefits

such as hydroelectric power generation?

Clarke: Well, in the past there had been consideration

of hydropower. Obviously, you could get some hydroi

power out of them. During most of the year, -you

could get a fairly reasonable amount of it. The

private power companies -- and Pm talking about long

before I was commissioner -- objected very strenu- ,

ously to that. So that got withdrawn from all considerations. Nowr with oil at $130$14 a barrel, the

economics of hydropower I'm sure would justify some

installations. You can't look to the Potomac to be

a major power producer, but you could use the Potomac

for pumped storage, for example, during a good part

of the year, and shave the peaks on the use of other

power plants.

152
Robinson: What were some of your responsiblities as

chairman of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit

Commission?

Clarke: Basically, we had two groups that we were

regulating: the bus system that we had in the area

at that time and the taxicabs. These were the only

two groups. I think we had more success in getting

uniform ratesfor taxicabs in the area than we did .

in trying to regulate the bus rates. Of course,

we‘re talking.now of beack at the time when the bus

companies were privately owned. Roy Chalk owningthe

D.C. Transit, and AB&W -- Chalk was negotiating for

it; I guess he bought it after we were there. We

were trying to work out transfer rates, and trying

to keep the bus companies operating St the lowest

rates possible and still making a,profit. To a degree we were successful in that, although every bus

increase that we authorized was challenged in court.

At least one of them was reversed. There were some

rather difficult points that were involved in those.

The charter of the bus company -- and Pm

talking particularly about D.C. Transit -- had

unusual wording in it. I can't recall it precisely,

but something to the effect that D.C. Transit should

be allowed to make a profit not in excess of 6 1/2

153
percent of its annual revenues. We never authorized

a profit that would have run quite that high. But

if you took 6 1/2 percent of its annual revenues

(Pm not sure of the figure 6 1/2; it may have been

8) ; then the return on equity in the company could

be substantially larger. The philosophy of the

people in Virginia with respect to their routes was

to allow up to 8 per,cent on annual revenues. We

tried to keep it down in the District, because traditionally we had kept it at a lower figure. We ran

somewhere around 4 1/2 or so. But it still allowed

a substantial return on equity. And because of the

rather unusual acquisition procedures that Chalk had

when he bought the company from Wolfson, his equity

in the whole system was not too great, and the return

on that equity was pretty substantial. This is what

was challenged in the court. The court, in essence,

changed the ground rules when they reversed the

decision -- from this return on revenues to a return

on equity -- and opened up a whole new ballgame. 1

don? think that ever.was finally resolved up until

the day when the systems were bought out by WMATA

(Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority).

154
Robinson: You were accused during this period of being

anti-subway. What was the cause of this accusation,

.and do you feel it was justified?

Clarke: I made two statements. I was not anti-subway,

I was pro-subway. I had two questions on the subway.

One# 1 questioned the estimate of the capital costs.

I thought it was low. What I really was questioning

was.: were we being honest in saying to the public

and to Congress that a system could be built . fort at

that time, $793 million for a lOO-mile system. I

thought it was a low estimate and would be proven

wrong. The second thing that I questioned was whether

we were being completely honest in our presentatiofis

(I say "oursw -- the whole systiem's) to Congress, when

we said that the bonds and the debts would be paid for

out of the fare box. The predictions in the early

reports were that not only would all the money that

was borrowed be paid for out of the fare box but that

all the other grants and capital costs would be paid

for in the same way. I though this was an awfully

rosy prediction. Because you could look around the

country, and there wasn't a single transit system. that

was repaying capital costs, and most of them were not

making operating costs. So when I said this, I think

I got tagged with being anti-subway. Actually, my

155
philosophy was that we couldn't get all the subway L

that we needed or all the highways that we needed.

And I had a third part: we couldn't possible get all

the parking that we needed, because of the many con-

. cerns involved. Anyway, I got pegged as anti-subway.

I must admit I was very shaken and concerned

when the group that was formed to do the original

subway planning, before WMATA, came out and not only

advocated a subway system but -- I felt outside their

charter -- went out and attacked the highway system.

I thought this was unwarranted. So in my defense of

the highway system and with my two concerns about the

subway, I think I got pegged as anti-subway.

Ironically, all the time that I was being pegged

as anti-subway, I was holding meetings in my office

for one or two nights a week, going from 7:00 till

midnight, trying to negotiate and work out the compact

arrangements with Maryland and Virginia so that the

subway program could go ahead. So I don't think I

was anti-subway.

Robinson: On your conclusions that the subway would actually cost more than projected, do you feel you were

able to convince many people that this would be the

case or did your feelings at that time tend to fall

on deaf ears?

156
Clarke: I honestly think that there were a good many

people who thought my conclusion that the subway was

going to costmore and my concerns about paying back

out of the fare box were correct, but they weren't

about to speak it politically. There was a whole

campaign to "let's get the subway started," and in

retrospect it was the camel's nose under the tent

technique. Everybody had already spoken in favor of

it. Congress -- in committee reports, establishing

groups and all -- was definitely committed toward

having a subway. So there wasn't any question as to

whether something was going to get started. I just

felt they ought to have been more open and more

honest with the factors on it.

Newt I can? say that everyone was trying to

conceal something. I know there were a lot of people

who felt yes, the subway would be built for $793

million. In fact, I had some of those come and argue

with me on it. I don't know. I'm not sure if inflation has taken care of all the factors that have

led from $800 million to -- I don't know what the

figure is now -- $6 billion or something. The system

that they now have designed is a little bit longer

than the one they were talking about earlier. I3ut it

isn't that much longer; and the extensions are the

157
iE - .

least costly aspects of it, out in the suburbs in

open land -- the above surface lines. -

Robinson: What do you think of the system that is open at *

present? Have you ridden on it?

Clarke: I've ridden on it. I think it% a very fine

system. My rides have been rather limited -- from

Farragut Square down to the city hall -- but it

certainly is clean, operates quietly and smoothly.

A little brake noise, but that's a minor problem as

I see it. And I think the subway will contribute

much to the city. The real problem now with the

subway is who is going to pay.for it. That hasn't

been faced up to,yet.s

Robinson: As engineer commissioner, you served on a number

of commissions, as you've stated. Could you briefly

discuss your work on several? For example, what were

your principal responsibilities as a member of the

zaning commission?

Clarke: Well, I was chairman of the zoning commission.

I don't know whether this was written in the law or

was tradition. The engineer commissioner had always

been chairman. The zoning commission consisted of

the other two commissioners, the architect of the

Capitol, and the director of the National Park

Service -- a five-member commission. Our job was to

158
hear all the zoning cases that came up in the city.

Actually, Washington was the first city to have

zoning. That had started under an engineer commissioner named Kutz back in World War I, or at about

13

that time. He was a little unusual. He was commissioner three times, and he was called back in

World War II.

Perhaps eight or ten years before I came, the

city had gone through an extensive revision of its

zoning maps.. Under the law, the changes that we could

make were not too great. We could make corrections in

the zoning map where obviously errors had been made.

But then we had a broader charter in that we could make

judgments as to whether changes in zoning would be in

the overall public interest -- for the economy of the

13 Colonel Charles W. Kutz (1870 - 1951).

U.S. Military Academy, 1893. Corps of Engineers.

Assistant to the Chief of Engineers, 1903 - 06.

Instructor, U.S. Military Academy, 1906 - 08.

District Engineer, Seattle, 1908 - 11. Philippines

Department Chief Engineer, 1911 - 14. District

Engineer Commissioner, District of Columbia, 1914 -

17 American Expeditionary Force, Europe, 1917 - 18.

Engineer Commissioner, District of Columbia, 1918 -

21 Division Engineer, Central Division, 1921 - 28.

Mississippi River Commission 1925 - 28. Commanding

Officer, 3d Engineer Regiment and Engineer Department

Hawaii, 1928 - 29. Retired, 1929. Recalled to duty,

194lm Engineer Commissioner, District of Columbia,

1941 - 45. Retired, 1945.

159
city or according to the way the city's development

was going. Most of the changes fell in that category.

While I was there -- it had started a little bit

beforer but it started building up at a more rapid

rate when I was there -- we saw the development of

the commercial area along K Street and Connecticut

Avenue. There was a considerable amount of rezoning

activity in that area. We kept trying to figure out

ways to get more substantial rebuilding in the

downtown area -- the F Street, G Street, 14th Street

area. In retrospect, I wish we had worked harder on

trying to encourage new buildings to*go into that ’

arear which was the, traditional business heart of the

city. We also were concerned, of course, with the

Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) and its work in redevelopment. That hit both the zoning commission and

the National Capital Planning Commission.

The southwest redevelopment was pretty well

ordained by the time I came aboard. But we were

working on other areas of the near northwest, trying

to work out the planning for those. Watergate came

up during my term and was a matter for the zoning

commission -- the handling of the zoning there for

multiple uses on a fairly large piece of ground. I We

also had some multiple-use zoning for places like

160
.

Columbia Plaza, across from the State Department and

across from the Watergate. This was an experiment

in trying to mix residential, hotel, and commercial

uses in the same area. Again in retrospect, it's

very difficult for a public body or a planning group

to figure out how people are going to ultimately

live. Because I'm not sure that all these mixtures

worked out as beautifully as they were proposed by

the builders and accepted by the commissions. I

think the southwest is one example. It still hasn't

settled down to a stable neighborhood. I noticed in

the newspaper that people are protesting.that they're

carrying outthe original RLA plan. And I don't

think the combination of shops and all in Watergate

or Columbia Plaza hasquite worked out to be the

financial success that people had anticipated.

We got mixed up in a very difficult zoning

situations with the foreign embassies. We had the

celebrated case of the Russian Embassy wanting to

move out on Oregon Avenue. I guess I'm responsible

for that commission decision being reversed. I

didn't open up to public inspection one document that

I had, which was a note from Secretary of State Dean

Rusk to me, saying, "I‘ve talked to President

Kennedy, and he wants the Russians to move into this

161
particular area," and that this was a gu,id pro quo

for our getting a rezoning or a relocation of our

embassy in Moscow. Well, we made the decision to

approve it. Someone found out about this particular

note and opened the case up in court, and the decision was reversed. These are the types of things

that the zoning commission was concerned with.

We had a lot of minor corrections to zoning maps.

People would come in and say they obviously made a

mistake when they drew the boundary here; it should be

moved over. The Georgetown waterfront rezoning was a

perennial question. We neverwere able to deal with

it because the desires of the local Georgetown groups

in essence wanted a downgrading of the zoning to lower

usefl and the corporation counsel kept telling us, "You

can't do that. That's taking without compensation.*'

I think that question is still up in the air.

Robinson: What about your work with the public utility

commission?

Clarke: Originally; until we took out the bus and the

taxi operations and put them in the metropolitan area

transit commission, most of our work was concerned

with regulations of buses -- bus fares, bus routings,

this sort of thing. We had a very limited number of

cases with the other utilities -- the rate changes.

162
Compared to the activity in the transportation area,

IId say a minor amount of business with the gas

company and the telephone and electric companies.

But it was the regular work of a public utility

commission in setting rates, establishing standards,

auditing books, being sure we were getting a true

picture of earnings.and the amount of service.

There were not too many complaints coming in, other

than the taxis and the buses.

totiinson: Were there any complaints on electrical

utilities?

Clarke: Not particularly. At least I don't remember

that we had a great deal of activity there. There

were a few matters that were a little unusual. There

were some old systems in downtown that were still on l

direct current, and we were trying to get those modified to alternating.

Robinson: What were these direct current systems used for?

Elevators?

Well, I think it was a take off of power from

the old electric trolley system. Andt of course, the

trolleys went out of existence during my time. The

trolleys went out of existence in February 1961.

Actually, they stopped running on Pennsylvania Avenue

after that heavy snowstorm on the day of the Inaugural,

163
because we had put so much salt on Pennsylvania

Avenue. That one trolley went out of service about

a month earlier than had been planned. There were a

few elevators downtown that were still running DC.

They were take offs, I'm sure, from the electric

supply for the transit system.

Robinson: At the time the trolleys went out of service,

was there much public opposition, or were they glad

to get them off the streets?

Clarke: I wouldn't say there was much. There was a

c3~OV I the save-our-trolleys group, which felt they

should be preserved. But the costs on them and the '

lack of flexibility in operations -- it was just ordained that they were going out of service. I can't

say that we really increased the speed of transit

very much. I think we went from something like an

average speed of nine miles an hour to an average

speed of ten miles an hour on public transportation

in the city. But there was objection, nostalgia for

the trolley system. I even went out on the last day

and took my children to ride the streetcars because,

I said, "You may never get another opportunity."

S,urprisingly, later I was in Yugoslavia and I saw

those same streetcars.

164
Robinson: That's true, I guess they did sell the cars to

a town in Yugoslavia, didn't they?

Clarke: I guess they went to Yugoslavia and maybe to

Madrid.

Robinson: What about your work on the Regional Planning

Council?

Clarke: The Regional Planning Council was not a very

effective group. I served on it for three years; I

guess I was chairman of it for one or two years. Part

of our problem was that the Regional Planning Council

had no political ties. It was sort of set up as a

separate body. And over here we had this embryonic

council of governments. Then we had a very strong

National Capital Planning Commission, and many of the

members of it were also members of the Regional

Planning Council. So it was lost in the shade of

these other two outfits. It did not have a staff that

compared in size to the planning commission, which was

quite active. Really, the planning commission was the

outfit doing regional planning. So, the Regional

Planning Council -- without any support from the

council of governments and in the shadow of the

planning commission -- was not a very effective operation. I don't recall that we did anything that I

felt was awfully constructive. We endorsed the plan

165
came out of the planning commission. As a matter of

fact, the council of governments nodded its head and

endorsed it, and it went on the shelf. I don't think

anybody ever followed it. This was the wedge concept

of open spaces and corridor development, which was a

noble idea. Without the constituents of the council

of governments taking action to follow it, nothing

really developed. I guess the land values just

dictated that the planning continue, as far as I'm

concernedr on a sprawl pattern.

I guess another thing happened too. The wedge

pattern had a concept of yes, the rapid transit corridors would be built quickly; and yes, the highway

corridors would be built quickly. And@ of course,

this didn't come about. So the key elements of the

system just weren't there. I think it would be interesting for someone, fifty years from now when the

i transit system is completed, to look back and say what

was the effect of the transit system on the typ.e of

development in the area.

Robinson;

I

4 ,

You mentioned the council of governments. Did

1 it really have much clout at this time? I

Clarke: ~ NO, it was embryonic, as I said. There was

l agreement that there were a lot of problems that were

i common to the area. And the council of governments

166
did make a start on some of them -- the easy ones.

I think this is true of all councils of governments.

Traffic was a common concern. We tried to tie together the traffic flow system throughout the area.

We did not achieve full success even on that. We

worked on bottlenecks that were holding up traffic

around the area, and we had a lot of discussion on

them and did something to clear that up. One thing

we wanted to do and Alexandria, in particular, would.

not agree with us. We wanted to put all the traffic

lights in the whole system on a central control system

so we could expedite flow into the area in the morning

and flow out in the evening. We had success on this

side of the river and not much on the other.

We began work on wastewater treatment. The big

spur was the interceptor from Dulles down to Blue

Plains. That gave us a lot of things to work on in

that area_. And I think the work that was done in

getting people concerned about wastewater has paid off

in later uniform, or to some degree uniform, action

among all the members of the council of governments.

We worked on air pollution a little bit; we set

up some monitoring stations; and we tried to talk

about the water but got nowhere on that. We didn't

dare mention the social problems, because of the

167
, bl ck-white business. It would have fallen apart if

we'd ever tried to tackle an i,ssue like that. So on

the easy problems, I think the council of governments

began to make progress. The difficult problems, it

avoided. I think this is a common factor for most

councils of governments. l

We began to talk about the rapid transit.

Everybody was nodding their heads for it. But the

real work on the rapid transit was done by a quiet

little negotiating group trying to set up the compact.

Then when the compact arrangements were made, the

elected representatives from all the areas participated in that. Of course, that's been a very substantial contribution. Maybe the council of governments helped to ease the way into that type of an

organization.

Robinson: After your term as engineer commissioner, you

moved on to become director of military construction

from 1963 to 1965. Could you outline your major responsibilities as director of military construction?

Clarke: I'll have to go into a little bit of the organization of the chief of engineers' office. Very

briefly, he divided his construction effort between

the civil works program -- rivers, harbors, navigation

and all. The director of military construction had

168
all the other construction and maintenance responsibilities, primarily for the Army. In addition, the

chief had a real estate director who served both

military and civil in acquiring and disposing of real

estate. Surprisingly, the chief of engineers has the

real estate operation in the government, in terms of

action that he has to take.

Robinson: Even more than GSA?

Clarke: .Oh, yes. The budget of the chief of engineers

for real estate, most heavily in the civil works

program -- acquisition of land for reservoirs, flow

easements for rivers, and this sort of thing -- is a

pretty substantial program. On the military side,

the real estate operation is not that great. There

area matters of out-leasing lands that area not being

used for agricultural and cattle grazing purposes

and out-leasing industrial plants that the Army owns

to people for other uses.

On the construction side, the chief of engineers

has responsibility for all cons'truction for the Army

and the majority of construction for the Air Force.

At that time, we were the construction agent for NASA

(National Aeronautics and 'Space Administration). We

had a little bit of work that we were doing in Saudi

Arabia as a construction agent there; and in several

169
other parts of the worldr we were doing some work

for AID (Agency for International Development). Our

total responsibilities were worldwide. They went

from Korea, Japan, and Okinawa on the Pacific side

over to Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey going

eastward. -There were a few other odd jobs that we did

occasionally -- occasionally the park service would

ask us to do a job. But our big programs were the

Army program, the Air Force program, and the NASA

program. It was at this time that NASA was building

its mainfacilities.

Robinson: Some of these structures for NASA,, of courser

were engineering monuments. What were some of the

structures?

Clarke: l Well, of course, we always think of the vertical

assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center as the

big one. It is 500 and some odd feet tall, something

like 480 feet clear height inside, and has a tremendous volume. Essentially, we built all the launching platforms at Cape Kennedy, the assembly buildings,

and all the support facilities. We built the test

facilities~ at Huntsville, the Mississippi test facilities, some out at Edwards Air Force Base. We built

the complex at Houston; then there was the work at

Port Michoud outside New Orleans. It was a pretty

170
hefty part of our program, running several hundred

million dollars a year; I guess we were doing $300-

$400 million worth of work a year for the Air Force.

Robinson: Was the Air Force work principally the construction of missile bases?

Clarke: That was the biggest item. The Air Force had

done their own design on those, and we were the construction agents for the ICBMs. Of course, when I

came aboard, we were just finishing up the old Atlas

facilities. But the biggest job that we had was

putting the ICBMs across the northern part of the

United States. We were winding up some of the

airfields that had been started in the 1950s.

But when I look at our big projects . . . for

the Army, our facilities were largely new barracks,

family housing, and this type of thing. For the

Air Force, it was the ICBM; then the NASA program.

Our work in Saudi Arabia, at that time, we thought

was mammoth. I guess we were doing $75 million a

year for Saudi Arabia.. Compared to today, you sort

of do that off the back of your hand.

Robinson: What were the facilities in Saudi Arabia?

Clarke: We started the cantonment at Khamis Mushayt

which was a $75 million project. We were doing work

at Taif; a little bit of work at Jidda, and some at

171
Riyadh -- we started building some headquarters

buildings there. , I think we had some work at I

Dhahran at the time.

Robinson: Just briefly, could you tell me how you would

organize such a massive construction program yourself,

in terms of maintaining the lines of communication and

oversight that you needed to?

Clarke: I guess the one thing that we tried to do -- and

I think the Corps (boasting a little bit) does it

better than any other federal agency -- was to decentralize as much as we could. Then we organized to

provide supervisory headquarters generally on a

. regional basis but gave them a review function. All

that Washington really did was the policy, the general

programmingt and the general criteria. It depended

almost entirely on the actions in the field to carry

the program.

Now, you say how would you organize to do this

if you had another program? It would be difficult

because the Corps organization has been in effect for

a long time. Everyone pretty clearly understood his

part in carrying out the program. We had developed

some very fine people, who were fine professionals

and who understood their parts and were willing to

take responsibility. I think, when you have a program

172
that massiveI you can only do it if you decentralize.

You have to have faith in your people to execute it

properly; and if you train them right, it comes out

all right. Now if you start a new organization, it%

a little more difficult until you get your people

shaken down. But for whatever success the Corps has

had, I think it comes from building over the years an

esprit and an organization that understands how the

system works. Then in essence you turn those people

loose to get ‘the job done.

Robinson: One of the special programs you may have had was

responding to the Alaska earthquake in 1964. What

sort of construction was involved inresponse to the

damage done?

Clarke: The main thing we got involved in was the relocation of some cities that had been wiped out --

Seward and others down in that area -- and letting

contracts for rebuilding roads and bridges. And in

Anchorage itself, putting in an earth dam to stop ,

further mud slides in the downtown area, clearing the

areat and assisting the city in zoning to keep the

residents out of th,e most susceptible areas. Then,

of course, there was a lot of repair and rehabilitation on the military facilities in the area.

173
I don't think we had to take down any of the military

buildings. I think it was mainly a matter of repair.

Here again is an example of the decentralized nature.

General (Kenneth T.) Sawyer, who is-now working for

the Federal Railway Organization, was the district

engineer up there, and our main guidance to him was:

you do what's necessary; tell us how much help you

need; and we'll send the help from the States. But

basically, you have to give the credit for the work

of the Corps to the people who were in Alaska carrying

out the program. About all you can do from a central

headquarters is give moral support, or send money, or

ship things that they need. We did buttress Sawyer

with additional people to help him carry out his responsibilities. This is another strength of an organA

ization as large as the Corps, where everybody sort

of understands how they fit into it. If you have a

crisis -- and there have been many many cases of this

-- you can mobilize people from all over the country

and put them into an area to take care of the crisis.

And they fit into an organization because they know

how it works. They just can get in and take hold.

Robinson: Was the Corps involved in many AID projects for

foreign governments?

174
Clarke: Let's see if I can tick them off. I'm not sure

I can name all of them. In Iran, we had a combination

of working for AID and the Iranian government on

building some schools and facilities. I'm not sure

of the exact mixture on those. We were in Somali

building a harbor with a breakwater, dredging it, and

building the wharf facilities. Actually, that was

sort of a multi-national project. It always amazed

me. The Italians were in there with a banana subsidy;

the West Germans were in on a road building program;

the Red Chinese were in on agricultural assistance;

and the Russians were in there building a cannery.

The Americans were putting in a water system and the

wharf facilities.

Robinson: Did you ever find yourself coordinating these

various interests, like providing water to the

cannery?

Clarke: Well, Pm sure that we did. But if it was done,

it was done by the local man out there and the contractor that we had working out arrangements locally.

Certainly he would have had the flexibility to do it.

Robinson: In 1965 you were assigned to Fort Belvoir as

Commandant of the Engineer School and Commanding

General of the U.S. Army Engineer Center. Are these

generally concurrent assignments?

175
Clarke: The commandant of the school has always been

the commanding general of the center. He is assisted

by an assistant commandant who generally does most of

the day-to-day running of the Engineer School. There

are other activities at Belvoir besides the Engineer

School. There are certain troop units there that are

being trained, and there are a multiplicity of agencies that occupy space on the post. So I was sort of

a mayor of the post -- responsible for &training the

units that were there and responsible for running the

school, helped largely on the school operation by the

deputy commandant. Belvoir is in a vulnerable location. It% close to Washington, and every time a

military installation is moved out of Washington,

they move it to Belvoir. It's not too far out but

what you can contact it. I think we had twenty-one

different military agencies occupying space at

Belvoir, so it was a matter of coordinating them.

You've got all the problems of a normal post commander -- the housing, the allocation of space

throughout the post, the relationships with the surrounding community. But when I think of the job at

Belvoir, I really think that the two main activities

are the handling of the troop units that are there

176
and the running of the Engineer School, which is a

pretty good sized operation.

Robinson: What type of schooling does the Engineer School

provide?

Clarke: It provides schooling at several levels.

Starting at the top level, it takes engineer officers

who have been in the service for three to six years

and runs them through a ten-month course, preparing

them to become batallion commanders or to work with

the staffs of divisions on military problems. That's

their most advanced course. They also, in the officer

field, have a basic course where they take the ROTC

graduate who is coming on active duty - - or in some

cases who will just be coming on for schooling

purposes -- and run him through a ten-week course.

It's basic officer training with an engineer emphasis

on simple military engineering. That is to prepare

him to be a platoon leader, to go out and join a unit,

and to take over.

While I was at Belvoir, we reactivated the

officer candidate school. This was to take promising

people from the enlisted ranks and prepare them to be

platoon leaders. Largely for Vietnam. It was one of

our major activities at the time. There had been an

officer candidate school at Belvoir during World

3-77
War II and during Korea; and as the military cut

back, the school had stopped. We started that in

1965 while I was there.

For the enlisted side, where the largest number

of students are, there are courses in topography (it%

the main school for topography and mapping for the

military, and it trains not only Army but Air For&e

and a few Navy people). The'school trains equipment

supervisors, mechanic supervisors, and repair supervisors. We had special training for high speed, 400

cycle electrical equipment -- training mechanics for

it. We had the operators' training course for the

t nuclear plants. And we actually had one reactor at

Belvoir, a very small reactor (about ten megawatts)

producing power; we were using it as a training

vehicle. And Belvoir was the support base for the

very limited number of nuclear reactors that the

military had around the world -- one at McMurdo

Sound/ and we had had one up in Greenland, and one

that the Air Force had out west. So we took care of

that operation.

Of course, I was there when Vietnam started. I l

had just arrived there in June; and in August of 1965,

we had thought the President was going to call up the

reserves, and he made the decision not to call up

178
the reserves. so the expansion of the military to

support Vietnam came through the training system and

the school system. And this hit heavily at Belvoir

during the time I was there. We started instruction

twenty-four hours a day. We had limited facilities,

and it was easier to get the people in than it was to

expand the facilities. We had problems of bedding

people down, finding enough space for them. The

combination oflopening the officer candidate school

and increasing the capacity of all the courses was

probably the major problem there at that time.

Robinson: Were these all military personnel that you were

training, or did you also train some civilians there

-- civilian employees of the Corps?

Clarke: We may have had a very limited number of cim

vilians, but you could have counted them on one or two

hands, if we had that many. I don't recall a civilian

aspect. There may have been a few swept in because

they had been sent -by a station to take a particular

course. But the accent was military all the way

through.

Robinson: Were there any foreign nationals trained there?

Clarke: Oh, yes. We had quite a few in our officers'

courses, particularly the advanced course, the highest

course. We probably ran ten or twelve, or up to

179
twenty at times, officers from allied nations. The

same way in the basic training; people were coming

to go through it. We were also training mechanics

for the Hawk system.

Robinson: What was the Hawk system?

Clarke: The Hawk is an anti-aircraft system. We were

doing the training for the engineer support of it.

This was primarily on generators to support the /

missile system. We had one Japanese group sent to

train on it. We had one Spanish group, . 1 recall in

particular. Each came with their own interpreters

to take their -instruction at Belvoir. And in the

normal enlisted courses, there were some foreign

nationals. But by and large, most of the courses

were 100 percent American: The emphasis was on

getting people out and trained for Vietnam. There

were also quite a few Vietnamese officers in training

during this particular time.

Robinson: Is there anything else particularly significant

about the Engineer School that you would like to

comment on? .

Clarke: No 0 I think so much of our emphasis then was in

support of the Vietnam effort. We were turning out

troop units too, training troop units and sending

those off to Vietnam. We sent several batallions and

180
port repair outfits out of our training program. The

main emphasis was to try to put out a quality product

in a substantial quantity -- to send them to Vietnam.

Robinson: Were members of any construction forms or any

contractors ever brought in to acquaint them with new

information or construction techniques?

Clarke: Not particularly, no. I think our concern would

have been more the other way -- to be sure that we

were keeping up with the construction techniques that

were prevalent in commercial industry. Now there were

at Belvoir, not under my command, laboratories doing

a great deal of work. And, of course, the whole engineer laboratory system was working on problems of

Vietnam and trying to develop new items of equipment

for military use. Now these people were in close

contact with the equipment developers -- Caterpillar,

International Harvester, Clark, and all the others.

I mentioned the tenants we had on the posts; they

were one of the tenants in the laboratory* I wasn't

watching their day-to-day work. I was generally aware

of what they were doing, but it was outside my particular responsibilities.

Robinson: General Clarke, you served as deputy chief of

engineers from 1966 to 1969, and then in 1969 you

were made chief of engineers. Is this the usual

181
progression, to serve first as deputy chief and then

Clarke: No I I wouldn't say it's usual, nor is it unusual.

as chief?

Going back to those who preceded me, I don't remember

any of them who served as deputy chief, who later

served as chief of engineers. Since I've retired,

General Morris, who is the current chief, was deputy

chief under General (William C.) Gribble. 14 I don't

14 LTG William C. Gribble, Jr. (1917 - 1979).

U.S. Military Academy, 1941. Corps of Engineers.

Service with 340th Engineer Regiment, Alaska, United

States, and Southwest Pacific Theater of Operations,

1942 - 45. Commanding Officer, 118th Engineer Combat

Battalion, Southwest Pacific Theater and Japan, 1945.

Service with 38th Engineer Battalion, Armed Forces

Special Weapons Project, 1948. Los Alamos Scientific

Laboratory, Armed Forces Special Weapons Project,

1948 - 52. Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology,

1952 - 53. Reactor Development Division, Atomic

Energy Commission, 1954 - 56. District Engineer,

Alaska Engineer District, 1958 - 60. National War

College, 1960 - 61. Director, Army Nuclear Power

Program and Commanding Officer, U.S. Army Engineer

Reactor Group, 1961 - 62. Deputy Director, Military

Construction, OCE, 1962 - 64. Director of Research

and Development, HQ, Department of the Army 1966 -

67 Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Force

Development, HQ, Department of the Army, 1967 - 69.

Commanding General U.S. Army Engineer Center and Ft.

Belvoir and Commandant, U.S. Army Engineer School,

Ft. Belvoir, 1969 - 70. 'Deputy Chief of Research and

Development, HQ, Department of the Army, 1970. Chief

of Research and Development, HQ, Department of the

Army, 1971 - 73. Xhief of Engineers, 1973 - 76.

182
know whether I started a precedent.. I haven't gone

back that far in thinking about it; but at least going

back to World War II, the various chiefs had been in

different jobs other than deputy chief.

Robinson: Did your appointment as chief come as somewhat

of a surprise, or did you know for some time that you

were being considered?

Clarke: I guess it came as a surprise. I was really surprised. Now, I was notified six months in advance of

actually taking over, . but that was what the practice

was and has been since, to name the chief in advance.

But I must say it did come as a complete surprise.

. Obviously, I knew I was in a zone with four or five

others; but when I got called one day by Bill Cassidy

who was my predecessor -- and I was about to leave

on a trip for Panama the next day -- there was no

question that I was surprised. I guess I hadn't

really worried too much about it one way or the other.

And the fact that it was six months before General

Cassidy was retiring, I hadn't really expected that it

would come quite that soon. In retrospect, for at

least General Cassidy's nomination and perhaps General

(Walter K.) Wilson's .before him, they had made the

183
15

announcement substantially in advance. I think one

of the reasons for it was that in early days there

had been great political interest in who would be the

chief; and the early announcement sort of took all

that out of the consideration.

The chief of engineers gets appointed as a result

of a special board that is set up. It is required to

submit three names to the President, and the board

submits them in priority, but the President has the

option under the law of picking any one of the three

and submitting the name to the Senate.

Robinson: Did youhave to appear before the Senate?

Clarke: I did. I went and appeared before the Senate

Public Works Committee. Senator (John) Stennis was

in the chair. I went through a very pleasant hearing

with him. There were a few questions; I think there

were more speeches than there were questions, though,

15 LTG Walter K. Wilson, Jr. (1906 - ).

U.S. Miiitary Academy, 1929. Corps of Engineers.

Engineer Amphibious Corps, Atlantic Fleet, 1942.

Deputy Engineer, South East Asia Command, 1943 - 45.

District Engineer, St. Paul, 1946 - 49. District

Engineer, Mobile, 1949 - 52. Division Engineer,

Southeastern Division, 1952 - 53. Division Engineer, Mediterranean Division, 1953 - 55.

General8

Commanding

the Engineer Center and Ft. E3elvoir, 1960 -

61 l Chief of Engineers, 1961 - 65. Retired, 1965.

184
by the members of Congress. They said some very

kind things about the Corps of Engineers. But, as I

may have mentioned in the last interview, I was sort

of unusual in that I had not had any civil works

experience. I'm sorry -- I appeared before the Senate

Armed Services Committee, it wasnnt the Public Works

Committee. But since Senator Stennis had such a

strong interest in public works and civil works, it

was really a composite hearing of the two committees.

I enjoyed the appearance before them.

Robinson: Had you ever thought earlier in your career that

you might become chief of engineers? Was it in some

respects a goal that was perhaps in the forefront of

your thinking as you progressed up through the ranks?

Clarke: In all honesty, I don? think I had really

thought much about it until the time I was deputy

chief of engineers. I always said I was very fortunate in my assignments. I always liked whatever job

I was doing; and with possibly one exception, I

enjoyed working for every boss that I had. It had

been a very pleasant career, and they kept shifting

me around to interesting jobs. I guess when you're

a young officer, the chief of engineers sounds

awfully remote. It's more an institution to you at

that time than it is a matter of personal awareness

185
of the individual. So I guess, in all honesty, I

can't say that this was a real career goal.

Robinson: Who was the chief of engineers when you were

deputy?

Clarke: Cassidy. William F. Cassidy.

Robinson: What kind of man was he?

Clarke: He was an outstanding individual. He is one of,

the people that I had always admired as I went through

the service. I really became aware of him when I

first joined the service, and I continued to admire

him and the approach he took to things. I was expoged

to him a little bit during PJorld War II when he was

in the planning office of the chief of engineers and

I was working in General SomervelPs planning office,

and I got to know him a little better at that time. I

guess in all the intervening years, up until I became

commissioner, I had not run into him. I knew him .

better while I was commissioner. He was commanding

Fort Belvoir at the time, so that threw us together a

little bit. From then on, it became a very close

personal relationship -- then successively a closer,

and closer official relationship.

Robinson: What qualities tend to make for a good chief

engineer? What kind of qualities does this type of

individual exhibit?

186
Clarke: That's an interesting question. I don't know.

Of course, my pride in the Corps shows through in

almost everything I've ever said. The ones that I've

Robinson: Why do you think that decentralization is one

knownr and known closely, have had a very strong view

of decentralizing their operations, choosing people

that they trusted to carry out the various functions

and field jobs, and trying to operate with a minimum

of what I'd call interference or direct supervision.

This was certainly true of General Wilson, who was

the first chief that I knew well, and General Cassidy,

and I think it followed through my time, and I believe

my successors have.

Again, I go back to the Corps as an institution.

It% been in existence for a long time. If you grow

up in the system, you pretty well understand how it

works; and you need a minimum of direction for the

Corps to operate. I think the chiefs of engineers

have generally followed that practice. So I think

this is one of the traits, a willingness to decentralize and also a confidence that if you've got good

people, they'll do what's right.

of the principal strengths of the Corps? Why does it

make its program more effective in implementing

policy?

187
Clarke: I don't say that you don't need general guidance

in the way you want the Corps to go. But the-problems

that the Corps deals with, when you boil them down,

are all local problems. You can talk about program

goals and carrying out major programs for the country;

but when you start trying to execute those programs,

they're very localized problems, and they have to be

solved locally. You solve them in accordance with

the laws and the general guidelines that come down.

The chief puts his stamp of the guidelines and orients

them in a certain way; but if you tried to do it

centrally, there are just too many projects to try to

control in detail from any central location. There

are a lot of other government programs which I see

sort of floundering, because of an attempt to bring

every decision back into Washington to be resolved.

If the Corps has had any success, I think it% because

we trusted'the people to do the right thing out in the

field.

Robinson: We'll get into this more later, but do you feel

by decentralizing the organization that the Corps is

in a better position to understand the needs and

attitudes of the people served-by their projects and

therefore can better serve those needs?

188
Clarke: Obviously yes. There is no doubt in my mind.

Everyone that I have known, starting with division

engineers, say that the district engineer, who is

on the spot, has got a sense of what's right and

what's wrong and what the attitudes are; and we'd

better accept his recommendation.

Robinson: Did you feel that the training and experience

you received under General Cassidy helped to prepare

you for your position as chief?

Clarke: Oh yes. I don't know whether the chief's office

is like other federal offices, but when General

Cassidy was chief, he spent a great deal of time on

the road. And when I became chief I did too. So it

was left to the deputy to be, in many cases, de facto

the chief of engineers in Washington, dealing with

the many types of problems that do come up. It's a

wonderful experience. If you go through that apprenticeship as deputy chief,you've got a pretty good

feel for all the problems you would face as the chief.

So serving under him, in that respect, was certainly

the best training one could get to take on the job.

1 recall when I first went into the chief's office as

director of military construction, I went in to see

General Wilson, who was then the chief. I said,

"What do you want me to do in this job?" He said,

189
"You do whatever you think is right. If you get in

trouble, come and tell me, and I'll meet with you

and help you resolve it."

Robinson: What were some of the major problems or issues

that the Corps was dealing with during the period

that you were deputy chief? What were some of your

major concerns when you were administrating your

office?

Clarke: Obviously, the principal concern -- this was the

period from 1966 to 1969 -- was Vietnam. Vietnam had

to be our number one problem -- engineer support for

Vietnamr working with the Army staff and the field

commander in Vietnam. The chief of engineers, I

think, enjoyed a fine relationship in advising them

on what he thought were their engineer needs and . I

assisting throug,hout the entire Army system in providing those needs. The heavy emphasis during those .

years was on lines of communication in Vietnam, which

are engineer tasks: opening up highways and the

cleared zones close to the highways to reduce the

number of ambushes people were suffering; continuing

development of ports and rapid airfields; making

provisions for the use of helicopters; training in

establishment of fire bases; and this sort of thing.

This was obviously the heavy emphasis.

190
During that time, General Cassidy made several

trips to the Pacific and Vietnam, and I guess I made

one trip as deputy -- I may have made two. (I can't

be certain. They sort of go together in my mind, the

trips tha't I made out there.) He was very heavily

occupied with that. At the same time, the environmental problems were becoming more serious. They

didn't start with the NEPA (National Environmental

Policy Act). In fact, they predated it, and I think

we were ready for NEPA when it came along; you could

see it coming. We were expanding our environmental

considerations during the time of General Cassidy.

We had the continuing problems of the civil works

program.. It was growing. And actually, it was in the

very last days of General Cassidy's time as chief when

we embarked on the postal program. I got involved in

that because this was in that six-month period when he

knew he was ieaving, and he asked me to set up the

arrangements with them.

Robinson: Why did the Corps get involved in the postal

program?

Clarke: There are a variety of circumstances. You may

recall the postal service had been reorganized from

the one set up to this corporate group under Red

(Winton M.) .Blount, who had been a very successful

191
construction contractor -- still is. He came aboard;

and in the modernization of the postal system, they

wanted to set up modern postal facilities, making use

of computers and conveyors in distribution centers.

And he established a program which approached $2 \

billion of major facilities to be built. There was a

fixed period for it, and he felt that he didn't have

the staff to do it. And since it was a one-shot

affair (extending over several years), he was considering various ways. NOW~ apparently Blount was a

very close friend of General Wilson%. I've learned

this from General Wilson. He was in a meeting with

Red Blount, and they were talking about his problems.

I suppose General Wilson was the one who suggested,

'*Well, why don't you try to have the Corps do it;

the Corps could do it with its organization." That

was the genesis of it. Then it went on through a

series of meetings that I had with Mr. Blount and his

staff. 1 guess it was actually about the time I became chief that we signed the agreement to construct

these major facilities.

Robinson: Was there any attempt by Public Buildings Service

(GSA) to become involved in this effort?

Clarke: I can't measure exactly how much of an attempt it

made. It obviously was concerned about the contract.

192
And I know in my conversations with Red Blount, I

said, “Pm not going to get into a political fight

over this. We're perfectly happy to do itP but

you've got 0 to carry whatever the political fight is."

Because GSA was obviously one of the contenders, I

said# "I*m not going to get in a fight with GSA as

to whether we do it or they do it." I guess he had

more confidence in the Corps' capability to do it.

He carried the fight out.

Robinson: Did Congress endorse the Corps' involvement?

Clarke: Well, Congress, I guess, wasn't in a position to

endorse or deny it. There were some hearings held in

Congress at which Mr. Blount and his people appeared.

There was considerable discussion of the Corps' role

in doing this. The other options were to let the

postal service expand its activities and do it itself,

to have GSA do it (and GSA had been the traditional

builder for the postal service), or to hire consultant

management to come in and do it -- which is what they

did after the Corps withdrew from the program. They

brought aboard consultants to help them continue the

program. There was also some concern in OMB (Office

of Management and the Budget). It had not really

been consulted by Mr. Blount when he brought the Corps

aboard@ It was concerned with shifting this

193
responsibility over to the Corps. But after a

series of discussions -- and I participated in some

of these -- OMB agreed to leave the major program to

the Corps and not give the Corps some of what I call

l

the minor programs of the Postal Service. The Postal

*

Service then began to build up its own staff to

handle some of that. But the majority of it was put,

out on contract to private consultants.

Robinson: You mentioned, of course, the Corps' major

involvement in the Vietnam effort. Could you just

characterize the type of construction that was involved both in Vietnam and in the United States to

help support our effort over there?

Clarke: Wellr let's start in the United States. The

various training centers -- not just engineers, the

training centers in general -- embarked on a very

substantial program: (I guess this really began in

1965) adding classrooms and barracks facilities at

the various training centers; and expanding the field

training facilities at the same time. That was sort

of a crash program. Again, decentralized as far as

the Corps was concerned. We turned our district engineers loose to work with the station commanders. The

object of the exercise was to put things up quickly.

We weren't trying to throw money away. Temporary type

194
buildings, pre-fab buildings, generally were constructed around the country to house troops and to

provide them with the facilities that they needed.

The type of construction that we were putting up

in Vietnam was what we characterized as theater-ofoperations construction. That which was done by the

troops was the simplest type of frame structures.

There wast of course, the very substantial program

which the Navy was administering in Vietnam; facilities of a more durable and perhaps more permanent

type.

Robinson: Such as ports?

Clarke: The Navy was doing the overall basic infrastructure planning. Their designers and their constructors did as much as possible. If one were to

look at the figures, one would say, "It's a very expensive thing to bring American labor and supervision

in to build these things rather than using troops."

But the fact of the matter is that an engineer-soldier

or Seabee was a very expensive item by the time you

trained him and sent him to Vietnam. So the general

rule was that as much as possible of the really heavy

construction, in the "safe" areas (and this was a

rather vague determination), would have to be done

by the Navy's construction force -- the contract

195
construction force. And the troops would do those

things that were more directly in support of the

combat operations.

Now these things got all intermixedf and there

were many areas where troops were working side by

side with civilian construction contractors. The

combat zone wasn't that clearly defined. There was no

place in Vietnam where you were completely protected.

But I guess if one could characterize it, most of the

work in the more hazardous areas was done by troops,

and most of the work in the more peaceful areas was

done by the civilian contractors. Yet, as I said,

this got all intermixed, and they were being shot at

times. And occasionally you'd find a troop unit in

an area that looked relatively safe. I was going to

say that generally the inland work was done by troops,

but that wasn't always true either. You found a great

number of contractors working in these areas. Then to

complicate it further, they had a civilian contractor

bringing in supervision and working with the Vietnamese

and doing all the post engineer type work, the facili- 2

ties maintenance work.

Robinson: Were Vietnamese ever involved in the actual

construction?

196
Xarke: Oh yes. I think the general rule was, to the

extent possible, to try to use Vietnamese labor rather

than bringing in American laborers -- not necessarily

American; there were a lot of Koreans and other

nationalities. But the rule was to try to use the

Vietnamese rather than importing labor. While I was

chief, we embarked on a pretty substantial program -- l

this was not too long before we withdrew our forces

-- of trying to withdraw more and more of our troop

effort and substituting the local Vietnamese effort,

recognizing that there would be certain inefficiencies.

But we felt, particularly on some of the road programs,

that it would be in our best interest and theirs to

have them take over and carry on the construction and

some of the maintenance activities that American troops

had been providing.

There were other complications. The various

budget pictures -- the piaster budget, and the dollar

budget8 and the way in which money was made available

had some influence on how jobs were done. The personnel ceilings that were imposed on the commander in

Vietnam -- he was always faced with the problem of

which troops does he need to carry out his mission and

which ones can he get along without. I recall one

conference with General (Creighton) Abrams when we

197
were proposing to him that we cut back on the American engineer-troop effort and substitute Vietnamese

effort. I think one of the sales points as far as

he was concerned was that this afforded him an opportunity to come within a reduced troop ceiling. He

bought it on the general merits of the case, but it

was an opportunity for him to come within certain

c,eilings that he had to reach. Itallowed us to pull

out perhaps 5,000 or 10,000 troops. The program w*as

moving along pretty well in the early 197Os, but we

finally reached the point where we withdrew all our

forces. I hope we left them a legacy of some capability to build their own roads to good standards.

Robinson: How would you characterize the civil works

programs in the late 196Os? What kind of activities

Clarke:

was the Corps principally involved in then?

We had some very substantial programs underway.

Actually8 during Vietnam, even with the guns or butter

approach, the civil works program kept growing all the

time. It was growing at least in dollar value. And

if you discounted inflation, it was probably holding

its own. There were major projects all over the

country still being carried out. I don't know of any

cutbacks that you could say were directly traceable

to Vietnam. There are several major programs that

198
stand out in my mind: the completion of Dworshak

and Libby Dams; the Snettisham project up in Alaska --

a power project up there; continued work on the Ohio;

the windup of the Arkansas River Navigation project.

Robinson: That's to Tulsa?

Clarke: To Tulsa. That was dedicated while I was chief.

All these programs were going along. If you went back

and plotted the civil works type activities, certainly

the dollar value has gone up each year; and there is

no dip in there, 'associated with Vietnam. We had a

couple of other military programs that were growing at

that time. We had the anti-ballistic missile program.

It was one of the biggest programs we were carrying

out. That went on all the time I was deputy, and then

while I was chief, and it continued on after that.

Our work in Saudi Arabia started to build during the

196Os, and now has-reached this unbelievable figure

of either $8 or $10 billion. I guess in dollar value,

the biggest program the Corps has todayis in Saudi

Arabia.

Robinson: When you became chief, what do you feel were the

most serious problems facing the Corps at that time?

Clarke: Well, of course, we still had Vietnam. This was

number one. And the National Environmental Policy

Act was enacted right after I became chief. But as I

199
said before, we could see it coming, so the actual

enactment of it-really didn't make that much difference. It did tie down pretty clearly what our responsibilities were with respect to the environment.

It really called for increased effort to be sure that

everyone in the Corps was in tune with the new act.

This was one of the very first problems that we faced.

Robinson: What kind of environmental challenges was the l

Corps facing say after 1965 or 1966?

Clarke: We're talking about the period when the country

was becoming more conscious of environmental problems,

and we had had Earth Day and many other things that

had brought it to the national consciousness. It

finally resulted in the environmental act. And more

and more we were being challenged on some of our

projects, that the environmental aspects of them were

sufficiently serious that we should take another look

at them.

Robinson: - Do you feel the Corps adopted a defensive posture

during this period about its policies and programs

that were being challenged?

Clarke: I think we had somewhat of a defensive posture.

I felt we had to get out of that posture. We ought

to be sure we were doing what the law said. It had

to be done.

200
Robinson: How long had the Corps' projects really been

under attack to a great extent by various environ-

.

mental groups?

Clarke: Well, it's a little hard to define.

< Robinson: I know it could actually go way bqck.

Clarke: We could go back to the 193Os, I suppose. And

many of the Corps projects on which we were working

, were projects that had been authorized in the 1930s

or 1940s; in fact, the preponderance of them had been

authorized at that time -- those that were under construction. I guess the problems had been building up.

But this new law put into effect somewhat formal procedures on which to evaluate those projects. It

really meant going back and taking a look at all the

old projects and seeing whether or not they met the

mood of the country currently. Every project that the

the Corps had ever been engaged in had had some

objection t-o it, either by the landowners involved or

by environmental groups. I think it really started

to build up in the early 1960s. And it finally cul-

-

minated in the environmental policy act.

Robinson: What were some of the groupsin the forefront in

terms of opposition to some of the environmental impacts of Corps projects? What were some of the more

strident groups?

201
Clarke: Well, the traditional groups -- the Sierra Club.

I don't think the Environmental Defense Fund had been

formed at that time. The League of Women Voters was

fairly critical. *The Audubon Society. Then, you

would find local groups organized throughout the

country. And I suppose these local groups were the

ones that finally culminated in the Environmental

Defense Fund. But I think we looked mostly at groups

such as the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society, and

to some extent the League of Women Voters. The

National Wildlife Society was one of those. The

National Parks Association. There were a tremendous

number ofthem; most of them local .in character,

though.

What were some of the specific objections that

they were raising at this time to Corps civil works

projects?

The main objections, I believe, were that most

of the Corps projects -- when you think of reservoirs

-- took land, which was valuable, and put it out of

one use and put it into another use. The drainage

projects were in for considerable criticism -- and

the destruction of wildlife habitatthat went along

with that. The drainage projects largely involved

the landowners in certain areas who had swampland and

202
wanted to put it into farmland, probably mostly into

soybeans, for a bigger economic return to the landowner. I suppose that we and the Soil Conservation

Service got more attacks on the drainage projects than

we did on most of the others. I think people were

concerned, too, that when the Corps projects came in,

not only did you change the ecological environmental

aspects of an area, but you really brought about a

change in the socio-economic aspects. You encouraged

development in certain areas.

It may sound a little strange, but I think we

actually welcomed the environmental policy act. It

forced us to put down a lot of things that I'm sure

were in the minds of the planners as we developed our

projects. It forced us to put them down clearly, so

that everyone could see what the aspects were that we

were considering. And the Corps tried to be as honest

as it could in its environmental assessments. Really,

the Corps program, up until at least very recently,

didn't suffer in magnitude certainly. And I think we

ended up with some better projects than we would have

had otherwise.

Robinson: Do you feel that sometimes the opponents of water

resource and other types of civil works projects have

203
motives other than th.ose they espouse directly in

the press, other than environmental degradation?

Clarke: Oh I I think this is true. It% because the

environmental legislation gives them something they

can hang th.eir hat on -- something which they didn't

have before. By attacking some of the projects on

what I call a purely ecological basis, they have a

vehicle they did not have before. I think a lot of

the problems in many areas of the country are more of

a social nature than they are of an environmental

nature. But there is no vehicle for expressing those

concerns, so people get behind the environmental act.

There is a trend now that federal agencies -- and

again thinking mostly of the Corps -- are baring their

souls on all the environmental aspects. There is a

relatively new law out, the Endangered Species Act,

and people are now hanging onto it to express their

concerns. It% not true of everyone, but when there

are interests involved, and they search for a vehicle .

to stop a project, they'll look for whatever legislation is on the books which will allow them to do it.

Robinson: What are some of these other motives that these

people have in opposing some of these civil works ,

projects?

204
Clarke: Well, the one that constantly comes to my mind

Robinson:

is still the social problem, the racial problem. Or

perhaps even more'broad than that, it% something of

an elitist approach. One could never prove this,

but I've always had the concern that certain projects

-- such as the reservoir projects on the Potomac

basin, the Rappahannock basin, and the Delaware basin

-- are concerned as much with keeping people out of

areas as they are with preserving the natural landscape

in the areas.

You feel, you say, that this could be racially

motivated in some respects?

Clarke: I think part of it is racially motivated and part

of it is just sort of elitism. Not in all cases. But

this is one of the things that obviously can't rise to

the surface; you can't take it to court, but you can

go to court on a purely environmental aspect of a

program. There are many groups which have a very

genuine concern, on a very broad basis, for retaining

as much of the natural landscape as possible and

trying to preserve it in its "natural" state, not

encouraging development or people moving into areas.

Usually working with groups such as these, where

that's their motive, is easy. It‘s very difficult to

work with a group that won't tell you what the real

205
problem is. I do think that groups like the Audubon

Society and the Sierra Club do have these very genuine

concerns. NOW~ the problem as I saw it is: we are

still an expanding nation, and we*are headed toward a

continually improved standard of living, greater

commerceQ all the things that we think of as a better

life that we'd like for the future; and the needs to

support the improved standard of living, an increased

population, and a better economic situation do

sometimes require the use of land that people would

like to leave

worked out a very nice system whereby you can plan the

entire development of the country as a whole and allocate people to certain areas. That is not the kind of

the state it? in. We still have not

a system we have, and I don't think it% the kind of

system that we want in this country. So the problem

is going to continue. The energy problem will really

accent some of the problems we‘ve had with the

environment in the past. I don't know. I guess

we'll work it out the same way we always have in the

past: discussion, and finally you take it to -- at

least in the case of the Corps programs -- Congress

and the elected representatives to decide what they

want to do.

206
Robinson: When the Corps came under attack by environmental

groups -- let‘s say the intensity of this attack

became greater in the 1960s -- what was the effect on

the morale within the Corps?

Clarke: I think we had two different reactions. One was

expressed by some unnamed individual within the Corps

who said, "I didn't join the Corps of Engineers to -

come up with non-structural solutions." But I think

by and large;' the people in the Corps realized that

our job was.to do what we always had done: do what

the people of the country wanted. And if the people

of the country were changing what they wanted, we'd

better get in step and find a way to do it. Thank God

that was the dominant feeling that I ran into. I

think the Corps had an easier time of accommodating

the environmental movement than some of the other

agencies, maybe because the civil works side has still

something of the military in it, that people do what

they're told to do. Once we got the message through

that this is what had to be done, they fell into line

pretty quickly on it. Russ (Russell E.) Train, second

head of EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), really

had some very kind things to say about the way the

Corps approached problems and the quality of its

environmental analysis. We really suffered from a

207
minimum of criticism from the knowledgeable environmental leaders, when we reoriented our thinking.

Robinson: In my work on the Bureau of Reclamation, I found

that in the early to mid-196Os, the commissioner of

reclamation as well as other individuals who supported

the agency tended to try to take the environmentalists

head-on, and it was only in a later period when this

accommodation and adjustment occurred. But you seem

to suggest that the Corps tended to be more responsive

and open the lines of communication at an earlier date.

Clarke: After I became chief, the acthad just been

passed, and we had seen this coming and were beginning

to accommodate. One of the first things I did was to

appoint an environmental advisory board of some pretty

stern critics of the Corps -- by and large they were

what 1 would call constructive critics. We went at it

very seriously, working withthem, looking at all of

our policies and programs, and trying to improve the

quality of what we were doing to be sure we were in

step with the act. That was a very interesting associ- itq. z

9

ation. There were many people in our organization ,

who thought I was completely crazy -- sort of inviting

the enemy into the camp. It took about a year of

meetings with those people and had some very

fine people in the group -- before my people realized

208
that these individuals were equally concerned about

what happened to our country even though they may

have taken a different approach to it. And it also

took about a year before this group.of advisors *

realized that we were honest in our approach to

things. Once that had been accomplished, I think we

had a very constructive relationship with them which

still continues.

Robinson: Who were some of the original members of the

board?

Clarke: We had Roland Clement, Vice President of the

Audubon Society, who was elected by the members to be

chairman of the board. We had Hal Gilliam, who was

the environmental writer for the San Francisco

Chronicle; Dick Pough, who was with Wildlife International; Lois Sharp, who was the head of the conservation committee of the League of Women Voters; a chap

from the University of Indiana who was very much'

interested in public programs and communication with -

the public; Hank Foster, who had been active in the

environmental movement and later became the director

of conservation in the state of Massachusetts; and

one other chap from Minnesota,whose name escapes me

at the moment, who had been active in the environmental movement.

209
It was very interesting at first. Some of these

people came aboard and said, "We want to be a review

group of individual Corps projects." That was one of

the initial approaches. We discussed this at some

length, and I said, "No, I don't think this will work.

1 want you to have a broader perspective on the

problem. Because if you review a project and you

approve it, you'll lose your credibility among your

environmental constituents. And if you review a

project and disapprove it, and I decide to go ahead

with it, we're going to part company. So let's stay

out of the individual projects. You can use those as

examples for policy, but I don't want you to get into

saying yea or nay on individual projects." They

finally accepted that, and I think we had the right

approach.

We did go all over the country with them,and discuss many many projects -- the pros and cons in our

approach, the bringing in of different viewpoints,

and what all the various considerations were in the

projects. One in particular, I know, was the

Atchafalaya basin and considerations of what should be

done on it for the future. I think they forced us --

our division engineers and our field peop.le -- to

become much more aware of the concern of the country

210
for the environmental problems. It was sensitizing

in a way. And I guess there was a benefit to the

Corps on the one side because these people, when they

became convinced that we were trying to do the right

thingJ were in essence messengers to their environmental constituents that yes, the Corps is trying to

do what is required. We never stopped any of them

from saying whatever they wanted to, inside or outside.

Obviously, it was a group of pretty strong individuals,

and we were not about to dominate them. So I think it

had two real benefits to the Corps, having that group.

Now, as a result of that, we did form, out in

the field in the various divisions and some of our

districts, comparable groups of critics and worked

with them. It took about three to four years of

constant work in this area to establish the Corps'

credibility in the environmental movement.

Robinson: How were the findings and views of the board

promulgated to people in the Corps and to the general

public?

Clarke: Generally, the views were incorporated in the

policy guidance that we were putting out to the field

-- revisions of Corps planning documents and planning

.procedures, for example. You couldn't see it directly

in those, but these people were commenting on our

211
various regulations and all that we put out to the

people. So it was reflected in the written word and

in a lot of oral words going out to people in field.

Robinson: Did the members of the board have a great deal

of one-on-one contact with people in the field?

Clarke: Not too much one-on-one, no. . As I said earlier,

we took them around to various spots in the country

to discuss some of the local problems that we had.

I am reminded particularly of work on the Atchafalaya

and some work in the Vicksburg area, discussions on

the Great Lakes (although I guess those were held in

Washington). In that type of a discussion, it was

one-on-one. They were talking to the low level

planners of the Corps as to what considerations these

people were giving to various problems, and getting a

sense of how thoroughly we were looking at environmental problems. And, of course, IUrn sure they had

an impact on the attitudes of these planners. I don't

know that I would describe it as extensive one-on-one,

but I guess you could call it fairly substantial.

Robinson: Were new written guidelines developed for the

field as a result of this board% activities and the

re-thinking of the Corps about its mission and role

at this time?

212
Clarke: I guess the main thing that we came up with,

in the way of new guidelines with respect to new

projects, was sort of a three-phase approach to our

planning, whereas before the public might have only

. seen one. I think we probably had the three-phase

approach, but it wasn't documented and wasn't exposed. This is the approach we took when a problem

occurred and Congress told us to study it; we would

go out and work with the public in two ways. There

was the open meeting, which is probably essential but

is not necessarily the most productive way, to find

out what the problem was and what the concepts were as

to how to resolve it. And8 at the same time, we sat

down with smaller groups and worked in conferences.

I .don't mean that these were closed sessions or anything, but this was an attempt to get more of the

one-on-one approach to what really was bothering

people and what their views might be. Then we'd take

that back and form advisory committees of the various

interests -- this was all promulgated in a series of

regulations -- and then come up with a series of

alternative concepts and the development of the impacts of these concepts. Take it back to the public

and see what the reaction was in more of these smaller

meetings. And finally, the Corps would distill from

213
.

all of this what it felt was the recommended solution,

and then take that back to be discussed.

As I said, Pm not sure we did more than we had ’

done in our minds before, but now it was done more

openly. And the public felt they had participated

in the development of the project. Finally, we would

send it on up through the channels with the environmental impact statement. And I guess we had done

what the law said -- considered the alternatives and

exposed them. So this type of guidance came out of

the regulations, and it was to a substantial extent

the impact of this group on our approach to it.

Robinson: How were these new regulations and guidelines

received by the people in the field?

Clarke: Probably with some mixed emotions. I think

most people rationalized that this was the only way

that they could go, considering the temper of the

times. But I think there were some people who felt

that Congress just added two more years to the

’ planning process. They said they weren't learning

any more than they did before. And the same people

came to meetings that came before. They complained

that the public never shows any interest until you

come up with a final solution, then you get criticized

for it. And this is somewhat true. But I guess the

214
dominant feeling was that this is the way, in today's

world, you have to go about approaching a project.

One of our district engineers, I recall, out in

Seattle went farther than most in this public awareness

type thing; he had all the meetings, and he kept

issuing bulletins of what everyone said about concepts

and alternatives and published it all. He said it was ’

remarkable how the far-out views on both sides -- the

developmental versus the environmental -- when they

were put down in print, began to come closer and closer

together in meetings. Some things looked absolutely

ridiculous, and people recognized that. It was an

interesting technique. He just published everything

that people had to say of any substance on projects.

Robinson: Getting back to the environmental advisory board,

did any of the board members feel that they weren't

having the impact that they felt they should on the

way the Corps was doing things?

Clarke: One particular individual, the man I mentioned

from Minnesota, felt very strongly about one or two

particular projects. This goes back to the point I

made before of having them review projects. He felt

he should have a more direct impact on what happened

on particular projects in his area of the country.

And as a result of our not acceding to that, he quit

215
\- - --

the board. He had suggested to me that I appoint

an arbiter to arbitrate between the district engineer

and the local public interest groups. And I said,

“Well that just won't work. If Pm going to appoint

an arbiter to go down and resolve a question between

the district and the public interest groups, I might

as well fire the district engineer because he% not

going to be making the final decisions. His job is

not to push for the development of any one thing, but

to look at the total broad public interest and come UP

with the recommendation. He's the arbiter among all

the various interests already in the field." The rest

of the advisory board pretty well accepted that, but

this particular individual did not. This was one of

the factors in his resigning from the board. But that

was the only loss that we had of a member of the board

during that time.

Robinson: What were the environmental reconnaissance

inventories that were undertaken while you were chief?

Clarke: Well, this grew out of the environmental movement.

We were finding that every time we approached a project

we had to start with an environmental base. Yet, there

wasn't any ready access to what were/the principal

concerns of the people in the areas. They were of all

tYP= -- historical, archeological, areas which had

216
great social merit, and the pure ecological considerations. So as we were beginning to look at projects

to think about alternatives, we realized that it would

be very convenient if we could in some way document

what the concerns of the people were so we'd know that

before we embarked on detailed project studies. We

came up with a plan to more or less publish in atlas

form what were the important things in an area which

should be treated with tender care.

We started this as a pilot program and picked

four areas of the country to embark on the program.

We worked with the states in the areas and various

public interest groups. They were all enthusiastic

about it, so we were able to develop these environmental inventories. We had South Carolina, Vermont,

and the state of Washington; then we did a special

study on the Atchafalaya. I think they proved very

useful -- when you have overlays on top of overlays

with the ecological aspects on top of the historical

aspects and all. These inventories were all concentrated along the river valleys, because this is where

the environmental concerns were. This is where the

history of the country developed, and the archaeological developments were all along the river basins. You

could pretty well document, just by looking through

217
the dotson the river basins, what were the areas

where there were going to be real concerns. And you

could plot the hardwoods and the agricultural areas.

It just gave you, at a glance and recorded with some

fidelity, what I used to say were the areas that

needed tender loving care as you approached them.

I'm not sure how that program has finally developed. I know we published the initial inventories

in atlas form and they were received enthusiastically;

there were some beautiful documents. Pm not sure

whether they have continued the program. I have some

doubts. It was moderately expensive, but I think it

is a good way of establishing the base line so that

you then have a common base against which you can

measure and try to predict impacts in the future.

Robinson: What groups were involved in compiling these

inventories?

Cltirke: Number one, of course, the Corps. We did work

with other federal agencies -- the Fish and Wildlife

Service. We worked with the state agencies which had

similar concerns and state historical societies.

Many public interest agencies contributed. And we

even got down to the towns and counties and their

historical societies. We found a great willingness

to participate. It was really a matter of collation.

218
We weren't doing any original research in the sense

of trying to find these are.as; we were just trying to

find out what people thought was important in these

areas. Fortunately, we had within the Corps a group

that we called the Engineer Agency for Resources

Inventory, which had been doing this type of work for

AID in various Latin American countries and in south-

* east Asia. And they had the techniques down for

collecting and recording these types of information.

They were of considerable help in the mechanics of

going about this work. We found it was the kind of

work where graduate students -- history majors, for

example, or environmental majors -- could be brought

aboard for fairly modest sums and were enthusiastic in

participating. I hope they were of value. I think,

for the particular districts that were involved, they

were of substantial value.

There was some reluctance. I think we approached

quite a few states with the idea of working on this.

We finally worked with states which already had quite

a collection of information and were fairly enthusiastic about participating.

Robinson: Did you work much with consultants in compiling

these inventories, or did Corps personnel tend to do

the collation and so on?

219
Clarke: I think mostly it was done by Corps personnel:'.

1 don‘t recall that we had any substantial number of

consultants on board for it. In a sense1 these people

from the Engineer Agency for Resources Inventory were

consultants to the various districts on the techniques

of doing it. This is the kind of thing where you

draft it and send it out to people and ask them to

put in things that they feel are important. Then, s

finally, some decisions obviously had to be made

between what is important to a lot of people

and what might be important to one individual.

Robinson: Does this material find its way into the actual

environmental impact statements?

Clarke: I hope so. Now these were completed about the

time I left. I hope they established a broad base for

the beginnings of environmental impact statements.

Obviously, they were not done in detailf and there

would have to be sort of micro-studies of particular

sites as they are selected. But at least in the broad

planning, I think it does give a common base to everyone which they might use and go from there to predict

what the consequences would be.

Robinson: Was there any opposition within the Corps or from

development-minded people that it was simply giving

-\ the environmeiiLalists ammunition to use against us? .

220
Clarke: I heard that comment, but I don't think it was

a very seriou's comment. I think by the time we got *.

to developing these inventories, people realized they

could be a good tool.

Robinson: In other words, they could be an important

planning tool for the agency?

Clarke: I think there was a feeling, generally, in the

.areas where we did work these programs that the inventories were a good planning tool. The only district

that I talked to in any detail about this was New

Orleans in connection with the Atchafalaya study.

They were pretty enthusiastic about it, at least the

district engineer, his chief planner, and some of his

staff. They felt it would really be helpful. Now!

whether we could really get wall--to-wall covering with

these types of inventories across the country, I don't

know. Of course, then there is always the problem of

the continual updating of them. It% not a static

situation, it% dynamic. The expense of updating them

would be great. Pm not sure in the long run that the

Corps necessarily should do this. But no one else

-3

was doing it, so we tackled it, and we felt the inventories were a tool to help us. At least I did, and I

think many of our Corps people felt that way.

221
Robinson: Looking back over the Corps history, even before

the 196Os, do you feel the Corps has been more environmentally sensitive than some of the critics give

it credit for?

Clarke: Oh, I'm sure the answer is yes. You can go back

and document approaches to some of the environmental

problems around the country in which the Corps was

involvedt and you can prove a case that yes, %he Corps

had been sensitive, more so than it was given credit

for. But I don't think you could ever prove the

degree. If you go back through history, you can cite

things like its role in the development of the national parks, which goes back a century, as well as its

work with the wildlife people-on the flyways on the

Mississippiand trying to accommodate them. You can

also talk about the salmon runs on the Columbia and

this type of thing to prove at least an environmental

awareness. But I suppose the critics would argue that

the degree of it was not sufficient.

My philosophy always was that the Corps did at

the time whatever the people of the country wanted. I

was -talking to somebody the other day. I said, "The

one thing about the Corps among the federal agencies

so far as I'm concerned, with all my parochialism, is - that the Corps does what it's told to do. And it gets

222
told to do things by the people. Maybe the wrong

people were speaking in the past, but they were the

ones who were speaking, and it is reflected in the

legislation and the approach of Congress."

Robinson: Part of the NEPA process, of course, is public

involvement in the planning process. Did the Corps

undertake other means of increasing the amount of

communication between local group: and individuals

in the planning of water resource projects and other

types of civil works?

Clarke: Well, I cited, for example, the open planning in

Seattle. But the Corps did really expand a lot of

its information devices: flyersf summaries of

statements to various groups, mailing lists, and this

sort of thing. I think what also increased were the

number of public meetings with interested groups.

The Corps made a conscious effort 4~0 involve the

public, whoever the public may be. But we suffered

from a problem; it% not unique to the Corps, you see c

it in every other program. Several factors are

involved. Onet we've got a fairly mobile population.

Secondf the population generally has short memories;

and third, the length of time it takes for Corps

projects to move. And to some extent, there is an

apathy on the part of the population, which is

223
probably a belief that generally their elected

leaders will do what's right for them. So, despite

the best informational programs, you finally arrive

at a situation that I have described as the "bulldozer

in .the bedroom.'* And suddenly people say, "No one

talked to me." And they object to a particular

project. It's a combination of many things that

allows that situation to arise. So you have late

objections, and people who haven't been heard. Their

views may have been considered, but they didn't

express the views.

We did run a study where we.brought in the University of Michigan 'on the Susquehanna River basin

planning to try to outline three broad planning alternatives for the use of the Susquehanna basin. One

was very development or economically oriented, one

environmentally oriented, and one in between. We

brought them in because they were experts in public

communication, and we followed their program fairly

religiously. I know our dititrict engineer was very

discouraged. He said despite all the public meetings,

he ran into the same people as he had run into before

without this extensive.program; and he wasn't sure he

was getting the message across to the broad public in

the area. He was very discouraged about it.

224
But this is not unique to the Corps' programs.

There are a few people who take a very direct interest

and participate. The public at large doesn't participate actively -- they may participate in the polling

booth in the leaders that they elect. It% a difficult problem. I don't know. I think everyone is

seeking new ways to communicate. And this communication concern is expressed in many pieces of legislation dealing with special programs. They all have

the same problems. I saw this in the water quality

business. The difficulty of involving the public

that it understands all of the impacts. Some of them

are pretty technical.

Robinson: This environmental concern, has it changed significantly the traditional cost-benefit ratio approach

to the justification and authorization of water

resource projects?

Clarke: I think the answer is a little bit of yes and no.

You still have to go through a cost-benefit .analysis.

The OMB insists on it, and Congress insists on it.

Projects that don't pass at least the one-to-one ratio

rarely get considered. I think it had resulted in

projects being accepted with

ratio they have had in the past. The water

slightly smaller

resource council, of course, is trying to establish

225
the various accounts, but the problem is that only

a few items can be quantified, and others have to be

treated in words and thoughts. But it does allow

additional consideration of environmental aspects and

reduced b/c ratios.

Actually, consideration of the environment

doesn't always result in a reduced b/c ratio. I think

one could find cases where actually it‘s been improved. Again, speaking of the Corps, it certainly

has expanded the horizons of what might be done to

make things aesthetically more pleasing. There was

sort of a rule of thumbV that I don't think was ever

written down, that you could spend up to 3 percent

beautifying a project. Pm talking about in the 1950s

and the early 1960s. That concept got abandoned very

quickly in the 1960s. And you began to find, oh,

just simple things: instead of building concrete

walls on drainage projects, you went in with curved

sod-covered channels 'and tried to make things look

a lot better aesthetically.

I guess one of the first examples of that was a

very short flood control project, Tamalpias Creek in

California.. Because of the objections to the way we

were going to treat the particular stretch, we went

to great lengths -- not much additional cost -- and
still came out with a good b/c ratio on it and made

it a much more aesthetic development than we had

had before. I had to agree with the residents in

the area that a straight concrete ditch through the

area was destructive of property values and good

sense. I think what we came up with was very attractive. There were still some groups that weren't

very happy with it. I could prove to my own satisfaction that it looked better after than it did

before, and it helped solve some of the flood control

problems.

Robinson: While you were chief, how did the Corps' role in

wastewater management change?

Clarke: At just about the time I became chief, the

environmental act was passed, and were looking

actively for ways in which we could use some of the

Corps' capability to help solve these problems. And

with encouragement from the secretary's office, we

started looking at the possibility of the Corps trying

to spell out on a regional basis the alternatives for

wastewater management and other uses of water in the

area. The EPA had just begun its workr and it wasn't

necessarily enthusiastic about the Corps getting into

this work. But there was considerable push on the

227
part of the secretary% office. The congressional

committee also seemed to think there was merit to it.

We really embarked on a pilot program of studies

of major metropolitan areas to see what the alternatives would be. There was great enthusiasm in some

parts of the environmental movement for putting the

wastewater back on the land. There's still a great

deal of enthusiasm for it. And this is one ofthe

alternatives that we looked at in our studies around

the country. A perfectly fine alternative, but politically, it's like backing into a buzzsaw. Just the

consideration of it aroused all kinds of reaction ~ -

among the public atlarge. Our concept was that we

would develop the alternatives, spell out the pros

and cons both on the dollar side and on the environmental side, and make these plans available to the

regional authorities for their use. The regional

. authorities weren't too sure whether they wanted the

Corps in there -- there were many institutional

interests in these areas which were afraid that the

Corps was going to come in and take over.

So we had a difficult time in this area, reactions tothe various plans and institutional fears.

But we did proceed with the studies and finally developed them. We did not come up with specific

228
recommendations in any of these areas. At one time,

we had thought perhaps we might be able to do it.

We developed the plans, and I think they are good

base plans for the areas concerned. In many cases,

it looked as if the idea of putting the wastewater

on the land should get more serious consideration by

the people who were responsible; but I think they,

toot found that the political aspects of it were

almost impossible to overcome.

NOW~ the program has expanded. The Corps, under

agreement with EPA, has moved into other metropolitan

areas of the country; and I think generally it has

only gone into areas where it has been invited. The

first pilot case, of course, sort of forced its way

in. But in those areas where it has been invited, I

think it% meeting with substantial success. I

always said that the Corps' field organization could

take a pretty complex problem and develop a series of

alternatives, and generally it could arrive at a

consensus as to what should be done. I think it is

accomplishing that now in places like Omaha.and other

parts of the country.

The Corps has something like thirty-five of these

studies going on at the present time. And out of

that, hopefully, will come a program which the local

229
agencies or the “208" agencies can use as a basis

for their future programs -- on the allocation of

tasks to local sewer districts, on how much of it

might evolve into Corps-type activities, and on flood

control aspects. I think we'll have to wait and see

what emerges directly from it. But in essence, what

the Corps is doing is using its planning capability

to try to assist the local people. And I think they

are getting a better reception than those first five

studies. I almost lost some personal friends over

the very fact that we were looking at some of the ,

alternatives, not necessarily developing them, but

just looking at them.

. Robinson: What changes occurred in the Corps' permit

program with regard to discharges?

Clarke: The big change, of course, has come out of the

interpretations of Public Law 92-500, the water pollution control act amendments,where the role of the.

Corps has been expanded .far beyond what the traditional concepts had been under the 1899 act. Here

again, a highly controversial subject as to how far

the Corps should go in its role, and differing

interpretations of what that law means with respect

to the Corps. Finally it went to the courts, and the

courts mandated that the Corps' authority was

230
considerable, far beyond what it had contemplated.

This is still being sorted out, as you know -- in

Congress with a difference in views between the House

and the Senate as to how far the Corps' authority

should go, and what authority should be given to the

statesP and the division of responsibility, really,

between the federal government and the state governments.

If the Corps goes as far as some would have it

go I it will be a very extensive program and require

additional personnel to carry it out. My personal

feeling is that we would be better off as a country

if we got the states more involved in permit actions

and left the Corps to what I would consider its more

traditional role under the old 1899 act, where it was

preserving navigation more than the quality of water.

But, as you know, there -has been an evolution under a

series of court decisions, preceding Public Law

92-500, which keeps broadening the authority of the

Corps with respect to water quality and use of

streams. I'm not sure what the final outcome of this

will be. I‘ve always had a feeling that the federal

government is getting more involved in the activities

of the individual and that this is better left to the

state and local governments. I have hopes that

231
someday the “208" agencies will be effective and will ._

do what all these dreams in the law says they should

do, and that ultimately they will take control and

put the Corps back on the mainstreams with its concerns about silting, navigation, and obstructions to

navigation.

Robinson: What are your feelings regarding the current

administration's attitudes toward water resource

projects?

Clarke: 1 guess my initial feeling was that the first

group of projects should have merited a little more

consideration before they announced them.

Robinson: Are you referring to the "hit lists"?

Clarke: The first hit list, yes. Then, of course, there

are the political aftermaths of that -- the reactions

. of the Congress to the particular hit list. My own

feeling is that the second step that they took was a

very rational step.. They came up with criteria and

said we want to evaluate on-going programs in accordance with these criteria. And they greatly expanded the list. .I think they looked at 300 Corps

projects rather than the original limited number.

And they went through a rather stern evaluation of

them. Of course, here you get into the politics

of the situation -- when the administration wants

232
to change the criteria by which projects are evaluated. I think its role might have been eased, although I'm not sure it could have ever gotten

agreement, but it might have been eased by a little

more consultation with the people in Congress on the

use of the new criteria for evaluation. Personally,

I can find no fault with the concept that if a

project doesn't meet today% standards, it should be

considered for modification or possible elimination.

Robinson: Would you please continue?

Clarke: It's very difficult to justify to the public at

large the use of.a 3 1/8 percent discount rate when

the government is borrowing money at 6 7/8 percent.

So philosophically, I find no fault with that. I

think the real problem that the administration ran

into on this was that they were overly enthusiastic

in their initial announcement of the projects. They

might have saved some of the problems had they had

a little discussion with some of the leaders in

Congress. Their criteria for evaluation, I think, is

reasonable.

I know, in my conversations with the Corps right

nowJ its attitude is still what it always has been:

you tell us how to judge things, and we‘ll judge our

projects that way. That is the approach General Morris

233
is taking. I go back in memory to the day I woke up

and found that President Nixon had stopped the crossFlorida barge canal. My first feeling was, I guess,

a natural reaction of trying to defend the project.

Then I started thinking, what difference does it make

to me? If the people of this country decide they

don't want that project, Pm not going to push for it.

Now, I lost some friends in Florida, because we

wouldn't go out and take the stump on theocrossFlorida project. Hut I don't consider that the Corps'

role; these are political decisions.

I go back in memory to 1940 to a story told to l

me about Eugene Reybold, who was chief of engineers.

He recommended a project to the secretary of the Army.

The secretary of the Army said, "You haven't told me

the most important thing: should we go ahead and

build this project now?" . And the chief of engineers

saidr "That's not my decision. The country has got

so many resources. Pm telling you this would be a

good investment, but whether this is a better investment than something in public health or elsewhere,

the chief of engineers can't decide. That has to be

a political decision." And I felt the same way about

the cross-Florida canal and about the so-called “hit

list." If it doesn't measure up to the criteria that

234
the political leaders want, it shouldn't be built.

I think the real problem is the lack of agreement 8

among the political leaders in the administration

and the Congress as to what criteria should be used.

But the Corps can work with any set of criteria.

Robinson: You retired from the Corps in 1973 and then

became executive director of the National Commission

on Water Quality. Why do you feel you were chosen

for this position?

Clarke: Obviously, 1 was vulnerable. I had just retired,

and the timing worked out right. The commission had

just begun to organize. They had very little in the

way of a staff, and I think they gave the choice of

picking the executive director to the chairman. He

was looking for someone who had credibility throughout

the nation and an appreciation of what the problems

might be. I suspect -- in fact I've been told -- that

members of the House staff on the Public Works Committee put my name in the hopper as one of the people

to be considered. I think it was a combination of

timing and background, and I think I did have some

credibility around the country among both the people

who built things and the environmental groups. so I

I think this led to Mr. (Nelson) Rockefeller considering me. I'm not sure how many others he may

235
have considered in his hunt for the executive

director.

Robinson: Why was this commission established, and what

were its purposes?

Clarke: It was established because the House and the

Senate couldn't agree on what the requirements for

the water pollution abatement program should be in

the long-range future. They were pretty well agreed

on the short-range requirements, but there was a

difference of view as to how far it should go and

what the impacts might be. One of the compromises

that was worked out to allow the legislation to go

through in 1972 was the establishment of a commission

to consider a mid-course direction. The charter 'of

the commission, in about one sentence, said: take

a look at the economic, social, and environmental

aspects of carrying out the program or not carrying

it out. That was, of course, the job of the commission. I might say that, having completed our

report, and as it collects dust in Congress, I can't

see any difference in the attitudes in the

congressional committees from the days in 1972.

Robinson: Who were some of the individuals on the commission? I understand that at that time it was

236
Governor Rockefeller who was chairman. Who were some

of the other members, what were their backgrounds?

Clarke: There were the five Senators and the five House

members who had been part of the conference committee. The other members were so-called public

members. I think Governor Rockefeller was picked

be cause New York State had been foremost in its

programs of cleaning up water. He had raised considerable money through a bond issue and had New York

State embarked on a program long before 92-500 came

along. They chose an industrial member, Dr. Ed Gee

from DuPont, one of the senior vice presidents, who

was concerned with the environmental problems of the

DuPont Company but who was also concerned with the

environmental problems of industry as a whole. They

selected one man who was interested in problems on a

1 municipal level. That was Ray Kudukis of Cleveland,

who was in charge of the Cleveland utilities district.

They picked one man who had been concerned with the

problems at a state level. This was, initially, Carl

Wright from Arkansas; and later his successor from

Arkansas after, unfortunately,Carl died. And they

chose one man from the West who had a pretty good

knowledge of agricultural problems and western

problems, Bill Gianelli, who had just retired as the

237
director of water resources of the state of California. They had a pretty broad group. So Ladd

Davies was the replacement from Arkansas.

Robinson: As executive director for this commission, did

you find it was a special challenge to work with

both political people and people from the private

sector?

Clarke: No I not particularly. When I came aboard, they

had given me two very fine individuals as the senior

people on the staff: Joe Mooret who had been previously director of the Federal Water Quality Adminis--

tration; and Jim Smith, who had come from the Conservation Foundation and had done extensive work with

the Department of Interior. Joey of course, knew a

great deal about the mechanics of the water pollution

program. And Jim Smith had a real feel for the

environmental concerns. I guess there were problems,

but we developed a plan of study which was endorsed

by the commission after considerable discussion. I

think it took about four months to get a plan of

study approved. But once that was approved, the commission allowed us to pretty much proceed according

to the plan.

I think one of our real problems, of working

with a congressional commission with so many

238
congressional members, was in trying to get enough

of their time to keep them continually up to date

on what was going on. They had a device where each

one of those people had a special assistant whose

job it was to follow this day by day. I don't know

how often these various people met with their

principals, but their main role in the commission

was to be sure that their member was informed of

what was going on and, to some extent, that the views

of their member were transmitted back to the staff,

and where possible, incorporated in the studies that

we were preparing.

The commission actually went along for -- let%

see# we were in existence from September 1973 to

March 1976 -- about two and a half years. The first

four months were involved in developing a plan of

study and getting our staff collected. Then we embarked on a series of contract studies. And although

kept the commission briefed as to what was going

Ob I think it was only in perhaps the last six

months of the commission -- as the report of the

staff began to take shape and as our report of the

commission (a short document) began to be formulated

-- that it finally began to focus on what the final

recommendations were going to be. It was difficult

239
to get the members' time, because it was a busy

period in Congress. I'm not sure how one should

handle this with a congressional commission. They

did allow us, as a staff, as long as we followed

the study plan, to work along. And I think they had

a lot of faith that the staff would come out with an

objective report. But when we began to focus on the

recommendations, and in particular about the last

six weeks before the report came out, then I think

we really caught the attention of the majority of

the members.

Robinson: Was most of the research and legwork done

through contractors?

Clarke: Almost entirely. We spent $12 million plus on

contracts, about 100 contract studies. So they

averaged $120,000 apiece. The job of our staff was

to administer those contracts: to prepare the work

to fit into the individual contracts, to select contractors and monitor their progress, to review their

reports when they came in, to circulate the reports

for reviewfi and eventually to secure from them the

final reports. Then the job of our staff, aided

somewhat by contract assistance, was to take these

100 reports, which I used to describe as fifty-five

feet of reports -- and that's about what it was when

240
the original double-spaced drafts came in -- and

consolidate that into a meaningful analysis to

answer the broad questions< what will be the economic, social, and environmental impacts of doing

something or not doing something?

Robinson: Who did this distillation, taking all this mass

of material and putting it into one document?

Clarke: l The staff that we had brought aboard. We hadr

I thought, a very capable staff. And considering

the fact that it was for a short period and they had

not known each other before, I think they worked

very well together. I give much of the credit to

Joe Moore, who was whatwe called the study director

-- I was the executive director, he was the study

director. There were concerns initially that maybe

we were layered too much, but I think we both agreed

at the end that we needed Joe to devote his time

exclusively to getting the study produced. I had to

do more what I called the front running and setting

up a lot of public meetings. My doing that allowed

him to concentrate on the study. But it was this

staff -- which at one time ran a total of about

eighty people, of which about forty were professionals -- that did the distillation, drafting, sending

out the drafts for comments and getting them back,

241
and finally preparing one basic staff document about

two inches thick. That was backed up by four

volumes in specialized areas of economics, environmental, and institutional problems. And finally,

of course, all that was distilled into about a

forty-page series of recommendations and discussion

of recommendations.

How was the staff's report received by the

members of the commission?

It was accepted by the members of the commission.

Of course, the report was very broad. I guess .it

received general acceptance as a credible document.

It was certainly the best compilation of the total

picture of water pollution problems that had been

put together. Since it was a rather broad document,

one could almost read into it whatever one wanted to

read into it. There were facts and figures to support perhaps a lot of different conclusions. The

document was pretty well accepted. I think it was

when we began to draw conclusions as a staff, to

bring things into focus, that we began again to uncover the differences among the commission members.

Of course, it finally came to a head when the

recommendations were drafted. Then the commission

242
members had to act on the recommendation document,

which was a rather short document.

l Now, you asked how was the staff report accepted. There was no device by which it was formally

accepted or rejected. It was acknowledged, anyway.

To be honest, the very final draft of the staff

report did not come out until after the recommendations had been acted on. But the earlier drafts,

the real substance of it, were available.

Robinson: How much input actually, into the structure of

the recommendations, was the direct result of the

commission members rather than the study plan that

you undertook?

Clarke: The way the recommendations were developed, in

June 1975, Joe Moore and I, and Jim Smith, started

drawing our conclusions from the study. And about

that same time, I started drafting the recommendations. I had a whole series of recommendations; and

I kept issuing these as a sort of shopping list of

recommendations, trying to get comments back from

the commission members as to what they felt might

go into it. And the commission said, "We don't want

to commit ourselves to recommendations until we've

had all our public hearings." So it was agreed that

Joe Moore and Jim Smith and I would continually work

243
on drafts of recommendationsf but we would keep them

under wraps, just the three of us, until after the

'public hearings. After the public hearings, we asked

each of the commission members to suggest to us

recommendations that they thought might go into the

report. We got some; I don't think we got them from

everyone. So we three sat down and took those recommendations that came in, plus our earlier drafts of

recommendations, and tried to weave them together

into what we thought was the consensus of the commission as to its recommendations. And finally, we

presented our document to the full commission for

their comment on the document. It went through

several meetings where.there were changes made in the

recommendations.

Robinson: Were these changes very substantive?

Clarke: I don't >think I would say they were very

substantive. Perhaps to the commission members concerned with individual points they might have felt

that they were; but I think in the broad context, no.

The recommendations that finally emerged were substantially what the three of us had put together.

Of course, these were not accepted by all the members

of the commission. I always say we got somewhere *

around thirteen votes out of fifteen, depending on

244
which parts of it you were looking at. Certainly

the majority of the commissioners endorsed the

general recommendations. There were some specific

objections which are recorded in forty pages of

additional comments by the various members of the

commission: some supporting in whole, some supporting generally, some making exception to a few

of the points, and one report objecting to the basic

document -- to the basic recommendations. I don't

know whether that's good or bad for the course.

Robinson: Do you feel this document has had much impact

on subsequent legislation?

Clarke: It hasn't yet had much impact on subsequent

legislation because I don't think there has been any

legislation passed.

Robinson: Or debate?

Clarke: I think it's had some impact on the debate, and

I think it still has a chance to have substantial impact in consideration of revisions to the act. There

are also other impacts that are not quite so visible.

I think it% had an impact on the operations of EPA

and its development of new regulations as well as on

the approach of states and local bodies to some of

the problems. So, whether it's worth the $17

million, I guess one could question. But you can

245
detect in the tenor of EPA regulations and state

actions that yes, the document is being read. It'

is being read pretty seriously by the people who are

working in this field.

Robinson: Was the Corps referred to directly in that documentf and were recommendations made regarding its

mission and programs?

Clarke: We stayed a*way from section 404. We did not

cover that in our report. The reason we didn't --

the reasons were twofold. One# we were to look at

the goals and requirements of the act for 1983,then

we backed off to,l977. We were not able to deal with

the non-point sources; and that% one of the, I guess

you could say, weaknesses of the report. But we felt

that in the time that we had to make the study, we

really couldn't deal with it very effectively. There

were no regulations out on it, no standards, and this

sort of thing* And the Corps program fell over into

that non-point source problem. So we did not

comment.

There were several other areas where the state

of the art just would not permit us to come up with

anything meaningful. We did come up with some generalities. The toxics area is one in particular that

we could not deal with. We did spell out in here

246
someplace the areas that we did not study. One of

the items was alternatives to the regulatory

approach. There were many who felt that charging

people for discharging would be the best approach,

an economic approach. And we spelled out certain

things in here that we just didn't have time to

covere

Robinson: What kind of professional activities have you

been engaged in since the report was completed?

Clarke: Oh I I find myself chairman of the water policy

committee of ASCE, working on broad water policies

there? which again gets back to some extent to the

water quality program. I guess that% the most

active thing in professional societies that I'm

involved in. I did go down to South America to be

a non-governmental observer at the UN Water Conference* I‘m a member of several other societies, but

I think my most active participation is in ASCE.

Actually, I %e been involved more with the firm and

some of its work. ,

Robinson: What is your role as a consultant to TAMS

(Tippetts-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton, Engineers and

Architects)?

Clarke: It's not very clearly defined. I'm a consultant on anything they want to talk about. I spent

247
three months working on a proposal on the northeast

corridor, which did not get. I've been a consultant

on various other studies -- many of them related to

water resources, energy programs in particular.

Because I've had some experience in the Middle East,

they consult with me on programs on the Pliddle East.

One area I do not touch is anything having to do with

the Department of Defense or the Corps of Engineers.

I stay out of those areas, because of the conflict of

interest aspects or just plain ethics. Besides, I

don? feel comfortable going back to talk to people

within organizations I've been associated with. When

you ask what am I working on, I think my main interest for our firm is energy problems.

Robinson: What are some of the major resource problems

Clarke:

facinG the nation, and what will be the Corps' role

in the future in dealing with these?

The real problems facing the nation in which

the Corps will have an interest, or should have an

interest, I would say are still the water problems

and water resources. I think the Co@s will continue

to play a major role in dealing with those problems.

I see the Corps getting more into the water quality

aspects than they have in the past. I think the

Corps could be of tremendous assistance in working .

248
on the energy problems. It already touches them in

many ways. The ports that bring in fuels or export

fuels; and on waterways, the Corps is involved in

the transportation of fuels. But I think it could

have a broader role in developing the coal facilities

in the West. It still has its traditional hydraelectric role, pumped storage and this type of thing.

I also think the Corps could perform well for the

nation in the development of the strategic petroleum

reserve. These are the types of programs that the

Corps is pretty well suited to in assisting the

nation.

Robinson: Do you think the Corps could have a role in

other types of renewable energy, such as solar and

wind energy resources?

Clarke: I think the answer is yes. As a matter of fact,

I know it is already engaged to some extent in these

programs8 working cooperatively with the Federal

Energy Administration and with ERDA (Energy Research

and Development Administration). I guess most of

its work is with ERDA. This is the type of program

in which the Corps may not necessarily be the one to

carry out the research and development but, if this

develops into a large-scale program with a substantial federal input, I think the way the Corps'

249
organization is set up it could contribute signifit

cantly. I hope the Corps can find ways to assist

the country in these programs. I know General Morris

is trying to come up with concepts on how this organization which has tremendous potential can contribute.

Robinson: Are you pleased that you have devoted your life

to serving in the Corps of Engineers?

Clarke: Oh, the obvious answer is yes. Not all my

service, as you would say, was in the Corps. I've

been pleased with thirty-six years of service in the

Army and a substantial part of that in the Corps.

I came out of it with a feeling that in some way we

contributed to the country.

250
Interview by Albert E. Cowdrey

Historical Division

Office, Chief of Engineers

with

Lt. Gen. Frederick J. Clarke, USA (Ret)

17 January 1974
Cowdrey: Looking' at documents, it% very hard, of

.

course, to realize how things actually did work.

Nowf I already asked General Welling about this,

suppose 1 just try to summarize what he said and

16

you can add anything you like. First, I asked

him how the Board of Commissioners functioned:

whether he was an actual working executive. He

said he was primarily a ceremonial figure, that

he spoke for the Board of Commissioners on public

occasions. And that he was always one of the

civilian Commissioners so far as members went. I

asked him whether the Engineer Commi.ssioner was

the head of any department functioning with an

executive function and if he also voted on District

regulations and therefore had legislative functions.

He said yes, there were several departments each .

headed by a division chief who reported to the

Engineer Commissioner. Now another rather con16 MG Alvin C.

Military Academy,

Well-ing (1910 - J U.S.

1933* Corps of Engineer;. ALCAN

Highway, 1942 - 43. Chief of Engineers, 1944 - 45,

and G-4, India Burma-Theater, 1945-46. District

Engineer, Baltimore, 1948-51. -Executive Officer,

Office of the Chief of Engineers, 1951 - 55. Engineer Commissioner, District of Columbia, 1957 - 60.

Commanding General, Corps of Engineers Ballistic

Missile Construction Office, Los Angeles, 1960 - 61.

Deputy Commanding General, Air Force Ballistic

Systems Division, 1961 - 63. Retired, 1965.

251
fusing area to me was the relationship between

all the different Corps people in Washington:

the Corps members, the National Capital Planning

Commission, the Engineer Commissioner, the Washington District.

Clarke: Well, let me start back on the first. l

I'm not sure my view on the president of the

Commission would coincide with Al's, but of

course we had different personalities involved.

When I came along, the team that had been working with Al Welling had disappeared from the

 scene. We had a curious situation when I first

went in. One of the Commissioners, Karrick,

had resigned and then died shortly afterward.

He'd been appointed Ambassador to some Central

American country. He was not replaced.

And there was a Republican named McLaughlin

who had worked with Al. Al and he had just been

opposing each other completely, and I do think .

in the case of McLaughlin he was much more

of a figurehead of the Board of Commissioners.

252
than was Tobriner when he came aboard with different

personalities. And I think Tobriner took much more ,

interest in the running of his department. When we

finally had three commissioners-- and this took some

time because of the fact we were changing from a

Republican to a Democratic administration -- but when

we finally had the three we did divide the areas of

the city government into three parts for day-to-day

administration. Theapresident of the Board of Commissioners too, essentially, the public safety, the

police, and the fire department. He was involved in

the day-to--day general administration of those parts.

Cowdrey: Excuse me just a second, it was up to the Board

of Commissioners how to divid.e the city system?

Clarke: There was nothing prescribed in the charter at

all. The charter just said there would be three Commissioners, one of whom would be an Engineer Officer.

The other civilian Commissioner took all the areas of

public health and welfare under him. And then the

Engineer Commissioner had what I think had been traditionally his -- all the areas that had to do with

the physical part of the city plus a couple of others

that were hung onto him because, I guess, he happened

to be in uniform. I found I had Veterans Affairs. The

Engineer Commissioner had always been a military man.

253
I don't know that it fitted better under the Engineer

Commissioner than it would have under the others.

But, any-y I I had that.

But in the day-to-day running of all the departmentsthat had to do with the physical side of the

city, there was no doubt in the minds of those department heads that they reported to me for guidance. I

I ran those departments without any problems. We had

some wonderful department heads. In fact, I told my

fellow Commissioners I had the easiest job of all. I

had good department heads, they understood their businessR they were professionals, and they'd been there

a long time. Probably 'the thing that made it easier

was that on the physical side of the city -- although

we might not accomplish it -- at least I could see a

solution to the problem of the city. Whereas they

were dealing in the most difficult areas of the social

problems, where you couldn't quite see what way to go,

you tried to arrive at a solution. And I do think at

least during the time I was there, the other two Commissioners pretty well stayed out of any problems

within the areas that I was working in.

With one exception, I don't think they ever disagreed with me on any approach to the problems of the

physical side of the city. The one exception had to

254
do with whether we should build what was then called

the center leg of the freeway. This would have gone

l through the area of the East Capitol Hill about 12th

to 14th Street east. And it had a lot of social

problems, relocations of people, a great deal of

community unrest over the idea of building it. The

two of them together voted against me on that. I

think that's the one real occasion where we ever had

axeal serious disagreement on anything within my

province. I used to tell people that Al Welling had

left me a pretty legacy; he had built all the parts

of the freeway system where people were not involved.

By the time I came along, we had arrived at what I

called the "bulldotier in the bedroom." But? if you

know Washington, the parts of the freeway system

that had been completed had tied in with the urban

renewal area in the southwest. After they'd moved

everyone out of there, they built the freeway. There

was no trauma movifig people out of the way for the

freeway.

The bridges had been a matter of great discussion

because of the aesthetics. But, again, you weren't

involved in moving people to get the bridges built.

But we started to probe to put the freeway through

the residential areas of the city, it just became an

255
almost &possible task. Actually, it% the same

situation today as it was about fourteen years ago.

Well, the southwest freeway was to continue on

around by the stadium, you know, and eventually there

was to be a loop around the central part of the city,

the so-called Inner Loop. It hasn't been completed.

The new center leg now goes in front of the Capitol

steps to about E Street, and I don't know of any

plans today to continue it. The section that was to

go through the park, of course, was stopped for

aesthetic reasons. The Georgetown section of the

freeway was never completed. That was about the only

issue I ever recall where the other two Commissioners

got into my business and as a matter of Commission

policy withdrew their support to the center leg of

the freeway. I think I enjoyed a very amicable

relationship with the other two Commissioners. We

opened the Commission meeting to the publicduring

the time that $1 was there. Prior to that time the

meetings had always been held in executive session.

We found that a good mechanism for discussing problem

areas was a cup of coffee in the morning with the

three of us sitting down in one of our offices

talking about the problems of the city -- so that at

least among the three of us it had been pretty well

256
discussed and thrashed out by the time we ever

went to the Commission meetings. But all the votes

were public and there were very few items that came

up on which there was any,real dissension among the

Commissioners; and even where the votes came out

two-togonet I don't know of any injured feelings that

resulted from all this, because we did try to maintain a good rapport with each other. But I'm sure

from my limited knowledge of previous Commissions

that this was not always so, there were some hot and

heavy arguments over many problems of the city.

Tommy Lane had been heavily involved in the educational aspect of the city. I remember reading the

newspaper accounts long before I ever thought I would

become a Commissioner involved in that.

Welling had some very difficult jobs to do and

he ran into a great deal of opposition, not necessarily from those in the Commission, but from groups

who had an interest in the city, primarily in the

Interior Department. But I think he won out and won

his battles in respect to what he was trying to

accomplish. He left me one curious legacy. I don't

know whether he ever told you about it.

In putting the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge in,

when I came aboard as Commissioner, that thing was

257
construction halfway across the river and designed

only halfway across the river. The Virginia side

of it had not been approved. We'd never gotten the

approval of the Park Service and all the others involved as to what the Virginia side would look like.

So, actually, we had a bridge under construction

halfway across the river. And one of the first tasks 1

that I got involved in was trying to get at what the

other end of the bridge was going to look like and

getting it under construction.

Most of my problems when I was Commissioner were

not within the city government itself, they were

primarily in dealing with outside agencies. I guess

if I had any real problems they occurred within the

National Capital Planning Commission -- and probably

more specifically with the Department of Interior and

with the Park Service. Primarily in trying to get

the Dulles Interceptor Sewer Line located, we came to

the Park Service -- and the highway program which we

were pushing at that time.

I guess in trying to take a broad look at the

city, actually it started before I came aboard -- 1

think we pushed it along quite a bit -- getting the

subway system started was a big effort. We were

pushing when I was there to get the compact between

258
the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland.

That fell to my lot as Engineer Commissioner and I - ,

spent many a night in meetings with those two States ’

trying to work out the wording of the compact which

finally was approved and produced. This was the

foundation for the present Metro System. It took I

suppose almost three years to hammer out the language

to go into the compact: And most of that was done in

meetings in my office that ran, I guess, about every t

two weeks, which started about seven o'clock at night

and ran on till midnight and beyond. And this was- in

trying to work out the specific language. So, I guess

in a way you could say the Engineer Commissioner

played a very heavy role in getting that started.

Cowdrey: The Corps still does have some people in Metro

doesn't it?

Clarke: Well, at Metro, nobody on active duty. We've got

a lot of retired people over there. Jack Graham, who

was the top man over there, of course, is a retired

major general, who headed up our Civil Works Program.

And then the staff had a significant number of retired

officers and civilians that had served with the Corps

in the past. I guess the Engineer has a large part to

play in the development of the city.

259
Cowdrey: YesI I have a note on General Jackson Graham

and Colonel Bocci.

Clarke: That% Bacci. Well, actually, Jack Graham --

. Roy Dodge is his chief of engineering. Garbacz, Ed

Wadell, these are the ones that quickly come to mind.

Schuyler Lowe, who is the top administrative man in

that, originally started out with the Corps and then

was the top administrative man for the District

government for a long time and retired from that and

went with Metro. And then among the contractors who

were working with Metro there are quite a few Engineer

Officers. Wilhoyt, for example, is the head of the

local Bec!htel organization working with Metro. And

he% got Al Rosen with him. I suppose sprinkled

through that organization you might find thirty or

forty. It might be worthwhile talking to Jack Graham.

One thing about the Metro System and all: before they created the present organization that Jack

Graham heads, there was an interim organization

created to do the planning for Metro (National Capital

Transportation Agency). It was pretty heavily a political organization -- at least the head of it was.

I used to get into,some pretty heavy arguments with

him -- his name was [C. Darwin] Stolzenbach. I don't

know what he is doing now. One of the first things

260
he did was to take a healthy crack at the highway

program; this was quite upsetting. First of all I

don't think it was the mission of that group to do

it. The mission was to plan the Metro System. But

they took a healthy crack at the.highway program and

wanted to defer all of it until the Metro System was

completed. And4 now of course, this philosophy is

repeated continually now as I-66 is being studied.

But because I was staunchly defending the highway

program, some people cast me in the light of being

anti-Metro and that wasn't my position at all. My

position was that Washing-ton needed all it could get

-to solve its problems and from my studies it didn't

look possible to build all the Metro System that we

would need or all the highway systems that we would

need to take care of their problems. We had to get

as much as we could. Then I got into an argument

with the subway.planners on two aspects. First, I

said their cost estimates were too low and they were

deceiving the public. Their answer to that was,

"Well, you're anti-subway; and, therefore, you are

criticizing it/

And8 secondly, I took issue with them on their

_ position that the fare box would pay back one third

of the cost of the subway -- and this didn't look

261
reasonable to me either. The estimates, of course,

have gone way up since then for many reasons, but

one of them, 1 am sure, was that the estimates initially were very low. And secondly, when they tried

to float their bond issues -- their revenue bonds --

it was obvious they couldn't be sold without the

hundred percent backing of the States, and the

District, and the Federal Government, recognizing

that people just don't buy revenue bonds in public

transit systems any more. So, I find, even ten -

twelve years later, people coming up to me and

saying, "You're Clarke. You used to be Commissioner.

You were against the subway system." I wasn? against

it; I just thought we were hoodwinking the public and

the Congress with the estimates and the proposals on

.

bonds. In fact, one of the concerns that I had at the

time, I said we could almost make the Metro System a

free system. There would be certain advantages in

the costs to the population of the area. It really

would boil down to charging everybody for the Metro

System. But that didn't go across.

Going back to your .point, did the Engineer Commissioner act in a legislative capacity? The answer

is yes. One every issue that had to have the approval .

of the Board of Commissioners, he acted on them -- he

262
Cowdrey: I see. Before we leave this general area, who

was equal with the other Commissioners. Now8 we did

have a practice -- continuing a practice they had in

the past -- certain areas that were noncontroversial

and minor in nature were sort of read into the record

before the Commission meeting. In other words, they

were included in the minutes as if they'd been approved, but they weren't discussed. And these were

actions that either the Engineer Commissioner took

in his department or the other Commissioners had endorsed in theirs. But these were, as I say noncontroversial, minor items, always available for questioning

if anybody wanted to question them. But anything that

was broad or important,requiring the commission‘s

approval, the Engineer Commissioner was co-equal.

Budget matters, city ordinances, this type of thing --

all came before the Commissioners.

built the beltway?

Clarke: The beltway was built by the States, of course,

and the Bureau of Public Roads financing. The importance of the Engineer Commissioner in that was in his

role as a member of the National Capital Regional

Planning Council where the Engineer Commissioner had

always been the District's representative. I don't

know whether that was specified by law. I think it

263
may well have been that he would be the District's

representative on that. Andf of course, they approved; and, .actually, the basic approval of that

occurred before my time -- probably occurred back

in 1955 or along in there. I suppose when Tommy

17

Lane was Commissioner. Once that was approved by

the Planning Council, the Engineer Commissioner

didn't have direct responsibility for it.

It was funny how many extra jobs the Engineer

Commissioner picked up. At one time I added up all

the boards and commissions that I was a member of --

usually ex-officio -- and I think I ended up with

twenty-one or twenty-two. But the significant ones

were: the Engineer Commissioner was chairman of the

Zoning Commission. He was by law a member of the

National Capital Planning Commission. He was by law

a member of the Public Utilities Commission. During

the time that I was Commissioner, we set up this

17 MG Thomas A. Lane (1906 - 1975)b U.S.

Military Academy, 1928. Corps of Engineers. Commanding Officer, 30th Engineer Topographical Battalion, Ft. Belvoir, 1941 - 42. Executive Officer,

Office of the Chief of Engineers, 1943 - 45.

District Engineer, Little Rock, 1948 - 50. District

Engineer, Okinawa, 1950 - 52. Engineer Commissioner,

District of Columbia, 1954 - 58. President, Mississippi River Commission and Division Engineer, Lower

Mississippi River, 1960 - 62. Retired, 1962.

264
regional regulating body for transportation, the

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Commission, which

had to do with regulating bus fares, and routes, and

taxi fares, and that sort of-thing. 1 happened to be

the first chairman of that one. Pm notsure I could

tick off all the others. Oh, and the Council of

Government, which had actually started before the

Metropolitan Council of Governments, also started before 1 became Commissioner. They were trying to deal

with the problems of the region and the first problems

that they started to tackle were the physical problems

of the area -- they sort of.shied away from the social

problems of the Washington area for obvious reasons.

But the Engineer Commissioner played a significant

role in the water and sewage problems in the area as

-we began to discuss these on a regional basis.

We got into the air pollution bit. We got into

traffic. Al Welling did a beautiful job on that in

trying to get these people together to try to solve

on a common basis the traffic problems we were heavily

involved in. Oh, there were some other things the

Council of Governments got working on such as hot pursuit by policemen. The Engineer Commissioner wasn*t

involved in that one particularly. But I think it was

one of the advances in regionalism, anyway. And, of
course, they began to take very heavy interest in

the work being done by the Regional Planning Council

and sincethe Engineer Commissioner was on both the

Council of Governments and the Regional Planning

Council, I found myself Chairman of the Council of l

Governments and the Chairman of the Executive Committee for the Regional Planning Council. I was a

nominal head of each of these at one time. It was

,an unusual position.

I think one of the reasons the Engineer Commissioner got into so much of this was that he was

not a political beast. He was put in these as sort

of an objective arbiter of problems and didn't have

the parochial ties that some of the other people had,

or the political ties some might have had. Perhaps

he could handle some of these things in a more evenhanded manner. I think we made some pretty good

strides on the sewage problem, although today, with

the growth of suburbia, there are still problems

occurring because of lack of capacity -- but I think

we set the framework of how these things could be

handled.

Cowdrey: General Welling talked a lot about the Dulles

Interceptor.

266
Clarke: Right. He was the man that did a wonderful job

in getting that thing through, and getting it approved, and getting it built. Actually, most of the

building of it occurred in my time, but at least he

got it started. And it% one of the few things that

I know of where the final product came in within the

original cost estimate. And that's pretty good. He

estimated twenty-eight and a half million dollars,

and it cost just a little bit under that when they

got finished. I'm not sure it's finally finished yet,

I think there are still a few segments of it that have

to go in. But it% a very difficult job, trying to

coordinate the construction of it with a lot of other

construction that was going on within the city.

Cowdrey: Does it run through McLean?

Clarke: ’ Right. It starts out at Dulles with a couple

of spur lines, comes down, crosses the Potomac River

below the Great Falls Dam, and then goes in a tunnel

for a couple of miles. And then it comes down the

bed of the C & 0 Canal -- through Georgetown./ For a

while, people were talking about the section gap

because it took quite a while to get that section

through Georgetown, because at one time they thought

of doing that as they built the highway up through

there at the Three Sisters Bridge. Finally, they

267
couldn't wait any longer to put that in. Then it

comes down right close to the Lincoln Memorial; and,

again, they thought it was going to wait until the

highway tunnel by the Lincoln Memorial was built and

build a sewer line in there at the same time. Andt

again, they decided they couldn't wait. Then down

through Potomac Park and across the Anacostia River

and onto Blue Plains. I haven't followed it exactly,

but I suspect that there are elements still missing

it% probably not too effective.yet. But I give the

credit for that to Al Welling, he% the man that put

that in. In fact-, when Al left, he said he had enough

projects on the board to keep me and my successors

busy for the time that we would be there -- and it was

pretty well true. Al was a great believer in getting

things started and he was right; you had to get

things started in the city.

I mentioned the bridge halfway across the

Potomac. I He started the freeway up through Georgetown

by building one bridge across Rock Creek Park. And I

extended it about four blocks before I was stopped.

I put that much of what is there. And ultimately

something will be added to it, for it has to be

completed.

268
Cowdrey: This freeway in Georgetown, is this the Whitehurst Freeway?

Clarke: Well, this would be really an expansion of the

Whitehurst Freeway. The Whitehurst Freeway, as I

understand it, was put in just before or during World

War II.

Cowdrey: Yest it was quite old.

Clarke: Old Captain Whitehurst, I guess it was who built

it. It% named after him -- another Engineer.

Cowdrey: Another Engineer?

Clarke: Everything is named after Engineers. It was

Captain Whitehurst. But, it wasn't adequte to carry

the planned traffic down through there. So there always has been on the books an expansion of it and, as

I sayt I got it up to just about 30th Street but then

it was awaiting the Three Sisters Bridge development.

What the Park Service was going to do with River Road

and joining it to a parkway up through Maryland, and

all those decisions have been deferred so the freeway

stops there -- I mean, the expanded freeway stops

there. The old Whitehurst Freeway still goes on but

it% not a very adequate thoroughfare through there.

You know, I am always astounded at the Engine.er

names that you find around town. People don't recognize them as such. Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park,

269
for a long time, I thought was what is said, a Beach

.* Drive. But it turned out not to be.

Cowdrey: Lansing Beach:

Clarke: He built it, of course.

Cowdrey: The trouble with this thing is that there's too

much material really.

Clarke: I used to live at Fort McNair. For the last

couple of years when I was Chief, I brought an environmental advisory board in. I used to have them

down for cocktail parties, and say, "Now look, today

in the environmental world you wouldn't allow US to

build on Hains Point. That's nothing but dredgings

from the old Washington Channel." And they all appreciated the point. Which proves that some things

a man does begin to acquire an institutional status

and you couldn't possibly change it.

I don't know, I suppose during the time I was

there, I don't know how to categorize which were the

most important efforts. I look back at efforts to

get that transit compact going. That was significant,

trying to expedite redevelopment activities in the

city. That was a peculiar setup. I think if one had

to go back and do it all over again, one might change

the way the Redevelopment Land Agency was set up, as

an independent corporation. It didn't get the push

270
that things like the highway program, for example,

got which were in a city department. 1 realize that

redevelopment has all kinds of impacts and can see why

they set it up as an independent corporation. But if

the object of the exercise was, in truth, to get a

redeveloped city -- I guess in retrospect -- if they

put that under the Engineer Commissioner I think it

would have moved faster. We had a lot to say about

it, but in many areas it was sort of like punching

at a paper bag to get things done.

I had one of my assistants, Tom Fullerton, who

had been there under Al Welling and stayed on for most

of the time that I was there. He spent practically

all of his time working on that redevelopment plan.

Cowdrey: He was the Assistant Commissioner?

Clarke: He was the Assistant Commissioner. He was a

colonel, I guess a full colonel. At one time I said,

and I still believe it, he knew more about the

problems of redeveloping a city than anybody in the

United States. Because, as a *matter of factJ what

success we had in redeveloping, I would give him the

credit -- not the corporation that was there -- but

Tomf working and prodding and pushing. He was in a

very difficult area, but he couldn‘t do everything

that had to be done. Tom had some wonderful ideas.

271
don't know how far you want to carry your story --

but if you could ever get someone like Tom to talk.

WhyI I think he was closer to the problems of the

city in many respects than the Engineer Commissioner

because there was a ceremonial aspect to the Engineer

Commissioner that precluded you from getting down

into the tough areas. But Tom worked hard on trying

to take all the areas that were not scheduled for

redevelopment and trying to upgrade them by relatively

simple things like being sure that the trash is picked

up in the areaf and getting the neighborhoods mobilized. And he worked on getting block captains to get

the people toqether! e and he got the property owners

to go down and paint up. He took some areas over in

the East Capitol Hill area where, as I say, we were

not scheduling any redevelopment activity or tearing

things down and rebuilding, but working hard with what

limited resources they had to upgrade the quality of

life in those areas, and some of that has stuck and

stayed with those areas. The people got together and

did things and the city helped and this sort of thing

is developing leadership with emphasis on the city

program. And I give Tom a great deal of credit for

that.
Cowdrey: I hame across a Congressional document that had

two reports, 'one favorable to the RLA proceedings and

the other highly critical of it. It c'ame out in 1964.

I know there were criticisms of moving people out

helter-skelter. If you could comment on those.

Clarke: Wellf they had an almost impossible task. They

were required by law not to tear down until the people

in them had acquired decent, safe, sanitary housing.

And they probably did tear it down more quickly and

push people out before they had a hundred percent

assurance that people had moved into decent, safe,

sanitary housing. On the other hand, the people were

not then in decent, safe, sanitary housing; in fact,

they were in the worst housing in the city. And I

think it was probably true that the people ended up

in better housing than they had been in. It probably

cost them more which, of course, caused the people to

object. There was an aspect of this, too: people

were not inclined to move out and be energetic on

their own in trying to find a place to live.

Cowdrey: It probably was frightening, too.

Clarke: so I I suppose some people were anxious to say

they were ruthless in RLA. But on the other hand if

they had not had some element.of being ruthless, they

never would have gotten it all and a combination of

273
the carrot and the stick, trying to help people find

housing and on the other hand keep pushing them to

make them get out on their own.

Cowdrey: Do you recollect the time you were hung in

effigy?

Clarke: Well, the episode was one I wasn't sure of until

the next morning when I picked up the newspaper and

found my picture on the front page -- a very big

picture on the front page. I don't know. I think

, each Engineer Commissioner tackled the job with enthusiasm and was striving to do his best to be sure

that the physical development of the city continue.

I suppose for almost a century that there were Commissioners -- I don't know of any who really weren't

held in the highest respect. They did bring into the

city always a professional approach to the problems

that they were working with. But, I heard people

say that the city was never better served by its

Commissioners by and large than by the Engineer Commissioners. I think I was fortunate when I was

there to have two fellow Commissioners who worked

hard at their job. The stories I heard which were

not always true, of earlier Commissioners -- some

were# in truth, figureheads and left the city to the

running of department heads. Pm not talking about

274
the Engineers, I'm talking about the others. But it

wasn't so when I was there.

Of course, the other thing to change that was

happening while I was there was the growing concern

to change the form of government.

Cowdrey: I was going to ask you about that. what was the

pressure? Who was applying it?

Clarke: Mostly, I guess, if you have to classify it, it

was what you could call the liberal elements around

the city. But it acquired a real strength, of course,

when Kennedy came aboard, and I think was added later

certainly by Johnson. Much of that push came from an

office that Kennedy created which was sort of a

Special Assistant for District Affairs. When I was

there they put in Charlie Horsky. Charlie came

aboard; and# although personally I got along well

with Charlie, we certainly were two different

inclinations. He was obviously much more liberal

than I and he was not quite in sympathy with my

desires to keep pushing the physical development.

He was moreconcerned with the social problems of the

city and I think really the impetus for a change in

the form of government really started with him.

275
Of course, going back to'what I said: the

highway program by this time 0-j which was the one he

and I disagreed on most --was getting to the point

of the bulldozer in the bedroom, trying to get into

areas where people had to be moved out of the way.

He was very sympathetic to the needs of the people.

And people kept drawing up these horrible numbers of

relocations that were required, and I kept telling

him, “Look, we're talking about a six-year building

program. And the number of people we're talking about

having amounts to one family per working day. NOW~

we ought to be able to do that." Anywayfi Charlie

became convinced that he couldn't sway the Engineer

Commissioner in my case. I know when I left, I got

the word indirectly that when they were interviewing

my successor and they brought him on board, Charlie

Dukef I got the word indirectly through a friend of

mine that Horsky said, "Now we have a Commissioner

who is sympathetic to the needs of the city." So he

didn't think I was. So he kept pushing for this

change, and, finally after Charlie Duke left, they

brought Bob Mathe in but by this time it was getting

pretty well ordained that the White House was going

276
18

to reorganize the city government. And when Bob

Mathe came aboard, I'm quite sure he came aboard with

the understanding that it would be a very short term,

and they would change the form of government. But I \

suspect that one of the reasons was that since the

Engineer Commissioner was not political, Horsky felt

it was very difficult to impress his will. Now what

the President wanted I never knew. But I got into a

couple of discussions with Horsky where he said,

"Well, the President wants you to do this," and I

said, "That's fine, but I'd like to have the *President

tell me that that's what he wants me to do." Well,

this never occurred. For example, I got told one

time, "The President wants you to make a speech supporting the change in government at the Fourth of July

celebration down at the Washington Monument." I said,

"You've got to be kidding. I'd like to have a note

18 BG Robert E. Mathe (1920- ).

Academy; 1943.

U.S. Military

249th Engineer Combat Battalion,

American and European Theaters, 1943 - 45. HQ, Third

Army, 1945 - 46. Army Mission to Venezuela, 1951 -

54 Office of the Chief of Engineers, 1960 - 63.

Diitrict Engineer, Sacramento, 1963 - 66. Engineer,

VIII Corps, 1966. Engineer Commissioner, District of

Columbia, 1967. Retired, 1967.

277
from him or something saying this is what he wants."

WellV it never came and I never made the speech.

But there was a great deal of friction between

the Special Assistant to the White House and certain s

elements of Congress. Particularly the House CommitteeI which one of my fellow Commissioners called the

Backward Anti-Negro Committee and they may well have

been, because they were headed by a group of Southern

conservatives. But they were the people who were

passing laws that governed the city, and, to some

extentf the White House had the same problem with the

Appropriations Committee which were also governed by

a pretty conservative group. And I was probably .

truthfully more in sympathy with what the committees

were trying to do and in trying to advance certain

things in the city than what Charlie Horsky wanted.

Well, I think all this finally led to the conclusion

that they didn't want any Army Officer in there trying

to run their city. Andf of course, there had been a

campaign against this for many years in the newspapers,

and I must admit in retrospect, looking back, there

wasn't any reason for an Army Officer to be in there

except that traditionally we had been there and had

done a good job. Well, when they finally came out

with legislation, I guess it was by Executive Order,

278
they did leave a proviso in there that up to three

Engineer Officers could be assigned to the city.

They've never been assigned-there. I guess this

came about when. I was Deputy Chief. And somebody

called me from the District government, Walter

Washington's office, about them and we mutually

agreed that we would not assign any Engineer Officers

to help run that city. It would be best for both of

us to sever relations about that time.

I don't know whether by and large the fact that

we had an Engineer Commissioner helped the reputation

of the Corps of Engineers or not. I am vain enough

to think that it did in certain circles where people

thought we had done a good job. .But I think it also

opened up the Corps to an element of criticism that

they wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

You asked another question there, what was the

relationship among the various Engineer Officers

around the city? Of course, when I was Commissioner,

the Washington District went out of existence and

left only the area office for construction in the

area. We really had very little direct contact with

that system. And the Engineer Commissioner didn't

have to play much of a role in that. This was handled

by the Department of Sanitary Engineering which has

279
water and sewers under it, and they had a very fine

liaison with the old Washington District, and then

later with the Baltimore District and.with Mr. Watt

who was head man down at the water plant. And it, in

truth, operated as if it were part of the city government except it took some administrative guidance from

the Baltimore (District. But the city budgeted for

them? for their operations, and worked on the capital

budget plan. The relationship was a very easy one

there., I

The Corps realized it had a job to dot and was

doing it for the District of Columbia, it had been

doing it for many years and it went along pretty well.

I never heard of any friction at all in that area. f

While I was there, there were a couple of times that

I was approached by the head of our Department of

Sanitary Engineering as to whether the city government

shoudn't take over the water plants. And my attitude

always was, and I talked to the Chief's office about

it, if you could show where it would save any money

or make it look better, fine. Well, there weren't any

problems, so it just never occurred. And later, while

I was Deputy Chief and Chief, the question would come

up periodically. And our answer was always the same.

'*If it looks as if it could be run better under the

280
city government than the way it% running, then fine.“

I think people have said, "Well, if they ever create

the regional system under some sort of a compact

arrangement, then, very appropriately, the running

of the water system of the City of Washington, the

wholesale part of it should go to the regional setup/ But I never sensed any real agitation one way

or the other. It was always low-keyed, the inquiries

that were made.

With respect to the Washington District, or even

the Baltimore District after the Washington District

went, the city government really didn't have much of

a tie with them except in the same way that any

government would with a district engineer. Flood

control planning, this type of thing, the city worked

with them on that. But there was no really special

arrangement. Of course the Chief of Engineers, by .

law, was a member of the NationalCapital Planning

Commission. He personally never showed up at the

meetings. He always delegated that to either an

officer or one of the civilians. While I was Commissioner, we had two different people. We had Carl

Brown, who was in uniform then. He was the resident

member of the River and Harbor Board, acting as the

281
Chief% representative and was a very fine hardworking

man. He did contribute much to the Planning Cornmission. And then we had Mr. Zach, the fine old

gentleman who died, the landscape architect. He was

over in military construction in charge of planning

there. He came for awhile. In a way both of these

people usually checked with the Engineer Commissioner

as to how he felt about problems that were up in

front of the Planning Commission. And during the

time that I was there, their votes always coincided

with mine. I had some sort of an understanding with

the Chief of Engineers that if there was to be a

difference in our votes the Chief of Engineers and I,

as Commissioner, would talk about them. It never

occurred. They all never had any problems. I guess,

to some extent, the Engineer Commissioner had a

captive vote there, but not fully. But at least

during the time I was there on all the questions that

came up we did vote the same way.

I could say the same thing though with respect to

other ex-officio members of the board; a man -from the

Public Building Services and a man from the Public

Roads and all. We were always voting the same way.

Not because we had agreed to any sort of an alliance

or anything, but it just seemed to work out that way.

282
The people that we had most of our arguments with were

the representatives of the Park Service, understandably.

I never got any guidance from the Chief% office

on anything. I was completely independent of them.

The understanding I had with them when I went aboard

was, "You're on your own. If you ever want some

advice, then come on over and we'll be glad to give

it to you." But there was never any pressure from

the Chief's office.

Cowdrey: I wondered about the appointment of the Engineer

Commissioner, General Clarke, did the Chief send a

list of people? Where did the President get names

to pick the Engineer Commissioner from?

Clarke: Going back to the time I was appointed, I don't

know how many names were submitted. But the Chief of

Engineers submitted at least my name and I don't know

how many others, if any. Then I was called in for a

series of interviews without knowing precisely what

it was about. But I must say nobody told me precisely

what it was about until I got to the White House. I

had to go through first a very brief interview with

General Itschner. He said, "I called you back here

and I want you to go over and talk to Dave Kendall."

He was one of the assistants at the White House.

283
The secretary said, "I can't tell you what the job

is, you can probably guess, but 1 can't tell you.“

He said, "We've looked over your records and we think

you're qualified." So I went over to the White House,

and then Kendall said, 'We're considering you for

Engineer Commissioner. Don't tell anybody you're in

town for that purpose. We've looked over your record,

and if you have no objection, we'll appoint you."

That was about the essence of the interview. And I

said, "Well, can I go back and talk to Al. 911 tell

him that you're coming." I went back to wait orders.

That's all I know. The Chief's office obviously had

a strong voice in it. I don't know how they picked

Charles Duke. I think, again the Chief's office was

looking around for names and picked Charlie.

I was involved a little bit in the matter of

picking Bob Mathe. And one of the strong points of

picking Bob Mathe was the fact that he had already

been in the District Government as one of the assistants to the Engineer Commissioner. And it was on

that basis that we put his name forward. As a matter

of fact, I think that was the only name we put forward

and put into the secretary's office and then sent to

the White House later. Pm quite sure we did not

284
nominate any one else. The White House wanted Bob

Mathe.

I suppose over the years the strongest voice in

the selection of the Engineer Commissioner was the

Chief of Engineers. I can't be certain. Actually,

as government got bigger, you know the Federal governmentf the relationship of the Engineer Commissioner

to the White House or the Commissioners to the White

House changed considerably. And I was always struck

by old Mrs. Kutz who died not too long ago. She was.

in her nineties. Her husband had been Commissioner

three times. My wife and I used to see her quite

often. She was a very tiny little lady with a black

velvet ribbon with a little cameo always on her neck,

a very precise little lady. She had enjoyed the times

when her husband had been Commissioner. But she met

us one time after I had been Commissioner a short time

and she said, "Tell me, dear, are the Eisenhowers

treating you properly?" My wife and I said, "Yes, I

guess so? We had been invited to the White House for

one of those . wil mass affairs, a musical, and had enjoyed it and shaken hands with the President. He

didn't know who I was. So she saidf "You know, when

Papa" -- as she called General Kutz -- "and I were

there@ we went to the White House at least every two

285
weeks for lunch with the President. We were the city

fathers. And we were always being asked to the White

House for things, to represent the city, and had a

very close relationship with the President." But this

d.isappeared as government got bigger and bigger. I

never did have an audience with the President on any

of the city's problems. My fellow Commissioners,

while I was there, never got to see the President on

any of the city‘s problems. And that's where the

special assistant came in. I suppose had we had an

issue we wanted to take to the President we probably

could've gotten there, but it never arose. But again

1' think the fact that the Federal government had

gotten so big, the President had much bigger fish to

fry than worrying about the city government. It was

awfully hard to ever feel the President's personal

finger on what was happening. Of course, most of the

time I was there Kennedy was President. 1 met him

several times, but that was the only contact with the

President. I used to meet the Vice-President at ceremonial occasions, but he obviously had no interest --

it was Johnson at the time. So, most of the influence, of course, from the White House came through

the special assistant. This was his only job, and

he took a deep interest in the city. Andr to some

286
extent, the creation of the special assistant diminished the power of the President of the Board of>

Commissioners. Because where previously people might

have gone to the president of the board to accomplish

something in the city, they then began going to the

White House to put pressure on to accomplish things.

And I suppose this was a change during my regime, and

a sign that the end was coming, and the creation of a

different form of government.

Cowdrey: Did you leave office in ‘64?

Clarke: It was @63. Charlie Duke came aboard. You

haven't interviewed Charlie yet?

Cowdrey: No I I haven't talked to him.

Clarke: You might talk to Bob Mathe if you want to.

Bob% with the Inter-American Bank.

Cowdrey: Yest I wrote to his home. And I wrote to General

Lane and General Prentiss.

Clarke: Lane is in town. I see him quite often.

Cowdrey: He lives over in McLean.

Clarke: Yes, he has an office here in town.

Cowdrey: General Prentiss sent me a newspaper special.

He said I could read up on it.

Clarke: I happen to have and I suppose because somebody

collected it for me -- and I suppose Al Welling and

others may have it, a boxful of clippings that

287
somebody clipped for me in the office and gave to me

that mentioned whatever the Engineer Commissioner was

doing in the three years I was there. 1'11 be glad

to give it to you; you might want to thumb through it

and get a flavor of some of the things that went on.

Let me dig it out, and we've got your telephone number

here. We can make arrangements so you can look at it;

as far as I'm concerned I you can take it with you and

thumb through it and keep it as long as you want. I

haven't done anything with it since I collected it,

but they are arranged chronologically. You hit some

of the editorials later. The Washington Post always - -

had its suspicionsabout whether the Engineer Commissioner was a good thing -- in fact, they were

critical of the system that created the Engineer Commissioner. The Star was a great supporter of the p-5

Engineer Commissioner.' I could always call one of \

the editors of the Star and get an editorial. --- I

couldn't dictate exactly what he was going to say,

but I would say, '*Here% something that needs editorial treatment." And he'd do it. I did establish

a practice, which I think paid off, of periodic

luncheons with the staffs of both the papers, and I

ran an open-door policy for their reporters. They

could come in any time, talk about anything on the

288
l

record, off the record, and they never violated

anything off the record. I found that reporters

are like any one else, they have to make a living.

All they have to do is fill so much space every day.

And if you can't fill it, why you get fired. They

used to call me Saturday afternoon. Every Saturday

afternoon Ifid get a call from the City Hall reporters

of the Post and of the Star saying in essence,

"General, don't you have anything I could write about

tomorrow?" And I'd glance through and say, "Well,

we're thinking about a change in the housing inspector's routine." And it would be a big headline

for some little item. But it was good to have the

rapport with them, and I got to know them fairly well,

and I think we were good friends. And# as 1 say, they

never cut my throat.

Then, of course, one thing you learn quickly in

that game is never lie to them. You can always say,

"I won't tell you." But don't tell them you don't

know something if you know it. Because they have ways

of finding out things, they have all kinds of contacts.

Well@ they had a couple of things that happened. We

had a scandal, in a way -- some of our water inspectors

were moonlighting driving cabs -- and they got caught

289
doing it during the daytime. Obviously, they were

cheating. And the newspapers came to tie and said,

'What are you going to do about it?" I said, '*IVm

not going to do anything. They work for

Dave Auld down there. Dave Auld runs that

department, and he'll take care of it." And they

said, Well, aren't you going to have a big investigation?" And I said, "No? They-could have blown

this kind of thing up, "The Commissioner refuses to

do anything." So we sat around and talked. And I

said, Xook, you've got to understand that's Dave

department. I've got faith in 'him. I understand him.

I have complete assurance that he'll do what's necessary and I'm not going to get in the middle of it."

So they finally agreed; so what might have been a big

scandal with the Commission working on it really

passed off finally as a small disciplinary action.

But if I hadn't had a rapport with them I don't think

I could have gotten away with it. It was always

interesting dealing with the newspapers. They were

always looking for stories, of course, where the city

had done something wrong. Then they found out we

were allowing people to occupy buildings before the

final safety inspections and all had been made. And

they were going to make a big thing of it. So they

290
came to me with the story and wanted my comments.

And my comment to them was, "Well, you'd better go

back and look at the building that the Post is

operating in. It's a relatively new building. And

find out whether they occupied it before they got

final clearance.“ Of course, they had. But by and

large I had no real problem with the newspapers.

291
INDEX

Abrams Creighton, 197 *

Acheson, Dean, 111

Adirondacks, 7

Afghanistan, 129, 131

Agency .for International Development, 170, 174, 219

Agnew, Spiro T., 61

Air Force, U.S., 91-92, 99, 136, 170, 171, 178 ’

Alaska, 173-74

Albuquerque, N.M., 94, 98, 99, 101, 102, 107, 113

Alexandria, Va., 167

American Institute of Architects, 130

American Public Works Association, 75

American Society of Civil Engineers, 69, 70, 74, 247

Anacostia River, 268

Appropriations Committee, 278

Arlington County, Va., 148

Armed Forces Staff College, 113

Armour Institute, 20

Army Engineer Center, U.S., 175-81

Army Service Forces, 83-93.

Army War College, 107, 115-16

Arkansas River, 199

Ascension Island, 82

Assistant Commissioner, 271

Association of the U.S. Army, 27

Atchafalaya River, 210, 212, 217

Atlas missiles, 171

Atomic bomb, 88, 93, 95, 99-100

Atomic Energy Commission, U.S., 95, 100

Audubon Society, 202, 206, 209

Auld, David, 290

Bacci, Joseph, 260

Backward Anti-Negro Committee, 278

Baltimore District, 280, 281

Beach Drive, 269

Beach Lansing, 270

Bechtel Corporation, 260

Beltway, 263

Blount, Winton M., 191, 192, 193

Blue Plains, 268

Board for Rivers and Harbors, 64, 281

Board of Commissioners Washington, DC., 251

Borman Report, 24

Boy Scouts, 2, 8

Brown, Carl, 281

293
.

Buckner, Simon B., 31, 68-69

Bureau of Public Roads, U.S., 144, 263, 282

Bureau of Reclamation, U.S., 208

Burma, 130 4

C&O Canal, 267

California, 58, 226

California, University of, at Berkeley, 36, 37, 40, 98

Career assignments, 105.26, 181.85

Carter, Jimmy, 55

Cassidy, William, 57, 183, 186.87, 189, 191

Caterpillar Co., 181

Chalk, 0. Roy, 153, 154

Chicago, University of, 98

Clarke, Mrs. F. J., 11, 32, 109, 110, 127

Clement, Roland, 209

Columbia River, 104, 222

Congress, U.S., 45, 47, 51, 52, 60, 70, 121, 155, 157,

193, 206, 213, 214, 223; 230, 232, 233, 235

Construction management branch, 121

Cornell University, 9, 36-40

Cost estimates, 155-57, 225.26

Council of Governments, 166-67

Cowdrey, Albert, 144

Cross-Florida Barge Canal, 52, 234

D.C. Transit Co., 153.

-pe Dams and Other Disasters, 42.45

Davies, S. Ladd, 238 _-

Decentralization, Corps of Engineers, 172m73,174, 187.88

Defense, U.S. Dep't of, 248

Delaware River, 205

Department of Sanitary Engineering, 279.80

Depression, 2, 5, 13, 16-17

Dharan, Saudi Arabia, 130, 172

District of Columbia, 79, 80, 142.68, 280

Dodge, Roy, 260

DOS Rios Dam, 58

Douglas, Paul, 45

Downs, Hugh, 54

Duke, Charles, 276, 284, 287

Dulles Interceptor Sewer, 258

Dulles International Airport, 167

DuPont Co., 96, 237

Dworshak Dam, 199

Eads, James B., 43

Earth Day, 200

East Capitol Hill, 272

Edwards Air Force Base, 170

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 130

Energy Research and Development Administration, U.S., 249

294
Engineer Agency for Resource Inventory, 219

Engineer Commissioner of DC., 142-68, 271-72, 274, 283-

85, 288

Engineer School, U.S. Army, 175-81

Engineering education, 12-15, 36-40, 175-81

Environmental Advisory Board, 208-16

Environmental assessments, 34, 203, 207

Environmental concerns, 202-03, 206-27, 229-31

Environmental Defense Fund, 202

Environmental Protection Agency, U.S., 104, 207, 227,

229, 245

Environmental reconnaissance inventories, 216-20

Erie Canal, 1

Federal Energy Administration, 249

Federal Railway Organization, 174

Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S., 218

Florida, 52, 234

Fort Belvoir, 50, 115, 175-81

Fort Benning, 33

Fort Leavenworth, 83, 114, 115

Fort Leonard Wood, 117

Fort McNair, 115, 270

Fort Monroe, 33

Foster, Hank, 209

Fullerton, Thomas, 271

Gammon, 135

Garbacz, Joseph, 260

Gee, Ed, 237

General Electric, 97

General Services Administration, 144, 169, 192

Georgetown, 267

Gianelli, Bill, 237

Gildart, Bob, 27

Gilliam, Hal, 209

Goodpaster, Andrew J., 122_

Graham, Jack, 259

Great Falls Dam, 267

Gribble, William C., 182

Groves, Leslie R., 93, 98, 106

Hains Point, 270

Hanford, Wash., 93, 94-97, 100-05

Harvard University Business School, 65-68, 120

Hawaii, 108-09

Hawk missiles, 180

Henson, William, 125

Honor system, West Point, 22-25

Horsky, Charles, 275, 276

295

Mass transportation, 143, 144, 145, 146-47, 153-58,

162,163,164, 166-68

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 36, 38, 40

Mathe, Robert E., 276, 277, 284, 287

McGruder, Carter B., 121

McLaughlin, Ro*bert E., 252

. McLean, Va., 267

McMurdo Sound (Antarctica), 178

McMurren, William, 71

McNamara, Robert S., 92

Metro System, 259

Michigan, University of, 2-3, 12, 224

Middle East, 82, 248

Military Assistance Advisory Group, 130, 137, 138, 139

Military perspective, 62-68, 76-80

Missiles, 100, 121, 124, 171, 180, 199

Mississippi, 170

Mississippi River, 47, 222

Mohawk River, 1, 6

Moore, Joe, 238, 241, 243

Morgan, Arthur, 42-45, 53, 54, 63, 68

Morris, Jack, 55, 182, 233, 250

Morrison-Knudsen Co., 72

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 169, 170

National Capital Planning Commission, 144, 146, 165, 252

National Capital Transportation Agency, 260

National Commission on Water Quality, 61, 235-47

National Environmental Policy Act, 191, 199, 200, 203,

223

National Park Service, 144, 148, 158

National Park Association, 202

National Society of Professional Engineers, 69

National War College, 108, 115-16

National Wildlife Society, 202

Navy, U.S., 73, 99-100, 178, 195

New Jersey, 52

New Orleans, La., 170, 221

New York, 61, 237

New York, N-Y., 13, 17

Nixon, Richard M., 52, 234

Note,, Daniel, 106

Norfolk, Va., 114

Nuclear reactors, 97, 98, 102, 178

Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 104

Oden, Delk, 27

Office of Management and the Budget, 193-94, 225

Ohio River, 199

Okinawa, 79, 94, 107, 110-12

Olmsted, George, 27

297
Omaha, Neb., 229

Oman Co., 142

Pakistan, 79, 125-42

Palmer, Williston B., 118-20

Panama Canal, 37, 108, 183

Patton, George S., 84

Pennyslvania, 53-54

Philippines, 92

Plattsburgh, N-Y., 10

Port Michoud, 170

Postal Construction Program, 191-94

Postal Service, U.S., 192-94

Potomac Park, 268

Potomac River, 149, 150, 152, 205

Pough, Dick, 209

Powers, Gary, 142

Prentiss, Louis W., 287

Production Division, 120

Professional associations, 69-75

Public Buildings Service, 192, 282

Public Interest Groups, 51, 202, 224-25 6 Public Law 92-500, 230-31, 237

Public utilities, 163

Public Utilites Commission, 143, 264

Public Works Historical Society, 71

Quetta, Pakistan, 132

Rappahannock River, 51, 149, 150, 205

Reybold, Eugene, 234

Redevelopment Land Agency, 160761, 270

Regional planning, 165

Regional Planning Council, 143, 165, 263-66

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 12

Reservoirs, 53, 150, 205

Richland, Wash., 105

River Road, 269

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 172

Rock Creek Park, 268

Rockefeller, Nelson A., 61-62, 235, 237

Rosen, Al, 260

Rusk, Dean, 161

Russian Embassy, 161

Salem Church Dam, 51

Sandia Base, N.M., 100

Saudi Arabia, 129-30, 169, 199

298
Sawyer/ Kenneth T., 174

Senate, U.S., 184, 231

Seward, Alaska, 173

Sharp, Lois, 209

Sierra Club, 202, 206

Smith, Jim, 171, 238, 243

Society of American Military Engineers, 71

Soil Conservation Service, 203

Somali, 175

Somervell, Brehon B., 77, 83, 86, 89-91, 186

South Carolina, 217

Special Assistant to the White House, 278

Special weapons project, 99-101

Starbird, A. D., 122

Stennis, John, 184

Stolzenbach, C. Darwin, 260

Susquehanna River, 224

Taif, Saudi Arabia, 171

Tamalpias Creek, 226

Taylor, Frank, 27

Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, 46

Tennessee Valley Authority, 42

Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, 148, 257

Three Sisters Bridge, 148, 267, 269

Tippets-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton, 247-48

Tobriner, Walter, 253

Tacks Island, N.J., 52

Train, Russell E., 207

Trans-East District, 126-37

Tulsa, Okla., 199

Underwood@ Bud/ 27

Unger, Finn, 27

United Nations Water Conference, 247

Urquhart, Leon, 39

Vermont 217

Veterans Affairs, 253

Vicksburg, Miss., 212

Vietnam War) 23, 72, 180-81, 190-91, 194-95, 199

Virginia, 3, 148, 149, 150

Vogel, Herbert D.fl 4, 13, 18, 36, 42, 49, 113, 125

299
Wadeil, Ed', 260

Washington, 105

Washington, D.C., 2, 27, 76, 99, 116, 117, 142-68,

176, 217

Washington, University of, 103

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, 153-56

Washington Post, 288,291

Washington Star, 288-89

Water quality, 60, 167, 227-37, 248

Water resource development, 133, 141, 149-52, 175, 232,

248

Waterways Experiment Station, 42

Welling, Alvin C., 148, 251-52, 265, 271, 287

West Point, 3, 7, 12, 14-36, 68-69, 74, 75, 106, . 115, 116, 123

Western Union, 7

White House, 276

Whitehurst Freeway, 269

Whitehurst, H. C., 269

Wildlife International, 209

Wilhoyt, E. E., 260

Wilson, Walter K., 183, 187, 192

World War I, 5

World War II, 74-75, 79, 82-93, 106, 120, 126, 178;

183, 186

Worth, Connie, 148

Wright, Carl, 237

Yugoslavia, 164-65

Yamasaki, Minoru, 130

Zach, Leon L., 282

Zoning, 143, 159-62

Zoning Commission, 264

300