OCR Text |
Show 58 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER obligations of the United States under its treaty with Mexico, and to supply all present and committed uses of the waters of this stream in Arizona and California." Hill, an independent engineer, had illustrated one of California's major fears, and had cited one of the chief reasons why California was forced to oppose the crsp. Every administration wants its own thumb print on any plan that it submits to Congress so that it will re- ceive due credit. This was no less true in the case of the crsp. The Eisenhower stalwarts had no intention of sending a crsp plan up to Capitol Hill bearing the en- dorsements of its predecessors. Douglas McKay had been Mr. Eisenhower's Secre- tary of the Interior only a week when the Budget Bureau asked him to review the existing crsp plan and submit a supplemental plan with his own name on it.70 McKay, who had been a Chevrolet salesman in Oregon and knew little more about water than that it ran down hill, sent the request to the Reclamation Bureau. The law required that a supplemental report go through the same channels as its original predecessor. That is, comments on it had to be obtained from various interested government agencies and from the states in- volved. All this would take months, but while waiting for it McKay had other pressing matters affiliated with the crsp to hold his attention.* * It was not until nine months later, in October 1953, that the new Commissioner of Reclamation, W. A. Dexheimer, officially informed McKay that the supplemental report had been finished. Dexheimer had found the crsp to have "economic and engineering feasibility," as was to be expected. He recommended that McKay approve the new report.71 McKay did, but not until December 10, 1953, when he sent it on to the White House via the Budget Bureau.72 With it McKay sent a message to Mr. Eisenhower that was a routine letter of transmittal, with one exception. McKay made a point of informing the President that he was recommending the construction of |