<--PREV Doc #2  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #4 Document #3; January 22, 1957 To Percival Flack Brundage Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series: Budget 1958 The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XVIII - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part I: A New Beginning, Old Problems; January 1957 to May 1957 Chapter 1: The Mideast and the Eisenhower Doctrine   Memorandum for the Director, Bureau of the Budget:1 Recently I had a long talk with General Bragdon, my Special Assistant for Public Works Planning.2 The conversation to which I referred was an amplification of a memorandum he sent to me on November fifteenth.3 Not knowing that you have a copy of this memorandum, I send my own herewith, but with the request that when you have studied it you return it to me. I completely concur in the very great desirability and, in some cases, necessity of Federal, State and Municipal authorities executing the work to which General Bragdon refers. The guarantees of which he speaks, he informs me, are relatively small. But I do have some qualms about the lack of any assurance we might have that the States and Municipalities actually would perform the work, even though they have some financial help from the Federal Government. Work such as this will be valueless unless conducted according to the highest professional standards and with the greatest possible administrative efficiency. Would you please consult with General Bragdon as to how we would be assured that we "got our money's worth." Another point that would occur to all of us is how long such a program would have to be continued. We do not want to get into another endless "grant-in-aid" affair. It might be better to do it on a one-shot basis if such were practicable. In any event, after you have talked to General Bragdon, please give me a memorandum on the whole matter.4 1 Eisenhower had appointed Brundage as Director of the Bureau of the Budget on April 2, 1956 (see Galambos and van Ee, The Middle Way, no. 1692). 2 Major General John Stewart Bragdon had been Special Assistant to the President for Public Works Planning since August 15, 1955 (see ibid., no. 1699). 3 Bragdon had written the President on November 15, 1956, to propose "A New Concept in Public Works Planning," offering "comprehensive and coordinated long-range planning based on measured needs and relative urgencies for all types of works at all levels of government" (WHCF/OF 141). The plan sought to overcome the difficulties encountered in earlier planning efforts by formulating a new methodology for measuring "needs," by integrating planning at all levels, by promoting intergovernmental collaboration, and by eliminating duplication in programs. Bragdon urged Eisenhower to seek legislation providing for grants-in-aid to the states in order to finance his proposal. During a November 15 conversation with Bragdon, Eisenhower said that "greatly improved coordination, on an over-all basis, is urgently needed" and deplored "congressional and other tendencies to oppose these efforts at coordination, since they tended to take the 'pork' out of the barrel" (Goodpaster, Memorandum of Conversation, Nov. 15, 1956, AWF/D; see also Bragdon, Memorandum of Conference, Nov. 16, 1956, Bragdon Papers). In a November 17 letter to Bragdon, Eisenhower wrote, "Your plan to give greater emphasis at this time to the coordination of public works planning by the Federal agencies seems to me correct. I also concur with your findings as to the desirability and necessity of having the Executive departments and agencies intensify their planning efforts and that the stimulation of State and local public works planning be increased" (Bragdon Papers). 4 Brundage would reply to Eisenhower on February 5, 1957, disapproving Bragdon's proposal (WHCF/OF 141). Brundage felt that "the initiative for planning of State and local public works should remain with those governments closest to the people." Bragdon's plan, moreover, would "give undue emphasis to construction planning" as opposed to functional program areas such as education, health, water resources, and transportation. Noting that other federal agencies disliked the proposal, Brundage expressed concern over the tendency for such programs to perpetuate themselves. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Percival Flack Brundage, 22 January 1957. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 3. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/second-term/documents/3.cfm <--PREV Doc #2  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #4

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