"Find it somewhere," I was told.
What had happened? The president needed votes for his MX Missile Program. The bee and the soil erosion programs were two of the price tags Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R- Wyo.) put on his vote. (Agency heads and their staffs have extensive and reliable grapevines by which they learn such things.)
By 1982, experienced federal executives knew that the New Federalism was simply campaign rhetoric subject to political whims.
There are always people at the White House who, when they want to put the bite on someone, will use the president's teeth. Others, whether in industry, the academy, or elsewhere, bite with the teeth of congressmen. Usually, with the snap of a powerful jaw, the efforts of knowledgeable but politically toothless career bureaucrats will be frustrated. But I recall occasions, one in particular, when both program and political logic prevailed. A politician listened to reason rather than to a lobbyist.
The plum at issue was a federal biotechnology center, which ARS wanted to establish, if possible, at one of its existing locations, preferably in conjunction with a nearby university engaged in related research. With a lot of federal money at stake, I soon received 10 requests from university officials urging me to seek funds to build the center on their campus. None of these self-serving proposals were satisfactory, and I had rebuffed them all. Then came the real pressure.
My superior called me to his office to tell me about "a great opportunity": a biotechnology center at--imagine this --a major university. An official of the school--which I had already turned down--was even there to impart this good news, a man I had known for years. His proposal was, of course, no different from those I had rejected. "I'll need 24 hours to consider your proposal," I said morosely and rose to leave. "We've got our congressman committed to this, Terry," my university colleague said softly. "We can run over you if we have to."
We were about to spend tens of millions of dollars to build a biotech center in the wrong place. What was I going to do? I knew the congressman: New York Democrat Matthew F. McHugh. I had had good relations with him for years. He was not only a reasonable man, he was almost a hero to me. In Washington heroes are hard to find. That same day a call came from McHugh's assistant. "Can you come to the congressman's office right away? Alone?"
"I'll catch a cab."
McHugh explained the situation. Most of his constituents were also supporters of the school. They would be furious if he did not seek funds for the center. Yet personally, he confided, he could not honestly support it. "It's just a ploy to get more money for the university," he said. "I'm in a real bind. Any suggestions?"
I felt a flood of relief. "I know exactly how you can take yourself out of this," I told him. He should tell the school that he needed a memo indicating the Department of Agriculture's support of the university as the best possible site in the United States for the proposed center, and that this memo need only be signed by the assistant secretary for science and education--my superior--and by the ARS administrator: me.
Such a request by McHugh would appear to confirm, on the record, his willingness to support the university. But it would also signal the school to back off. Not only did all the parties involved know that I wouldn't sign such a memo, we also knew that the university had a number of other projects in development at the department, projects that it wouldn't want to jeopardize by an aggressive and ultimately futile campaign for the proposed center. The school quietly dropped its effort.
It was a case in which I was able to fight politics with politics. But the good feeling of this win was short-lived. In many other cases I was not so successful. In one of them, I traveled to Maine with a team of scientists to review a potato research program. We found the research to be excellent: The results were helping U.S. potato growers remain a jump ahead of the Canadians, our chief competitors. The station leader and the rest of us agreed that the program had plenty of money.
Back in the office two days later, I received a message which originated in the vice president's office. "Put another $90,000 at the potato station," I was told. "Where do I get it?"
"Find it," came the usual reply.
Soon the vice president's office called again. "Keep the cotton gin," was the message this time. We had announced plans, after the declaration of a "New Federalism," to close a cotton ginning research program in New Mexico that was obsolete and badly in need of repair. We had two superior cotton ginning research locations in major cotton-producing states.
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