(a) With respect to Mr. Fitzgerald, I pointed out that, though some of his ideas about procurement practices and financial control of contractors had merit, his practices were unacceptable. These include speaking to the press against Air Force decisions, discussing internal Air Force matters with Congressional Committee staffs, and providing them with documents without going through Legislative Liaison channels. This behavior has greatly lessened, if not eliminated, his value as an employee of the Air Force. I drew the distinction between advocating one's views vigorously within the department before a decision was taken, and public non-support, or volunteering and advocating contrary views to the press and the Congress. ... I indicated that his actions up to now probably do not constitute sufficient reason for us to take removal action against Fitzgerald, but that we would act to make it clear to Fitzgerald that we considered his usefulness to the Air Force to be negligible if not negative. In the interest of discipline, it was important that the new Air Force Secretariat take a similar position in subsequent months. Dr. Seamans indicated that he understood this principle and that, in the light of the facts I had described, he recognized that Fitzgerald is of no use to the Air Force; though his rights must be protected, he is to be discouraged from remaining.
I never heard of a guy named Ernie Fitzgerald until either the last week in December or the first week of January, 1969.... At that very first meeting, (Brown) told me something about (him), and I'm pretty sure that by then Proxmire had written me a letter.. .. It talked about this "wonderful public servant" ... and he was sure I would want to rely on him heavily because he was one of the "greatest public servants" that ever came down the pike. So I wrote him back a short letter and said, "Thanks very much, and I'll look into this matter when I become Secretary of the Air Force." The facts of the matter are that Ernie did testify on the C-5, that he was certainly not encouraged to do so; that this was bigger than just the Air Force. ... Between Fitzgerald and Proxmire, they were "coony" enough to make it well-known publicly that he was up there testifying even though the Defense Department hadn't wanted him to. Of course that made it all the more exciting and everything appeared more valid and the Air Force and DOD looked more like conspirators deceiving the public.
Then, of course, a few strange things happened . .. the most amazing being the memo that John Lang (of Personnel) wrote to Harold Brown on three ways for separating Fitzgerald from the Air Force. One was to fire him for cause; one was to abolish his job; and the third one, which he (Lang) said would be a little deceitful, would be to -- and I can't remember what the third one was offhand, but it's all in the record. It took about 24 hours from the time Lang wrote the memo until Proxmire had (it).
The right of persons employed in the civil service of the United States either individually or collectively to petition Congress or any member thereof or to furnish information to either House of Congress, or to any committee or member thereof, shall not be denied or interfered with.
Word of Defense Secretary Laird's plan to review the Air Force's contract with the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. to build the giant jet transport C-5A would be more reassuring if it had come unaccompanied by evidence that the Secretary is preoccupied with putting the best fact on things. While promising a "thorough" inquiry about the contract, Mr. Laird asked his top aides to design ways to combat what he called "adverse commentary" on the rising costs of the C-5A. In any case, the results of "in house" investigations, even one conducted by a Republican Administration of actions during a Democratic one, are seldom as persuasive as those obtained by full-scale congressional hearings. In the case of the C-5A (also known as the Galaxy), a number of questions -- if not allegations -- of impropriety have been raised about the contract and about defense procurement policy itself.
Under probing by Rep. Willliam S. Moorhead, an Air Force colonel told a House Government Operations Subcommittee last week that his civilian superiors had approved an effort to cover up huge cost increases in building the Galaxy because public disclosure "might put Lockheed's position in the common (stock) market in jeopardy." The civilians named by the colonel are Robert H. Charles, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations and Logistics, and Robert N. Anthony, a former Defense Department Comptroller. Whether, in fact, Messrs. Charles and Anthony glossed over cost increases to shield Lockheed's stock has yet to be determined. What is clear is that if they did, they should not have; the Pentagon's responsibilities do not include protecting the market value of stock of firms with which it contracts.
But that is only part of the matter, which really goes to the fundamental question of how the Pentagon buys its hardware. For one thing, the Galaxy contracts involve a $2.1 billion miscalculation on a $3.1 billion project. For another, the terms of the contract would seem to reward inefficiency -- and at a premium rate.
Without getting engulfed in the esoteric language of cost analysis and weapons procurement it is important to understand a few basic things about the Galaxy contract. In 1964, the Air Force estimated that 120 C-5A aircraft would cost $3.1 billion. Now the Air Force figures the Galaxy will cost at least $5.2 billion, or $2.1 billion more. Excesses of actual costs over estimates, called "overruns" at the Pentagon, are not unique in weapons development and procurement, although a $2 billion overrun seems on the high side. But the Galaxy contract, which was designed by Assistant Secretary Charles, contains a novel feature which provides that losses suffered by Lockheed on the first installment of 58 plans it produced could be recovered and turned into profits -- by a price adjustment -- if the Air Force decided to order a second batch of 62 aircraft.
Just how much of the overrun can be attributed to inefficiency on the part of Lockheed or inflation or unforeseen, but normal development problems with the aircraft itself is not known. And it is not easily determined just how much of a loss Lockheed anticipated on the first batch of 58 planes. Rep. Chet Holifield, the California Democrat who heads the House Committee, not only ordered a witness not to answer that question, but threw in a challenge to attendant newsmen to make what they could of it.
What we make of it is that the instinct for the cover-up in these matters is as strong in certain quarters in Congress as it is in the Pentagon, and that some Congressman or Senator with more courage and candor than Mr. Holifield ought to step in on the taxpayers' behalf and investigate not only the Galaxy affair but the whole procurement process at the Pentagon.
-- What to Make of the C-5A Affair, by The Washington Post
And, I said ... the statement of Mr. Fitzgerald was, in aggregate, an attack on the Defense Department leadership. I said, "Gentlemen, I don't know what to say about Mr. Fitzgerald's observations because I don't know anything about them ... All I can say now is that you all know Melvin Laird.... He is a former colleague of yours and he is enormously admired by all of you.... (And) he's the President's appointee in this area."
At the time I was testifying, I really thought that Ernie had given them classified material, marked "Confidential." Later on, when we still had the opportunity of going over the testimony, it wasn't clear as to whether any of the material was classified or not. So we changed the word from Confidential with a capital C to confidential with a small c.
The people that I talked to outside the Department of Defense were first of all, Bob Hampton, who runs the Civil Service Commission. I did check with him about this in May (1969) and asked him, "What are you supposed to do when you're managing a large government program, and you've got a guy like A. Ernie Fitzgerald on the payroll?" He said, "It's frankly one of the problems we face in running the government, and there's no very good answer to it." He said, "On the basis of what you've told me, I don't believe you could ever sustain a separation for cause. So your only alternative is to abolish his job."
... that McNamara's reputation is being placed on trial by virtue of the current investigation of defense spending practices, most of which were developed during his tenure. The article notes that he is accused by former Kennedy administration colleagues ... of having helped create ... a military machine of such size and power that it is not responsible to political control. These critics say that "we should be clear on one point: it is not the uniformed military which has created the present situation, but the civilian leadership and the institutions they have created to centralize and expand the performance on national security functions" (emphasis added; even as he was writing this, the military were well on their way to taking control of those institutions -- and thus of the distribution of patronage).
McNamara has declined to testify before the Proxmire committee, but he has his defenders -- General David Shoup, the Marine dove; General Maxwell Taylor; and Rosewell (sic) Gilpatric among them. Even Dave Packard "expresses the common view" -- "he (McNamara) made great contributions. ... You might criticize some things with hindsight, but I don't know that I would have done anything different at the time."
It would, I think, be a serious mistake to take lightly the impact of the Proxmire hearings. He has been very effective, particularly on television. The administration, however, had not come off well. Witnesses from the Pentagon, with the exception of Barry Shillito and Johnny Foster, have been indecisive, defensive, and often ill-prepared. Except for Senator Goldwater and Congressman Rivers, the friendly forces in Congress have been conspicuously quiet. ... And the Pentagon's muzzling for 72 hours (a vain attempt to keep me from testifying before Proxmire again) of the Air Force civilian who first exposed the C-5A overrun was a classic case of poor public relations, exceeded only by the five large defense contractors who refused to appear before the committee to present their case....
While the buck stops at the President's desk, the heat ought not to be concentrated there. The attack on ABM and on defense spending has centered on the President because DOD, congressional and party officials are not doing the appropriate thing -- sticking their necks out. Every time some obscure critic belches, The New York Times reports it on page one. We have to expect that, but surely we can generate a little support among our friends if some initiative and good judgment and toughness is displayed. We have noticed among our friendly columnists and papers an attitude of lying low which suggests to us that they don't know what line to take ... about the Proxmire hearings. Surely Secretary Laird must have some goodies stashed away over there on the McNamara years that Mollenhoff and others could use with some effectiveness.
Perhaps this sort of thing is inappropriate -- dirty politics and unstatesmanlike. But it strikes me that we have a tough fight on our hands, and it strikes me that we ought to fight like we are used to power and know how to use it.
Our opponents will scream bloody murder if we really turn the heat on them, but they will know we mean business, that we're not soft, and that they cannot expect to fire away with immunity.
It has come to my attention -- by word of several mouths, but allegedly from a senior AFL-CIO official originally -- that a civilian named A. Ernest Fitzgerald, presumably employed by the Department of the Navy, is about to blow the whistle on the Navy by exposing to full public view that service's "shoddy purchasing practices." Evidently, Fitzgerald attended a recent meeting of the National Democratic Coalition and, while there, revealed his intentions to a labor representative who, fortunately for us, was unsympathetic.
I believe that this information has already been passed to Bill Sullivan at Justice (FBI), but I thought I should alert each of you to the facts as they were presented to me.
The more I reflected on our meeting Tuesday, the bigger plus it became. Ernie's analysis of weapons system management has so much merit it would be a shame to lose the value of his insights. The danger of a maverick in our midst is clear, however. I wonder if it would be useful on Monday June 23 to ask him to reduce some of his key concepts to writing. It would be a brief paper outlining:
-- major problem areas
-- organizational changes desirable
-- procedural changes desirable
-- the utility or disutility, as he sees it, of going to the Hill, as he has, versus working through (a) the old administration and (b) the new administration.
The last policy is the key. If he feels his contacts have continuing value, that would be a factor in deciding whether to keep him on the team. If he signs a paper disavowing -- in any way -- his current modus operandi, such a paper could be of great value if he were to jump the fence again.
The Pentagon is catching hell from liberals and conservatives for firing a guy whose only crime seems to be that he was an aggressive investigator who found mistakes in the procurement of the transport which cost billions.
In PR terms we're getting a beating, and why should we?
Mollenhoff's investigation finds that the guy is a good public servant, and he has the public behind him. Why should we purge him -- simply to make the bureaucrats at the Pentagon happy?
Mollenhoff's suggestion to you (with which I agree, is that the President say, if asked:
"lt is true that Mr. Fitzgerald's job is being abolished, but it is not because of his performance in it; he has, to my knowledge, been a dedicated and effective public servant. After looking into it, I have decided to direct the Defense Secretary to find Mr. Fitzgerald another position, of equal pay and stature -- not a make-work job -- where his talents can continue to be used by this Administration."
Making the President appear to be a just man is worth ticking off the fellows out to get this guy.
Let him bleed for awhile. He is one hundred percent disloyal -- not without expertise in his field, but nevertheless one hundred percent idsloyal (sic). His parting word to the administration appeared in this morning's Washington Post -- they were, in essence, "the big dogs will be all right in this administration, but the little people never will."
Despite surface indications that the Nixon administration might be different, Ernest Fitzgerald learned the truth of an old government adage -- never rock the boat. Don't buck the bureaucracy. If you do, they'll get your job. Somewhere along the line, between the President's reported decision to keep Fitzgerald and the final moments of his job, the gears failed to mesh. As he cleared out his Pentagon desk, preparing to go into business as a private consultant, Fitzgerald said he had been offered no new government job. In earlier years, the Johnson and Kennedy administrations suffered from their treatment of another dedicated public servant, Otto Otepka, who also committed the sin of testifying truthfully before a congressional committee. The equally shabby treatment of Fitzgerald adds no luster to the Nixon Administration. It can only be a victory for the entrenched Pentagon bureaucrats.
The Nixon Administration has no quarrel with the (Proxmire) subcommittee report on the C-5A program and its assertion that the prior administration did not adequately control military spending. Defense Secretary Laird had asserted that the past mistakes in the procurement of this aircraft will not be repeated.
The testimony of Mr. A. Ernest Fitzgerald on the cost overruns was no embarrassment to the Nixon Administration, for it involved actions taken under a prior administration. Conscientious efforts are being made to correct the problems pointed up by an Air Force team that included Mr. Fitzgerald. There is no reason for the Nixon Administration to retaliate against Mr. Fitzgerald, since his testimony dealt with the acts of the prior administration.
Air Force Secretary Robert Seamans has stated that there is no relationship between Mr. Fitzgerald's testimony of November, 1968 and the reorganization decisions to abolish his job in October, 1969.
It's basic. Its selling appeal is defense of the home. This is one of the greatest appeals the politicians have to adjusting the system. If you're the President and you need a control factor in the economy, and you need to sell this factor, you can't sell Harlem and Watts, but you can sell self-preservation, a new environment. We're going to increase defense budgets as long as those bastards in Russia are ahead of us. The American people understand this.
NIXON: Well, anyway, I backed it up --
EHRLlCHMAN: Yeah.
NIXON: -- which I shouldn't.
EHRLlCHMAN: Yeah, well that's fine and we're --
NIXON: Seamans claimed it.
EHRLICHMAN: We're covering your tracks.
NIXON: I didn't want to have any indication of somebody down the line having used privilege, uh, without --
EHRLICHMAN: Okay, it's okay. We're coverin' his tracks. Uh, Seamans was wrong, he had no right to invoke it, but you backed him up and we can put it, we can put it together in such a way that everything's okay, and, uh, don't worry about it.
NIXON: But I had to back up the son of a bitch Seamans.
EHRLICHMAN: Here's what we've done. Just so you can get a feel of it. You know the procedure is if a cabinet officer wants to invoke executive privilege, he refers it to the attorney general --
NIXON: Yeah.
EHRLICHMAN: -- and it eventually comes to you if it's, if it's meritorious. So I --
NIXON: I invoke.
EHRLlCHMAN: That's right and so what, what we're saying is, by the language Seamans used, he was beginning the process. Here it goes on. Meanwhile, he has referred this to the attorney general. The attorney general's going to look at this and make a decision as to whether he should answer the question or not. And you were aware of this fact and you acquiesced in the procedure being started. He made no final ruling.
Mr. Mollenhoff was at the hearing room this morning in a noisy, animated and unscheduled appearance.
He called the proceedings a "kangaroo court" and said that he was ready to testify. "Every effort is being made to keep the facts from being put on the line," he said.
Mr. Staiman said that he was interrupting the hearing.
"If the truth is an interference, then I am interfering," Mr. Mollenhoff said.
"If you don't stop your interruptions, I'll have to ask you to leave the room," Mr. Staiman said.
Mr. Mollenhoff left a short time later.... "It is the most peculiar effort to extend executive privilege to someone who doesn't want it" (he said).
The tragic death of Kenneth Cook and the memory of his last visits to my office leave me with no alternative. I do not want to be in the position in your case of asking myself later if I might have done more to correct an injustice, and know the answer I would have to give myself if I remained silent.
Do the military believe that the protection of official extravagance, inefficiency, and collusion with the contractors is vital to national security? If that is prevailing doctrine, then Congress and the American people might as well resign themselves to giving the Pentagon a blank check. ... It is particularly disconcerting that so many members of that cast have played important roles in a succession of alarming episodes -- from Watergate to I.T.T. to Fitzgerald. All these episodes have in common the arrogant use of executive power, the aggrandizement of special interests, and the deception of the American people.
The Big Boomer had fought his way to the witness stand and was letting fly: a good public servant is getting the axe because of the conspiracy in the Air Force ... the scoundrels in the Air Force are trying to frame Mr. Fitzgerald ... the brutality of the military bureaucracy.
Each time the Big Boomer would let go with another epithet, Colonel Teagarden, the Air Force's lawyer, would coil backward and, like a prosecutorial abbot, turn his head away and smile the corners of his mouth downward in sweet disdain. He and the government had tried to keep the heretical Mollenhoff from testifying, but he was there, bellowing reproofs at them, so they tried to make him out as a maniac with a crazy hair inside irritating his gut.
From the day he became dictator Mussolini began paying back the men who paid him in 1920. He abolished the tax on inheritance, for example, because it was supposed to end big fortunes, and that of course meant loss of money for the rich, who had in a body gone over to Fascism after 1922. But Mussolini did not have the courage to abolish the political democratic system all at once, and he had many opposition parties which criticized and attacked him. His chief opponent was the Socialist deputy Matteotti.
The reason Matteotti had to die was because he committed the one unforgivable crime in a Fascist nation: he exposed the profits in Fascism.
There is no program, no policy, no ideology and certainly no philosophy back of Fascism, as there is back of almost every other form of government. It is nothing but a spoils system. We too in America have a spoils system, which is talked about every four years when a President is elected, and sometimes when a governor is elected, but this refers largely to a few jobs, a little graft, a considerable payoff for the boys in the back room of politics. It is also true that we in America have ruling families, men and corporations who put up most of the money for elections, and do not do so because one candidate has baby blue eyes and the other is beetle-browed. It is done for money, and the investors in politics are repaid. But Fascism is a system whereby a handful of ruling families get the entire nation.
It was Matteotti who discovered in 1924 that Mussolini, who had "marched" to Rome in a Pullman sleeper in 1922, was beginning to pay back the secret forces which had paid the money to put Fascism in power.
On May 27th, a few days before he was kidnapped and assassinated by Mussolini's gangsters and family friends, Matteotti denounced in the Italian parliament a law which would have given a monopoly in oil to the Sinclair firm -- the same corporation run by Harry Sinclair which was involved in the filthy muck of the Teapot Dome Scandal, and incidentally the same Harry Sinclair who told Dorothy Thompson that he and his associates put up most of the money to buy the Presidency of the United States every four years.
On June 10, 1924, when the entire front pages of the American press were given over to the Loeb-Leopold case in Chicago, Matteotti was killed by Mussolini's own orders, and not a line appeared in most newspapers. On the 16th Arnaldo, brother of the Duce, printed a warning in his Popolo d'ltalia against public clamor for an investigation of the murder, saying such a request was in reality a demand that Mussolini abdicate. But the London Daily Herald told the truth. Matteotti, having challenged the Sinclair oil deal, had prepared a documentary expose proving that Balbo, Grandi, Arnaldo, Mussolini himself and the biggest men in the Fascist government had been engaged in a tremendous graft and corruption deal in relation to the oil monopoly.
For all this the Undersecretary of Home Affairs, Finzi, was made the scapegoat; the evidence was plain that he was among the grafters, and as he was also one of the big financial profiteers of a Fascist law legalizing gambling, he resigned in an uproar. In apology the Roman press said that "thousands of jailbirds have joined the Fascist Party since the March on Rome," and that Finzi was not a good party member.
Finzi was a small shot. Matteotti was using the Sinclair oil graft scandal to hit at the big shots, and the Fascists were throwing Finzi to the mob to save the real profiteers of the system. Matteotti had prepared a documentation which showed that the big bankers, the great industrial baronies such as Ansaldo, the great landowners and the war profiteers who had made billions while Italy hungered, were to be given the wealth of Italy.
-- Facts and Fascism, by George Seldes
FIRMS WITH LINKS TO THE ORDER AT, OR NEAR, 120 BROADWAY IN 1917:
120 Broadway: Sinclair Gulf Corp.
-- America's Secret Establishment -- Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones, by Antony C. Sutton
Fitzgerald has gone through enough, the CSC hearing is doing us no good whatsoever; there is a good measure of justice in Fitzgerald's complaint, and the president would be well served by a speedy and just, if not charitable, resolution of the matter. ...
Perhaps we should get together quietly with Fitzgerald and his attorney and find a resolution satisfactory to him -- and not damaging to the president's interests.
The I.R.S. is a monstrous bureaucracy, which is dominated and controlled by Democrats. The I.R.S. bureaucracy has been unresponsive and insensitive to both the White House and the Treasury in many areas.
In brief, the lack of key Republican bureaucrats at high levels precludes the initiation of policies which would be proper and politically advantageous. Practically every effort to proceed in sensitive areas has been met with resistance, delay, and the threat of derogatory exposure. New plans were laid:
(A) To accomplish: Make I.R.S. politically responsive. Democrat administrations have discreetly used I.R.S. most effectively. We have been unable.
(B) The Problem: Lack of guts and effort. The Republican appointees appear afraid and unwilling to do anything that could be politically helpful.
For example:
- We have been unable to crack down on the multitude of tax exempt foundations that feed left wing political causes.
- We have been unable to obtain information in the possession of I.R.S. regarding our political enemies.
- We have been unable to stimulate audits of persons who should be audited.
- We have been unsuccessful in placing RN supporters in the I.R.S. bureaucracy.
When it became known that I might go outside with the problem, Mr. Paul Frech, the director of manufacturing, was sent to Chattanooga to see me. (Our) conversation was predictably short. The first thing he said was, "Do you know what happened to Ernie Fitzgerald, who went to Washington with some Lockheed problems?" When I said I didn't, Frech said, "He's now chief shit-house inspector for the Civil Service Commission and will never be able to get a good job as long as he lives" (Erwin Kroll, "The Education of Henry Durham," reprinted from The Progressive, 1972).
We do not believe a work measurement system indicator, such as the Labor Cost Trends (AFLC's work-measurement-based performance indicator) or any similar comparison of standard (earned) to actual or standard-to-payroll hours should be used as a substitute for even the most invalid productivity measurement system indicator.
By defending our country's war role in public forums and in the media, the military inevitably drew upon itself some of the blame for the existence of this policy. Any justification by military officers of political decisions made by our elected civilian leadership will make the military vulnerable as a scapegoat if, later, these decisions prove to be unpopular.
Secretary Schlesinger urged the Services to expedite the obligation and expenditure of funds to minimize the impact of inflation on defense Purchasing Power. In this connection, the Comptroller's office will regularly measure the progress of obligations and expenditure for each Service and ensure appropriate visibility.
Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.... We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat (by 1987, the price was twenty million bushels). We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than eight thousand people.. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Without endangering the defense of our nation or commitments to allies, we can reduce present defense expenditures by about five to seven billion annually (emphasis added). We must be hard-headed in the development of new weapons systems to ensure that they will comport with our foreign policy objectives. Exotic weapons which serve no real function do not contribute to the defense of this country. The B-1 bomber is an example of a proposed system which should not be funded and would be wasteful of taxpayers' dollars. We have an admiral for every seventeen ships. The Chief of Naval Operations has more captains and commanders on his own personal staff than serve in all the ships at sea.
The Pentagon bureaucracy is wasteful and bloated. We have more generals and admirals today than we had during World War II, commanding a much smaller fighting force. We can thin our troops in Asia and close some unnecessary bases abroad.
As I've traveled across the country, I have heard thousands and thousands of Americans say they don't believe the federal government can be made to work again. This pessimism about government is so widespread that many people have lost faith in the very idea of public service. The word "bureaucrat" has become a pejorative word, almost an insult.
It wasn't always like this and it doesn't have to be anymore. The federal government can be well managed. It can be efficient. It can be responsive. It can once again be a source of pride to the public and the public servant.
I want to talk today about what government reorganization will mean to the thousands of federal public servants. I share the public's disillusion with its government -- and I know that you do, too. But the backlash should not be directed against government employees who want to do a good job, but against the barriers that hold them back.
If I become president, I intend to work with career civil servants, with Congress, with leaders of business and labor, with academics, and with many other groups to devise a reorganization that will eliminate waste and inefficiency and overlapping and confusion in the federal government and make our government truly efficient once again.
Fourth, I intend to seek strong legislation to protect our federal employees from harassment and dismissal if they find out and report waste and dishonesty by their superiors or others. The Fitzgerald case, where a dedicated civil servant was fired from the Defense Department for reporting cost overruns, must never be repeated.
Carter spoke angrily about Secretary Brown, who now increasingly sided with the military in favor of larger defense forces. "Harold's been a horse's ass on defense budgets," Carter told his aides. "He's caused me more work and took a hard line and never yielded."
Suddenly, Fitzgerald was part of the audience. He needed to explain no more. The frustration he apotheosized (sic) was written on almost every face in the audience.
Hands were shooting up. Stories about waste, mismanagement, corruption, and cover-ups began pouring out from all sides. Complaints went uninvestigated, complainants were punished, documents destroyed ....
It seemed an endless orgy of accusations in southern lilts, midwestern drawls, and Bronx accents.... There were many Fitzgeralds now, countless numbers, and all of them felt that the big shots who commit crimes go scot free, while the little guys, honoring their Code of Ethics, get slammed for revealing wrongdoing.
How often have you heard that? Do YOU believe it? Well, don't -- it's a myth. The facts are that in fiscal year 1977, 1,230 Air Force civilians were separated for cause. This included directed separations for suitability reasons, resignations in lieu of adverse actions, separations for inefficiency, termination during trial or probation period, and removals for misconduct. The figures for calendar year 1974, 1975, and 1976 and 1,823, 1,495, and 1,433 respectively.
What is a democratic election for the President of the United States all about in the first place? What good is an election of a president replacing another administration if the president cannot bring in an adequate number of people who share his views and his programs and the issues that were debated during the election and won as a result of the November election?
The essence of what we proposed also includes the protection of the rights of those who are part of the civil service system, and we are also very interested in seeing the so-called whistleblowers, those who see defects in our government, violations of law, gross waste, protected when they point out these deficiencies leading to correction of errors in our government.
Let me give you a notable example from past history, perhaps the most famous person who has suffered. And that's Ernest Fitzgerald, who, through his own insistence, pointed out an example of great waste in the federal government. Under the present merit system, he has, through his own analysis, been punished because of that whistleblowing experience. That would not be possible under the proposed legislation. He would be protected and could not be punished, could not be silenced, in fact may very well have been rewarded.
"A company like Lockheed which has the ability and courage to plan and design a new concept in aircraft like the C-5A must be expected to run into certain cost overruns as they must make constant modifications in the aircraft while it is being produced," Carter said.
"The Defense Department understands this and allows for it. It has come into the public light so often only because certain politicians, including Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.) want to create a political issue with it.
"The cost overruns are predictable and easy to understand in a program like that of the C-5A," the Governor said.
Dear Bob,
One of the finest experiences of my life was being with you on the trip to Central and South America. In addition to the remarkable performance, luxury, and convenience of the Jet Star, the opportunity to learn more about Lockheed was extremely important to me. ... I have carried this message of admiration to our national leaders in the State Department, Defense Department, and the Congress and will continue to do so.... I want to help in an active way.... The first step now in addition to my public and private promotional efforts should be for me to visit Lockheed and know at first hand the problems and opportunities of your company.
Your friend,
Jimmy Carter
The greatest tragedy of all was that President Carter's performance created an unreasoned national craving for a strong and forceful leader -- any strong leader. Carter's weakness set the political stage for a bold, strong leader who might be too bold, too strong, too ruthless and too authoritarian to tolerate opposition and more skillful in the exercise of the authoritarian tools of secrecy and political retribution that Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon used quite clumsily.
I was aware that two other sources, not defendants in this action, were also interviewed by the OSI. They were John Badin and Eugene Kirschbaum, the men I had named during my OSI interview as the persons most knowledgeable about the PTC-AFFC contract. In fact, about a month after my own interview, John Badin came to me and told me that an OSI agent named Sullivan was waiting to interview him.... He said that Sullivan had indicated that I had given his name as a possible source in an inquiry into the PTC-AFFC contract. He asked me what this was about and asked me whether I knew Sullivan and could confirm that he was from OSI. I drove Badin over to the OSI office, briefly relating the story of my own interview as we went, and, once there, I introduced Sullivan to Badin, thereby identifying Sullivan as the man who had interviewed me, and left.
It is the opinion of the WFO that by DRIESSNACK altering his unsigned affidavit into its present form of 4/18/74, and the fact that both DRIESSNACK and CROW'S affidavits appear to be similar, it does give the appearance that DRIESSNACK discussed these matters with General CROW prior to submitting the final form of his affidavit dated 4/18/74. If this is the case, WFO feels that DRIESSNACK perjured himself.
Special Agent Golden discussed this with Assistant U.S. Attorney DONALD E. CAMPBELL, Major Crimes, Washington, D.C., and he advised the facts warrant that a preliminary investigation be instituted at this time.
VON KANN: And the next point that you made, that he complained about cost overruns, that's about Fitzgerald.
NIXON: That's correct.
VON KANN: And "cutting up superiors" is about Fitzgerald?
NIXON: That's correct.
VON KANN: And "not taking orders" is about Fitzgerald?
NIXON: That's correct.
Whoopie! NTU is a non-partisan organization, but we could not help letting out a cheer at the election results that brought defeat to so many big spenders and opponents of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget....
We have the greatest opportunity we've ever had to really win some great victories which will change the direction of life in this country.
We are disturbed by the Soviet government's chilling persecution of such dissidents as Andrei Sakharov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and many other individuals we have considered our counterparts in the Soviet Union....
When Soviet scientists and intellectuals are threatened, jailed, or exiled, we see the spokesmen for detente with humanist values under attack.
When your dissidents are attacked by your government, we are concerned about the kind of peaceful coexistence your government has in mind.
In my judgment, America's print and broadcast media will judge the Reagan Administration's efforts to control "runaway government" largely by what happens to Ernie Fitzgerald, the man who made the term "whistleblower" an honorable part of our political vocabulary.... I strongly recommend Ernie Fitzgerald for ... appointment as Comptroller General....
Capitol Hill opponents of your proposed spending cuts would be more charitable to your efforts if they saw a Comptroller General with impeccable "bona fides" who could make government programs run better for less money. This is especially helpful, Mr. President, in the critical area of defense, where budget requests have been increased while other programs have been trimmed.
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