Muzzling the Public’s Watchdog
Joseph Campbell had been treasurer and vice president of Columbia
University while General Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of that
institution. A pleasant and friendly relationship developed between
the two men, and General Eisenhower was attracted by Campbell’s
competency in accounting and finance. After General Eisenhower was
elected President, he named Campbell a member of the Atomic Energy
Commission in 1953.
A year later President Eisenhower named Joseph Campbell Comptroller
General of the United States in charge of the General Accounting
Office (GAO). It is an important fifteen-year-term office designed to
serve the Congress as the “financial watchdog” of all spending in the
executive departments and agencies. No single office in the United
States is more vital to the task of forcing the sprawling federal
government to administer the laws fairly and make expenditures
according to the laws.
The GAO was established in the Budgeting and Accounting Act of
1921 as an arm of the legislative branch of government. Once the
Comptroller General has been appointed by the President, he becomes
an agent of the Congress. To assure the independence of the office,
the Congress established the long term and provided that the
incumbent could be removed from office only by joint resolution of
Congress or by impeachment.
The Budgeting and Accounting Act also gave the GAO the power to
examine all information and reports in order to determine whether
money was being spent in a legal manner. The section on access to
records states:
“All departments and establishments shall furnish to the Comptroller
General such information regarding the powers, duties, activities,
organization, financial transactions, and methods of business of
their respective offices as he may from time to time require of
them; and the Comptroller General, or any of his assistants or
employees, when duly authorized by him, shall for the purpose of
securing such information, have access to and the right to examine
any books, documents, papers, or records of any such department or
establishment.”
The law allowed but one exception to the Comptroller General’s legal
right to demand and obtain access to “records of any such department
or establishment.” That one exception gave the Secretary of State
the power to determine whether there should be a publication of
expenditures of funds used in dealings or treaty making with foreign
nations.
The law should have been clear to anyone. The GAO auditors were
to be given access to all papers and all records dealing with
the expenditure of federal funds. It was the only way they could
carefully examine contracts and determine whether any frauds or
illegal procedures were involved.
But through the years, as might be expected in a bureaucracy, some
officials had been reluctant to put all the cards on the table for
the GAO. The reluctance increased in proportion to the bungling,
mismanagement, or fraud that might be uncovered by prying GAO
investigators.
In the first years of Joseph Campbell’s tenure as Comptroller
General, his office faced some of the normal bureaucratic reluctance.
But, on the whole, the holding back was spotty. Usually the
departments produced the records demanded when the inspection
provisions of the Budgeting and Accounting Act were pointed out to
them.
By 1958, however, the use of “executive privilege” had become so
widespread that it was interfering with the work of the GAO. The
interference gradually came to light through the work of an Armed
Services subcommittee headed by Representative F. Edward Hebert, the
Louisiana Democrat. Chairman Hebert had asked Comptroller General
Campbell to do a thorough study of the multibillion-dollar Air Force
ballistic missile program. He had also set the GAO on the trail of
a dozen other smaller projects where it appeared that influence,
favoritism, incompetence, or fraud had cost the taxpayers millions of
dollars in excess costs.
To Chairman Hebert this unjustified secrecy was serious business.
For nearly ten years he had been engaged in important investigations
which had proved that the military services could not be relied upon
to police their own spending. It was vital that there be an adequate
policing job on a Defense budget that totaled about 40 billion
dollars a year—approximately half of the entire federal budget. Year
after year, Chairman Hebert and Chief Counsel John Courtney had
conducted hearings showing incredible waste and inefficiency. The
staff of the Hebert subcommittee was small, and Chairman Hebert was
forced to rely on the GAO for the major part of the auditing work and
legal studies.
The Defense Department could not avail itself of the claim of
“national security” when the GAO auditors started an investigation
because the GAO auditors were cleared to handle “Secret” and “Top
Secret” classified material in the same manner that Defense officials
were. Lacking the “national security” claim, the military services
latched onto the claim of “executive privilege.” One directive
followed another, gradually pulling down the secrecy curtain. The
periodic, quiet protests by Campbell went unnoticed by the public
until the usually mild-mannered Comptroller General fired off a
letter to Defense Secretary Neil McElroy.
“These restrictions,” Campbell wrote, “could seriously hamper the
General Accounting office in performing its statutory responsibility
and will impede the performance of our work.”
He pointed out to McElroy that his GAO auditors could not do their
job in the face of directives that prohibited them from examining the
Inspector General reports, and allowed them only a summary of reports
as approved by the Secretaries of the various armed services.
In a letter to Chairman Hebert, Campbell made his complaint more
specific:
“Any information or factual data directly bearing on a program of
activity subject to audit by the General Accounting Office should not
be withheld or subjected to procedures designed to screen official
documents, papers, or records, by the authority or activity being
audited.”
Later, in a letter to the Moss subcommittee on Government
Information, the Comptroller General stated that he was seeking to
make a study of the activity of the Inspector General of the Air
Force to determine how effective the internal investigations had been.
He stated that to conduct such an investigation, the GAO inspection
must include:
1 A survey of the Air Force procurement methods (advertising versus
negotiation).
2 A survey of procurement quantitative and qualitative program
changes.
3 A survey of contract cost overruns.
“It is essential that such reports be made available to the General
Accounting Office in order that we can evaluate the effectiveness
of the department’s system of internal control and to preclude
unwarranted and unnecessary duplication of effort in the internal
audit and the independent reviews made by this office,” Campbell
wrote.
“There is no basis why reports on the subject of the types pointed
out above should not be made available to the General Accounting
Office unless the purpose is to delay or hamper the efforts of the
office to disclose all facts bearing upon the activity or area under
audit.
“We believe that any departmental regulation denying to the General
Accounting Office access to any report relating to ‘internal audit
and control’ is contrary to the law.”
It should be remembered that this was not a Democratic congressman
or senator accusing a Republican administration. This was Joseph
Campbell, long-time friend of President Eisenhower, charging that the
Eisenhower administration was acting “contrary to the law” in the
claim of an “executive privilege.”
Congressman John Moss subsequently declared that President Eisenhower
was not discharging his duties under the Constitution. Under Article
II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the President is obliged to “take
care that the laws be faithfully executed....” In this instance,
President Eisenhower was not only disregarding the Budgeting and
Accounting Act but also supporting those acting “contrary to the
law,” Moss said.
Although the fuss had started over GAO access to a sixty-two-page Air
Force inspector general report on the ballistic missile program (see
Appendix C), the real issue was whether the Air Force, the Army, the
Navy, or any other executive agency could arbitrarily refuse to give
reports, papers, and financial records to the GAO.
It was difficult to follow President Eisenhower’s thinking. This
was a period of time when President Eisenhower and members of his
administration were emphasizing that financial problems could be
one of the nation’s big worries. One of the major problems, they
believed, was making sure the government was getting its money’s
worth from military spending.
Even in times past, when GAO investigators were given maximum access
to records, serious scandals had been unearthed. Most of them were
not discovered by the military establishment but came to light only
after the GAO or the congressional committees went to work. Chairman
Hebert and Campbell had a long record of fruitful hearings to back
them in questioning the wisdom (to say nothing of the legality) of
allowing our military spenders to erect more barriers for the GAO
auditors—the only independent outside check on the billions spent on
military matters.
At the presidential press conference on November 5, 1958, I raised
the question of the right of the General Accounting Office to examine
reports of the Air Force and the Defense Department.
“Mr. President,” I said, “you have mentioned the spending in the
Defense Department here as one of the important issues, and the
General Accounting Office, which is the watchdog on frauds and
extravagances in the various agencies, has been barred from reports
over in the Air Force and the Defense Department generally, and on
this they [the Air Force and Defense Department officials] claim that
they have authority from you to withhold reports if it is ‘expedient
to do so.’”
I tried to make the question conform as much as possible to the
precise trouble area between the GAO and the Defense Department.
“I wonder,” I continued, “if you have given that authority [to
withhold] and if you feel that the GAO should have a full rein to go
in and investigate all indications of fraud and extravagance?”
Replied the President: “You are obviously talking about some special
thing that I would have to study before I could make—give an answer.
I have stated this time and time again: I believe that every
investigating committee of the Congress, every auditing office, like
the GAO, should always have the opportunity to see official records
if the security of our country is not involved.”
President Eisenhower was now saying that the GAO should have all
records unless the security of our country was involved. I tried to
pin him down on it.
“Will they claim this, Mr. President, under ‘executive privilege—’” I
started my question.
President Eisenhower cut in before I had finished to avoid any
further comment. “No, that’s all I have to say—I told you that is all
I had to say for the moment.”
Representative Clare Hoffman, the wily Michigan Republican, noted
that President Eisenhower’s answer seemed to bar use of “executive
privilege” in refusing reports to the GAO. A few days after the press
conference, he wrote President Eisenhower to call attention to the
press conference exchange and to ask:
“Did you mean to imply by your comments that the complete text
of Inspector General reports, including recommendations, be made
available to Congress and the General Accounting Office?”
President Eisenhower’s letter to Representative Hoffman on the
same day again barred the GAO from the full reports of inspectors
general. The President said that “facts” in the reports would be made
available to the GAO, but that “recommendations and other advisory
matter” were not to be released (see Appendix C).
The whole situation landed right back where it had started. The Air
Force, Navy, or Army officials would still screen the Inspector
General reports, eliminate material they didn’t want to fall into the
hands of GAO auditors, and pass out their own self-serving summary
to the investigators. Law and logic had fallen by the wayside. The
Budgeting and Accounting Act might as well not have been written
for all the good it was doing in forcing departments to produce all
pertinent documents.
The next big test came with the Navy. In February 1959, Comptroller
General Campbell wrote to the Moss subcommittee stating that
the secrecy curtain made it impossible for him to fulfill his
responsibility to audit Navy financial affairs.
“We consider it illogical, impractical and contrary to express
provisions of the law for public officials to withhold, in their
discretion, information concerning the discharge of their public
trust,” Campbell wrote.
“We are advising the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of
the Navy that we are unable to properly discharge our statutory
responsibility if information needed in our work is denied to our
representatives in the performance of our audits.”
Representative William L. Dawson, chairman of the parent House
Government Operation Committee, instructed Moss to prepare for public
hearings. He wrote Campbell:
“I am sure everything possible will be done to overcome the repeated
arrogance of Federal executive officials whose denial of information
to the General Accounting Office flouts the clear law of the land.”
Comptroller General Campbell said that the “executive privilege”
claim was being made by the Secretary of the Navy on grounds that “he
believes full disclosure of rank opinions, advice and recommendations
from persons at lower levels ... would not be in the public interest.
“This same reasoning is now being applied by the various bureaus and
offices in the day-to-day work of their employees.
“We believe that sound management practices require that
observations, opinions, and recommendations by subordinates and any
other matters considered in making a decision should be a matter of
record.
“All of these are matters upon which judgments are founded and
subsequent decision and actions are based. Such documentation serves
as a protection to the individual making the decisions or taking the
action as well as furnishing a sound basis for subsequent appraisal
of their timeliness, effectiveness and honesty.”
Campbell complained that under Navy procedure at that time “the
individuals having custody of the materials are required to screen
the material and remove from the official files any data they or
their superiors feel we should not have.
“These actions provide a means by which the Department could conceal
substantive evidence of waste, extravagance, improvident management,
poor procurement practices, or other adverse conditions.”
By March of 1959, Campbell had full proof that he could not rely
on the summary reports submitted to him by the Navy. He declared
that the Navy had submitted two reports on one subject that were
“incorrect representations” of the government’s action. “The second
version of the report, while containing twice as many pages, is
also incomplete and inadequate because of the use of self-exercised
censorship.”
Campbell said that the secrecy was not only illegal and bad
government but that it was mighty expensive. He explained that the
secrecy deprived the GAO auditors of information already accumulated
at the taxpayers’ expense. This meant that the GAO was forced to go
out and duplicate work already done if it was to make any effort to
fulfill its responsibility.
Comptroller General Campbell put no price tag on the extra cost for
a GAO audit of the Navy. However, the GAO did estimate that lack of
access to the Air Force Inspector General reports made that audit
cost at least $125,000 more than necessary. Though the cost of the
audit could have been avoided with the proper co-operation of the Air
Force, the audit ultimately disclosed millions of dollars in bungling
and waste in the Air Force missile program—all covered up in the
name of “executive privilege.”
The Richmond _Times-Dispatch_ commented:
“The amazing thing about this situation is that President Eisenhower
backs the armed services in withholding vital information from
the GAO. He has been told by his legal advisers that ‘executive
privilege’ has some validity, where it is in essence nothing but the
determination of bureaucrats to keep the GAO from seeing their books.
“This bogus doctrine forced the GAO to spend an extra $125,000 in
making its inquiry into Air Force mismanagement.... Just how much
longer is the public going to put up with this sort of thing?”
I knew that Virginius Dabney, editor of the Richmond
_Times-Dispatch_, was fed up with this expensive and undemocratic
secrecy. So was J. Russell Wiggins, executive editor of the
Washington _Post and Times Herald_; James Pope, executive editor of
the Louisville _Courier-Journal_; Herbert Brucker, editor of the
Hartford _Courant_; V. M. (Red) Newton, managing editor of the Tampa
_Tribune_; and Harold Cross, the special counsel for the American
Society of Newspaper Editors.
The Chicago _Daily News_, the St. Louis _Post-Dispatch_, and _The
Wall Street Journal_ were among the other top papers firmly opposed
to the secrecy cover-up. But despite several excellent editorials,
the problem just wasn’t flamboyant enough to catch the attention
of the public or even most reporters. Too many news stories and
editorials in other papers merely repeated the self-serving
justifications of the Eisenhower administration without determining
whether the assertions were true.