Honesty Redeemed

The price for telling the truth in Government can be inordinately high, as A. Ernest Fitzgerald, a onetime civilian cost analyst for the Air Force, found out. After Fitzgerald disclosed to a subcommittee of the Joint Economic Committee in November 1968 that cost overruns on the giant C-5A cargo plane added up to a phenomenal $2 billion, his days at the Pentagon were numbered. His Air Force superiors, Fitzgerald claims, did not applaud his frankness before Congress. He was cut off from cost information about major weapons systems, an investigation of his private life was initiated, laudatory comments were excised from his record before it was turned over to Congress, and finally in January 1970 his position as Deputy for Management Systems was abolished.

Last week Fitzgerald's misfortunes were finally reversed, when a civil service appeals examiner reinstated him, ruling that his dismissal was "improperly" labeled an economy move when it was in fact "purely personal." In addition, Fitzgerald was awarded $130,000 in back pay, though he says the money "won't come close to paying for all that was done to me." How will he feel back at the old job? "I intend to go back and approach it with an open mind. Many of the people there are new. The people who hated me most are gone," said Fitzgerald. "I have unfinished business in the Pentagon."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.