Letters
Letters Cautious Careerists Since Shriver established the five-yearsandout principle and assigned many newly returned Volunteers to responsible positions in the Peace Corps, why would...
...His work led to hearings in which senators actually knew what they were talking about, even down to knowing the right follow-up questions...
...What the Congress needs is a fast investigating team that can get to the bottom of a controversy and produce facts untarnished by the politics of committee hearings before the issue is cold...
...Letters Cautious Careerists Since Shriver established the five-yearsandout principle and assigned many newly returned Volunteers to responsible positions in the Peace Corps, why would Gonzales and Rothchild [“The Shriver Prescription: How the Government Can Find Out What It’s Doing,” November] perceive evaluations as a governmental technique to keep these same short-term, highly-motivated staffers honest...
...The editor replies: Mr...
...The reason one didn’t see “everybody stepping back or ducking for cover” in Peace Corps Washington and abroad, I would suggest, was because they could take criticism, much of it richly deserved, without worrying about a future career with the agency...
...MARSTON D. HODGIN, I1 Wallingford, Conn...
...Informing Congress I noted with interest your tidbit urging that Congress use the General Accounting Office for more investigations [October] . The GAO is one of the most thorough, respected and efficient investigative bodies in Washington...
...With such information in hand and the willingness to perform, Congress might stand a chance against the bureaucracy...
...You could point out that this provides topquahty information that is difficult to refute...
...However, I have seen federal agency after federal agency (most notably the Pentagon) successfully argue before committees that “while what the GAO says was true a year ago, we have corrected those deficiencies and the situation no longer exists...
...Even a minor item like a post-award protest takes two to three months...
...It would take another GAO investigation to prove them wrong...
...PETER K. ILCHUK Washington, D. C. The editor replies: An interesting example of the kind of reporting Mr...
...Ilchuk mentions was the investigation by Walter Pincus in 1969 for the Senate subcommittee of U. S. security agreements and commitments abroad...
...A GAO report on a particular subject takes from six months to a year...
...Unfortunately, it is its thoroughness, its respectability and its efficiency that are its downfall...
...Hodgin states a very good reason for the government to seek fewer career employees and more of the “short-term, highly-motivated’’ people who won’t duck for cover...
...Were they really such traditional bureaucrats...
Vol. 4 • December 1972 • No. 10
