Civilian test personnel began calling Burton at home. Almost every man called to tell Burton the specifics of how he was ordered
to influence test results. Now Burton used his reputation for asking questions as a way to protect his sources. He returned
to the test site and asked question after question until he officially received the information that had been passed to him
unofficially.
Burton established a network of Army personnel who told him the truth about the tests. When he wanted to know what the Army
was about to do, he called on those sources for information—“running my traplines,” he called it. Then he returned to senior
officers and said, “I want you to know there is nothing personal in what I am about to do.”
By now that was a phrase that struck terror into the heart of Army generals.
Burton prepared an independent report in December 1985 showing that ammunition stored inside the Bradley was a major hazard
to troops. If he were proven correct, the Bradley program would be in danger of being cancelled. The Army squelched Burton’s
report before its existence became widely known and countered with a report saying the ammunition posed little hazard.
Peter Jennings, the anchorman for ABC news, did a story about Burton’s nonexistent report and how it threatened the Bradley
program.
Burton was mentioned in editorials in the
New York Times
. He was seen as one honest man fighting a corrupt Army system. When Burton’s boss left government to begin a consulting firm,
he was interviewed on
60 Minutes
and confirmed that he had threatened to fire Burton if he received one more call from Congress about him.
Reporters began calling the Pentagon, asking about Burton’s report on the Bradley. The Pentagon knew by now that Burton would
not talk to the media and took full advantage of this to deny he had written anything. But the little brothers and sisters
were running loose. Copies found their way to reporters and once again the Pentagon was flayed.
One night an Army two-star called Burton at home. He praised Burton for what he was doing. “We should be doing these tests,”
the general said. “Your work is going to save countless lives.” Then the general said that even though he agreed with everything
Burton was doing, his job demanded that he attack Burton the next day.
By now Burton was growing weary. The unending pressure to be right was wearing him down. He drank a bottle of wine each night
with dinner. And he wondered aloud to Boyd how much longer he could continue.
“Jim, you may not win,” Boyd said to him. “But you can’t give the bastards a free ride. You’re doing the right thing. Stay
with it, Tiger.”
Congress ordered hearings on the Bradley. On one side would be the top generals connected with the Bradley program. On the
other would be Colonel Burton. Sprey helped organize Burton’s written statement, and when Sprey was through, Burton knew his
position was unassailable.
Then the Army informed Burton that everything he planned to say was classified. He would not be allowed to say anything.
“If this decision is not reversed, I will inform Congress my testimony has been censored,” Burton said. “And I will also testify
that Army generals have revealed classified information to the media in order to support the Bradley.”
Suddenly Burton’s testimony was no longer classified.
Burton’s testimony opened a two-year debate in Congress about the Bradley. Most in Washington and elsewhere now believed Burton
was right. The lead editorial in the February 4, 1986, issue of the
New York Times
excoriated the Army for its attitude about the Bradley
tests and its doctoring of the results. The editorial called on the Army to follow Burton’s advice. When the Army opposed
safety features Sprey and Burton had designed, Congress said Burton’s ideas would be tested or the Bradley production line
would be shut down.
Several years earlier the Congressional Reform Caucus had created what was to be the single lasting legacy of the reform movement,
a new job in the Pentagon that supervised the testing of all military weapons. The Director of Operational Test and Evaluation,
or “DOT&E,” was unusual in that he reported directly to the secretary of defense and to Congress. The purpose of the job was
to act as a counterweight to the weapons advocacy system in the Pentagon. The Pentagon vehemently opposed the new position
and Congress had to force-feed it to the Building. Then for almost two years Weinberger refused to appoint anyone to the job.
Finally, under great pressure, he asked Nancy Kassebaum to recommend someone. She said she would do so, but only if Weinberger
promised that the nominee would not be persecuted solely because he was the Reform nominee—that is, solely because he had
been nominated by her as chairwoman of the Congressional Reform Caucus. Weinberger said he understood Kassebaum’s concerns.
She nominated Burton and promised him that if he were not accepted, she would see that the Pentagon did not punish him.
Not only did Weinberger refuse to accept Burton but the Air Force again tried to transfer him. He was given seven days to
accept the new assignment or retire. Members of the Reform Caucus were furious and erupted in loud complaints. But Kassebaum
remained silent. Boyd and Sprey went to her office to remind her of her obligation to protect Burton. But she said the pending
transfer was not in retribution for Burton’s name being nominated for the DOT&E job but rather normal Air Force rotation policy.
Winslow Wheeler, the Kassebaum aide who had for so long believed in reform, was there when Boyd and Sprey talked to the senator.
He remembers the look of contempt on their faces and the look of shame on Kassebaum’s face. And he believes the incident marked
the beginning of the end for the reform movement.
Burton ran his trapline one last time and discovered that in the latest Bradley tests the Army had replaced internal ammunition
boxes with cans of water in order to give false test results about what
happened when a shell penetrated the inner compartment. An honest test would have destroyed the Bradley. Army officers were
actually promoted for coming up with a way to provide better test results. In response, Burton wrote his most famous memo.
He harshly accused the Army of cheating on the tests. He said the Army was not conducting tests in order to save the lives
of American servicemen, but rather in order to buy weapons. Faced with such accusations, the army chief of staff stopped the
tests and the House Armed Services Committee called for hearings. But Burton’s victory was, as he probably knew it would be,
Pyrrhic. He received another notice saying he was about to be transferred to Alaska. If he did not accept the assignment,
he would be forced to retire. He had seven days to decide.
The Army called in a panel of members from the National Academy of Sciences to validate its testing procedures. The panel,
some of whom had contracts with the Army, did just that. Army generals now thought their testing methods had been sanctified.
But Burton wrote to every member of the panel and said they were not scientists, but advocates. To the horror of the Army,
the panel reconvened and this time said Burton’s testing methods were best.
But by now Burton was physically and emotionally exhausted. He signed his retirement papers.
Pierre Sprey testified at the hearings against the Army. Sprey’s specialty is statistics and the report he presented to Congress
was one of the most devastating indictments of a military service—its chicanery, its outright lying, its lack of concern for
its troops—that the Congress has ever heard.
But Burton was gone.
B
ECAUSE
he often worked late at the Pentagon, Boyd sometimes did not leave his apartment until almost noon the following day. By
then, the young entrepreneurs who lived in the complex were out in the parking lot, taking their first meetings of the day.
They waved and nodded to Boyd and laughingly called him “Mr. President.” He was, after all, tall and rangy, and he had the
same craggy good looks as Reagan. But he did not have the same jovial sense of humor, at least not in 1984.
For about two years, Boyd and Mary Ellen had not been on speaking terms. Now Boyd extended an olive branch and asked her to
work with him on revising “Patterns.” She became his typist and Jeff drew the illustrations.
Mary Ellen worked with her father two and three nights a week and often on weekends. Boyd wanted to make sure every word conveyed
precisely the right meaning. Mary Ellen recalls that once, she and Boyd discussed the difference between “swirling” and “whirling”
for hours. At times the work became so intense that old animosities bubbled up and Boyd and his daughter had to walk away
and let emotions settle down before they continued. But working
with her father was important to Mary Ellen; it was a way to make up for the years of not speaking.
By 1984 the military reform movement was at its height. And the Wednesday evening gatherings were loud and raucous and filled
with plans about generals to be hosed. Old stories were told and retold—of Spinney’s white wagon kill, of a general’s air-to-rug
maneuver, of cape jobs and hot platters and the particularly effective techniques known as tube steaks and barbwire enchiladas.
The Reformers did not win all the time; they often were on the receiving end of cape jobs, too. When this happened they laughed
and shook their heads and said, “I let myself get fucked,” then had a drink and planned a counterattack.
The Pentagon bureaucracy knew about the Wednesday night happy hour and on occasion sent spies. Standoffish and obviously not
a part of the band of brothers, they were easily detected. Boyd might be in his transmit mode, holding forth with two dozen
people circled around him, when someone would point out a couple of men across the room. “John, they’re spies. Tone it down.”
Boyd said, “Fuck ’em” and talked even louder.
But the sessions had a very serious undercurrent. Boyd and the Reformers were fighting the largest and most powerful military
institution in the world. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and had limited resources. Their victories came with a fearful
price.
Spinney was a good example. Boyd knew that because the Building could not counter Spinney’s “Plans / Reality Mismatch” briefing,
the long knives would come out. He was right in insisting Spinney be on the cover of
Time
magazine. (He said the reform movement would not truly be accepted by America until one of the Reformers was on the cover
of a Superman comic book.) But eventually that protection disappeared. By 1984, the thrust of the reform movement had shifted
from Spinney to waste and fraud in procurement contracts—$600 toilet seats and that sort of thing. When Spinney no longer
was in the media spotlight, the Building struck back. The man who had written two of the most important documents ever to
come out of the Pentagon, the man who arguably had done more than any other individual to reveal the sloppy accounting procedures
the Pentagon uses to disperse the taxpayers’ money, was given a poor performance rating. This is a tactic used to set up an
employee for dismissal: poor performance
ratings over several years means an employee can be fired with no recourse. On the other hand, if the rating is proven to
be retributive, it is illegal. A group of lawyers offered Spinney free legal service. They were about to seal the office of
Spinney’s boss and seize his records when one of the Reformers leaked the story to George Wilson of the
Washington Post.
When Spinney’s boss said he had been pressured to give Spinney a low performance rating Weinberger ordered that a new, favorable
rating, be issued immediately.
Spinney won the battle. But a long war of attrition lay ahead.
The Building soon struck again in the only way it knew how. David Chu’s assistant told Spinney he no longer had a spot in
the Pentagon parking lot.
In January 1987, Boyd turned sixty, an age when many men begin reflecting on their life. No matter how optimistic he is, when
a man reaches sixty it is more difficult to cling to the idea that he is middle-aged. He stands at the threshold of old age
and senses the increasing speed of time’s winged chariot. Intimations of mortality grow stronger.
Jim Burton hosted a birthday party for Boyd. Most of the old crowd was there, some two dozen people. Mary worked for weeks
on a skit that would give her a chance to show off what she called her “artistic side.” Burton’s wife played the piano as
Mary read a long recounting of Boyd’s career, everything from burning the hangars in Japan to stealing computer time at Eglin
to all the hose jobs and hot platters and tube steaks. “Ride of the Valkyries” played at high decibels. Burton gave Boyd a
model of the B-1 with a brick attached. As usual, Boyd received garden hoses as gifts. He was quiet and reflective during
the party. But once he arrived back at the apartment on Beauregard Street, he went into a rage. He was furious at Mary for
singing of his antics even though he had told those same stories for years. “People think I’m some kind of kook,” he said.
“They don’t pay attention to my work because they think I’m a kook.” He threw out his collection of garden hoses. Gag gifts,
photographs, and many of his papers went into the garbage can.
By now everything was beginning to unravel. The Reform Caucus and the reform movement were deteriorating. Boyd must have remembered
the days, only a few years earlier, when he and Sprey
were two of the most influential men in Washington; they could get an audience with any congressman or senator. Neither had
a portfolio; neither had the clout that comes with being an elected or appointed official—yet the power of their ideas made
them all the rage in Washington. Boyd was sought out by members of the national media. People like Hugh Sidey and Jim Fallows
and Alvin Toffler hung out in his office.
But it was all slipping away. Boyd began to talk of dying. “I want to go quickly,” he said. “I want to go like a light turning
off, a big bang and I’m out. If I thought it was going to be any other way I’d call Kevorkian and say, ‘Hey, I got a job for
you. Me.’”