by Robert Coram
The Army said, “Well, they do exist. But we can’t model them on the computer so we ignore them.”
In September 1985, Weinberger sent Burton a handwritten note asking that henceforth Burton keep him personally informed of all test results on the Bradley. General Colin Powell was then Weinberger’s military assistant, performing the same duties for Weinberger that Burton had performed for three assistant secretaries of the Air Force. But Powell and Burton were cut from different bolts of cloth. Burton knew that when he sent a note to Weinberger, the Army’s senior generals had copies before the SecDef did. The reverse pump was still working.
By now Burton knew as much about ballistics and vaporifics and blast lung and all the other arcane disciplines as did the Army. He was inside their minds and knew how they thought and how they reacted. He could walk into a room of civilian and Army officials and know when the game was afoot. He knew intuitively when and how the adversary would move. Burton had the Fingerspitzengefuhl to move rapidly through the OODA Loop and stay ahead of his adversary, and he found the experience exhilarating. It gave him something like a “runner’s high” and he began to enjoy the confrontations. Each one began with his saying, “I want you to know there is nothing personal in what I am about to do.” And then total devastation. He wrote memos to his superiors that someone always leaked to congressmen, senators, and the media, causing the Army another round of ever-increasing embarrassment. He was planting a demon seed, and the Army would reap the harvest.
It was not long before word got out that Sprey was the technical brains behind Burton’s expertise. The Army hated Sprey for his criticism of the Abrams Tank as much as the Air Force hated him for his advocacy of the A-10 and complained to Weinberger, who lent a sympathetic ear. He changed the Building access rules so that people who did not have official badges could no longer come and go unescorted through the Pentagon’s unclassified areas as they had in the past. It was a good and needed rule. But it was done almost entirely because of Pierre Sprey.
Hereafter, when Sprey had studies or reports he wanted to pass to Burton, they met in the Pentagon’s south parking lot.
By now the entire Congress, not only the Reform Caucus, was interested in the Bradley. Congress was so concerned the Army might try to wiggle out of its agreement to let Burton oversee the testing that it passed a law saying all actions covered in Burton’s agreement with the Army must take place.
Congressional affirmation was just one more sign that, by the summer of 1985, people in the Army testing program knew Burton was determined to make the Bradley safe for those who would ride it into battle. Only a highly principled man would have fought the Army for so long and at such a high personal price. Civilian personnel, many of whom were former Army enlisted troops, realized that Burton, unlike many officers involved in the testing program, had no self-interest at stake. He was not there to get a medal and a promotion for pushing the Bradley into production; he wanted only to clean up the system for the benefit of troops in the field.
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 Kasseb
aum 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.
Chapter Thirty
They Think I’m a Kook
BECAUSE 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 ele
cted 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.’”
Boyd, by the sheer force of his personality, might have kept the reform movement alive. But he chose not to do so. Congressmen and senators had other issues. The media were losing interest. Mike Wyly and Jim Burton were casualties. Spinney was a marked man who probably would never again be promoted. Sprey was gone; tired of going home angry every day. For years he had dabbled with amateur music recording; now he decided to open a recording studio.
In the summer of 1987, Boyd finished two new briefings. “Organic Design for Command and Control” was completed in May. Historically, briefings about command and control dealt with the “how”—that is, who reports to whom between various levels of command in fast-moving tactical situations. Boyd’s new briefing dealt with the “what” of command and control—the implicit connections and bonds that form the foundation for the proper messages between levels of command. This was the first time that the substance of what was communicated took precedence over the hardwired connections of the past.
“The Strategic Game of? And?” Boyd finished in June. Here he deals with the themes of interaction and isolation. How do we physically, mentally, and morally isolate our adversaries while still interacting with others and with unfolding events? Much of the content of this briefing is a recycling of material from “Patterns of Conflict,” “Destruction and Creation,” and “Organic Design for Command and Control.”