Report Criticizes Navy Computer Purchases

Computer-purchasing officials in the Navy and possibly in other government agencies have too cozy a relationship with private-sector contractors such as International Business Machines Corp., a congressional report issued today said.

The House Government Operations Committee report said there should be stronger regulations and better oversight to eliminate bias in awarding computer contracts.

The report follows a yearlong probe touched off by complaints in 1988 from six IBM competitors who said they had been frozen out of the Navy’s multibillion-dollar computer market.

“Through a combination of agency malfeasance and the dominance of one vendor, the fair and open system contemplated by Congress has been torpedoed in Navy (computer) procurement,” the report said.

The report details “a tangled web of agency and contractor abuse, improprieties and illegalities,” said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the committee chairman. “It’s an old story that when the rule of law breaks down, it is the strong who benefit.”

The committee said its investigation had been broadened to include other agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Treasury Department. All have large, complex computer systems and are major computer equipment buyers.

The report says IBM “appears for the most part not to be responsible for the bizarre Navy . . . acquisition system but merely its willing beneficiary.”

Former naval officer John Cahill testified that his commanding officer, while attending a free IBM promotional training seminar, telephoned Cahill and ordered him to “change our procurement strategy to go after” a new IBM technology, the report said. Cahill said he refused and awarded the contract to another company.

The report described the officer’s participation in the IBM program as “clearly improper.” At least 128 Navy officials were trained by IBM in San Jose between 1985 and 1987.