The Winds of Deception

Last April, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney lauded the Navy’s secret A-12 bomber project, assuring Congress that the program was proceeding on time and in good order. Cheney’s optimism was based on information from subordinates, including Vice Adm. Richard C. Gentz, commander of the Naval Air Systems Command. But even as Cheney was singing the praises of the A-12, those in charge of the program knew it was in deep trouble.

Little more than a month after his public remarks, McDonnell Douglas Corp. and General Dynamics Corp., which are jointly developing and producing the plane, alerted the Pentagon that the A-12 had fallen one year behind schedule and was costing about $1 billion more than its $4.78-billion fixed-price development contract.

A Navy investigation, released this week, in part blames the firms’ upper management for exerting pressures on the project’s managers to be constantly upbeat about the program. At the same time the report finds the senior Navy officers who were overseeing the project to have been less than zealous in spotting and reporting huge cost overruns and technical shortcomings. In unusually punitive actions, Gentz is being forced to take early retirement and two other officers have been censured, a step that traditionally slams the door to promotion.

What broader effect all this might have is uncertain. Coverups to protect sensitive defense projects are, unhappily, far from unusual. As the Navy’s report warns, unless “this abiding cultural problem” can be solved, similar incidents seem sure to recur.

This is not only an issue of bungled development or lax oversight. Vital constitutional processes are dangerously undermined when the defense secretary is deliberately deceived by subordinates, and in turn unknowingly misleads Congress. The defense secretary, the President’s--the commander-in-chief’s--deputy, must have access to the full spectrum of information, bad news included, that affects military decision-making. When Cheney was denied the truth about the A-12 program by his uniformed subordinates, the paramount principle of civilian control over the military was violated.