A Tough Act : Pentagon’s Top Cop Hanging Up His Ledger

After sending scores of crooked defense executives to prison and ending the careers of just as many senior military officers--not to mention saving taxpayers roughly $25 billion--the Pentagon’s top cop is handing in his badge today after 14 years.

When Derek Vander Schaaf was named deputy inspector general in 1982, not a single defense contractor had been convicted of fraud since World War II, and many experts were convinced that waste was a deeply embedded affliction of the defense industry.

Over the next 14 years, the Pentagon’s investigative apparatus cast a wide net and made a remarkable haul that included criminal convictions of virtually every major defense contractor--as well as thousands of individuals and smaller firms.

The investigations were often political bombshells--charges, for example, of sweetheart contracts, defective weapons, secret bailout plans, overpriced spare parts and cover-ups of big cost overruns.

Not surprisingly, many in the Pentagon came to fear Vander Schaaf.

“I have mixed feelings about Derek,” retired Rear Adm. Frank Collins said. “He brought great zeal to his job, and I can’t say I saw him do anything underhanded. But I have the same reaction to Derek that I do to the Internal Revenue Service.”

Indeed, Vander Schaaf’s probes that delved into alleged misconduct by generals and admirals invariably were the most sensitive, and often created bitter enemies who assert to this day that he abused his authority.

At the same time, Vander Schaaf made important allies in Congress, which came to trust him as much as anybody in the Pentagon. Senate and House committees called on him to testify between 100 and 200 times.

Both enemies and allies agree that Vander Schaaf wielded a degree of power that was extraordinary for a career civil servant.

While inspectors general, who were political appointees, came and went, Vander Schaaf remained firmly in place in the deputy’s office. For nearly half of his 14 years, the inspector general’s job was vacant, and Vander Schaaf was the acting inspector general, with no political appointee above him.

The office of inspector general was created when Vander Schaaf arrived. Since then, he has built a law enforcement organization, known as the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, which includes 400 criminal investigators and 1,100 auditors and other employees in offices nationwide.

“He has been a strong force in the whole defense fraud area for years,” said Barbara Corprew, the deputy chief for fraud at the Justice Department. “His departure will be a loss.”

Indeed, probes by Vander Schaaf’s anti-fraud forces netted recoveries of $464 million just last year. And since 1982, the Pentagon has recovered $25 billion in criminal cases and civil audits, much of it orchestrated by Vander Schaaf.

“It is humongous,” Vander Schaaf said Thursday. “I can give you an audit report or a criminal case to back up every bit of that money.”

In an interview at his office in a high-rise overlooking the Pentagon, the 57-year-old Vander Schaaf said the stressful job had taken a toll on his blood pressure. The government’s incentives for early retirement were too good to pass up, said the three-time winner of the Defense Department’s highest civilian medal.

“I don’t really know what I am going to do,” Vander Schaaf said. “My first job on Monday will be to write a resume.”

The defense industry and many senior military officers have few regrets about his departure.

“You hated to see him testify, because you knew that everything he said would be swallowed hook, line and sinker by congressional committees,” said LeRoy J. Haugh, vice president of the Aerospace Industries Assn., a Washington trade group. “In totality, it was almost an abuse of power and discretion. It would have been better for industry and government if he had a more balance approached.”

The view from military leaders is even tougher. Vander Schaaf’s investigation into the Tailhook affair, in which Navy officers were accused of sexual assaults and generally lewd behavior, won him many enemies.

Retired Rear Adm. Duvall M. Williams Jr. said a Vander Schaaf report unfairly and erroneously alleged that he had tried to obstruct the investigation into Tailhook. The report, Williams said, destroyed his career.

“What happened to me I would expect to happen in a totalitarian government, not in the United States of America,” Williams said.

Vander Schaaf makes no apologies, saying he has always attempted to be fair and that he could not possibly retain credibility in his job if he sought to avoid upsetting senior officers.

Even some opponents who locked horns with Vander Schaaf admire give him grudging admiration.

“I am sorry he is going to be leaving,” said Jack Boese, a Washington attorney who represents defense contractors. “There are parts of him I like and parts of him I don’t like, but he has been an institution for a long time. He is the glue that held that office together.”