University of Virginia Library

I

The Committee was appointed by the Secretary of the Air Force following a
nationally publicized cheating episode at the Air Force Academy, in which 105
cadets out of a student body of 2700 had resigned as a result of exposure by the
Office of Special Investigation of the Air Force. The Chairman of the Committee
was General Thomas D. White, former Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Other
members, apart from Dean Dillard, were Lieutenant General Nazzaro, Deputy Commander
of the Strategic Air Command, Robert Stearns, former President of the
University of Colorado, and Charles Thornton, President of Litton Industries.
The mission of the Committee was not limited to the cheating episode, although
stimulated by it. The Secretary, Eugene Zuckert, made it known that he did not
want any kind of whitewash and that the Committee report would be made public.
This was done. The report ran to 94 pages of text and an additional 20 pages of appendices.
The Committee interviewed, as a group, 119 witnesses and an additional
100 were interviewed by individual members of the Committee. The Committee met
for 21 working days in Washington, Colorado Springs and California. It believes
its report has a significance transcending the Air Force Academy.

Apart from interview, the Committee studied many documents (he estimated they
cumulatively added up to about three feet). These included documents on the
working of the system at Virginia and speeches made at Virginia. Indeed, some of
the language of both his own and Professor Gooch's speeches before Virginia
students are reflected in the report.