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Pentagon, contractors use revolving door for jobs

By Renae Merle
The Washington Post

	Sen. John McCain
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E.C. "Pete" Aldridge, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer, resigned in May 2003. A month later, he joined the board of the nation's largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin.

General Dynamics got a prized recruit in David Heebner. He was hired in 2000 after more than 30 years in the military, most recently as the Army's assistant vice chief of staff. The company was so pleased to have snagged a member of the top brass that it announced the hiring a month before Heebner's official retirement.

Earlier this month, General Dynamics, which counts the Army among its largest customers, reeled in another veteran: John "Jack" Keane, who was named to the company's board. Keane spent 37 years in the Army before retiring as the vice chief of staff.

The career moves of these military veterans created barely a ripple in Washington. Traffic between the Pentagon and big defense contractors has been busy for as long as anyone can remember.

Not until someone gets stuck in the revolving door — as an Air Force official recently did — does the debate about its propriety heat up again.

	Darleen Druyun

Boeing hired Darleen Druyun, deputy acquisition chief for the Air Force, in January 2003 and fired her in November for allegedly holding job talks while she still supervised Boeing contracts. Her role at the Air Force included weighing the government's lease and purchase of Boeing tanker jets potentially worth $17 billion to $18 billion.

Boeing also fired its chief financial officer, Mike Sears, for allegedly concealing the improper discussions and violating its hiring policies.

The Druyun case has put the revolving door under its sharpest scrutiny in years.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ordered an examination of the Pentagon's rules on post-government employment for senior officials to ensure they are tough enough and working. At least two congressional hearings on hiring practices of defense contractors are expected in 2004.

The General Accounting Office has formed a team to study the revolving door throughout the government and industry.

And the White House has ordered federal agencies to stop issuing waivers that permit presidential appointees to negotiate for private-sector jobs while they still decide issues important to their potential employers. The White House must now approve all such waivers.

The rules that allow Pentagon officials to accept defense-industry jobs are complex and varied, depending on seniority and position. Before government officials can begin negotiating jobs in the private sector, they must recuse themselves from making decisions that could have a financial impact on their potential employers.

Also, officials who take jobs with contractors are barred from representing those companies on projects they supervised or worked on while they were in the government.

But the defense companies are so huge and the rules so elastic that loopholes exist.

For instance, if a contracting official has awarded a significant deal to a company, he or she generally can't accept compensation from that company for a year after leaving the government. But the official can avoid the restriction by taking a job at an unrelated unit of the same company, industry analysts say.

Also, senior government officials who move into the business world are prohibited from lobbying their former agencies for a year. But they can work behind the scenes to help a company develop strategies to pursue federal contracts.

"I was really shocked at how lax the law was," said Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., chairman of the Governmental Affairs subcommittee on financial management, the budget and international security. "Clearly there is the potential for procurement officers to give contracts to companies and then go cash in by getting lucrative jobs."

Critics want to lengthen the time a Pentagon official must wait before joining a contractor. They also question whether it's appropriate at all for a Defense Department official to move to a contractor whose projects the official oversaw.

But a host of factors is working against any significant revamping of the revolving door, say industry, congressional and watchdog observers.

The defense industry has come to depend on a regular flow of highly experienced government officials into its top ranks. The companies pay top dollar to recruits who can instruct them in the ways of the Pentagon and help focus their contracting efforts. Pentagon officials often have high-tech knowledge that contractors crave.

"In many cases, individuals with critical technical expertise have gained this unique experience in government positions," said Randy Belote, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman. "To dismiss these people from consideration just because they once worked for the government would be doing our customers and shareholders a disservice."

The new hires often have dedicated themselves to public service in the expectation of one day turning their expertise into lucrative salaries, said some industry officials. Some officials worry that an overhaul could diminish the attractiveness of the government work.

"I have met a number of people who really want to serve the public, and they go into the government because they want to serve their country," said Stuart Gilman, president of the Ethics Resource Center, a nonprofit group. "But they wouldn't want to do this if they thought they couldn't get a job to support their family when they left the government."

Congress may find itself unwilling to push the issue too hard because it could raise questions about the movement of its own employees into the private sector, industry officials said.

In 2002, Northrop hired Capitol Hill veteran Eric Womble and later trumpeted his appointment to the position of vice president of programs. Northrop noted Womble "was instrumental in setting and passing legislation and appropriations that positively impacted the Department of Defense, its service members and families" when he was an assistant for Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.

President Clinton tried to tackle the issue but ultimately backed off. On his first day in office in 1993, he barred senior government officials from lobbying their former colleagues for five years.

Weeks before leaving office in 2000, he lifted the ban, restoring the one-year waiting period. His staffers had complained about the difficulty of getting another job in government after the Republicans won the White House.

The scandal involving Boeing's Druyun has put the revolving door at the top of the agenda for some critics.

"In the Boeing case, we have seen compelling evidence that there is an incestuous relationship between the defense industry and defense officials that is not good for America," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Druyun's attorney has declined to comment and Sears, the fired chief financial officer, has denied any wrongdoing.

Druyun was able to go to work directly after she retired from the Air Force because she signed on with Boeing's national missile-defense unit instead of the company's air-systems business that she dealt with at the Pentagon.

Fitzgerald points to Druyun's example as evidence that the restrictions need revision. "That's such a big exception that it seems to make the general rule meaningless. If the statute doesn't prevent Darleen Druyun from going to Boeing, it doesn't mean anything," he said. "Some could interpret the job offer to her as a payoff for help while at the Air Force."

Druyun was among industry's most highly sought recruits. After more than 30 years with the military, she had a reputation as a hard-nosed negotiator with an unparalleled understanding of the procurement process. In an acknowledgement of her power, Druyun's boss, Marvin Sambur, the Air Force acquisition chief, did not replace her when she retired in November 2002.

"I felt that the position had taken on a lot more power than it deserved. I wanted to get more intimately involved in the decision-making process, and that layer of management did not allow me to," Sambur said in December.

Druyun held employment discussions with the industry's four largest contractors — Boeing, Northrop, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin — before going with Boeing. Northrop said it had talked with Druyun once but made no offer. Raytheon said it has no record of employment discussions with her, while Druyun's attorney has said the two sides did have talks.

Sambur said he had advised Druyun not to talk with Boeing because she was a chief negotiator with the company on a plan to lease, then buy its refueling tankers, a plan criticized in Congress as too costly.

"I felt at the time that it was not a particular company she should pursue because of the highly visible nature of the tanker program," said Sambur, who managed the $1.5 billion defense business of ITT before being appointed to his position.

"When I leave the Air Force, I am not going to be working for Boeing, that's for sure. There is no contract activity that has had as much scrutiny."

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