The subcommittee’s evidence indicated that an investigator for the ICA Auditor Haynes Miller, “was ‘railroaded’ out of Laos because he was close to discovering the truth about Universal, its bribes, its virtual monopoly of U.S. aid construction projects ... and its woefully inadequate performance.”
This action to remove Auditor Miller seemed more reprehensible to me than any ordinary theft or misuse of money or government power. This was evidence that there was a brutal conspiracy within the U. S. Embassy in Laos to eliminate those officials who were complaining of fraud and mismanagement and to shield persons who were engaged in wrongdoing. It demonstrated what could happen when government officials feel they have an “executive privilege” to hide the records on their activities.
Miller’s reports and his persistent efforts to get something done about deficiencies in the program only resulted in his removal. He was “unable to adjust” to Laos, some of his superiors and associates said. U. S. Ambassador J. Graham Parsons sent a telegram to Washington stating he had invited the investigator to resign “because of obvious signs of nervous disorder.”
“Ambassador Parsons’ opinion of Miller’s ‘nervous disorder’ was rendered without benefit of medical advice,” the Hardy subcommittee reported. “This is contrary to Department of State regulations. Competent medical advice was available to the Ambassador and could have been solicited.”
“One month later, on October 30, 1957,” the report added, “Miller was subjected to a full medical examination in Washington and certified as ‘qualified for general duty.’”
Officials of the ICA excused the deficiencies and maladministration in the Laos program with the claim that the aid program, no matter how poorly administered, had saved Laos from Communism.
“This assertion is purely speculative, and can be neither proved nor disproved,” the Hardy subcommittee stated in 1959. That was two years before it was generally realized that a corrupt aid program had probably helped the Communists in Laos.
Even in 1959 the Hardy subcommittee concluded “that a lesser sum of money more efficiently administered would have been far more effective in achieving economic and political stability in Laos, and in increasing its capacity to reject Communist military aggression or political subversion.”
At a press conference on July 2, 1959, two weeks after the Laos report was issued, William McGaffin, of the Chicago Daily News, put the problem of secrecy in ICA to President Eisenhower.
“Mr. President,” McGaffin started, “do you see any solution to the quarrel between Congress and the executive branch of the Government over the question of freedom of information?”