And thanks for joining us for congress investigates and American History tv series looking back at significant congressional investigations. This week the topic is waste, fraud and inefficiency in defense production. During World War Two. Well, it was in the 1940s that thensenator harry truman led a committee that traveled the country examining military sites and how the publics money was being spent. It became known as the Truman Committee and was said to have saved many dollars and lives and may even have shortened the war. Joining us is Steve Drummond. Hes with National Public radio and hes the author of this book, the watchdog how the Truman Committee battled corruption and helped win World War Two. Mr. Drummond, thanks for being with us. Whats the genesis of the Truman Committee . Hi, peter. Thanks. Happy to be here. Harry truman in 1940 was a virtually unknown senator in november of that year. He barely scraped by. As for reelection to the second term in the senate from missouri. And when he came back to washington in january that year, truman was getting letters from some of his constituents, letters from the ozarks, saying that something funny was going on at the site of an army Camp Construction up there. Its now called fort leonard wood. And it was being built at the time as the u. S. Race to get ready for a war that Franklin Roosevelt and others knew the United States would eventually be drawn into. And the letter writers were telling truman, hey, theres a lot of funny business going on here. People sitting around doing nothing and drawing a paycheck for it, materials going to waste, contractors getting rich. Truman was a combat veteran himself, a local Government Official in missouri in the 19s, and he took his Public Service very seriously. And this was concerning to him. One of the things thats fun about truman is he didnt send his aides out to check this out. He didnt get on a plane with a congressional delegation. Truman walked out of his apartment. One morning in january 1941, got in his car, and he drove to missouri and he showed up at this construction site, a small man in a very nice suit, double breasted suit, wandering around asking questions. And he saw there what the letter writers had told him. People sitting out playing cards and drawing a check for it, materials going to robbing in the snow. And from there, truman kept going. He visited several other states and several other construction sites, and he saw the same thing. Harry truman came back to washington extremely angry. He got up on the senate floor in february of 1941 and he said, hey, we should have an Investigative Committee to look into all this. And thats that was the birth of the Truman Committee. Was it controversy racial at the time . Oh, very much so. So imagine a little known senator making the proposal to investigate the conduct of the president ial administration from his own party. Nobody, including Franklin Roosevelt, was at all a wild about this idea. But it quickly became clear that if the democrats didnt do it, then the republicans were perfectly happy to take on this investigation. So the senate ended up a essentially throwing truman a bone. They gave him 15,000, barely enough to hire a lawyer and a couple of secretaries and said, go, heres your committee. Truman took that tiny appropriation and turned it into probable only the most powerful investigating arm that congress had seen. So Seven Members of the Truman Commission committee, formerly known as the Senate Special committee, to investigate the National Defense program. Five democrats, two republicans. Was there an eagerness among the senators at the time to serve on this committee . Truman only in the sense that truman, though relatively unknown, was a wellliked senator. He had a lot of friends in the senate. There was a lot of back and forth of choosing the senators who were who would serve on this committee. I say in my book that its a bit of a senatorial blist. There were none of the current rock stars in the senate, but they were solid public servants. A Bipartisan Commission as you mentioned. There was some negotiations with the administration to make sure that there was a couple of staunch advocates of the new deal there to keep an eye on truman. But for the most part, they served. They serve honorably and and largely because of trumans leadership, they all managed to get along and and do you know, do a lot of good. Along with harry truman, the other democrats, tom connally of texas, carl hatch, new mexico. James mead, new york. Monroe and walgren of washington state. The republican owens were joseph paul of minnesota and Owen Brewster of maine. Any standouts there . Mr. Drummond . So, yes, a couple. Brewster was actually, even though he was a republican, ended up being one of trumans best partners on the committee. Truman often would hand off the chairmanship to him when he was away, and they ended up they ended up collaborating very well, even though eventually and of course, politics would intrude a little bit. James mead was also one of the leaders on the committee, was often cochairman and he would take over the Leadership Committee after truman resigned in 1944. Steve drummond what years was the committee active on the Truman Committee operating from 1941, from march of 1941. And it went into, i think 1948 or 1949. Harry truman was chairman of the committee until august 1944, when he was chosen to be the Vice President ial candidate for Franklin Roosevelts unprecedented fourth term. He resigned the next day, and the Committee Committee continued for several years under different leadership, first and under mead. And i think then under senator hatch, if im not mistaken. Well, it was in the early 1960s after his presidency, that harry truman sat down with author merle miller to do a radio interview about how the committee was formed. Heres a little bit of that interview. Well, then i suppose the First National all when when you were a public figure, not only in new york, but in california and all over the country, was the defense committee. Now, that was a new concept out of the committee to investigate some actual Defense Programs. Lets talk about that for a moment. They dated for a certain name, which they didnt want them to do. But go ahead. Well, how how what, what, what made you think of it . How did how did you get into this area . Well, as i told you before, that there Background Experience and previous stages. Give me an idea on how contractors and people would deal with Government Funds in local, state and national has very little respect for me and i had made some investigations in the operation of county government and State Government before i went. So and so one of after the first draft that this is all these tremendous appropriations are made for the construction of these camps and things that had to do with the youngsters who were going to fight the war came up. I didnt know what went down to car and drove 30,000 march around the various places and i could see the school going on and i came back to cnn and introduced the resolution to have a committee set up that would make investigation on these constructions and the contracts that were being left for the probable program that might bring on a Second World War in such a way that the government would have a proper return on what it was paying out because after the first world war, they didnt understand. 16 investigating committees after the fact. I thought one committee before the sec would prevent that, and thats the way it worked out. Did you . Uh, i speak here in ignorance. How do you set up the committee . How do you get it approved . Well, the first thing is, has to be done is to introduce a resolution. To you folks and bring the records. The resolution offering or authorize in a the appointment of a committee to investigate the National Defense program. And as the author of the resolution after it has, its customary the offer that they made the chairman of the committee. And that was done and the chairman of the audit and control committee was senator, whose ask alone for the name of james byrd and he made a recommendation that the committee be set up and that it be authorized to spend. 50,000. Well, the. Well says that that was done, and i was made the chairman of the committee and i called up jackson, who is attorney general. And i said to jackson, i want the best investigator that you have on your payroll. And id like to interview if you send him to see me down here, sends out so well, he picked up the fellow who had sent a couple of federal judges to jail for misuse of their position, which is thats pennsylvania and his name was who from was going to testify slip and so was like theyre being asked to see and i said i want you to make an investigation for me on the expenditure in the National Defense program. I said my salary, you get you said im getting a detail thousand dollars here. I said all right, ill give you a five. I just came out with 15 notes and i want you to start right up now and then im going to go in there and i will you you made some investigations and came in with a report and i called a meeting of all the members of this committee. And it was a committee of Seven Members that and there were it was set up for the idea to be handed off from the committee in march. And. I listened to all the facts that you presented and 14 witnesses as to witness what he said. And then i made a report with the help of the detail members of the committee and told the senators on the same day i was going make a report at the first hearing which we had, which i did, and told them that this was only a starter, that we needed further investigations, but that we had numerous they gave us 60,000. No, i know. And the next appropriation for me was 300,000. And thats all the appropriations that ever were made, about 305,000. So together and that was harry truman and author merle miller from the early 1960s. Were talking withteve drummond, the watchdog. How the Truman Committee battled corruption and helped win World War Two. Yes. His book, take us around the country and tell us about some of the investing actions that the committee did. Sure. The first one is the one weve mentioned a little bit was army camps truman, very early in the committees time, wanted to score some early successes by not taking on anything too controversial. And he already hadllf these letters and his own investigatn. The committee sent out a questionnaires and sent investigators around the country to examine these army camps. And sure enough, they found incredible amounts of waste, fraud and corruption happening there. Very first report on army camps documented what was estimated to be 100 million in waste that the government had wasted on building these army camps. And a couple of highlights. The Truman Committee, one of the sound bites that was up, picked up by every newspaper or reporting on the committee, was the notion that the army camps were being built on civil war lines. The Committee Said basically many of these army camps are being built out in the woods without concrete pads to set up a 30 ton tank or without concrete roads to park heavy vehicles. And so they were, in some instances, sinking into the sand. They were built in swamps without adequate supplies of of of fresh, clean water. For example, they were built far away from water. Some of the contractors were making four or five times their annual profits the year before. In one case, they found that the that the army had rented board trucks from a contractor for 500 when they could have bought them outright for 400 a piece. This went on and on, and that was the first major report that put the Truman Committee kind of on the map, both in washington and around the country. From there, they kept going. There were huge shortages of materials and a lot of concerns in the defense buildup at that time. Who would, for example, get steel . Should the navy get it to build a new battleship . Should the army get steel to build tanks . Should the Merchant Shipping industry get steel to build all the merchant ships that were needed to get materials across the ocean to Great Britain or to the to eventually to the soviet union . So there were a lot of questions about material and shortages, rubber. That was a gigantic shortage of tires at the time and rubber for the war effort. Tires were being rationed. The Truman Committee investigated that list probably most spectacularly was the Truman Committees investigate section of a steel plant outside of pittsburgh. And this came about almost by accident. And january 16th, 1943, a brand new tanker ship, the ss schenectady, was sitting quietly at its moorings in portland, oregon, in a brand new shipyard there. It had never been it was getting ready for its first voyage. Suddenly, at 1030 that night, a sound rang out that was heard more than a mile. A mile away. The earth shook. The police and firefighters and fbi raced to the scene, that being wartime, they suspected sabotage. It quickly became clear that it was not a bomb. It wasnt sabotage, nor had the nor had this ship been subject to extremely cold water or some unusual circumstances. Basically, it was a mystery. If you look at the photo, it looked like a giant had picked up this 543 foot long ship and cracked it into and gently set it back down in the water. This was a mystery for several months until march of 1943, the industrial east, henry kaiser was testifying before the committee that day about why hed been able to build ships so fast and and develop such efficiency in his shipyards. When senator brewster asked him the question, mr. Kaiser, what about this ship that broke up broke up in one of your shipyards . What was the cause of that . Kaiser was very reluctant to answer the question. Brewster pressed him on it. Finally, kaiser responded. He had he had a report in his hand, and he said, what im told by the experts is that there is bad steel in this ship, bad steel from a plant at the carnegie, Illinois Steel Company in pittsburgh. The discussion moved on from that point, but all the young staffers on the Truman Committee ship sitting there realized immediately. That they had in a file not far away from where kaiser was sitting, about 30 letters from an inspection supervisor at that factory, telling them of faulty steel being shipped out of that factory every single day. Tons of it. Truman sent three investigators up there. They went sort of undercover in the plant to see what was going on. They ended eventually had to subpoena the inspection records of the plant. They subpoenaed the head of the United States steel and carnegie, Illinois Steel Corporation to testify in washington and the following week, the Truman Committee was once again front page news around the country. The headline generally was fake steel going to the navy, and that was one of the one of the investigations where you realize that the Truman Committees intervention saved potentially thousands of lives of bad steel, ending up who knows where in battleships, in tanker ships and merchant ships, all kinds of war equipment could have been affected by this poor steel. And the Truman Committee is still mentioned by members of congress as a model for congressional investigations. Heres a sampling. Madam speaker, this emergency surge in spending to confront the coronavirus is unprecedented. But the idea of what were establishing is not, as i said, senate then senator truman proposed it at the dawn of World War Two. It worked then, and it will work now as well. We need an entity like the Truman Commission during World War Two to aggressively invest, litigate contractors, punish war profiteers, and recover misspent funds by canceling any failed or fraudulent contracts. Senator harry truman, who served in distinction in this body, conducted Senate Committee investigations into war profiteering during World War Two. And here are something. Here is something that then senator truman said later, president said on this issue, no one objects to a fair profit. It is our duty to protect the patriotic majority of war contractors against the stigma profiteering generated by the selfseeking minority. We intend to see that no man or Corporate Group of men should profit inordinately on the blood of the boys in the foxholes. So, Steve Drummond, what made this committee a model . There are several factors, i think, that are seem surprising to us today that