■734 HISTORY ()l r THE COMMITTEE ON S< II XC I AND TECHNOLOGY 



TEAGUE'S PHILOSOPHY OF OVERSIGHT 



As 1975 began, Teague reflected on the new challenges of oversight 

 presented to the committee: 



Throughout all of its years, the committee spent much of its time on oversight — 

 the intensive review of agencies under its legislative jurisdiction to determine how 

 well they arc doing their job and how they are spending the taxpayers" dollars. 

 Members and staff have spent long periods on comprehensive investigations which 

 involved hearings in Washington, field hearings at government research centers and 

 contractor plants, weekend visits while Congress was in session, and a lot of plain 

 hard work and study. I know I have done it for years. But, this is how you get to 

 know how well a program really is working, how effective management is, how the 

 dollars are being spent. * * * A House oversight agenda coupled with more emphasis 

 on each committee can result in a more effective Congress. Congress should do more 

 than pass laws and approve budgets; it should see how those laws are carried out and 

 what is done with the money it approves in the budgets. 



Teague's philosophy on oversight was that Congress w-as obligated 

 to check on whether the money authorized was being spent in accord- 

 ance with the intent of Congress. He did not feel that "oversight" 

 should entail actually going down into any agency to tell them how 

 to run their internal operations, unless they were clearly violating 

 the intent of Congress. 



During 1975, Swigert analyzed the oversight responsibilities of the 

 committee and came up with a detailed proposal for a "Special In- 

 vestigations and Oversight Task Team," which he submitted to Teague 

 on October 9, 1975- Although Teague originally had expressed his 

 opposition to a separate oversight subcommittee, Teague eventually 

 approved the hiring of a new "task team leader" for oversight, with 

 this twofold purpose, as outlined by Swigert: 



(1) Provide a special investigative force to be employed by Chairman Teague 

 on matters requiring selective investigating effort, and 



(2) In coordination with subcommittee chairmen provide a special mechanism 

 for independent management review to assist in carrying out assigned oversight 

 responsibilities. 



It is envisioned that the new task team will be headed by a specially selected 

 person with an extensive background in management, engineering, and an intimate 

 knowledge of the programming, budgeting, and legislative processes. 



Swigert and his Deputy, Colonel Gould, interviewed a number of 

 applicants and finally agreed that the man who obviously had the best 

 qualifications for the job was Dr. Robert B. Dillaway. "Too good to 

 be true," wrote Colonel Gould on Dr. Dillaway's written application, 

 although he was one of the first to recognize that there was a problem 

 in Dr. Dillaway's performance. With 15 years of impressive experience 

 at North American Aviation, and even more responsible tours of duty 

 with the Secretary of Navy and Army Materiel Command, Dr. Dillaway 

 had served on the faculties of the Universities of Illinois, California, 



