The Fire-Hire Racket

Last month Delaware's Senator John ("Whispering Willie") Williams exposed an uncommonly neat and nasty device for subsidizing federal jobholders at the expense of the taxpayers. In the Office of Rent Stabilization in 1950, he learned, 53 hand-picked employees had been invited to be "fired" and pick up checks for accumulated leave. Then, immediately, they were rehired for the same old jobs on a temporary basis. Later, all were restored to the permanent rolls with a second bonus for leave earned while on temporary service. The fire-hire racket cost the taxpayers $123,966.51.

Last week Williams added a shocking footnote to the case. During his investigation, one of the ORS beneficiaries defended the practice on the ground that the Army had done it too. Acting on this tip, Williams inquired around the Pentagon and found evidence of the unique bonus system. In 1947, an official directive had gone down to 5,685 civilian employees of the Army's Antilles Department, Caribbean Defense Command, authorizing them to dip into the fire-hire bonanza. Nearly 40%--2,114 employees--accepted, collected substantial leave checks, went right on working. The cost: at least $3,000,000.

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