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TI: And at this time also, you were the inspector general for the Department of Transportation at this point? Where were you?

FS: No, I was the inspector general at the Veterans Administration, Veterans Affairs then.

TI: So let's back to that. So how did you, because you were appointed in the Carter administration, to the inspector general, Department of Transportation. We're now in the Reagan administration, and you're the inspector general for the VA. How did that happen? Was that under Carter or Reagan? Tell me the story.

FS: You know, I went into inspector general job in the Department of Transportation, and this was in 1979.

TI: And just a quick aside, Brock Adams was the secretary at that time?

FS: Secretary.

TI: By any chance, did you know him before? Because he's a Seattle boy, and I was wondering, went to Broadway High School, I think the University of Washington.

FS: Yep. He was student body president at the University of Washington when I was a junior at the university. I never met him then, but I knew who he was. And the interesting thing was, when I interviewed with him, before I took the IG job, of course, discussion came up about our days at the UW. But he and I just hit it off right away. That's the first time I met him. And, of course, shortly thereafter, Carter changed his whole cabinet, and that's when Neil Goldschmidt, the former mayor of Portland, became the Department of Transportation Secretary, and I worked for him until the election in 1980 when Reagan won and all of us as IGs were fired. There was a question as to whether we should resign or not resign. And they told us, "Don't resign," but then the Reagan administration fired us. But the White House told me at that time, they said, "Don't worry, we're doing this as a matter of process, and we want you to be an IG." So I knew I had a job, and they ultimately assigned me to VA.

TI: Now, how many of the former IGs under Carter carried over to the Reagan administration?

FS: I don't remember exactly, but I think about fourteen of us.

TI: So quite a few.

FS: Yeah, quite a few.

TI: They shuffled you around, that's interesting.

FS: Yep, they wanted us to go to different departments.

TI: And that was intentional?

FS: Yeah. I would have preferred to stay at Transportation. I knew the place, and I knew the programs and the people and everything, but that's just the way it was.

TI: But I can see some wisdom in doing that, too.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2017 Densho. All Rights Reserved.