A Place Where Old Soldiers Won’t Fade Away

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Jason Bowns
July 29, 2024

Kurt Muellenberg died exactly one year ago. Wikipedia doesn’t include an entry for his name and a Google keyword search pulls up his obituary notice. There is an outdated biography written before President Jimmy Carter appointed him to serve as the General Service Administration’s first Inspector General in 1978.

His name appeared at the Massachusetts State Archives as I read through hearing transcripts from the Special Commission Concerning State and County Buildings. Corruption concerns defined the Commission’s genesis, as acts of quid pro quo replaced public interest with a culture of self-dealing. Overseeing the construction process of a planned Boston campus for the University of Massachusetts was the firm of McKee-Berger-Mansueto. In 1977, the eponymously dubbed “MBM scandal” tarnished the Bay State’s integrity when two senators were prosecuted for accepting bribes from MBM, designed to curry favor for public contract awards.

Responding to steady public outcry, representatives Andy Card and Phillip Johnston introduced bipartisan legislation established the seven-member Ward Commission as an independent investigative body. A robust factual record spotlighted systemic weaknesses which allowed a culture of self-enrichment to thrive. The Commission submitted several major policy reforms to the legislature.

During his Ward Commission appearance, the General Services Administration’s first Inspector General, Kurt Muellenberg, enumerated some key criteria for an Office of Inspector General to be effective. He especially stressed the role of independence with set terms of office and a power which the Inspector General Act of 1978 lacked at the federal level: authority to subpoena witnesses. His input helped to shape a statutory framework for the Massachusetts Office of Inspector General, becoming the first state-level inspector general office in American history.

Today, we can lament how corruption still persists government institutions, and that may naturally inspire a pessimistic mood. However, we should not forget the steady quest pursued by those who fought and still fight for a more just society. With open eyes which seek out and seize the institutional memory of how things began, where the roots of our social order began, then we can find that place, too.

Surely, I uncovered it in Kurt Muellenberg whom I’d arranged to meet at the Association of Inspector General’s 40^th anniversary event at the U.S. Capitol. He’d ventured there wondering if perhaps there would be some discussion about the inspector general movement’s early years, where he’d played a pivotal firsthand role. Yet no one except for me seemed to notice the first Inspector General of the General Services Administration standing there in the auditorium’s wings.

Heading downstairs to the U.S. Capitol’s spacious cafeteria, Mr. Muellenberg shared a host of reminiscences about fleeing East Germany as a teenager and immigrating to America where he eventually attended law school. America had welcomed him and he felt indebted, purposely choosing a decades-long public service career at the U.S. Department of Justice, rising to lead the Organized Crime Division before his appointment as the inaugural inspector general for the General Services Administration. While his tenure began with some exhilaration spurred by the prospect of building a brand new organizational foundation, the later denouement was much less climactic.

In late January 1981, Mr. Muellenberg sat in a barber’s chair across the street from his office, getting a haircut. Someone appeared in the barbershop’s doorway with an urgent message: President Ronald Reagan had fired him, effective immediately. He wasn’t alone; Reagan fired all federal inspectors general on his first day in office. Stunned, Mr. Muellenberg promptly returned to what had been his office, cleaned out his desk, abruptly ending his two-year tenure as inspector general.

Lunchtime ended, but Mr. Muellenberg decided not to revisit the auditorium. I accompanied him up the Capitol’s exit stairs, stepping into July’s midday humidity. We reached an expanse of cemented sidewalk which resembling white marble beneath the sky’s beaming rays. Moving with the slow, deliberate walk of most 86-year-olds, he declined my offer to help hail a cab and insisted on continuing on alone. I lingered there as he determinedly ambled off and vanished. I paused for a little longer, momentarily frozen within a pensive mental state prompted by what I’d learned from that veteran of public service. He’d spent his adult life repaying a debt he felt was owed to America for manifesting a respite from the Eastern bloc.

Perhaps Mr. Muellenberg had grown accustomed to not getting much credit for his impact whether it related to the Ward Commission’s blueprint for the Massachusetts Office of Inspector General or his ambitious mandate to lay a fresh oversight foundation for accountability in the General Services Administration’s stewardship of federal dollars. Even that had come to a close at a barbershop.

Tomorrow, Mr. Muellenberg will be on my mind alongside a pantheon of others who rejected the status quo and launched an assault against wrongs they saw. Yes, we can stand back and not rock any boats. After all, few may know or remember our own lives’ lasting impact. Yet if we do decide to fan the undaunted flames of progress, then that will be the day when those old soldiers won’t fade away.

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Author: Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from NYU, Jason Bowns earned his Master in Public Administration from John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s Inspector General program. A certified social studies teacher, Bowns worked in many K-12 education settings until matriculating into a public policy doctoral program last year. He’s particularly interested in juvenile justice, penology, and public sector ethics. Contact him at [email protected].

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