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Appointment of Six Inspectors General

March 26, 1981

The President announced today the appointment of six Inspectors General for Government departments and agencies. Five of the six have previously served as Inspectors General. Three of those appointed today will resume their positions at the same agency as before and two will be in different agencies.

The appointments are:

Robert L. Brown as Inspector General of the Department of State and the Foreign Service. Mr. Brown is a retired Foreign Service officer who has been recalled to serve as Inspector General of the Department of State and the Foreign Service under existing authority. The Secretary has nominated him to fill this position, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under the provisions of the New Foreign Service Act. Prior to his retirement in 1980, Mr. Brown served as a senior inspector in the Office of the Inspector General. When Secretary of State Haig was Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Mr. Brown was his political adviser. He served Secretaries Rusk and Rogers as Deputy Executive Secretary of the Department. Among his Foreign Service assignments, Mr. Brown has served as Deputy Director of Personnel, economic counselor to .the Republic of China, and has served in Japan, Morocco, Belgium, and New Caledonia. Mr. Brown graduated from Syracuse University and has done graduate work at Northwestern and George Washington Universities. In 1962-63 he attended the State Department's senior seminar in foreign policy. He holds the Secretary of State's Superior Honor Award and the Secretary of Defense's Civilian Defense Medal. Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1920, Mr. Brown now resides in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area with his wife, Marion Jean. They have one son, a Washington businessman.

Paul R. Boucher as Inspector General of the Small Business Administration. Mr. Boucher was born April 13, 1942, in Cambridge, Mass. He received a B.S. from Merrimack College in 1963 and a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School in 1969. From 1964 to 1970, Mr. Boucher was a special agent and assistant senior resident agent for U.S. Naval Intelligence in Boston. From 1970 to 1972, he was staff assistant for legal matters at Naval Investigative Headquarters in Alexandria, Va. From 1972 to 1974, he was a trial attorney with the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. From 1974 to 1975, he was Assistant General Counsel of the U.S. Government Printing Office. From 1975 to 1979, he was Deputy Section Chief of the General Crimes Section at the Justice Department's Criminal Division. In that capacity, he was selected to organize and direct task forces created by the Attorney General to investigate allegations of violations of Federal criminal law by United States intelligence agencies.

Charles L. Dempsey as Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Mr. Dempsey was born June 7, 1928, in Morristown, N.J. He received a B.S. from Georgetown University in 1960. He served in the U.S. Army in 1952 and 1953. He joined the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1968, where he served as Acting Director of Investigation (1970-1972), Assistant Inspector General for Administration (1972-1975), Acting Inspector General (1975), and Assistant Inspector General for Investigation (1975-1977). From 1977 to 1979, he was Inspector General of the Department, serving on a nonstatutory basis.

Thomas F. McBride as Inspector General of the Department of Labor. He previously was the Inspector General at the Department of Agriculture. Mr. McBride was born February 8, 1929, in Elgin, Ill. He received a B.A. from New York University in 1952 and an LL.B. from Columbia Law School in 1956. He served in the U.S. Army from 1946 to 1947. From 1956 to 1959, he was assistant district attorney of New York County, and from 1959 to 1960, he was assistant counsel to the New York State Commission on Government Operations of the City of New York. In 1960 and 1961 he was an attorney and supervisory investigator for the Labor Department, and from 1961 to 1965, he was a trial attorney for the Justice Department. From 1965 to 1968, Mr. McBride was Deputy Director of the Peace Corps for the Latin America Region. From 1968 to 1969, he was associate director of the Urban Coalition. In 1969 he was deputy chief counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Crime. In 1970 he was chief of the Center for Demonstrations and Professional Services of the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. From 1970 to 1973, he was associate director and staff director of the Police Foundation, a Ford Foundation-funded program to support innovation and experimentation in police and criminal justice services. From 1973 to 1975, McBride was Associate Special Prosecutor with the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. From 1975 to 1977, he was Director of the Bureau of Enforcement at the Civil Aeronautics Board, directing all economic enforcement activities in the field of the U.S. air transport. From 1977 to 1979, he served as Inspector General of the Agriculture Department on a nonstatutory basis.

Frank S. Sato as Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency. He previously was Inspector General at the Department of Transportation. Mr. Sato was born March 16, 1929, in Puyallup, Wash. He received a B.A. in accounting from the University of Washington in 1953. From 1953 to 1965, he was with the U.S. Air Force Auditor General's Office, serving in various positions, finally as Chief of the Logistics Audits Division. From 1965 to 1974, he was with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), serving as Director for Special Activities Audits, Director for Audit Operations, Director for Defense Agencies Audits, and Deputy Comptroller for Audit Operations. From 1974 to 1979, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Audit. He also served as Director of the Defense Audit Service. Mr. Sato has been national president of the Association of Government Accountants and is active in accounting and auditing associations.

James B. Thomas, Jr., as Inspector General of the Department of Education. Mr. Thomas is a career civil servant who came to the Department from the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), where he had been Director of the Bureau of Accounts since October 1977. In that post he was responsible for all ICC accounting, auditing, and financial analysis of the country's surface transportation system. In 1971 he worked for the ICC's Bureau of Accounts as an accounting officer, and from 1972 to 1975, he served as Assistant Bureau Director. From 1960 to 1971, he worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development as an auditor, audit supervisor, audit manager, and Assistant Director for Audit Operations. From 1975 to 1977, he served as HUD's Inspector General. Prior to his Federal service, he was a senior auditor for the State of Florida and, earlier, a junior auditor with the Tallahassee accounting firm of J.D.A. Holley & Co. Mr. Thomas graduated from Florida State University in 1957 with a bachelor of science degree in business administration. He did graduate work in accounting, economics, and finance, and has been a certified public accountant since 1962 and a certified internal auditor since 1973. He is a native of Aucilla, Fla., and currently lives in McLean, Va.

There are 16 statutory Inspectors General, including that of the State Department, which has a slightly different statutory basis. President Reagan announced that the remaining 10 positions will be filled shortly and that previously serving Inspectors General are under consideration for some of those positions.

Shortly after assuming office, the President terminated the appointments of all the incumbent Inspectors General, exercising the prerogative of a newly inaugurated President. He announced at that time that he would seek the most qualified appointees for these important positions and that the former incumbents would be among those considered.

Each of the IG's appointed today has compiled an excellent record of uncovering fraud and other abuses in the programs under their surveillance. In some cases, their investigations have led to criminal indictments, and in all cases they have produced recoveries of moneys falsely expended or other savings.

Ronald Reagan, Appointment of Six Inspectors General Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/246162

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