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Defender of the Public Interest: The General Accounting Office, 1921-1966. By Roger R. Trask. (Washington: U.S. General Accounting Office, 1996. xxviii, 607 pp. $37.00, ISBN 0-16-048728-5.)
In the early 1980s, Charles A. Bowsher, the comptroller general of the United States, convinced that "an institutional history is a very useful tool for those who manage large organizations," established a history program in the General Accounting Office (GAO). In 1987, he appointed a veteran public historian, Roger R. Trask, as chief historian of the GAO, a post Trask held until 1993. In this product of his research in that post, the author serves at least two interests: his former employer's and the historical profession's.
Trask's interpretation of the agency's history emphasizes two major influences:...