The Whistleblowers: Exposing Corruption in Government and Industry

Sixty-four employees who risked their careers, reputations and even their lives to expose incompetence and malfeasance in industry and government are celebrated in this engrossing chronicle by a Smith College professor of sociology and anthropology and his wife, professor of history at Hampshire College in Massachusetts. The authors cite examples of what these men and women achieved, including disclosure by NASA and Thiokol Company engineers of flaws in the Challenger shuttle design, Daniel Ellsberg's release of the Pentagon Papers and the revelations of police corruption by Frank Serpico, a New York city police officer. Less known is the destructive impact of company retaliation on their lives, and the role played by families and other individuals and public interest groups who supported the whistleblowers morally, or defended them in the courts and in the press. By defying powerful businesses and bureaucracies guilty of crimes against the public, these ethical resistersprofessionals, blue- and white-collar workershave inspired an ongoing social movement dedicated to overseeing corporate and government accountability. (Mar.)