Abstract:
When a deputy director for environmental protection in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff of the US Army learns that a project on which he'd worked for 14 months was about to be scrapped by the White House, he compares his fate to that of a turkey about to be carved for the Thanksgiving holiday. This case about the ways in which policy and politics interact illuminates the reasons why even a project that seemed to fit the objectives of a President might, nonetheless, be terminated. It raises, as well, the question of how a public employee who has devoted himself to a project--moving it along in textbook fashion, working long hours in the process--might or should react to what could be viewed as a humiliating public end to the effort. Should he try to overturn the decision, through whatever means were at his disposal? Or should he accept it?
