The Whistle Blowing
Whistle blowing to upper management or outside agencies was an uncommon and risky thing to do at this time, so what made Vandivier risk his own career to report the unethical and illegal activities of his employer? The major issue that led up to his decision was the fact that once he did help create the falsified reports for his employer, he became involved in their crime of defrauding the government. Vandivier from the beginning was in a lose-lose situation, as a technical writer he was being forced to create a falsified report and defraud the government (and risk prosecution at a later time) or lose his job immediately. As a person with a family to support, he chose to falsify the report to protect his job at that point after having consulted his managers and being told he had no choice but to write the report. After hearing news that the military flight tests with the breaks caused safety issues, thus likely bringing the results into suspicion, he took action and contacted his attorney who told him he was guilty of conspiracy to defraud the government. At this point, he was either going to go to jail for not reporting the crime or lose his job for reporting it. With no other accessible people to go to in the company and no protection from legal action, he took the legal route and got in contact with the FBI in order to protect himself from additional legal trouble. After a damage control meeting with Lawson and his supervisors in which the major concerns were downplayed, Vandivier became an outcast in the company. Several months later he submitted a resignation letter with a large amount of accusations against the company in it to the head engineer of the plant, Bud Sunderman, who until this point was not involved in the case. Vandivier was quickly fired for disloyalty to the company before his resignation could go through.