ABSTRACT
As federal business spiralled upward geometrically during the New Deal and again during the war, the staff of the General Accounting Office (GAO) also grew. But it is true and even remarkable that the organization’s basic posture, self-image, and modus operandi changed little during the New Deal and the war periods despite the enormous changes that were going on around it. In the main, the GAO appeared to be the product of a simple transfer of powers, duties, and resources from the Treasury Department to a new agency. But in three significant respects the change was fundamental. The Comptroller General could organize the GAO as he pleased, establish or refuse to establish field offices as he wished, deploy his personnel and other resources, and, perhaps most important, interpret his legal powers with little fear of appeal to higher authorities. Indeed, some parts of the act suggested that there was no higher authority.
