ABSTRACT
The Subcommittee on International Political and Military Affairs of the House International Relations Committee began a series of hearings to ascertain all the facts surrounding the Mayaguez seizure and to examine the adequacy of the crisis management operations of the federal government. When the State Department granted access to the Operation Center watch manual and watch log, the General Accounting Office (GAO) staff obtained pertinent information regarding when and how the State Department was alerted to a series of hostile Cambodian actions leading up to the Mayaguez seizure. In light of the intelligence community's past recalcitrance during GAO reviews, the task force was determined to gain access to data and to resolve security clearance problems as soon as possible. The task force made some initial headway at the State Department as a result of information passed along by the other GAO audit team, which had been granted access to the Operations Center watch logs.
