The first four decades of Philip Vargas’s life sound like a novel about the American Dream. The child of illiterate, Indo-Hispanic migrant workers, he dropped out of high school, volunteered for the army the day after the Korean hostilities began, served in combat, became a military boxing champ, talked his way into the University of New Mexico, earned a B.A. there, a Ph.D at the University of Colorado, and a law degree at Harvard. Throughout the long years of study, he worked to earn his expenses, volunteered in community programs to serve the poor, and sent money home to his family.

He taught at the U of Arizona, then got a fellowship from the Drug Abuse Council in Washington DC, where he did the first reports on the inhaling of household aerosols, which was epidemic among poor youngsters. He then got a political appointment to a commission studying the workings of the federal government, a job that made him one of the highest ranking Hispanics in the US government. That’s where the American Dream turned to a nightmare. Vargas and his team were charged with studying the government’s information procedures; a thorough examination led to a report that federal agencies were circum-venting the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts, hiding information and wasting a fortune in taxpayer dollars in the process. He was told to “clean up” the report, taking out any criticism of government actions; his true findings were to remain secret. Vargas refused to do the whitewash, instead releasing the full and honest report to the White House and through the press to the American public. He was fired.