The nation, which already had its fill of scandal and corruption, was shocked, sorry and puzzled by the news from West Point. Ninety of the Academy's 2,500 cadets, among them the bulk of Army's disciplined and magnificent football team, faced dismissal for a breach of the Cadet Corps' sacrosanct honor system.
At first glance, the mass dismissal seemed a severe, regrettable but eminently clear-cut and righteous act of disciplinary surgery, performed in the interests of the Army's loftiest ideals. The facts, as announced, were few and terse. The Academy's honor codeby which every cadet is not only duty-bound to shun...