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What drives Berry to get at the root of the problem is his firm conviction that the honor code is the "archstone" of West Point's stern motto: Duty, Honor, Country. Says he: "I do not think the code is anachronistic. Integrity is essential in the development of leader-soldiers." Indeed, Berry and many other high-ranking officers, including non-West Pointers, agree that the honor code serves an absolutely irreplaceable function, as do the more lenient codes at Annapolis and the Air Force Academy. All three academies accomplish their main purpose: they produce well-trained and dedicated officers.
Graduates of the academies may form only 11% of the corps of commissioned officers on active duty in the armed forces (10% in the Army, 17% in the Navy, 9% in the Air Force), and the military may be getting steadily more democratic. But a man wearing the heavy and instantly recognizable class ring of one of the academies starts with a tremendous advantage. Fully 43% of the Army's generals are West Point "ringknockers"; 56% of the Navy's admirals went to Annapolis; 34% of the Air Force's generals attended one of the academies. Says General Melvin Zais, 60, an ROTC graduate from the University of New Hampshire: "The West Point influence is like a drop of blue ink in a glass of water. It isn't much in volume, but it influences the coloring of the whole glass. West Point permeates our resource."
With impressive unanimity, graduates of the three academies agree that the honor codes helped greatly to prepare them for a life in the military. Air Force Colonel Bradley P. Hosmer, top man in the class of 1959 at the Air Force Academy, goes one step further: "The honor code was the most important influence on my life, period. It affects your standards of self, my expectations, and even how I raise my kids." In all three services, academy graduates emphasize the importance of being able to trust the word of a fellow officer.
The honor code that has become so important to West Point —and the U.S. Army—began under Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, superintendent from 1817 to 1833. A Dartmouth man with a backbone of iron, Thayer changed West Point from a humdrum school for the sons of wealthy families into a first-class engineering institution. After studying European military systems, he also imposed on the cadets a kind of Prussian discipline that lingers today. Thayer had strict rules against lying and stealing, and what was called "irregular or immoral practices."
Shortly before the turn of the century, cadets set up their own vigilance committee and conducted covert "trials" of those who breached the code. When he was superintendent in 1922, Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur created the honor system, with an official board of review composed of cadets.
The first major scandal at West Point occurred in 1951, when 90 cadets were forced out for cribbing on examinations, including 37 members of the football team. In 1966, 42 cadets departed after having been accused of cheating. Four years later, West Point's honor code was amended to include the phrase forbidding any cadet to tolerate wrongdoing by another. In 1973, 21 cadets were sacked for cheating or condoning cheating.