MSNBC provides this story in which the government apparantly got overcharged by defense contractor Northrop Grumman.

The accounting problems — which occurred through the end of the Cold War — are revealed in internal documents reviewed by the Journal, but that have not been made public.

The [WSJ] story also quotes a 1986 memo sent to 37 managers that said when discussing accounting faults: "We can't tell the truth."

All of this done in the spirit of maintaining eligibility to be a government contractor. Should be interesting to see how these allegations would affect future Northrop's contracts.