Air Force Academy, Colo. ? The board overseeing the Air Force Academy heard reports of sexual assaults and misconduct 20 years ago, but its yearly reports remained positive, The Denver Post reported in Sunday editions.

A review of 25 years of records by the academy’s 15-member Board of Visitors, charged with presiding over morale and discipline at the academy, found that members did not pursue reports of sexual assaults and asked few questions.

Post reporters looked at transcripts of the biannual meetings and talked with some of the presidentially appointed members, who included members of Congress, Fortune 500 executives and other politically connected leaders.

The review follows the launching of three military investigations of reports of 57 sexual assaults at the Academy since 1993. A separate independent investigation is to begin later this month.

“These are people who espouse the doctrines of the Constitution, who have wives, sisters, daughters, and hear of abuse toward women over and over and do nothing,” said Doris Besikof, a lawyer who represented a female cadet and contacted the board about the victim’s sexual abuse nearly a decade ago.

The Post said the board heard its first report of sexual assaults in 1983, and other misconduct problems surfaced repeatedly in the years that followed.

Before this year, however, the board’s annual reports and letters to U.S. presidents about the academy’s operations were positive. They never mentioned any sexual misconduct at the academy or called for any reviews of procedures, records show.

“Perhaps I should have asked tougher questions, but you don’t want to create an adversarial relationship where you’re grilling the staff,” said Harry Pearce, former vice chairman of General Motors Corp., who retired as board chairman in April. “Rest assured, had we known this, all hell would have broken loose.”

But retired Lt. Gen. Bradley Hosmer, acting superintendent from 1991-94, disagreed with Pearce’s assessment of the board.

“I would have been more satisfied if they disagreed with me more,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Joel Hefley, a board member since 1987, says the board might have been able to limit some of the damage to the academy if it had acted on the assault reports. “If we could have headed this off and saved any of this embarrassment, we should have done it. We didn’t follow up on what (academy officials) said they’d do.”