 In the spring of 1951, Middleton got a call from General J. Lawton Collins, who was now the Army Chief of Staff, asking for Middleton to take an assignment on behalf of the Army. Middleton was compelled to say yes. There were allegations of wholesale honor code violations at the U. S. Military Academy in West Point, and Middleton was to serve on a committee to oversee the proceedings and make recommendations. Though personally painful to Middleton, the committee's recommendation was to dismiss 82 cadets for cheating, including most of the members of the football team. A headline in a New Orleans newspaper wryly summarized the event as "Army Football Team Severely Penalized for Illegal Passing." While this was a drastic undertaking, the committee also recommended that the same tests not be given to different groups on different days, which practice offered the cadets a big temptation to cheat. Though this was not a pleasant assignment for Middleton, he had been selected for the task because of his reputation for fairness. Though he had never attended West Point, in 1952 he was asked to serve the academy on its Board of Visitors, a position which he held for one three-year term.
