[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 42 (Monday, April 18, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       THE TAILHOOK CONSEQUENCES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is 
recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I take to the floor to talk a bit about 
a New York Times editorial that I will later put in the Record when we 
go into official session. This is about what the other body did 
recently, and that is allow Admiral Kelso to have two additional stars 
as he retired as head of the Navy operations. The New York Times 
editorial takes this to task saying that one more time the Senate Armed 
Services Committee has joined the old boys network, that it protects 
top military brass no matter what and really holds them above 
accountability. Part of this goes to the Tailhook decision, which was a 
very, very painful one. When Tailhook happened, Mr. Speaker, the 
civilian leadership of the Navy stepped down, understanding the 
captain-of-the-ship principle better than the one who was in uniform 
and supposedly came from the captain-of-the-ship tradition.

                              {time}  1040

  The civilian leadership stepped down, and the gentlemen who were on 
the military side continued to have all sorts of problems with 
Tailhook. As we know, two Navy investigations under the admiral both 
had to be derailed, and they finally had to bring in investigators from 
the outside.
  One of the frustrating things is that people keep wanting to ignore 
what the investigators from the outside said. This really is not about 
sexual harassment; this is about sexual assault. Assault is very 
different than harassment. Harassment is basically words. Assault is 
really going after someone.
  This is about 15 fellow officers who attended this convention and, 
because they were female, were sexually assaulted. This is about 87 
people in all who attended this convention and were assaulted, 6 of 
whom were men, but they happened to be from the other service, the Air 
Force.
  Tailhook is a command problem because everyone knew this had been 
going on for a very long time, and if we look at the decision which 
came down through military justice, the judge put in the record the 
long histories of memos going to the command saying ``Tailhook is out 
of control. What are we going to do?'' And they answered in silence.
  Not only did they answer in silence, but the top command went to 
Tailhook. The top command went to Tailhook, and there were all sorts of 
sightings of the admiral, who is about to get a promotion, at that 
Tailhook party. There were all sorts of devastating things in the Navy 
military decision, and the military decision said that none of the 
people should be accountable because anyone at this party must have 
thought it was OK. Since they saw an admiral with four stars there and 
they saw the Secretary of the Navy attended.
  Now, I go back to where I started. This is not about whether or not 
the person was a nice person. I am sure they were very nice people. But 
it goes to the very point that women's issues never were taken very 
seriously. They tried to cover up the investigation twice, and it had 
to be taken away from the Navy under his command. The civilian side 
understands it and resigned in embarrassment. We go forward and see 
that in the post-Tailhook environment nothing has really changed. They 
changed the rules, but they have not changed the enforcement, as we had 
hearings in the Committee on Armed Forces about many women who have 
continued to be attacked and nothing really happened except maybe the 
woman got put in a mental hospital for 3 days or something.
  So it really has not changed. For policymakers to have in front of 
them all this evidence and for them to say, ``Well, we're going to 
cover for the top command,'' that sends a very poor message to the 
lower ranks. We should really have justice for all in this society or 
we had better be very honest about it and admit that we do not.
  So I salute the New York Times for this editorial.
  I certainly hope that some of my sisters who moved to the other body 
will take this up, and I hope there is a raging fight on the Senate 
floor so we can see how many people really feel that there should be a 
promotion for an admiral who had all this happen under his command and 
never seemed to be able to get it under control.
  Mr. Speaker, until we send this message, no one will get it under 
control because the message will be, ``Well, women are important, and 
we can throw some words around, but we aren't really going to do 
anything about it.''

                          ____________________