[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 43 (Tuesday, April 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                            TAILHOOK SCANDAL

  (Mrs. SCHROEDER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks and include 
extraneous matter.)
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, the Defense Department long has had an 
attitude of seeing no evil, hearing no evil and speaking no evil if it 
is a high enough ranking official of one of the uniformed services. In 
other words, shut your ears, turn off your brain and give them a bigger 
pension.
  Mr. Speaker, today there are some very brave men and women on the 
other side of the Capitol who are bucking this tradition and saying 
about Admiral Kelso that he really does not deserve that, that there 
have been many investigations in the Navy that went afoul, that the 
whole Tailhook issue was about 87 sexual assaults for which no one was 
really held accountable.
  Mr. Speaker, we talk about crime on this floor but we allow people to 
ignore it on those who were in the military service, and they are 
standing up and talking about that and talking about many other 
incidents and breaking up the old boys' club that has gone on for much 
too long.
  Mr. Speaker, I think we can never hold other people accountable until 
we hold those at the top accountable and I do not think anything is so 
clear as it is that the Navy failed Admiral Kelso.
  I include for the Record two editorials pertaining to this matter.

                [From the New York Times, Apr. 14, 1994]

                          Two Stars Are Plenty

       Navy Secretary John H. Dalton had it right the first time. 
     Last year he urged the removal of Adm. Frank B. Kelso 2d as 
     Chief of Naval Operations for failing to show proper 
     leadership during Tailhook '91--the infamous reunion of 
     aviators featuring a gantlet of drunken gropers that female 
     guests, among them 15 officers, were forced to run. This 
     week, however, Mr. Dalton joined Defense Secretary William 
     Perry and Gen. John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint 
     Chiefs of Staff, in asking that the Senate retire Admiral 
     Kelso at his four-star rank.
       Two stars, which rank the admiral will automatically revert 
     to unless the Senate says otherwise, are enough.
       Admiral Kelso agreed to step down early in exchange for a 
     tribute that would clear his name. Mr. Perry gave him that 
     tribute two months ago, and America got a good look at the 
     Navy at its brassiest. Now Secretaries Dalton and Perry and 
     General Shalikashvili are polishing that brass to an 
     inappropriately higher shine. The general at least conceded 
     that his support was ``likely to fuel charges that we in the 
     services are operating an old-boy network by trying to shield 
     Admiral Kelso from blame.'' Likely? How about ``certain''?
       There is much illustrious about Admiral Kelso's career. As 
     head of the Sixth Fleet, he commanded Navy forces that helped 
     seize the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the killing 
     of an American aboard the cruise ship Achille Lauro. He was 
     also in charge of air strikes against Libya in 1986; and he 
     has been conspicuously progressive in his attitude toward 
     women's role in the Navy. True, his initiatives may have been 
     designed partly to sweeten the aroma arising from Tailhook. 
     Yet his concern with giving military women a fair chance was 
     commendable and rate.
       Even so, allowing Admiral Kelso to keep his four stars, and 
     the pension that goes with them, would require the Senate to 
     dismiss--as his three advocates have done--the findings of 
     the Navy's own judge, Capt. William T. Vest Jr. Captain Vest 
     concluded that the admiral had lied about his own activities 
     at Tailhook '91, and then used his rank to impede the 
     investigations.
       And if the captain's 111-page report is the last word on 
     the subject, it is because Admiral Kelso's retirement ends 
     any review of his conduct, and because Mr. Perry's coerced 
     tribute curtailed the formation of a special court of 
     inquiry.
       In claiming that he had always supported retiring Admiral 
     Kelso with four stars, Secretary Dalton is willfully 
     overlooking one of the armed services' first principles: 
     Command responsibility belongs at the top. Senator Kay Bailey 
     Hutchison was less myopic: ``[Admiral Kelso's] character is 
     not the issue here. The issue is his captaincy of the ship--
     what happened on his watch--and the signal his performance 
     sends to the Navy and to the world.''
       Should Admiral Kelso keep his four stars, the signal sent 
     to the Navy is that admirals and such can get away with what 
     lower-ranking officers cannot. The signal sent to the world 
     is that the American military's old-boy network is, despite 
     the general's disclaimer, operating at full tilt.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Apr. 18, 1994]

                            Command Presents

       So now the Senate Armed Services Committee has joined the 
     old boys' network that protects the top military brass from 
     accountability. It recommended last week that Adm. Frank B. 
     Kelso 2d, the chief of Naval Operations, retire at the rank 
     of four stars as his predecessors traditionally have.
       The full Senate ought to reject the committee's decision as 
     one based on sympathy rather than a fair assessment of the 
     admiral's performance. The senators should instead let his 
     rank revert automatically to two stars as it will unless they 
     take affirmative action to accommodate Admiral Kelso.
       Without Senate approval, the admiral will be retired with 
     two stars and a $5,650-a-month pension, about $1,400 less 
     than four stars warrant. That seems a fair price to pay to 
     uphold the principle of command responsibility.
       Admiral Kelso was, after all, the senior officer present at 
     the 1991 Tailhook Association convention, the reunion of 
     naval aviators in Las Vegas where female guests, including 15 
     fellow offices, were forced to run a gantlet of gropers. And 
     as Chief of Naval Operations, he was ultimately accountable 
     for the Navy's botched investigation.
       Nevertheless the Armed Services Committee voted 20 to 2 in 
     favor of awarding him the higher rank and increased benefits. 
     The sole woman on the panel, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a 
     Texas Republican, did not agree. ``The issue,'' she said, 
     ``is his captaincy of the ship--what happened on his watch--
     and the signal his performance sends to the Navy and the 
     world.''
       Admiral Kelso served the country well for a long time, and 
     he did more than any of his predecessors to secure an equal 
     place for women in the Navy. But Admiral Kelso's actions in 
     the Tailhook scandal were his undoing. His 38 years of 
     service surely acquainted him with the tradition of drunken 
     debauchery at Tailhook get-togethers. He should have been 
     sensitive to what his presence would mean to servicemen and 
     servicewomen.
       A report by the Defense Department Inspector General 
     exonerated Admiral Kelso of any wrongdoing in the Tailhook 
     affair. But a Navy judge accused him of lying when he denied 
     he had witnessed any misconduct there and charged that he 
     used his rank to impede the investigation into tailhook. 
     Admiral Kelso short-circuited any review of his conduct by 
     agreeing to retire early in exchange for a testimonial 
     clearing his name.
       Now the Armed Services Committee wants to reward him with 
     the rank and perks customarily voted for departing service 
     chiefs. The committee took the unusual step of inviting 
     Defense Secretary William Perry, Navy Secretary John Dalton 
     and Gen. John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff, to provide political cover by testifying in Admiral 
     Kelso's behalf.
       With its vote, the committee showed that it was more 
     concerned with keeping the officer corps happy than with 
     sending a message about sexism. Senator Charles Robb 
     obligingly underscored their weak-kneed performance by 
     speaking nonsense. ``No one ought to be of the impression 
     that this committee or the Senate condones the conduct of the 
     charges investigated or is being insensitive about sexual 
     harassment.''
       The issue goes beyond the events of Tailhook and the 
     treatment of women. The system of military justice must not 
     be seen by enlisted personnel and junior officers as going 
     soft when it comes time to hold the top brass accountable. 
     The military merarchy depends on a code of loyalty up and 
     loyalty down. That loyalty withers when lower ranks, where 
     the rules are strict and the administrative and court martial 
     punishments can be very harsh, see higher-ups rewarded for 
     failure.
       To senators who are adept at taking credit and avoiding 
     blame, command responsibility can seem like an excessively 
     harsh discipline. But the moral and good order of the armed 
     services will suffer if commanders are allowed to escape 
     responsibility for major scandals that occur virtually under 
     their noses.

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