Once scandalous gathering now quite tame

Friday, Aug. 20, 1999 | 6:46 a.m.

Navy officers also are on hand to monitor the group and recommend whether the association can restore its ties with the Navy.

The booster group's 1991 Las Vegas convention produced a sex-harassment scandal, lawsuits and spawned a movie. Female officers were fondled by aviators attending parties during the three-day aviator's conference.

The Navy dissolved ties with the association in the wake of the scandal, but this year's convention may convince officials to restore the bonds.

"As you know, the shameful events at the Tailhook convention in 1991 led to a withdrawal of our support for the Tailhook Association," Navy Secretary Richard Danzig said last week in the letter to Tailhook president Lonny K. McClung.

"Over the past eight years, however, the association has taken a number of constructive steps that warrant a review of its status," Danzig wrote.

The Defense Department Inspector General implicated 117 officers for sexual assault, indecent exposure and other acts, and faulted the Navy's leaders for failing to stop the behavior.

McClung, a retired Navy captain who has been president of the Tailhook group since 1995, said then that "the timing is right" to get back in the Navy's good graces.

His organization, named for the hook on the bottom of aircraft that snags an arresting cable on the landing deck of an aircraft carrier, has about 10,000 members - down from its 1991 peak of about 16,000.