Letter: Naval officials treated unfairly

Friday, Aug. 9, 2002 | 4:48 a.m.

The Aug. 4 column by Mike O'Callaghan, "Time to right a wrong," regarding the 1991 Tailhook scandal, certainly hits the nail on the head.

Several top admirals got bounced, not for their own behavior, but for failure to find and punish those who had manhandled the women. After the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, however, the Navy found it expedient to use the Tailhook scandal for exercises in self-flagellation. The initial investigation, it was said, had been suppressed. In 1992, a secretary of the Navy was forced out, the inspector general of the Navy was reassigned, and the commander of the Naval Investigative Service and the Navy judge advocate general were forced to retire.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice most certainly was passed over in the disgracing of top officers.

Seth Cropsey, a former deputy undersecretary of the Navy, remarked in a Washington Post commentary of that era: "Bypassing it (the UCMJ) is far more serious than the daily press -- which is fascinated by the endless procession of admiral-laden tumbrils to the scaffolds -- understands. And the military -- which was accustomed by then to Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney's ruthless dismissals of senior officers -- was understandably reluctant to speak up."

FRANK PELTESON