Navy Secretary

The Blue Angels flying team had just finished its aerobatics performance above the Naval Academy when James H. Webb Jr. walked into the school's bookstore to find a long line of midshipmen, naval officers and others waiting for him.Most of those in line wanted a chance to shake the hand of a well-known author and have him sign a copy of his latest book, "The Emperor's General."Others sensed something bigger in Webb's return to Annapolis. To the school where he lost a three-round boxing match with classmate Oliver L. North.

WASHINGTON -- This month, in the North Atlantic waters and in a speech by the Navy's top official, came the first tones of the death knell for one of the last male preserves: the submarine.About 144 female Navy ROTC midshipmen are spending 48 hours with male sailors on five submarines, a first for Navy women. Space restrictions now prevent them from serving in the so-called Silent Service.Meanwhile, Navy Secretary Richard Danzig created a stir before the Naval Submarine League Symposium when he called submarines a "white male bastion."

For the first time in history, a MUC flutters above the U.S. Naval Academy.Not a duck, a MUC -- that's how the Navy refers to the prestigious Meritorious Unit Commendation award President Clinton has bestowed upon an academy considered new and improved at the end of Superintendent Adm. Charles R. Larson's four-year term.The award, which typically goes to Navy ships, air squadrons or command posts, gives the academy the right to fly a MUC pennant from its flagstaff. It also allows naval personnel who served at the academy from August 1996 to June 1998 to wear a MUC ribbon on their uniforms.

WASHINGTON -- In the pre-dawn darkness of Oct. 14, 1996, the USS Theodore Roosevelt was maneuvering in the choppy Atlantic waters 100 miles off Cape Hatteras, N.C. The carrier was "backing down" -- reversing -- when it collided with a cruiser, the USS Leyte Gulf, in a thunderous screech of steel that knocked sailors to the decks and caused $10 million in damage.In the Navy, the reverberations of that October night are still being felt.The commander of the carrier, Rear Adm. Ronald L. Christenson, a 1969 Naval Academy graduate, was later judged to be the most culpable for the collision and received a punitive letter of reprimand in November 1996, usually a career-ender.

When Chris McCoy graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy 10 weeks ago, he closed the book on a year of highs (his record-setting performances as a quarterback on the football field) and lows (an end-of-the-year mini-scandal over his inappropriate fling with a female freshman).With that chapter behind him, McCoy reports this week to the Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, R.I., to begin paying back his free, four-year Annapolis education.The bill: half a decade in the Navy.But McCoy aspires to play football, not war games.

WASHINGTON -- Richard Danzig, the Navy's former No. 2 official and a key figure in resolving the Naval Academy's cheating scandal, has been selected to replace Navy Secretary John H. Dalton, who is retiring, Pentagon sources said yesterday.Defense Secretary William S. Cohen told reporters yesterday that he had forwarded a nominee for the top Navy job to the White House but declined to elaborate. Sources, however, indicated that Danzig was Cohen's choice and that the nomination could be announced soon.

Charles Larson, the recently retired Naval Academy superintendent, yesterday defended his handling of a sexual misconduct case in which three midshipmen faced expulsion but a fourth -- football star Chris McCoy -- did not.Larson said two things are not tolerated at the school: drugs, and sex in the dormitory. He said his decision was consistent with that maxim, and he denied giving a star athlete special treatment -- as the other midshipmen have alleged."I don't give preferential treatment," Larson said, responding to a story in The Sun about the case.

WASHINGTON -- Navy Secretary John H. Dalton, who led the sea service during more than five years of tumult and change marked by the aftershocks of the Tailhook scandal, widespread cheating at the Naval Academy and greater integration of women into the fleet, announced yesterday that he is resigning at the end of the year."

For Navy Secretary John H. Dalton, it is an excruciating choice: Destroy the career of a young woman for a lie she may not have told, or overturn the judgment of the Navy's longest-serving flag officer on a matter of honor.Naval Academy Superintendent Charles R. Larson, the four-star admiral called to Annapolis in 1994 to restore the midshipmen's sense of ethics, has decided to expel a 21-year-old student from Massachusetts for lying. Dalton, a 1964 academy graduate who spoke on honor at the academy just this week, must sign off on the expulsion.

In the early 1960s, Midshipman John Dalton of Shreveport, La., hustled from his cramped dorm room to worship at the Naval Academy chapel, where the bones of John Paul Jones rest.Today, Navy Secretary John Dalton often recalls the words of the naval hero, who said a seagoing officer should be a capable mariner and a courteous gentleman with the nicest sense of personal honor. Dalton adds a late-20th century twist: "I'm sure [Jones] would provide the same guidance to female officers as well," he tells audiences.

Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter had never spoken at a high school before. But when U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings asked him to take a few hours out of his busy schedule to drive to West Baltimore and speak at a school with a maritime focus, Winter was happy to oblige. After all, he said, the Navy ought to be looking for younger recruits. Between the time the visit was scheduled and the time Winter appeared at the school yesterday, a lot happened at Maritime Industries Academy. Accused of grade falsification and letting a student teach classes, Principal Marco T. Clark has, over the past three weeks, resigned, changed his mind and tried to rescind the resignation.

The defense team of Lamar S. Owens Jr., the former quarterback who was convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer for having sex with a female classmate in the Naval Academy dormitory, vowed yesterday to fight his expulsion and the requirement that he repay more than $90,000 in education costs. In a written statement, Reid Weingarten, Owens' civilian defense attorney, said he was "extremely disappointed" with Navy Secretary Donald Winter's decision because the Savannah, Ga., native was acquitted in July of rape.

Lamar S. Owens Jr., the former Navy quarterback who was convicted of two felonies after having sex with a female classmate in the Naval Academy dormitory, will be expelled with no degree and will owe the school more than $90,000, Navy officials said yesterday. The Navy secretary, Donald C. Winter, deemed his conduct "unsatisfactory" and ordered him discharged, though Owens, 23, was acquitted in July of rape and supporters had launched a campaign in his behalf of letter-writing, organizing on the Internet and lobbying in Annapolis and Washington.

A former Navy quarterback who was acquitted of rape and now faces expulsion from the Naval Academy took his case to Washington last week, urging members of Congress to support his attempts to graduate and become an officer. Securing the free assistance of several people from lobbying giant Cassidy & Associates is the latest step for Lamar S. Owens Jr.'s supporters, a group that includes a growing number of academy alumni with a wide range of influence garnered from prominent careers in the public and private sectors.

Washington -- Prominent Democratic senators who are against the troop buildup in Iraq took issue yesterday with criticism from Bush administration officials who contend that opposition to the president's new strategy will embolden the enemy. "It's not the American people or the United States Congress who are emboldening the enemy," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "It's the failed policy of this president - going to war without a strategy, going to war prematurely."

WASHINGTON - Navy Secretary Gordon R. England, who grew up in a working-class home in West Baltimore and worked his way through the University of Maryland, was nominated by President Bush yesterday to become the No. 2 official at the Pentagon, taking over for Paul Wolfowitz, who was named yesterday to lead the World Bank. "I am honored and humbled to have been selected by the President as his nominee for the post of deputy secretary of defense," England said in a statement. "It has been a profound honor to serve our brave sailors and Marines and their families as secretary of the Navy."

Under fire from Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski and others, the Navy backed away yesterday from a proposal to resume bombing, strafing and live-fire military exercises on an island in the Chesapeake Bay. During a Senate subcommittee hearing on the Navy's budget yesterday, Mikulski told Navy Secretary Gordon England that the residents of Maryland's Eastern Shore were agitated about the proposal, first reported March 4 in The Sun. "Remember, they fought off...

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - As the United States freed the first detainee since last week's Supreme Court ruling that such individuals have a right to take their cases to court, the Navy secretary arrived here yesterday to oversee a process that could result in the release of dozens more prisoners in coming weeks. Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali, a 25-year-old Swede, was whisked away under heavy security by a Swedish charter plane in the middle of the night. He was captured in Pakistan in the company of Taliban fighters in 2001 and had been held in secret since January 2002.

WASHINGTON - They appeared overnight along the wood-paneled hallways of the Pentagon, like symbols from some ancient civilization. Along the Army's corridor is a picture of a mule kicking a goat, the lines as graceful as a cave painting's. Nearby is a yellow pennant bearing the words "West Point" and a sign, "Army Rules." One floor above, amid the model ships and oil paintings of Navy secretaries, is a single blue and gold pompom, a talisman hanging from the door of Cmdr. Robert Girrier, a 1983 graduate and administrative assistant to Navy Secretary Richard Danzig.

WASHINGTON -- This month, in the North Atlantic waters and in a speech by the Navy's top official, came the first tones of the death knell for one of the last male preserves: the submarine.About 144 female Navy ROTC midshipmen are spending 48 hours with male sailors on five submarines, a first for Navy women. Space restrictions now prevent them from serving in the so-called Silent Service.Meanwhile, Navy Secretary Richard Danzig created a stir before the Naval Submarine League Symposium when he called submarines a "white male bastion."