Tailhook

NORFOLK, Va. -- After two years, thousands of witness interviews and extraordinary controversy, the Navy opens the first court-martial today in the Tailhook scandal.A motion to dismiss the case was denied yesterday. The denial was announced nearly simultaneously with the news that two officers whose cases had been reopened this summer by the Navy -- Cmdrs. Robert C. Yakeley and Gregory E. Peairs -- have been cleared of any wrongdoing at the 1991 Navy fliers' convention in Las Vegas. Dozens of women reported being fondled and groped by officers during after-hours parties at the convention.

WASHINGTON -- As they move forward with the Tailhook case, the Navy and Marine Corps are having trouble turning the initial accusations of sexual harassment abuse at an aviators' convention into criminal charges or administrative punishment.The accusations stem from a Pentagon report in April that accused 140 fliers of indecent exposure, assault and lying to investigators under oath, among other violations.But the Navy has already dropped outright half of its 120 cases, largely for lack of evidence.

WASHINGTON -- Although a Pentagon investigative agency determined that as many as 140 servicemen were involved in alleged sexual misconduct at the Tailhook Association convention in 1991, only two Navy fliers and one Marine Corps officer are facing charges of assault resulting from the scandal.While lesser charges of unbecoming conduct and other infractions are still being reviewed against others, the three servicemen named in the more serious assault charges are accused of attacking only a handful of women.

QUANTICO, Va. -- In a calm voice, Lt. Paula Coughlin testified at a military hearing yesterday about her searing experience going through the infamous Tailhook gantlet.She pointed to a Marine captain sitting a few feet away in the austere courtroom and identified him as the most brazen of her molesters that Saturday night two years ago in the hallway of the Las Vegas Hilton.Then, in an equally calm voice, the accused man, Capt. Gregory Bonam, offered an equally harrowing story: the ordeal of an innocent man wrongly accused of a crime he did not commit.

WASHINGTON -- For Lt. Paula Coughlin, the naval aviator who blew the whistle on sexual assaults at the 1991 Tailhook Association, the waiting ends today, when the Defense Department publicly releases its investigation of the now-infamous party in Las Vegas.But Lieutenant Coughlin's role at the center of the Navy scandal has been a bruising affair, and the scars -- both hers and the Navy's -- are likely to remain throughout her career.While her colleagues pore over the findings of an investigation that could break scores of careers, jail some officers and prompt major reforms in the Navy, Lieutenant Coughlin, 31, will spend her day hustling around the headquarters of her helicopter squadron in Norfolk, Va., immersing herself in a job she hopes to protect from the aftershocks.

WASHINGTON -- The Army's handling of the alleged sexual harassment of trainees at an Aberdeen Proving Ground school suggests it has learned from the Navy's mistakes during the 1991 Tailhook scandal.But while the Army may have learned lessons from Tailhook, it faces an even graver, more troublesome and widespread crisis than the Navy did five years ago.Tailhook related basically to a single night's debauchery, whereas the allegations at Aberdeen cover the period between summers of 1995 and 1996.

WASHINGTON -- Although the Navy has taken a beating over the Tailhook scandal, the ordeal has provided a valuable form of shock therapy, forcing the service to take the lead in rooting out sexual harassment and opening career opportunities to women.Top officials, who are bracing for the release today of the long-awaited report by Pentagon investigators on the rampant sexual misconduct at its 1991 Tailhook convention, say the scandal convinced them that the Navy's male-dominated culture had to change.

The Navy's next chief of naval operations has received some free advice from some of his fellow admirals: Put Tailhook behind you.The man who replaces Adm. Jeremy M. "Mike" Boorda should get a "good handshake" from Defense Secretary William J. Perry and members of the Senate Armed Services Committee "and say, 'I want to go to the Navy and say [Tailhook's] over,' " said retired Adm. Stanley Arthur.Arthur said yesterday that the Navy is still reeling from the infamous 1991 naval aviators' convention in San Diego, where women were groped by drunken fliers.

NORFOLK, Va. -- They only wanted him for his mind.Navy Lt. Christopher P. Gates admitted under oath yesterday that he was the officer who received oral sex from a stripper during a Sept. 7, 1991, promotion party at the Las Vegas Hilton during the Tailhook Association convention. When he was called to Norfolk on May 28 of this year, he expected to face punishment for conduct unbecoming an officer.Instead, Lieutenant Gates said yesterday, a string of meetings culminated in the Navy's top lawyer in the investigation's telling him they wanted information on someone.

WASHINGTON -- Annoyed by the Navy's handling of the Tailhook affair, the House Appropriations Committee has voted to slash 10,000 military jobs from Navy headquarters here and around the world.The move, led by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a hard-nosed ex-Marine who chairs the defense appropriations subcommittee, was expected to be approved by the House when it votes on the $253 billion defense budget Thursday.The Navy said yesterday it didn't immediately know the total number of people who work at its headquarters.