ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 25, 1996 TAG: 9611250199
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Dreading a new Navy scandal, Adm. Jeremy Boorda, in a note addressed ``to my sailors,'' wrote that he was about to kill himself because ``I couldn't bear to bring dishonor to you.''
Boorda's suicide note is made public in a 20,000-word story in the December issue of Washingtonian magazine that provides new details on the chief of naval operations' death - an event that stunned Washington.
He shot himself May 15, just hours before he was about to be questioned by reporters about two Vietnam combat decorations he wore but may not have been qualified to display.
The magazine says the decorations affair was only one factor.
Another, according to writer Nick Kotz, was hostility from the Navy's old guard, which considered Boorda a ``political admiral'' who had appeased politicians in his handling of the Navy's Tailhook scandal.
Kotz wrote that in his final weeks Boorda was hurt to learn that the midshipmen of the U.S. Naval Academy had given a standing ovation to former Navy Secretary James Webb after a thinly veiled attack on Boorda. Boorda earned his commission in the Naval Officer Candidate School, the first chief of naval operations who was not an academy graduate.
The suicide's immediate cause, however, may have been the interview scheduled that afternoon with Newsweek reporters on the medals issue: ``It was an honest mistake,'' Boorda told his aides.
LENGTH: Short : 38 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Boorda KEYWORDS: 2DAby CNB