THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 10, 1996 TAG: 9605100479
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
The Navy has begun what one admiral described Thursday as ``a fresh look'' at the case of Cmdr. Robert E. Stumpf, the Virginia Beach-based pilot whose two-year effort to advance to captain has become a crusade for scores of conservative activists and military veterans nationwide.
Joseph G. Lynch, a senior Navy lawyer, has been assigned to prepare a new report on Stumpf and the aviator's attendance at the notorious 1991 Tailhook Association convention in Las Vegas, said Rear. Adm. Kendell Pease, the service's top spokesman.
Pease's comments came a day after the Navy's 1996 promotion list for captains was forwarded to the U.S. Senate. Stumpf was not on the list, but the Navy confirmed that several names selected by a promotion board are being reviewed.
``The review of some of these records is going to require additional time,'' including time for the officer to respond, a spokesman said.
Dalton repeatedly has endorsed Stumpf for promotion, urging the Senate Armed Services Committee to withdraw objections it lodged last fall. The new review apparently is being done in the expectation that Stumpf's name may again be presented to the committee; one source said Dalton wants to be sure that all the relevant facts have been gathered when the committee takes up the nomination.
The new report apparently will cover both Stumpf's presence and actions in the Tailhook suite of three of his squadron-mates during a striptease act and his use of an F/A-18 Hornet to fly from a base in Florida to California, where he rented a car and drove on to the convention.
The aviator has said he witnessed the stripper's performance but left the suite before she engaged in a sexual act with another airman. As for the flight, while Tailhook attendees were not supposed to use tactical aircraft to get to the convention, Stumpf has said he needed to fly himself in order to return to Florida in time to meet other commitments.
A Navy fact-finding board, which focused principally on the sexual misconduct allegations, cleared Stumpf of any wrongdoing in September 1993. He was nominated for captain and confirmed by the Senate the following spring, but before his promotion could take effect the Navy discovered it had not informed the Armed Services Committee of his Tailhook connections.
The committee, after a confidential inquiry of its own, wrote Dalton last fall to say that it would not have recommended Stumpf's advancement had it known of his involvement at Tailhook. Dalton then canceled the promotion, though he said his own investigation and a personal interview with Stumpf satisfied him that the aviator should be promoted. by CNB