THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 15, 1996 TAG: 9610150046
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: 89 lines
THE TAILHOOK SCANDAL of 1991 - a story of sexual harassment that took place with the Navy's top brass present in Las Vegas - is by now a familiar story here in the home of the Navy. Not so well-known is another case of sexual misconduct in the fleet which PBS reports on tonight at 9.
The producers of ``Frontline'' tell the story of how a junior officer named Rebecca Hanson, with the help of a Republican U.S. senator from Minnesota, set in motion the events that cost a highly decorated former Vice Chief of Naval Operations the command he waited for all his life.
What ``The Navy Blues'' is about, says producer Michael Kirk, is showing how ``the determinedly male world'' of the Navy reacted to women being assigned to combat ships and serving in elite squadrons as Navy pilots.
It's a Navy racked by scandal and political intrigue, says ``Frontline.'' I wonder if the thousands of men and women in the Navy in Hampton Roads see it that way.
Rebecca Hanson's story on WHRO tonight will surely intrigue them.
Midwesterner Hanson comes on camera to say when she was training to fly helicopters, she suffered insufferable insults. ``I've had things whispered in my ear that were disgusting. I was the only one in my class not allowed to wear shorts because it would be like I was sexually turning on my classmates.
``In flight training, my superior started out friendly and flirtatious, then came his annoying, obnoxious jokes and questions about my undergarments and what color bikini he'd like to see me in - and other sexual comments.''
After she filed charges against the lieutenant, the Navy punished him for ``inappropriate behavior.'' From that point on, insists Hanson, she was an outcast. Navy records said she did poorly in flight training and didn't have what it takes to be a pilot. Hanson felt she was being persecuted. With her mother, she took her complaints to Sen. David Durenberger of Minnesota who put heat on the Pentagon.
When the Navy's top admirals, including Vietnam war hero Stanley Arthur as Vice Chief of Naval Operations, said they found that Hanson was not being retaliated against, the Hansons and the senator pushed harder. Durenberger asked for but did not receive from the Pentagon the written reports on Hanson's performance in training.
Were they as bad as the Navy said, he wondered?
The senator knew that Arthur's promotion to commander of the Navy's Pacific fleet, CincPac, required confirmation by the senate. ``I decided to get serious and say Admiral Arthur doesn't get his command in the Pacific until I get the answers to my questions,'' he tells ``Frontline.''
Before long, the Secretary of the Navy, John Dalton, and the Chief of Naval Operations, the late Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda, were involved. Arthur began to feel heat from his superior, whose suicide is also dealt with by the ``Frontline'' producers tonight with a chronology of Boorda's last day, even a peek into his office in-basket.
The answers that Hanson and the senator sought never came, nor did Arthur get the command he coveted, nor did Hanson become a Navy flier. She's out of uniform, thinking about attending law school. Arthur, winner of 11 medals in the Vietnam war and a commander of Navy forces in the Persian Gulf War, is retired.
He's a victim of political second-guessing, ``Frontline'' says while wrapping up the Hanson case. He's also a victim of bitter in-fighting, say the producers. They show how a lieutenant junior grade brought down a war-hero flag officer.
``Frontline,'' a documentary series that has won many awards, dabbles in tabloid TV by showing embarrassing pictures from the Tailhook scandal. And there is a chilling video sequence that shows Lt. Kara Hultgreen's fatal crash as she tried a carrier approach in 1994.
That comes as ``Frontline'' focuses on the first generation of Navy female combat pilots and how men in the Navy fought that put down that revolution.
Again, more tension between men and women. ``This program is ultimately about a clash of values between what was the warrior culture and modern values that include equality for women,'' said Kirk.
``The Navy Blues'' is engrossing television. It's certainly no recruiting poster for the Navy. The wonder is that the Navy in Norfolk and elsewhere cooperated with Kirk, allowing him on the base here to take pictures of ships departing on a six-month Med cruise.
The Norfolk-based Enterprise, now in the Persian Gulf and not due back here until Dec. 23, is briefly part of this documentary, which shows men waiting pierside after seeing their women off to sea. Men stay. Women leave in the new Navy.
``It's a Navy,'' say ``Frontline'' producers, ``Which has to face its oldest taboo and let women aboard its ships.'' Kirk and his colleagues make that sound so terrible. Is a Navy with women in prominent roles such a bad thing after all? ILLUSTRATION: AP/WIDEWORLD
Lt Kara Hultgreen, who died trying to land on a carrier, is featured
on "Navy Blues."
KEYWORDS: TAILHOOK by CNB