Zero Tolerance?

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WHEN TALES OF DRUNKEN AVIATORS ASSAULTING women at the Tailhook Association convention became public last year, the Navy professed "zero tolerance" for sexual harassment. But in its review of the Navy's handling of the scandal, the Pentagon last week concluded that senior officers who had conducted the inquiry were more concerned about safeguarding the Navy's reputation and protecting officers than naming names or seeking justice.

At a Pentagon briefing on the report, Acting Navy Secretary Sean O'Keefe announced the early retirement of two senior officers who had been charged with heading the inquiry -- Rear Admiral John Gordon, the Navy's judge advocate general, and Rear Admiral Duvall ("Mac") Williams Jr., commander of the Naval Investigative Service. Both promptly disputed the report. Williams and Assistant Navy Secretary Barbara Pope had a "screaming match" in which Williams compared female Navy pilots to "go-go dancers, topless dancers or hookers."

O'Keefe acknowledged that widespread tolerance of demeaning behavior toward women had created conditions that led to the scandal. After promising to fire all who fail to comply with the Navy's new zero-tolerance policy, O'Keefe said, "We get it." But many junior and senior officers braced for the release of a follow-up report in December, which could result in the filing of multiple assault charges.