THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 31, 1995 TAG: 9501310268
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
The Navy's top admiral says he made perhaps the biggest mistake of his career last year in deciding not to fight for the nomination of Adm. Stanley R. Arthur to be commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific.
``I should have fought this to the end. (Instead) I helped screw it up and don't feel good about it,'' Adm. Jeremy Michael Boorda, the chief of naval operations, told Washingtonian Magazine.
Arthur agreed to withdraw his nomination for the Pacific post to avoid a long and potentially bitter confirmation fight in the Senate. Sen. Dave Durenberger, a Minnesota Republican, had put a hold on the nomination because of questions over Arthur's role in a sexual harassment investigation.
Arthur was not accused of harassment. But Lt. j.g. Rebecca Hansen, an aspiring helicopter pilot, charged that he did not protect her when other officers flunked her out of flight school in what she said was retaliation for her earlier filing of a harassment complaint.
A Navy investigation, reviewed by Arthur, found that Hansen was harassed by a helicopter instructor in 1992. The officer was reprimanded and has left the service.
But Arthur said that Hansen's failure at flight school resulted from subpar performance, not a plot by other officers to punish her for the harassment case.
As Durenberger pressed for a hearing on the matter last June during Arthur's confirmation for the Pacific command, Boorda and Arthur decided to withdraw the nomination. The decision angered naval aviators - Arthur is a popular and much-decorated pilot - and prompted public complaints from some retired senior officers.
Arthur agreed to stay on as vice chief of naval operations, Boorda's top deputy, after the flap. He is scheduled to retire Wednesday.
Hansen was forced out of the service last summer after rejecting offers by the Navy to help her pursue another career path.
Boorda's comments on the case were part of a profile of him in the February Washingtonian, which hit newsstands Monday. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Arthur
by CNB