THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 22, 1995 TAG: 9505200062
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 212 lines
AS ``SHE STOOD Alone: The Tailhook Scandal'' unfolds on ABC tonight, a fellow officer warns admiral's aide Lt. Paula Coughlin about her upcoming trip to a symposium in Las Vegas.
``Watch out for yourself,'' he tells her. ``It will be one big drunken weekend out there.''
Helicopter pilot Coughlin, blond hair swept up, jaw set firm, shoulders straight, says she can take care of herself in Las Vegas, thank you.
As things turned out, Coughlin needed a SWAT team to get her out of the trouble she ran into on the third floor of the Las Vegas Hilton in 1991. She was passed through a gauntlet of Navy and Marine Corps aviators who assaulted her and a number of other women during the 35th Tailhook Association symposium.
``She Stood Alone: The Tailhook Scandal,'' starring Gail O'Grady of ``NYPD Blue,'' is a dramatization of the events surrounding a scandal that shook the Navy from mast to keel. This ``ABC Monday Night Movie'' special airs at 9.
Martha Humphreys, one of three executive producers, said the film was made in 21 days in Vancouver without any cooperation from the Navy or Coughlin. ``None whatsoever,'' said Humphreys, the wife of a retired Navy commander, a pilot who flew missions in Vietnam.
The executive producers and ABC stress that ``She Stood Alone: The Tailhook Scandal'' is based on interviews, court documents, official reports and published accounts. ``We had everything triple-checked,'' said Humphreys, while admitting that some of the characters, such as Coughlin's friend and fellow aviator, Sandi, are composites of several people.
If that's the case, how do we know that the conversations between Coughlin, Sandi and others really took place? The answer is we don't.
Call it dramatic license.
Humphreys insists that the pivotal events of Coughlin's story - the assault at the Hilton, the testimony at hearings - originate in fact. ``There is so much of this on record that the hard part was not finding material. The hard part was to make the material coherent for the television audience.
``For the people in Norfolk, or for someone like myself who was married to a Navy officer for 30 years, the language of the Navy falls easily off the tongue. For this project, we needed a writer who sees the Navy from a distance, someone who could make the story coherent to herself and the viewers not familiar with the military. Suzette Couture accomplished that in her teleplay.''
The Vancouver locale stands in for several stateside venues including Norfolk, where most of the charges arising from Tailhook were heard. The Canadian military offered its help to the producers, and, in Humphreys' words, ``Vancouver on film looks like Any Navy Town, USA.''
Humphreys said she interviewed eyewitnesses to the assault on Coughlin. Viewers may be stunned to see what a roughing-up she took.
It was more than a grope here and a grope there.
``She got beat up,'' said Humphreys. ``I was told that the attack was not so much sexual but rather a beating up on a victim by a pack, by men who were telling her that no matter how hard you try, you will never be one of us.''
There is a pivotal scene early in the film when screenwriter Couture and the executive producers suggest that a word or two from former chief of naval operations Adm. Frank Kelso might have stopped the scandalous behavior by officers and gentlemen before it began. The scene is a panel discussion involving junior officers and the top Navy brass.
A female aviator steps to the microphone to ask when women will fly in combat. She is hooted down by men who say the following:
``Am I going to have to give up my stateroom to a woman?''
``There'll be women flying in combat when hell freezes over.''
``If these women get into combat, can my mom get in, too?''
Hal Holbrook, playing Kelso, sits quietly and says nothing. ``He felt that it was not the time or place to make a stand. As it turned out, he was wrong. The big ugly of that symposium was not budget cuts that were about to hit the aviation community. The big ugly is what happened to Paula Coughlin,'' said Humphreys.
ABC insisted that O'Grady, who leaped from unknown actress to household name as precinct secretary Donna Abandando on ``NYPD Blue,'' be cast as Coughlin. It is a revelation to see O'Grady - who plays a role that is a dumb-blond caricature on ``NYPD Blue'' - handle this assignment so well. She has to spill some emotion here, which O'Grady does, and she also makes you believe she can fly a chopper.
``It was ABC's call to cast Gail in this role, and I'm glad she was the network's choice. She is a talented actress who has a natural vulnerability that makes Paula a sympathetic character,'' said Humphreys.
``As the project began, I was sorry that we did not have Paula's cooperation because I believe she told the truth, and I believe she is right in what she did. On the other hand, if we had the rights to her story, some less-than-honorable people might have said that the film is just her opinion of what happened. I think we have a balanced account of Tailhook and its aftermath. It's a good story.''
Coughlin, the former helicopter pilot who pulled duty in Norfolk, the onetime student at Old Dominion U., has left the Navy after blowing the whistle on boorish behavior that had been tolerated for years. She sued and won a $6.7 million judgment against the Hilton Hotel Corp., alleging inadequate security, which a U.S. district judge reduced last March by $1.5 million.
Tailhook was beginning to fade from the memory of many Americans when Humphreys and her colleagues brought it back to life with the ABC project. For two hours on WVEC tonight, the Navy brass will be thrashed, and thrashed hard.
``They deserve it,'' said Humphreys. ``This film is an indictment of the stonewalling that went on for so long in the Navy after Tailhook. It indicts the Navy for not saying that what happened at Tailhook was a terrible mistake, that it was unequivocally wrong, and that the Navy would take care of it in an expeditious manner. These people are public servants. They owe us the truth; they owe us a high standard of behavior.
``This is ugly, shameful history.''
``She Stood Alone: The Tailhook Scandal,'' which is slightly more compelling than your average made-for-TV flick - I give it 2 1/2 stars out of a possible 4 - will not go down easily here in the capital of the Navy.
Nor should it. MEMO: TAILHOOK CHRONOLOGY
Sept. 5-7, 1991: The 35th annual Tailhook convention takes place at
the Las Vegas Hilton. Dozens of women were assaulted or harassed on the
third-floor hallway and adjacent pool patio.
Oct. 10, 1991: The vice chief of naval operations receives a letter
from Lt. Paula Coughlin, a helicopter pilot, claiming she was molested
by fellow fliers during the Saturday night of the convention. The vice
chief contacts Rear Adm. Duvall M. Williams, the head of the Naval
Investigate Service, and orders an investigation into the assault.
Oct. 29, 1991: Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III ends all Navy
ties with the Tailhook association and starts a second probe into the
Tailhook convention, looking into misconduct and use of Navy planes to
fly officers to the convention.
Nov. 4, 1991: Rear Adm. John W. Snyder Jr. is removed as commander of
the Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, MD., for failing to take
prompt action after his aide, Coughlin, complained about sexual assault
at Tailhook.
April 30, 1992: Reports by the Naval Investigative Service and the
Navy Inspector General's Office are released, revealing that 26 women
were assaulted. Two aviators are named as suspects. Nine others are
considered suspects for other misconduct.
June 10, 1992: Garrett learns of a statement from a Marine officer
that places him in a rowdy ``rhino'' suite.
June 18, 1992: Garrett calls on Defense Department Inspector
General's Office to review the Navy's handling of the Tailhook probe.
June 24, 1992: Coughlin goes public with her Tailhook complaint,
appearing on national TV and granting an interview with The Washington
Post.
June 26, 1992: Garrett resigns as secretary of the Navy.
Sept. 24, 1992: Inspector General Derek Vander Schaaf releases a
report on Tailhook, blasting Navy leaders for bungling the
investigation. Williams and Gordon are forced to retire.
April 23, 1993: Vander Schaaf releases second report on Tailhook,
implicating 140 Navy and Marine fliers and alleging that 83 women were
assaulted during the three-day convention.
May-Sept. 1993: Forty-three Navy fliers are taken to Admiral's Mast
on Tailhook misconduct charges. Twenty-eight are punished. Court Martial
proceedings are started on five Navy fliers and two Marines on criminal
charges. Two of the cases are later dropped; one flier takes nonjudicial
punishment.
Feb. 8, 1994: A military judge in Norfolk dismisses the rest of the
Tailhook cases, ruling that Chief of Naval Operations Frank B. Kelso,
who attended Tailhook, was too involved in the convention to legally
order the investigation and prosecution of Navy fliers.
Oct. 31, 1994: A jury awards Coughlin $6.7 million after a seven-week
civil trial in Las Vegas. The award was later reduced to $5.2 million by
a federal judge.
Compiled by Kerry DeRochi
Tailhook: Where are they now?
LT. PAULA COUGHLIN, the admiral's aide who blew the whistle on the
Tailhook scandal and a former helicopter pilot assigned to the Norfolk
Naval Air Station, resigned from the Navy. In October, 1994, she won a
$6.7 million verdict against the Tailhook Association and the Las Vegas
Hilton for injuries sustained at the 1991 convention. The award was
later reduced to $5.2 million by a federal judge.
Vice Adm. Richard Dunleavy, was the top aviation admiral to attend
the 1991 Tailhook convention. He admitted seeing the gauntlet in action
on the third floor of the Las Vegas Hilton. He was later censured and
retired at a two-star level, only the second flag officer in the last 15
years to retire at a rank lower than the highest one he had attained.
H. Lawrence Garrett III was forced to resign as Navy secretary on
June 26, 1992, after a report surfaced linking him to the rowdy
``rhino'' suite at the convention. He now works in private industry in
northern Virginia.
Adm. Frank B. Kelso II took early retirement as chief of naval
operations in April 1994, due to his role in the Tailhook scandal.
Kelso, who attended the 1991 convention, had been summoned to a Norfolk
military courtroom in November to answer questions about his movements
during the gathering. Despite Kelso's denials, a judge ruled Kelso was
exposed to ``inappropriate behavior,'' including public nudity and leg
shaving. As a result, the Navy's only criminal charges stemming from
Tailhook were dismissed.
Barbara S. Pope, former assistant secretary of the Navy for manpower
and reserve affairs, left office in January 1993 when President Clinton
was inaugurated. She now runs a consulting business, helping companies
handle sexual harassment complaints.
Rear Adm. Duvall M. ``Mac'' Williams, former head of the Naval
Investigative Service, was forced to retire Sept. 26, 1992. He was
criticized by Defense Department agents as fumbling the Navy's Tailhook
probe.
Rear Ad. John E. ``Ted'' Gordon served as the Navy's judge advocate
general before he was forced to retire in September 1992, for his role
in the Navy's Tailhook investigation. Gordon now works for a defense
contractor in Alexandria.
Compiled by Kerry DeRochi
ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
ABC
From left, Robert Urich, Gail O'Grady and Hal Holbrook star in "She
Stood Alone: The Tailhook Scandal," which airs tonight at 9 on ABC,
Channel 13 locally.
ABC
Gail O'Grady of ``NYPD Blue'' stars in ``She Stood Alone: The
Tailhook Scandal,'' which airs tonight at 9 on ABC.
Paula Coughlin received a $6.7 million award, later reduced to $5.2
million, after the seven-week Tailhook trial.
by CNB