THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 29, 1995 TAG: 9512290591
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: THE BALTIMORE SUN
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
In a belated aftermath to the 1991 Tailhook scandal, Navy Secretary John Dalton Thursday denied a Senate-approved promotion to a former commander of the Blue Angels who is training for a mission to Bosnia.
Though he originally sponsored the promotion, Dalton rejected it after a Senate committee - which also initially approved the promotion - had second thoughts. The committee's change of mind came after discovering the officer's attendance at the aviators' convention where dozens of women were sexually harassed.
Cmdr. Robert E. Stumpf, who led the Blue Angels from 1992 to 1994, went to the convention in Las Vegas but was cleared by a Navy court of inquiry of any misconduct there. He was at Tailhook to receive an award for his strike-fighter squadron's combat performance during the Persian Gulf War.
The secretary's decision outraged Stumpf, a 1974 Naval Academy graduate, and his attorney.
``I am completely chagrined that four years after the Tailhook convention it is still taking down good men who had no part of any of the misconduct involved,'' Stumpf said. He is training in Norfolk to take over as deputy commander next month of an air wing on the Bosnia-bound carrier Eisenhower.
Before the Navy secretary recommended the promotion last year, he interviewed Stumpf to satisfy himself there were no impediments.
The commander's name, with others, was sent by the Pentagon to the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 1994. The Senate has to confirm all officer promotions.
Accompanying the list was a Pentagon assurance, required by the committee, that none of the officers nominated had been ``potentially implicated in the Tailhook incident.''
But when the committee learned of the Tailhook connection, it decided to review Stumpf's record.
Stumpf was informed Thursday he would not be promoted.
KEYWORDS: TAILHOOK U.S. NAVY SEXUAL HARASSMENT
ASSAULT by CNB