THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 16, 1996 TAG: 9603160352
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
Navy Cmdr. Robert Stumpf took his fight for advancement to captain into federal court here Friday, asking a judge to declare that the service's civilian leader had no authority to withdraw his name from a promotion list last year.
The Virginia Beach-based aviator, his promising career sidetracked by allegations that he witnessed an illegal sex act committed by other Navy fliers, filed a suit alleging that Navy Secretary John H. Dalton gave in to improper pressure from a U.S. Senate committee.
Dalton acted despite the findings of a Navy board of inquiry that cleared Stumpf of any misconduct, the suit notes. It argues that the secretary's action violated a federal law allowing promotions to be canceled only if ``there is cause to believe the officer is mentally, physically, morally or professionally unqualified.''
The suit seeks no monetary damages, other than the payment of Stumpf's attorney fees. It says the court should declare that Stumpf has been a captain since last July, when other commanders on the same promotion list were advanced.
A Navy spokesman said late Friday that the service's lawyers had not seen the suit and could not comment.
The filing marked a dramatic escalation in Stumpf's unusual public campaign for promotion. It came just two days after the Senate Armed Services Committee declined to withdraw its objections to Stumpf, a decorated veteran of the Persian Gulf War and a former commander of the Navy's Blue Angels squadron of precision fliers.
Stumpf's case has attracted national attention, with veterans and conservative activists phoning, writing and faxing lawmakers on his behalf.
``It's a shame it came to this, but looking at the big picture it appears there's no other option,'' said Elaine Donnelly, head of the Michigan-based Center for Military Readiness and a Stumpf supporter.
Stumpf ``went the extra mile,'' in pushing the Armed Services Committee to withdraw its objections to him, Donnelly asserted, but the committee declined even to permit him to appear and answer the allegations of misconduct.
The committee and later the full Senate approved Stumpf for promotion in 1994, shortly after the Navy submitted his name. But before he could be formally advanced, the service discovered it had failed to tell senators of Stumpf's attendance at the 1991 Tailhook Association convention of naval aviators.
Stumpf went to Tailhook, where dozens of Navy and civilian women were sexually assaulted by drunken fliers, to receive an award for his Gulf War exploits. He never was accused of taking part in illegal activity, but acknowledged being present in a hotel suite during a striptease act.
A Navy board of inquiry, whose report was appended to the suit, concluded that Stumpf did not know of or contribute to a collection to pay the stripper to perform oral sex on another flier. The board also said Stumpf had left the suite and returned to his room by the time the sex act occurred.
Once the committee was told of Stumpf's attendance at Tailhook, it asked Dalton to delay his promotion while it conducted its own investigation. Details of that probe have never been released, but in a letter last fall, Committee Chairman J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and ranking Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia told Dalton that the panel would not have approved Stumpf in 1994 had it known of the allegations.
Because Stumpf already had been confirmed by the full Senate, however, the decision on advancing him was Dalton's, wrote Sturmond and Nunn. Dalton reaffirmed his own support for Stumpf in a meeting with the committee this week, but has said he felt constrained to bow to the panel's wishes and so removed Stumpf from the list.
While refusing to withdraw its objections to Stumpf, the committee also suggested that much of what's been publicly said about the allegations and its handling of them ``is inaccurate and incomplete.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Cmdr. Robert Stumpf filed suit Friday in federal court.
KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT U.S. NAVY PROMOTION by CNB