THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 13, 1996 TAG: 9607130218
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: HEARST NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 70 lines
Former Navy Secretary James H. Webb Jr. called on the Navy's leaders Friday to step forward and defend the service against what he said is political meddling in Navy business.
``The No. 1 problem for the Navy to fix right now is the strength of the leadership at the top and its obligation to defend the military culture,'' said Webb, a 1968 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.
Webb's comments Friday echoed remarks he made April 25 at the academy in Annapolis, Md., when he blistered senior Navy officials for what he said was their failure to stick up for officers who have become the target of congressional scrutiny following the Tailhook scandal.
While he did not mention then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda by name in the April speech, Webb's comments were cited after Boorda's May 16 suicide as a factor that may have been troubling the Navy chief.
During his remarks Friday at a Capitol Hill luncheon organized by the nonprofit Defense Forum Foundation, Webb mentioned Boorda only briefly.
``One thing I hope will come out of Adm. Boorda's tragedy is the ability for everyone to sit down and look hard at where things are and to agree to move forward in a very sober manner toward solving a lot of the problems that were surrounding the Navy at that time and are still here now,'' said Webb, who was Navy secretary in the Reagan administration.
Webb said he hopes one of the first changes will be an end to the Senate Armed Services Committee's practice of doing special reviews of Navy officers who attended the 1991 Tailhook convention, even if they have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
The most famous such case is that of Cmdr. Robert E. Stumpf, who was nominated for promotion to captain but failed to get past the Senate committee because of lingering questions about his conduct at the convention.
Stumpf said Friday that he will retire from the Navy effective Oct. 1.
A Navy board had cleared Stumpf of any criminal wrongdoing at the convention, but the Senate panel twice decided not to approve his promotion out of concerns about a wild party in his squadron's suite at the convention and his use of a Navy F/A-18 fighter to get there.
Webb called it ``congressional overreaching'' for members of the committee to review all records in an officer's dossier, and not just those contained in the files that are reviewed by promotion boards. Those boards recommend the promotions that then must be confirmed by the Senate.
Webb said that while there are many areas in which political debate is important - including the size of the military budget, the nation's military commitments around the world, and oversight of procurement and other business matters - Senate review of promotions should be limited to the most senior officers.
``It is not acceptable, and indeed it is harmful, when the political process decides to use the military as a controlled laboratory for social experimentation, when it intrudes into command prerogatives, and when it decides, as was done recently after the Tailhook debacle, that it has either the authority or the expertise to take apart the results of lower-level promotion boards and voice political judgment in otherwise military matters,'' Webb said.
The Pentagon has asked the armed services panel to end its extra review of officers who attended the convention.
Chris Kelley Cimko, spokesman for Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., who chairs the panel, said the committee has discussed putting an end to the practice, but has not yet decided to do so.
Webb also faulted Navy leaders for their handling of the Tailhook scandal, which he called ``exactly backwards.''
Rather than quickly deal with ``the handful of people who were truly over the line . . . and then protect the culture of the institution,'' Webb said, Navy leaders let probes into the incident drag. ILLUSTRATION: Webb by CNB