THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608010426
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 73 lines
He and other leaders of naval aviation tolerated an atmosphere that led to the drunkenness and debauchery that marked the Tailhook Association convention of 1991 and has embarrassed the Navy ever since, President Clinton's nominee to head the service acknowledged Wednesday.
``There was a fundamental flaw in all of us,'' Adm. Jay L. Johnson told the Senate Armed Services Committee. ``I'm not perfect, and I don't know anybody who is.''
But Johnson asserted that his mistakes have made him a stronger, more effective leader and have steeled his determination to ensure that the Navy ends sexual harassment and fully integrates women into its operations.
Johnson, who attended Tailhook '91 but has never been accused of any personal wrongdoing there, confronted the issue near the outset of a 90-minute hearing on his nomination to succeed Adm. Mike Boorda. He acknowledged receiving a ``letter of caution'' from Navy Secretary John H. Dalton criticizing his failure to head off trouble at the convention.
Scandals relating to sexual harassment and controversy over the movement of women into previously all-male jobs have dogged the Navy since Tailhook. Johnson said the service can end the tumultuous era ``by committing ourselves to a standard of behavior and a standard of performance that won't let us fall down that path again.''
By raising the Tailhook issue before senators had a chance to ask about it, Johnson appeared to head off any hostile questioning. Indeed, less than two hours after the hearing ended, the committee agreed to send the nomination to the Senate floor.
A vote there could come today and is expected before Congress begins its August recess Friday.
Assuming he's confirmed, Johnson, 50, will be the second-youngest man to head the Navy and will take over the top job less than six years after winning his first admiral's star. A former commander of the Navy's Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, he makes his permanent home in Virginia Beach.
Johnson has been acting chief of naval operations since Boorda committed suicide May 16. He cast himself Wednesday as a Boorda protege, telling senators, ``I'm Mike Boorda-trained and I'm extremely proud of it.''
He said he'll continue Boorda's emphasis on improving the quality of Navy life, asserting at one point that ``I don't think it's possible to pay our sailors enough for what we ask them to do.''
He also shares Boorda's determination to ensure that peacetime deployments of Navy forces are limited to six months, Johnson said.
On other subjects, Johnson:
Pledged to implement a congressionally ordered submarine construction plan that divides the first four ships in a new class of attack subs between Newport News Shipbuilding and a rival yard in Connecticut. The Navy and the Clinton administration had tried to shift the entire sub program to Electric Boat of Groton, Conn.
Strongly defended the Navy's controversial F/A-18E/F ``Super Hornet'' fighter program, asserting that the smaller C/D model Hornet now in the fleet does not have the room needed to accommodate new electronic and weapons systems. The General Accounting Office has suggested that the Navy buy more C/Ds rather than the more expensive Super Hornet while it continues to work with the Air Force on development of a new strike fighter that will be used by both services.
Agreed that the Navy faces serious problems in finding all the money that will be required to buy the ships and planes needed to maintain the fleet at current levels. The 1997 budget proposed by the Clinton administration included almost $8 billion less for new weapons than the Navy believes it needs, Johnson said. Congress is expected to close part of that gap however.
Said morale problems in the Navy, and particularly among naval aviators, are a concern but are not as bad as some critics assert. In particular, Johnson disputed claims by former Navy Secretary James Webb that unhappiness over the movement of unqualified women into combat jets is driving large numbers of veteran male aviators out of the service.
His own experience in seeing women move into aviation and other all-male jobs ``has been very positive,'' Johnson asserted. And he is satisfied, he said, that women flying off carrier decks are as skilled as their male counterparts. by CNB