DATE: Thursday, May 8, 1997                 TAG: 9705080353

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: STAFF REPORT 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:  127 lines

SEX SCANDAL REACHES TOP ENLISTED RANKS CHARGES AGAINST ARMY SERGEANT MAJOR INVOLVE FOUR WOMEN

Already reeling from the sort of sex scandal that convulsed the Navy early in the decade, the Army on Wednesday saw its top enlisted man charged with sexual misconduct involving four women.

Army Sgt. Maj. Gene McKinney, suspended from his high-profile post in February after he became the focus of sexual harassment allegations, also was charged by his service with adultery, making threats and obstruction of justice.

The Army said the charges involve three female soldiers and one female sailor in incidents that occurred between October 1994 and March 1997. One of McKinney's accusers was a subordinate who alleged that he demanded sex from her during a business trip.

McKinney, 46, has denied the allegations, the first of their kind leveled at the Army's top ranks, and has vowed to fight. As sergeant major of the Army, he was the top enlisted adviser and served Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dennis Reimer.

The charges, which signal the beginning of a military judicial process that can lead to court-martial, bring additional fire on an Army leadership already scrambling to deal with sex scandals at several posts across the country.

They also evoke memories of the maelstrom unleashed inside the Navy and Hampton Roads six years ago, after sexual misbehavior at a Tailhook Association convention of naval aviators kicked off years of self-scrutiny and cultural rejiggering within the seagoing service.

That experience - from which the Navy is still struggling to recover - brought changes in the service's leadership and traditions.

And it gave more urgency to the Navy's effort to integrate female sailors onto combat ships and into aviation squadrons.

In other developments this week, Staff Sgt. Steve A. Holloway, a 14-year Army veteran, pleaded innocent Tuesday to charges that he abused trainees at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. Holloway was part of a group of drill sergeants who cooperated with each other in arranging to have sex with trainees, one of the sergeants said.

And in Aberdeen, Md., Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson was given a 25-year prison sentence on Tuesday, convicted of 18 counts of rape and 29 other offenses. His was the most notorious case yet to come out of the Army's investigations of sexual misconduct.

The apparently deepening scandals ``have to be very disheartening'' to the Army's men and women, given that they now extend to a soldier ``who is supposed to be the epitome'' of the best in the service, said Georgia Sadler, president of the Women in the Military Information Network in Washington.

Sadler cautioned that McKinney ``is innocent until proven guilty,'' and suggested that the best barometer of how serious the harassment problem is throughout the Army may come when Army Secretary Togo G. West releases results of an investigation he ordered after the Aberdeen Proving Ground charges came to light.

Elaine Donnelly, a conservative activist from Michigan who leads a Center for Military Readiness and has lobbied against the movement of women into combat-related roles, said the Army's recent troubles underscore the need for all the services to reconsider some aspects of gender integration.

In particular, she suggested, the services need to move away from mixing men and women during exercises and operations in the field. The Army, Navy and Air Force also should follow the Marine Corps' lead in keeping men and women apart during their initial military training, she said.

But Nancy Duff Campbell, a lawyer who follows military issues at the National Women's Law Center, noted that the allegations against McKinney are unrelated to any training issues; the military could be assured of avoiding such cases only if the sexes were kept completely separate, a practical impossibility, she said.

Campbell said the Army scandals point out the need for stronger leadership to underscore the service's intolerance for sexual misconduct and for investigative procedures to reassure women that their complaints will be taken seriously and resolved fairly.

In particular, she said, the services need to have someone outside of the accused's chain of command initially investigate any harassment claim. Because commanding officers now oversee those inquiries and directly appoint the initial investigators, many women distrust the process, Campbell argued.

An independent, permanent group of investigators also would increase the likelihood that a pattern of offenses, like those that apparently occurred at Aberdeen, would be spotted early, Campbell added.

McKinney said in a brief statement Wednesday that he plans to fight the charges. ``I want the American people to know that I have not done any of these things,'' he said at his lawyer's office in Alexandria. He was accompanied by his wife, Wilhemina.

McKinney's lawyer, Charles Gittins, said the defense has ``great concern'' whether race was a factor in the alleged incidents. He believes all of his client's accusers are white, Gittins added.

The Army has denied that race is an issue in its investigations of sexual misconduct, in particular at Aberdeen, where several black drill sergeants face sexual harassment charges.

A Defense Department spokesman called suggestions that race has been a factor ``absurd'' at a Tuesday press conference.

McKinney has been the senior enlisted adviser to the Army's chief of staff since June 30, 1995. His position is considered one of the most prestigious in the service, representing, as it does, the vast majority of all soldiers at the highest levels of the Army. Only 10 men have held the job.

He was suspended following the accusations of retired Sgt. Maj. Brenda Hoster, a former member of his staff who said McKinney kissed her, grabbed her and demanded sex during a business trip to Hawaii.

Hoster, a public affairs specialist who retired after 22 years of service, came forward after learning that McKinney had been appointed to a high-level Army panel investigating the service's sexual harassment problems.

She is one of the four women referred to in Wednesday's charges, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

McKinney's suspension came one day after Hoster publicly complained of a ``different system of justice'' for the service's upper ranks. She noted that drill sergeants accused of sexual misconduct were suspended immediately while McKinney had been allowed to stay on.

After McKinney was suspended, there were reports that other women had alleged that McKinney had acted inappropriately with them.

Those reports led to charges that include four counts of indecent assault, two counts of assault, one count of adultery, two counts of communicating a threat, two counts of obstruction of justice, three counts of solicitation of adultery and four counts of maltreatment of soldiers, the Army said.

McKinney's suspension did not strip him of his title, which he retains despite the fact that he has been assigned to the staff of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington in place of performing his regular duties.

``Sgt. Maj. McKinney is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty,'' an Army statement on the charges said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by ASSOCIATED PRESS

Army Sgt. Major Gene McKinney, the Army's top enlisted man, denied

the charges of sexual misconduct and indecent assault that the Army

levied against him Wednesday. McKinney, flanked by his wife

Wilhemina, in background, and lawyer Charles Gittins, vowed at a

press conference in Alexandria to fight the charges. KEYWORDS: SEX SCANDAL U.S. ARMY SEXUAL HARRASSMENT

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