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- THE WEEK, Page 19NATIONZero Tolerance?
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- A report blasts Navy investigators for bungling the Tailhook
- inquiry
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- When tales of drunken aviators assaulting women at the
- Tailhook Association convention became public last year, the Navy
- professed "zero tolerance" for sexual harassment. But in its
- review of the Navy's handling of the scandal, the Pentagon last
- week concluded that senior officers who had conducted the
- inquiry were more concerned about safeguarding the Navy's
- reputation and protecting officers than naming names or seeking
- justice.
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- At a Pentagon briefing on the report, Acting Navy
- Secretary Sean O'Keefe announced the early retirement of two
- senior officers who had been charged with heading the inquiry
- -- Rear Admiral John Gordon, the Navy's judge advocate general,
- and Rear Admiral Duvall ("Mac") Williams Jr., commander of the
- Naval Investigative Service. Both promptly disputed the report.
- Williams and Assistant Navy Secretary Barbara Pope had a
- "screaming match" in which Williams compared female Navy pilots
- to "go-go dancers, topless dancers or hookers."
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- O'Keefe acknowledged that widespread tolerance of
- demeaning behavior toward women had created conditions that led
- to the scandal. After promising to fire all who fail to comply
- with the Navy's new zero-tolerance policy, O'Keefe said, "We
- get it." But many junior and senior officers braced for the
- release of a follow-up report in December, which could result
- in the filing of multiple assault charges.
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