home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=92TT1623>
- <title>
- July 20, 1992: Swabbing the Deck
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- July 20, 1992 Olympic Special
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 15
- NATION
- Swabbing the Deck
- </hdr><body>
- <p>The Navy gets a squeaky-clean new boss -- and another black
- eye
- </p>
- <p> Even as Defense Secretary Dick Cheney moved last week to put
- the Tailhook scandal behind him by naming a squeaky-clean number
- cruncher as Acting Navy Secretary, the Pentagon found itself
- embarrassed by new reports of sexual harassment and misconduct
- in the Navy.
- </p>
- <p> At the center of the new charges is Navy Lieut. Paula
- Coughlin, one of 26 women sexually molested during last year's
- Las Vegas Hilton convention of the Tailhook Association, an
- organization of Navy and Marine pilots. Coughlin told officials
- at the Naval Investigative Service in November that the agent
- assigned to her case, Laney Spigener, not only invited her to
- dinner and a drive in the country but, as she was sorting
- through photographs of Navy and Marine aviators in an attempt
- to identify those who had pawed her, also called her
- "sweetcakes." Spigener was removed from the case and suspended
- for three days. In 1990 the agent had been suspended for abusing
- his power in another matter.
- </p>
- <p> In his first message as the Navy's Acting Secretary,
- former Pentagon comptroller Sean O'Keefe, 36, called on all
- officers to cooperate "fully and truthfully" with the Pentagon
- probe into Tailhook. Appointed by Cheney for only a 120-day
- term, O'Keefe will sidestep Senate approval. Good news for the
- Navy, since confirmation hearings would have given lawmakers
- another chance to sound off against the already scandal-weary
- service.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-