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- THE WEEK, Page 15NATIONSwabbing the Deck
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- The Navy gets a squeaky-clean new boss -- and another black
- eye
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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