On Tuesday (3-12), top Navy officials asked the Senate Armed Services Committee to reverse itself and allow them to promote a pilot involved in the 1991 Tailhook sexual harassment scandal. The committee has not yet made a decision on the request to promote Commander Robert Stumpf, who Navy officials said was wrongly accused of witnessing a lewd act. Stumpf denies seeing the lewd act in which Navy pilots groped women in a hallway, but admitted that he watched part of a stripper’s performance at the annual Tailhook Association convention in Las Vegas.
Former committee chair Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) accused the committee of unfairly holing up Stumpf’s promotion. While Nunn was chair, the committee put a hold on all Navy and Marine Corps officers until obtaining proof that they were not involved in the Tailhook affair. However, the committee has apparently approved over 43,000 such promotions, 15 of which were given to officers disciplined for Tailhook conduct. Navy Secretary John Dalton and Admiral Mike Boorda, chief of naval operations, asked the committee to drop the remaining holds on promotions for Tailhook offenders, an act that would affect about 25 officers.
