Tailhook Workshop Set Tone, Officers Say : Scandal: They claim catcalls and sexual innuendo led to harassment at hotel; admiral downplays incident.

SAN DIEGO — The tone for the Tailhook sex scandal that erupted in the hallway of a Las Vegas hotel was set a few hours earlier in a workshop where about 2,000 male aviators raucously hooted the idea of women as combat pilots, several Navy officers who attended say.

The audience of mostly men roundly cheered speakers who opposed deploying women as combat aviators, according to a videotape of the Sept. 7, 1991, workshop. They also jeered women officers who asked about their futures in naval aviation, doing so in the presence of top Navy brass who never called for order or chided the aviators for their behavior.

The videotape, reviewed by The Times, also shows an admiral drawing hilarious cheers from the audience by saying, “ . . . if we’re going to do women on the ships right.”

Several male aviators who attended last September’s Tailhook Assn. convention blame the admirals and former Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III, who were at the workshop, for not admonishing the pilots. The Tailhook Assn. is a naval aviation booster group.

The aviators, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that they not be identified, said the workshop created an atmosphere that fostered acceptance of sexist behavior and led to the sexual harassment that followed within about two hours.

The aviators said the flag officers--including Adm. Frank B. Kelso, chief of naval operations, and Adm. Robert J. Kelly, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, who were present at the symposium, should have put a stop to the anti-female conduct, but instead allowed things to get out of hand, then let the blame fall on junior officers.

“Not one of the gentlemen on the panel--not Kelso, not Kelly, not any of the senior people--(stood up to) say, ‘Gentlemen, that’s inappropriate sexual behavior,’ ” an officer who attended said. “ . . . They’re sitting there, and they had an opportunity at that point to say, ‘Gentlemen, stop.’ ”

More than 25 women, half of them Navy officers, charged that they were groped and assaulted on the third floor of the Las Vegas Hilton by a gantlet of Navy and Marine pilots who lined the hallway. A Navy report of the incident said one of the victims was an intoxicated 17-year-old girl who passed out and was partly disrobed and passed from man to man.

Although both Kelly and Kelso were present at the symposium, neither man sat on the panel of officers that took questions from the floor. Both were in the auditorium along with Garrett, who was forced to resign in June because of the Tailhook scandal.

A spokeswoman for Kelso said he was unavailable for comment Monday.

In a telephone interview Monday, Kelly scoffed at the charge that he and the other admirals contributed to the assaults later that evening by not putting a stop to the jeers and catcalls by men in the audience.

“To say that set the tone for the misbehavior of some individuals on the third floor is ludicrous,” Kelly said. “What caused the problem on the third floor was too much alcohol.” He called the hallway attacks against the women “felonious assaults.”

Although Kelly conceded that there were some boos and catcalls when the subject of women pilots was raised or when women officers posed questions to the panel, he said, “They weren’t, in my view, overly loud.”

Kelly also said that, in his opinion, the catcalling and derisive comments did not get out of hand. He said he saw no reason to tone down the question-and-answer session, because the moderator, Vice Adm. Richard M. Dunleavy, was doing a good job of running the panel. Dunleavy retired in June.

Kelly said the catcalls occurred only during a brief period of the workshop, which was held throughout the three-day convention. He said that, on the whole, there was “a professional exchange” between the aviators and the panel members.

In the videotape, a male officer is heard telling the panel of admirals that he participated in a 1991 study that, among other things, revealed that 65% of enlisted women in the pay grades E-4 and below became pregnant while on sea duty.

“It’s killing our (combat) readiness . . . all across the board,” the officer said to sustained applause and shouts of encouragement.

He added: “All the other experiences we’ve had with women on ships, I think it’s going to present a real problem on a combat carrier. . . . We couldn’t have fought the Chosin Reservoir, Hue and anything else if we had 50% female in combat.”

Dunleavy attempted to keep the workshop on track by telling the audience that they were there to discuss the future of women “flying combat aircraft, not the ‘white hats,’ ” or women sailors serving aboard ships. That comment was greeted with a chorus of boos.

Another admiral was asked about a report issued by a presidential commission that is investigating the role of women in combat.

“There’s a lot of recommendations in that report . . . that I think we need to take a good, hard look at,” said the admiral, who was not identified in the videotape.

He paused and then finished the comment with, “if we’re going to do women on the ships right.” The finishing comment was greeted with laughter, applause and shouts of “Yeah, all right!” from the audience.

Dunleavy, apparently addressing the sexual innuendo in the admiral’s remark, said, “What the admiral meant to say was . . . “ but did not finish the sentence as he was drowned out by more shouts and laughter.

Although an overwhelming majority of male aviators oppose putting women in combat aircraft, Dunleavy said that, if Congress passed a law making it legal for women to fly combat missions, the Navy would not hesitate to comply.

“Each time there were calls and cries from people who opposed this point of view, Dunleavy would be very up front and tell them that, when Congress tells us to put ladies in the cockpit, the Navy will be the first to do it,” a retired Navy captain who was at the workshop said.

Both Kelly and the retired captain noted that Tailhook workshops tend to be informal affairs where junior officers typically offer blunt and often brutal comments to their flag officers. Both men said they did not think the exchanges between the admirals and officers ever got out of hand.

“The atmosphere that exists between the panel and audience has always been informal,” Kelly said. “It was designed to do that . . . to allow frank interchange between the aviation community and their leaders.”

Opposition to women as combat pilots alone does not constitute sexual harassment, he said.

“Just because someone has a professional opinion that it is not right for women to take combat positions in aircraft does not make them guilty of sexual harassment, in my view,” Kelly said. “There is a legitimate debate that is currently under way whether this is the right thing to do.”