Tailhook Scandal

THE TAILHOOK Association is a private organization whose membership includes active duty, reserve, and retired U.S. Marine Corps and Navy flyers, defense contractors, and others. The Tailhook symposium, a reunion of flyers, began in 1956. It moved from San Diego, California, to Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1963, becoming more than a reunion by adding seminars and professional development activities. From the initial symposium, the U.S. Navy and defense contractors provided significant support to the annual meeting, and the board of directors and president were customarily active and retired naval flyers. As of 1992, the membership consisted of 10 corporations and over 15,000 individuals.

The activities of the association came under close examination in 1993 when Navy Lieutenant Paula Coughlin publicly disclosed on ABC News what had transpired at the Tailhook convention she attended. Coughlin was a helicopter pilot and admiral's aid. Even if she knew that there was wild partying at the Tailhook conventions, she thought she was “one of the guys.” That is, until she stepped off the hotel elevator into the gauntlet of officers who grabbed at her body and clothing and made raucous comments. As it happened she was one of many, male and female, who suffered the same indignities. It didn't help that Admiral John W. Snyder acknowledged her objection by saying, “That's what you get when you go on the third deck full of drunk aviators.”

Coughlin filed charges, got tired of the delays in official channels, and went public. After seven months, the Naval Investigative Service and the inspector general reported that they had investigated 140 cases of misconduct. Tailhook was a debauch, with 80 to 90 victims. H. Lawrence Garrett III, secretary of the navy, ordered the navy and marines to begin disciplinary action against 70, including 50 charged with forcing women to run the gauntlet and six accused of obstructing the investigation. The secretary and Chief of Naval Operations Frank Kelso were at Tailhook but failed to intercede. Both denied being aware of the harassment, but when witnesses placed them near the gauntlet, Garrett resigned immediately and Kelso retired early when the Senate, by a 54 to 43 vote, allowed him to retire with his four admiral stars intact.

Kelso and Garrett had previously tried to improve women's status, to open opportunity, to discourage sexual harassment. And in 1992, Kelso had sought Senatorial permission for women to fly in combat. Tailhook undid all of that.

Immediate damage was extensive. Coughlin's boss, Snyder, was relieved of duty for ignoring her complaints. Three admirals were censured, a career-[Page 784]ending black mark, for not stopping the behavior. Thirty more admirals got letters of caution put into their permanent records. And more than three dozen captains and commanders and marine colonels received fines or letters of censure or reprimand. In total, 117 officers were implicated in one improper behavior or another; only 10 junior grade officers received letters of admonition or fines. There were innocent bystanders, too. One commander was unfairly denied promotion in 1995 because he was in Las Vegas at the time; he was not however at Tailhook, and a court of inquiry exonerated him.

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