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Adm. Frank B. Kelso Dies at 79; Tied to Tailhook Scandal
by John H. Cushman, Jr.
New York Times
June 28, 2013
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
WASHINGTON — Adm. Frank B. Kelso II, who retired under pressure as chief of naval operations in 1994 in the aftermath of rampant sexual misconduct by Navy officers at an aviation convention known as Tailhook, died on Sunday in Norfolk, Va. He was 79.
The Navy said the cause was complications of injuries he sustained in a fall last week. He lived in Fayetteville, Tenn.
Rising from the ranks of submariners, Admiral Kelso held top naval commands in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic in the 1980s. He oversaw capture of the terrorists who had hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro. He led air strikes against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Libya in 1986. In 1990 and 1991, as chief of naval operations, he directed the American naval effort in the Persian Gulf war from his seat among the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
But his career was tarnished in 1991, when dozens of women, including officers, were sexually assaulted and harassed at the annual meeting in Las Vegas of a booster group called the Tailhook Association.
Three investigations eventually implicated 140 Navy and Marine Corps pilots in assaults on 83 women in what the Pentagon’s office of inspector general described as “an atmosphere of debauchery.” Dozens of officers were fined or disciplined out of court, and many of their careers were derailed, but nobody was court-martialed.
The scandal, which exposed a culture of misogyny that permeated the ranks and was tolerated or ignored by commanders, came at a time when women seeking equality in the military faced ingrained resistance.
Decades later, despite the widening roles for women in combat and throughout the services, the military continues to struggle with persistent reports of violence, rape and mistreatment of women in the ranks.
In the years after Tailhook — the term refers to a grappling device that arrests planes landing on the short decks of aircraft carriers — Admiral Kelso himself supported the opening of new roles for women in the Navy, including as combat pilots. He once said that a turning point for him had come when he interviewed candidates for a select assignment as master chief petty officer of the Navy. He asked them, as voices of the seafaring rank and file, whether the rules concerning women should change. “Why don’t we get on with it?” he said they replied.
But as the Tailhook investigations rattled the service, he came under sustained pressure. He offered to resign in 1992, but was turned down. The Navy secretary, H. Lawrence Garrett III, did resign that year; his successor, John Dalton, pressed for Admiral Kelso’s removal in 1993 but was rebuffed by the defense secretary, Les Aspin, who had been appointed by the new president, Bill Clinton.
Finally, a Navy judge, Capt. William T. Vest Jr., found that Admiral Kelso had lied when he said that he had not observed any improper behavior by pilots at the Tailhook convention, which he had attended. Captain Vest said Admiral Kelso had tried to manipulate the investigations.
Admiral Kelso and top officials disputed the evidence and denounced Captain Vest’s conclusions. But a few days later Admiral Kelso agreed to step aside, just two months earlier than planned, in exchange for a tribute from the defense secretary, William J. Perry, who had succeeded Mr. Aspin. Mr. Perry called Admiral Kelso a man of “highest integrity and honor.”
Women in Congress, and others, objected. Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, a Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that “the military’s bad-faith handling of the Tailhook scandal shows that we are a government of admirals, not of laws.”
Congressional critics demanded that Admiral Kelso be denied his full pension. But after hours of debate, the Senate finally voted to let him retire with his four-star rank and benefits intact.
Years later, he worried about the lasting damage not only to his own reputation but also to the Navy’s.
“It’s kind of like, a father gives you a good name,” he told the public television program “Frontline.” “You can stain it once and it stays with you for a long, long time. The good name is hard to restore. That’s kind of how I see it. And if you want to keep giving the Navy that stain, I think it’s really unfair.”
Frank Benton Kelso II was born in Fayetteville on July 11, 1933. He joined the submarine force after graduating from the United States Naval Academy in 1956. He commanded two nuclear submarines.
After his promotion to rear admiral, he worked in the office of President Ronald Reagan’s first Navy secretary, John F. Lehman Jr. The administration had ambitions to build a bigger fleet, but the proposed expansion was cut short; by the time Admiral Kelso became chief of naval operations in 1990, the cold war was over, the so-called peace dividend — a shrinking Pentagon budget — was coming due, and the Navy had to strain to dispatch its flotillas to far seas like the Persian Gulf.
Admiral Kelso moved back to Tennessee after retiring. His wife of 56 years, the former Landess McCown, died last year. He recently married Georgeanna Robinson, who survives him. Survivors also include two sons, Thomas and Donald, a retired Navy captain; two daughters, Mary Kearns and Kerry Thomas; and eight grandchildren.
A version of this article appears in print on June 29, 2013, on Page B8 of the New York edition with the headline: Adm. Frank B. Kelso, 79; Tied to Tailhook Scandal.
by John H. Cushman, Jr.
New York Times
June 28, 2013
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
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WASHINGTON — Adm. Frank B. Kelso II, who retired under pressure as chief of naval operations in 1994 in the aftermath of rampant sexual misconduct by Navy officers at an aviation convention known as Tailhook, died on Sunday in Norfolk, Va. He was 79.
The Navy said the cause was complications of injuries he sustained in a fall last week. He lived in Fayetteville, Tenn.
Rising from the ranks of submariners, Admiral Kelso held top naval commands in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic in the 1980s. He oversaw capture of the terrorists who had hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro. He led air strikes against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Libya in 1986. In 1990 and 1991, as chief of naval operations, he directed the American naval effort in the Persian Gulf war from his seat among the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
But his career was tarnished in 1991, when dozens of women, including officers, were sexually assaulted and harassed at the annual meeting in Las Vegas of a booster group called the Tailhook Association.
Three investigations eventually implicated 140 Navy and Marine Corps pilots in assaults on 83 women in what the Pentagon’s office of inspector general described as “an atmosphere of debauchery.” Dozens of officers were fined or disciplined out of court, and many of their careers were derailed, but nobody was court-martialed.
The scandal, which exposed a culture of misogyny that permeated the ranks and was tolerated or ignored by commanders, came at a time when women seeking equality in the military faced ingrained resistance.
Decades later, despite the widening roles for women in combat and throughout the services, the military continues to struggle with persistent reports of violence, rape and mistreatment of women in the ranks.
In the years after Tailhook — the term refers to a grappling device that arrests planes landing on the short decks of aircraft carriers — Admiral Kelso himself supported the opening of new roles for women in the Navy, including as combat pilots. He once said that a turning point for him had come when he interviewed candidates for a select assignment as master chief petty officer of the Navy. He asked them, as voices of the seafaring rank and file, whether the rules concerning women should change. “Why don’t we get on with it?” he said they replied.
But as the Tailhook investigations rattled the service, he came under sustained pressure. He offered to resign in 1992, but was turned down. The Navy secretary, H. Lawrence Garrett III, did resign that year; his successor, John Dalton, pressed for Admiral Kelso’s removal in 1993 but was rebuffed by the defense secretary, Les Aspin, who had been appointed by the new president, Bill Clinton.
Finally, a Navy judge, Capt. William T. Vest Jr., found that Admiral Kelso had lied when he said that he had not observed any improper behavior by pilots at the Tailhook convention, which he had attended. Captain Vest said Admiral Kelso had tried to manipulate the investigations.
Admiral Kelso and top officials disputed the evidence and denounced Captain Vest’s conclusions. But a few days later Admiral Kelso agreed to step aside, just two months earlier than planned, in exchange for a tribute from the defense secretary, William J. Perry, who had succeeded Mr. Aspin. Mr. Perry called Admiral Kelso a man of “highest integrity and honor.”
Women in Congress, and others, objected. Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, a Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that “the military’s bad-faith handling of the Tailhook scandal shows that we are a government of admirals, not of laws.”
Congressional critics demanded that Admiral Kelso be denied his full pension. But after hours of debate, the Senate finally voted to let him retire with his four-star rank and benefits intact.
Years later, he worried about the lasting damage not only to his own reputation but also to the Navy’s.
“It’s kind of like, a father gives you a good name,” he told the public television program “Frontline.” “You can stain it once and it stays with you for a long, long time. The good name is hard to restore. That’s kind of how I see it. And if you want to keep giving the Navy that stain, I think it’s really unfair.”
Frank Benton Kelso II was born in Fayetteville on July 11, 1933. He joined the submarine force after graduating from the United States Naval Academy in 1956. He commanded two nuclear submarines.
After his promotion to rear admiral, he worked in the office of President Ronald Reagan’s first Navy secretary, John F. Lehman Jr. The administration had ambitions to build a bigger fleet, but the proposed expansion was cut short; by the time Admiral Kelso became chief of naval operations in 1990, the cold war was over, the so-called peace dividend — a shrinking Pentagon budget — was coming due, and the Navy had to strain to dispatch its flotillas to far seas like the Persian Gulf.
Admiral Kelso moved back to Tennessee after retiring. His wife of 56 years, the former Landess McCown, died last year. He recently married Georgeanna Robinson, who survives him. Survivors also include two sons, Thomas and Donald, a retired Navy captain; two daughters, Mary Kearns and Kerry Thomas; and eight grandchildren.
Admiral Kelso retired with his wife, Landess McCown Kelso (who died in 2012), to his place of birth in Fayetteville, Tennessee in 2003. He died from complications of a fall and severe head injury on June 23, 2013, in Norfolk, Virginia, where he had gone to attend his grandson's graduation. He had been married to his second wife, Georgia Robinson, for just two weeks. He is also survived by two sons (both of whom served in the Navy) and two daughters.[4]
-- Frank Kelso, by Wikipedia
A version of this article appears in print on June 29, 2013, on Page B8 of the New York edition with the headline: Adm. Frank B. Kelso, 79; Tied to Tailhook Scandal.