Appeal Asks Reagan to Clear Miramar Officer Over Ashtray Purchase
Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger “saw red” over allegations of procurement abuses but “got the wrong person” when he fired the supply officer at Miramar Naval Air Station in May for his involvement in the purchases of two $659 aircraft ashtrays, according to an appeal filed by the officer Thursday.
In a 45-page appeal asking President Reagan to clear his client’s name, the Navy attorney for Cmdr. Jerry L. Fronabarger charged that the supply officer and two other officers were sacked because Weinberger felt pressure from Congress over reports of numerous supply system abuses and was losing momentum for his bid to increase the defense budget.
“The secretary of defense, like most people . . . who had worked long and hard and sincerely to end defense procurement horror stories, simply saw red when he thought someone within the Navy was sticking a finger into his eye,” wrote Cmdr. William D. Hoover, the attorney.
Fronabarger has never publicly discussed his dismissal.
A spokesman in Washington said the Defense Department had no comment on the appeal, which asks Reagan to publicly exonerate Fronabarger.
In the appeal, Hoover wrote that Fronabarger was “sentenced to a lifetime of humiliation” without so much as a hearing.
Weinberger dismissed Fronabarger as supply officer, Capt. Gary E. Hakanson as commanding officer and Rear Adm. Thomas J. Cassidy Jr. as commander of Miramar’s Pacific Fleet Fighter-Airborne Early Warning Wing after media accounts of the ashtray purchases.
“There was no excuse for (the ashtray purchases),” Weinberger said when he announced the firings. “It was back in 1981 . . . the item was identified specifically, and the outrageous price was identified, and there were two signatures on it. Nobody paid the slightest attention to the basic idea that the price bore no relationship whatever to the value of the item procured, or indeed the need for that item.”
The Navy launched a three-week investigation headed by Rear Adm. John Batzler after Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego) and others protested that Hakanson and Fronabarger did not begin working at Miramar’s supply division until 1982, one year after the ashtray purchases were made.
Despite findings by the Navy probe that all three officers performed “superbly” and recommendations that they be exonerated, Navy Secretary John Lehman on July 9 upheld the firings of Fronabarger and Hakanson. He did, however, reinstate Cassidy.
Confronted with a choice between following the recommendations by his investigators or supporting Weinberger’s orders, Lehman “simply carried out his marching orders,” the appeal states.
“He (Lehman) could resign or obey. Resignation in such situations is usually an empty gesture. The secretary of the Navy is not known for empty gestures,” the appeal said.
A Navy spokesman in Washington said Thursday that Lehman’s office would not release a statement. “We can’t comment on any allegations that (Fronabarger) might have because the matter is under appeal,” Lt. Max Allen said.
Despite pledging that the 16-inch-thick investigative report would be made public after Lehman announced his decision, Lehman said that its availability was “out of his hands” and now up to Weinberger.
Lowery wrote Weinberger two weeks ago, demanding to know why the firings of Fronabarger and Hakanson were upheld. A spokesman for Lowery in Washington said Thursday that the congressman has not had a response from the Defense Department.
Cassidy is scheduled to retire Sept. 1, and Hakanson’s retirement became effective Thursday. Fronabarger has been transferred to the Navy International Logistics Control Center in Philadelphia.
When Fronabarger was appointed supply officer at Miramar in August, 1982, he was put in charge of 200,000 supply items valued at $835 million, serving about 250,000 meals per year and storage of $209 million in supply inventory, the appeal said. Fronabarger inherited a staff that declined from 660 to 585 during his tenure and a training budget that amounted to less than $9 per person per year.
According to the appeal, the $659 price tag quoted for the ashtrays by Grumman Corp. was actually a bargain. The Navy investigation found that the current price breakdown for an E-2C Hawkeye aircraft ashtray at the North Island Naval Air Rework Facility in San Diego as of June 1 was $1,288.81, and San Diego’s Metal Dynamics provided an estimate of $3,680.
“Fronabarger’s point was that he was getting a deal and the Navy didn’t have to wait to get the drawings, tool up for the ashtrays or get them out,” said one Navy source familiar with the appeal. “Logically, Grumman was the place to go.”
The appeal states that Fronabarger had made several attempts to stop abuses within the Miramar supply system. He started a hot line to report fraud, waste and abuse and wrote a newsletter called Supply Happenin’s that reminded personnel to abide by procurement guidelines concerning competitive bids and overpricing.
In addition, the appeal states that Fronabarger was not allowed to purchase a $79 industrial vacuum cleaner last year, and instead was ordered to buy a $348 model from a government supply catalogue by the General Services Administration. The GSA ruled that such purchases cannot be approved “on cost consideration alone” when there is no other appreciable difference between an item listed by a private contractor and a government model.
GSA officials have since said that the opinion was wrong and Fronabarger should have been allowed to purchase the less-expensive vacuum cleaner.
