Fired Navy Supply Officer Asks Reagan to Clear Name

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 on 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, Fronabarger’s attorney.

It was Fronabarger’s first public response to his dismissal.

A spokesman in Washington said the Defense Department had no comment on the appeal, which asks Reagan to publicly exonerate Fronabarger of any wrongdoing.

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.

The Navy launched a three-week investigation headed by Rear Adm. John Batzler after Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego) and others protested that the three officers did not begin working at Miramar’s supply division until 1982, one year after the ashtray purchases took place.

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 reinstated Cassidy and upheld the firings of Fronabarger and Hakanson.