The Nation - News from Sept. 20, 1989

The Senate Armed Services Committee will review the Navy investigation of the April explosion on the battleship Iowa to determine whether the service’s panel was justified in blaming the disaster on Petty Officer Clayton M. Hartwig, even though unauthorized practices were followed in firing the battleship’s guns. “This is not the initiation of a separate investigation” but rather “a review of the Navy’s procedures and weighing of evidence,” Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the committee’s ranking Republican, told the Washington Post. Panel Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) has promised to review the Navy’s investigation shortly after House and Senate conferees resolve differences in the Pentagon’s budget authorization bill. Navy investigators concluded that Hartwig “most probably” caused the blast by placing a detonating device between two bags of powder.