Retired Navy Commander Carries On One-Man Crusade to Tighten Security

Life isn’t easy when you believe you’re the only one who cares about national security.

Just getting people to listen to you can be a full-time chore. If you don’t believe me, just ask Robert Russell Sammon.

Sammon, who is 75 and has lived in Coronado off and on for 40 years, believes he has detected shockingly sloppy security at San Diego military bases. For more than a decade, he has been trying to arouse a sleeping nation.

All he’s gotten for his labors are cold shoulders, unanswered letters and unreturned phone calls. Plus a restriction at North Island Naval Air Station.

As a retired Navy commander, he had full base privileges. But then he started talking about bringing on large packages marked “DYNAMITE” and “HIGH EXPLOSIVES” to prove his point about laxity.

The commanding officer restricted his access to only the commissary and Navy Exchange “in the best interest of all concerned.”

Mostly, Sammon, who served (the Navy confirms) in World War II, has carried on a quixotic correspondence with political and military officials.

His letters consist of pasted-up collages of newspaper headlines with Sammon’s sermon of the day: i.e., “Very bad security for pilots at bases and terrorists know it.”

As a freshman back in 1981, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado) put Sammon on one of his advisory committees. Sammon proceeded to have business cards printed up showing his new status.

But now Sammon has worn out his welcome with his voluminous offerings and rambling explanations.

The advisory committee is disbanded, and, when asked what ties Sammon has has to Hunter, a Hunter spokesman is unequivocal: “None.”

Sammon has also written to Jim Bates, Les Aspin, Dick Cheney, John Sununu, Pete Wilson (as mayor, senator and governor), FBI officials and businessman J. Peter Grace (chairman of a blue-ribbon task force on government waste under President Reagan).

Is he deterred? Not on your aircraft carriers, he’s not:

“Navygate is 1,000 times worse than Watergate, but I’m not going to stop. I’m not one of those who watches ballgames and soap operas at night.”

Prayers for Prisoners: No Film at 11

Look here.

* Television reporters were rebuffed in their attempt to film nuns from Mother Teresa’s Missionary Sisters of Charity praying for Robert Alton Harris, who is set to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

A spokesman for the San Diego Catholic diocese says the nuns at the House of Prayer in Southeast San Diego will not be saying prayers specifically for Harris, just generic prayers for all condemned prisoners.

* Eight San Diego cops will travel by motorhome to Northern California on Monday to show support for cop Steve Baker, whose son was one of Harris’ victims.

The eight, plus two civilians, will avoid the anti-death-penalty demonstrators outside San Quentin Prison and instead will park in a space provided by the Marin County Sheriff’s Department.

After they get word that Harris is dead, the San Diegans will head for home.

* There’s always a local angle.

In its nine years, the TV show “Star Search” has had them all: singers, dancers, jugglers, joke-tellers, dog trainers, acrobats, etc.

Now this Saturday (KGTV-Channel 10, 7 p.m.), the show’s first opera singer: Tanya Brno, 11, of Vista. She’ll belt out “My Dear Marquis” from “Die Fledermaus.”

* Yes, a guy at the U2 concert Wednesday night at the Sports Arena was actually wearing a Desert Storm T-shirt. (U2 is very much make-love-not-war).

* U2 lead singer Bono Hewson told the SRO crowd that it was the loudest that the group has played to.

And maybe the most mellow. Except for the guy who doused Hewson with beer.

Let Her Make This Perfectly Clear . . .

Great moments in political dialogue.

At the Board of Supervisors meeting this week at the beginning of a discussion requested by Supervisor Susan Golding of the Grand Jury report about widespread welfare fraud:

Board Chairman George Bailey, lightly: “Always involved in fraud, eh, Susan?”

Silence.

Golding, coolly: “In fighting it, yes, Mr. Chairman.”