Cunningham Wants Follies’ Punishment Re-Evaluated

U.S. Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham said Tuesday that he has asked the secretary of defense to consider whether five Navy officers fell victim to a “witch hunt” when they were relieved of duties for allowing lewd skits.

Cunningham said the Navy may have overreacted in disciplining the men because of embarrassment over the Tailhook sexual harassment scandal. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who has the authority to reverse the punishments, promised to review the cases, Cunningham said.

“All I asked of Dick Cheney is that he review this, because I believe that in this witch hunt that’s going on, we shouldn’t paint the innocent with the guilty,” said Cunningham, a former Navy flier who served in Vietnam.

The five officers--Cmdr. Robert H. Clement, Capt. Richard F. Braden, Capt. George L. Moe, Cmdr. David M. Tyler and Lt. Cmdr. Dale A. Bruetting--were permanently relieved of their duties at Miramar Naval Air Station last week.

They were disciplined because pilots in their charge performed the skits June 18 at the base officers’ club as part of the annual “Tomcat Follies,” a show honoring the Navy’s “Top Gun” pilots, who fly the F-14 Tomcat fighter jet.

During one of the skits, officers held up a vulgar sign that associated U.S. Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) with oral sex. The other skit included a line about Schroeder going to Europe for a sex-change operation.

Schroeder apparently was targeted because she had been critical of the Navy’s handling of a sexual harassment scandal involving pilots at the 1991 Tailhook Assn. convention in Las Vegas. Cunningham said “the guilty should be made to pay” for the Tailhook scandal, but that the officers involved in the Tomcat Follies may be suffering an undue backlash.

Cunningham said the officers’ First Amendment rights to free speech may have been violated.

Cunningham specifically defended the actions of Clement, saying the commander of Fighter Squadron 111 had warned his officers that they should not “get out of hand” during the Tomcat Follies.

“Here is an example of someone who flew in Vietnam. He flew in Desert Storm. He’s highly decorated,” Cunningham said. “I don’t want these guys to suffer punishment they don’t deserve.”

Cunningham also expressed concern over the tactics of the Pentagon inspector general’s probe into the alleged sexual misconduct at the Tailhook convention. He said he has received telephone calls from the wives of some officers claiming investigators may be violating the officers’ rights.

“One thing I’ve heard is that the (investigators are) showing up at the officers’ homes unannounced and in some cases were very abusive, using Gestapo-like tactics,” Cunningham said.