Navy Aviators Complain of Tailhook Probe Tactics : Military: Investigators employed ‘get in your face routine’ to try to pry information from airmen.

Pentagon investigators probing the Tailhook sex scandal used coercion, intimidation and falsehoods to try to get aviators from Miramar Naval Air Station to inform on fellow fliers, according to pilots and other sources. But a Navy official denied that investigators used improper tactics.

In addition, aviators were threatened with administrative action, including discharge from the Navy, if they did not cooperate with investigators or refused to take polygraph examinations, which a Navy official acknowledged was a violation of Department of Defense policy.

Most people interviewed for this article, including people intimately involved in the investigation, agreed to talk on the condition they not be identified. Aviators at Miramar said they were instructed by Navy superiors to avoid talking to the press about their interviews with Pentagon investigators.

“My husband has been told specifically not to talk to the press,” Lauri Shirck said. “He and the other guys in his squadron are scared to death for their careers. Their interrogations with the DOD people made it clear to them that anyone who was at Tailhook is suspected of sexual misconduct.”

Shirck was not questioned by Pentagon investigators, but her husband, a Top Gun pilot, was. The investigation cleared him of wrongdoing, she said.

Don Mancuso, Department of Defense assistant inspector general for investigations, said the sheer size of the investigation required the questioning of people who clearly were not involved in any wrongdoing at the Tailhook convention.

“Not unexpectedly, there were many people at that conference that had nothing to do with improper conduct,” Mancuso said. “But until this investigation is over, I regret that this (tie to Tailhook) will be hanging over the head of the attendees.”

He denied that investigators used lies, illegal tactics or intimidation to obtain information from aviators. However, he said that “it’s quite possible” that they used the “get in your face routine.”

“There are, of course, going to be some people who, for whatever reason, are not going to be receptive to questions that are asked, and by their own actions will escalate the type of questions asked and the tone of the interview,” Mancuso said.

In fact, one Pentagon official interviewed Thursday said the aggressive interrogations by Defense Department investigators are no different from those employed by most police departments. Some of the investigators have been identified as former FBI agents.

Pentagon investigators are probing allegations of sexual misconduct at the September, 1991, Tailhook Assn. convention. More than 25 women, half of them Navy officers, say they were groped, fondled and sexually assaulted by drunken aviators in the hallway of a Las Vegas hotel. Navy officials said the victims included a drunk 17-year-old girl who was partly undressed and passed from man to man.

The Tailhook Assn. is a private group from San Diego made up mostly of retired and active-duty naval aviators formed to promote aircraft carrier aviation.

Allegations of misconduct and criminal wrongdoing at the convention surfaced in October. The Defense Department launched an investigation in July after the Naval Investigative Service was accused of botching its investigation.

Critics said the NIS was not aggressive enough in identifying Navy and Marine Corps officers accused of wrongdoing or illegal activity. Although an NIS report said that some criminal activity had occurred at the Tailhook convention, nobody was charged.

Miramar aviators began complaining about Defense Department investigators’ tactics almost immediately. Sources said investigators used coercion and intimidation to persuade aviators to cooperate with the investigation.

“They would get right in your face. It was a very accusatory confrontation. They assumed you were guilty and tried to sweat a confession out of you,” one pilot said.

Pilots and a Navy official said investigators also told aviators that other fliers had linked them to sexual misconduct when no such information had been given.

“They tried to get you to rat on others by telling you false stories. They’d tell you things like, ‘We have it on good authority that you were in the hallway (where most of the assaults occurred). Some of the other officers said they saw you there.’ But later you’d find out that the other guys never told them anything,” a pilot said.

Investigators “used lies like this to scare you into giving up names. It was a very intimidating experience,” he said.

A Navy official familiar with some of the interrogations confirmed that investigators lied to some aviators.

“Some were told that their buddies had turned them in, when in fact nobody did,” he said.

One of the biggest controversies to arise from the Defense Department investigation is the use of polygraph tests by investigators. Several Miramar pilots complained that the investigators threatened retaliation if they refused to take a polygraph.

“The first thing they did was read us our rights,” one pilot said. “Afterward, they would ask us to take a polygraph test. If you refused, they said you would be classified as an uncooperative witness, taken off the promotion list, taken off flight status and be processed for an administrative discharge.”

About 440 fliers had been questioned at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and Miramar Naval Air Station, and only 22 have agreed to take polygraph tests, Mancuso said.

A Defense Department spokesman said the policy on polygraphs is that they are strictly voluntary.

“The individual can have legal counsel present during a polygraph exam,” said the spokesman, a military officer who did not want to be identified. Defense Department policy “also says that there can be no adverse action against any person for refusing to take a polygraph exam. . . . The policy permits the administering of a polygraph exam in support of a criminal investigation.”

Mancuso denied that aviators were threatened with retaliation if they refused to submit to polygraph examinations. But he said that lack of cooperation was officially noted.

“Invariably, people would ask what would happen if they refused to talk. The answer given was that if they refused to answer questions or give answers that are clearly evasive, that would be noted in the report,” Mancuso said.

A Navy official familiar with the investigation said some Navy wives were subjected to long interviews by investigators who “surprised them at the door while their husbands were at sea.” He said the women, all civilians, were questioned about the Tailhook convention and their husbands’ presence there without a lawyer present to protect their rights.

Mancuso said that “fewer than five wives” were interviewed by investigators. He acknowledged that the women were interviewed without a lawyer present.

A Navy official familiar with DOD policy said regulations do not require a lawyer to be present if investigators are interviewing a wife, because civilians are not covered by military law.

“The wives, as far as we’re concerned, are witnesses. We don’t feel that we had to approach the wives through the husbands. Since none of the wives were under investigation, we didn’t read them their rights,” Mancuso said.

He said that one wife was interviewed because investigators believed she may have been a victim of sexual harassment or may have been sexually assaulted at the 1991 Tailhook convention. He declined to elaborate.