Tailhook ’93 Organizers Downplay Past Woes : Convention: Supporters blame politicians and the media for the event’s tarnished image after sexual misconduct scandal.

Buffeted by a lack of Navy support and the withdrawal of more than 80% of its corporate sponsors, the Tailhook Assn. previewed its 1993 convention Thursday by attacking what it called the true villains of its tarnished image: overzealous politicians and the media.

The senior adviser to the association, retired Adm. James D. Ramage (“Rampage without the p,” he told reporters who asked him how to pronounce his name), said the alleged sexual misconduct by up to 140 servicemen at the 1991 Las Vegas gathering was juvenile behavior but “certainly nothing criminal.”

The Pentagon inspector general’s office concluded this year that up to 83 women were sexually assaulted at the 1991 convention, the last held by Tailhook. The women were forced through a gantlet of drunken men, where they were groped and ridiculed in a night of debauchery.

About 7,000 active-duty and retired Navy personnel attended the 1991 gathering, but fewer than 700 are registered to participate in this year’s meeting, which begins today at the sprawling Town & Country Hotel. The association canceled its 1992 convention.

Traditionally a four-day affair, the convention will now run only two. The choice of low-key San Diego instead of glitzy Las Vegas was another calculated effort to tone Tailhook down, officials said.

Rear Adm. Steven Briggs, commander of the Naval Air Force’s Pacific Fleet, sent a memo recently warning about 60,000 enlisted personnel and officers not to attend the event in uniform or while on active duty.

And the Women’s Action Coalition, a national feminist organization based in New York, announced that several hundred of its members plan to march in protest today and form Guardian Angel-like patrols at the Town & Country to try to prevent sexual assaults.

For the first time, the Tailhook convention is being choreographed by a slick public relations campaign, which on Thursday brought out former astronaut Wally Schirra and a female aviator who raved about the male-dominated carrier corps.

Ramage said the true damage of Tailhook 1991 has been vastly overstated.

Looking out at a phalanx of notebooks and minicams, including those of “60 Minutes,” the retired admiral called the events of the last convention painful but nowhere near as severe as many had been led to believe.

“They certainly were not the earth-shaking variety of offenses that seem to have been carried in the press,” said Ramage, a career carrier pilot.

The convention drew a surprising protest Thursday from Jacqueline Mallery Solomon, otherwise known as Mrs. Florida. Solomon is participating in the Mrs. America pageant, booked at the Town & Country the same days as Tailhook.

Hotel officials confirmed that Solomon expressed concern for her safety because her husband cannot be with her.

Lt. Cmdr. Elizabeth Toedt, 36, a Navy pilot attending this year’s convention on leave, said female protesters were overreacting.

“Had I ever thought for one moment that Tailhook was anything but upfront, professional and strongly supportive of women in the military, I would have quit a long time ago,” Toedt said.

Tailhook ’91 has taken a heavy toll on the association, leading to the resignation of H. Lawrence Garrett III, Navy secretary at the time of the Vegas convention.

New Navy Secretary John Dalton recently recommended that Adm. Frank B. Kelso Jr. be fired over the scandal, but Defense Secretary Les Aspin rejected the advice.