Surviving the Tarnish of Tailhook : Point Mugu: Rear Adm. William E. Newman has been exonerated from any connection with the infamous convention. Now he’s being promoted.

In the 32 years that William E. Newman has been a naval aviator, he has been shot down over Vietnam, landed jets at night on the deck of a pitching aircraft carrier and commanded the Navy’s biggest public relations effort--the Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Team.

But through all of that, the 53-year-old rear admiral and commanding officer of the Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Center recently fought the hardest battle of his career from the confines of his well-appointed office. His name appeared on a list of Navy and Marine Corps officers who attended the infamous Tailhook ’91 convention in Las Vegas.

That battle, however, recently ended with Newman being fully exonerated when he received an Oct. 15 letter of apology from Navy Secretary John H. Dalton.

But the effect of being one of the targets of the Department of Defense inspector general’s investigation placed the one-star admiral in a career limbo for the better part of two years.

As the Navy put on hold awarding Newman with a second star and transferring him to a better post, the admiral was told to “rethink his career goals.”

In the end, investigators came to the conclusion that Newman said he always expected.

“The result of the investigation didn’t surprise me,” Newman said during a recent interview. “What happened is that if you were there at all, you were thrown in the hopper. That’s the way it went.”

Newman was named in the inspector general’s report along with 34 other Navy or Marine Corps officers regarding the activities that occurred during the Sept. 8-12, 1991, convention at the Las Vegas Hilton. During a drunken Saturday night party at the convention, 83 women were either sexually assaulted or molested as they traversed a “gauntlet” of several hundred Navy and Marine Corps aviators.

The convention is an annual gathering of members of the Tailhook Assn., a professional organization of retired or active Navy and Marine fliers and other military aviation boosters.

Newman, upon his recent exoneration, has been promoted to the Naval Air Systems Command in Washington, D.C. He is expecting to receive his second star as a rear admiral within the next few weeks.

A formal change-of-command ceremony has been scheduled for Dec. 14. A replacement for the admiral has not been named by Navy officials.

Except for Newman and Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Clyde L. Vermilyea--who also received a complete exoneration--a total of 33 officers who attended the convention were either censured or reprimanded this month by the Pentagon for their role in the scandal.

Another 140 service members were believed to have engaged in improper behavior during the party, according to the inspector general’s report.

For his part, Newman said that he flew to the convention on the Friday morning before the Saturday night party to attend technical seminars on naval aviation and then flew back to Point Mugu the same day.

Newman said he never let the investigation get him down.

“The people here--my family, friends and colleagues--have kept me buoyed up,” Newman said. “And, those who just assumed my guilt don’t know me and, frankly, I couldn’t care less about their opinions.”

But according to Judith Newman, the admiral’s wife of 25 years, the strain of waiting for the admiral’s exoneration wasn’t always easy.

“He’s dealt with it more objectively than I have,” she said. “I think the way they handled the investigation wasn’t fair, and I think Bill was a little disappointed because of that. He’s been emotionally in the Navy since he was in high school. It’s all he’s ever wanted to do and he loves it.”

Newman said people at the sprawling base have been supportive of her husband during the two-year investigation.

“Everyone here at Mugu has been both kind and generous,” she said. “I haven’t heard one ugly thing about this whole thing directed our way. I think people knew that he was innocent from the start.”

Echoing Judith Newman was Carole Kroger, the admiral’s secretary and personal assistant.

“He was a little impatient in terms of waiting for the outcome of the investigation,” Kroger said. “But I think he weathered it well.”

And, despite his face and name being splashed across national television when the scandal erupted, Newman said he was not worried about potential political fallout from the case. When the Navy announced the punishments of the officers involved in the Tailhook incident two weeks ago, Secretary Dalton told the media that Newman was cleared of any wrongdoing.

“This is just the way Washington works,” Newman said. “The people who I respect and who can shape my career know what my story was and know that I was innocent. . . . To tell you the truth, I was more worried about the fallout from the consolidation of the Point Mugu and China Lake facilities.”

The 1991 consolidation involved the merger between the high desert base in the Mojave Desert and Point Mugu facility under one command, which Newman headed. More than 11,000 military and civilian personnel work at the two bases.

Newman said that while the scandal has rocked the Navy, a by-product of the case has resulted in the service’s improved attitude toward women. Since the scandal erupted, the Navy has instituted a broad range of policy changes to discourage sexual harassment, including establishing a toll-free phone number for employees to call to learn how to report incidents of sexual misconduct.

Last year, the entire base attended a one-day training session on what constitutes sexual harassment.

“I think that now we are way out front in terms of the service’s attitude toward women and the opportunities that have been made available to women. That’s obviously good,” Newman said.

Still, as Newman and his family prepare to depart for Washington, the admiral leaves behind a Ventura County command that he says he has enjoyed.

“This will probably be the last field command that I will have and, on balance, it was great,” Newman said. “I’m going to miss the people and the aircraft. It’s been a part of my career that I think I’ll always remember.”