Gore Says He’d Allow Gays in Military

Vice President Al Gore said Monday that, if elected president, he would end the ban on acknowledged gays and lesbians serving in the nation’s military forces.

Stepping directly into a controversy with which President Clinton wrestled unsuccessfully at the start of his presidency seven years ago--and tried to resolve with a compromise that he acknowledged just last weekend was a failure--Gore said the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy should be eliminated.

“Gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve their country without discrimination,” he said in a statement issued to reporters aboard Air Force Two as he was returning to Washington from a day of campaigning in Cleveland.

Clinton, as a candidate, had pressed for such a policy change, and when he stepped back from instituting the change after he took office he encountered a firestorm of anger among gays and lesbians, a large number of whom had supported him in 1992. Gore’s was one of the few voices within the administration at the time urging him not to abandon the promise despite strong opposition from the Pentagon and members of Congress.

In his statement, the vice president said: “If I am entrusted with the presidency, I will make these changes and propose legislation in Congress to eliminate this unacceptable form of discrimination.”

He said the decision stemmed from the case of a soldier, Pfc. Barry Winchell, who was killed last summer amid rumors that he was gay and from “other evidence.”

Last summer Gore had said the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule should remain, but be enforced with more compassion. His rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bill Bradley, has said the rule should be abandoned.

The Pentagon has found that the policy, intended to lower the number of homosexuals expelled from the armed forces, has had the opposite effect. Officials reported that 1,145 people were discharged for sexual orientation in 1998, up from 997 in 1997.

Asked why Gore had not announced his opposition to the current policy earlier, his spokesman, Chris Lehane, said, “Al Gore never shares personal advice he gives to the president. But as a candidate for the presidency, he is going to make very clear to the American people where he stands on very important issues such as these.”

Gore, who served in the Army as a military journalist in Vietnam, well recognizes the opposition the move would encounter throughout the armed forces. But he has said that such opposition greeted President Harry S. Truman’s decision to integrate the military, and that the acceptance of gays and lesbians in the armed forces could be accomplished in much the same fashion--through a presidential order accompanied by education of the troops and officers.

Also Monday, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen ordered a 90-day review of the military’s policy toward gays. “We are as determined as the president is to see that the policy is implemented fairly,” Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon told the Associated Press.

Cohen ordered acting department Inspector General Donald Mancuso to undertake the review, which will consist of spot investigations at major military installations.