General’s Charge to Be Investigated

The Pentagon will press ahead with its investigation of a sexual harassment complaint by the highest-ranking woman in the Army, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said Friday.

Cohen confirmed that Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, 52, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence, has charged that she was sexually harassed by a fellow general. Cohen said he learned of the case Thursday, when it was reported by the Washington Times.

Kennedy, the Army’s first female three-star general, is due to retire this summer.

Army officials refused to comment on the matter. The accused general has not been identified.

Kennedy’s charge stems from an alleged incident in her Pentagon office in October 1996, when she was assistant deputy chief of Army intelligence.

The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that one government official said Kennedy, then a major general, tried to handle the incident directly on a “peer-to-peer” basis and was satisfied that she had resolved the problem. But more recently, when the accused groper was promoted, she became concerned and sought the investigation, according to this official.

Another government official disputed this version of events but declined to say which details were incorrect, The Times reported.

Kennedy, who is not married, is a career intelligence officer. In 1997 she served on a special task force that examined sexual harassment in the Army and concluded that it existed “throughout the Army, crossing gender, rank and racial lines.”

In an October 1997 interview published in USA Weekend magazine, Kennedy said she dealt with harassment individually, sometimes forcefully saying no.

In a June 1997 ABC News interview, Kennedy said her response to sexual harassment as she became a more senior officer was to “turn it over to my boss.” She said she was pleased with how that worked. “It was investigated carefully, and there was a very positive response on the part of the Army.”