Female General Truthful on Groping, Investigators Say

Army investigators have concluded that the service’s highest-ranking woman was groped by a male peer in her Pentagon office four years ago, as she has asserted in a case that has roiled the military, defense officials said Wednesday.

Investigators believe that Claudia J. Kennedy, the Army’s top intelligence official, was touched by Maj. Gen. Larry G. Smith against her will and that Smith sought to kiss her as well, officials said.

Though Kennedy did not file a complaint in the case, investigators from the office of the Army Inspector General have concluded that she has told the truth about the incident because she told friends and acquaintances what had happened at the time.

The incident, the latest in a series of high-profile sexual misconduct cases to emerge in the Army in the last four years, has drawn wide comment and provoked strong reactions within the service. Some women, including some female Army officers, have pointed to the case as proof that women are at risk of sexual mistreatment even in the highest ranks of the hierarchy.

The inspector general’s conclusions must still be reviewed by Gen. John Keane, vice chief of staff of the Army, who has authority over the conduct of Army generals. Gen. Smith will be given a formal legal opportunity to rebut them, and he may still persuade Keane to take a different view.

But experts in military law have predicted that, if the basics of Kennedy’s account are borne out, Smith probably would be forced into retirement.

Army officials declined comment Wednesday night. Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.

Though Kennedy did not report the incident at the time, she brought it to official attention last summer when the Army indicated that Smith had been nominated to be deputy inspector general. In that post he would oversee investigations of sexual misconduct, along with other responsibilities.

Kennedy cited the incident to warn Army officials that Smith was not suited for the job and to try to steer him into another position. But her report triggered a formal investigation, the existence of which was leaked to the press in March.

The case put the Army in an excruciating position, since it has declared a “zero tolerance” policy toward sexual misconduct yet does not want to be harsh with a general who has not committed an offense that would be typically cause for a court-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The military takes a strict view of sexual misconduct toward a subordinate, who is presumed to be powerless. But at the time of the alleged incident, both Kennedy and Smith were major generals.

Kennedy, who will retire in August, has been a high-profile general in recent years. The Army, which is seeking to draw more talented women to its ranks, has sought to focus attention on her success. And Kennedy has been, on several occasions, listed as a woman who could move on to a higher position in politics.

In past interviews, she was quoted as saying that women need to be courageous about reporting sexual infractions, even when they seem harmless, such as in the case of a lingering hand on a woman’s collar.

Kennedy, 52, has some political connections in the Clinton administration.

She was asked to sit on the boards of several financial companies organized by Terry McAuliffe, President Clinton’s top fund-raiser. The positions did not work out as planned, however.

She is a good friend of McAuliffe’s father-in-law, Florida lawyer Richard Swann.

Smith, 55, is a decorated officer with three combat tours in Vietnam. He has been serving as an aide to the commanding general of the Army Materiel Command, in Northern Virginia, since the case came under investigation.