MOORER: I just say, "Bull!" I mean, the guy is old enough to handle the job. He knows the job. He' certainly was no situation that I have ever heard, when he didn't show up for work in the Pentagon, where he got tired and went home. He was in good shape. He may have been a little heavy. I think that they were just searching for something to get even with him, because they felt that if it hadn't been for him, this woman would have been an aviator--which is nonsense.

When you take flight training, particularly military flight training, you are put in a position of where you're not only trying to protect your own life but several other people's lives that might happen to ride with you. And you can't pussy-foot around. You've got to be good in an emergency. And that's what happened to this accident on the Lincoln.

Q: You mean Kara Hultgreen's crash?

MOORER: Yeah. She could fly, as long as nothing happened. But she got into a tight spot and she spun in. That airplane shouldn't spin in. Over and over again, it's flown away on one engine. And so what counts is not how well you fly on a beautiful day and so on, but what do you do if you have an emergency. And you're bound to have an emergency if you fly long enough. A serious emergency. All I'm saying is that before you give an individual the wings and let him or her go out on her own, or his own, they've got to be good.

Q: Let me ask you another question regarding Kara Hultgreen. She goes into the water. Admiral Boorda and Admiral Arthur get very involved in pulling that plane out. It doesn't happen all the time. They look at that bleed valve. They say, "Mechanical failure, not the fault of the pilot." You're disagreeing with that?

MOORER: I disagree with it. And the pilots think so-.....See, the landing signal officer was yelling, "Eject, eject!" The one in the rear seat did eject. And I think it appeared that she pulled the nose up when she realized that she was losing flying speed. But that's the worst thing you could do. You push your nose over to try to get up a little more speed, because when you pull the nose up, the airplane just shudders to a halt.

Q: She blew it?

MOORER: Well, that's what it appeared to me, looking at the movie.... I may be wrong. And I shouldn't really make a statement like that until I had an opportunity to really study the problem. But I can't understand how she could get in trouble when it was a beautiful day and nobody was pressing her. A lot of time, particularly in wartime, you get all the pilots coming back from a strike. And there's a guy right behind you, and he wants to get in. It gets pretty heavy. And this was no pressure, no problem, no weather. I think, that she was not ready, in my opinion.

Q: Why did CNO Boorda dredge that plane up, get this thing going, run this simulator test ....?

MOORER: Because we're getting down to the media....they put so much attention--" We're going to have a female flying an F-14." And so it's a big thing. So they were going to do that. And not only did they spend a lot of time to raise the airplane, but when they had her funeral here, as sad as they are (and I've been to many of them, where pilots are killed), the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Navy attended the funeral. Now, I can't recall where I've ever seen the Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of Defense at a funeral of a Naval aviator ... man.

Q: What does it mean to you?

MOORER: It meant that this was--that's what I'm trying to tell you--a special case. We're bringing in women into combat. They're going to fly the fastest and the hottest thing that we have. And so that's a number one priority.

Q: Anything wrong with that, Admiral?

MOORER: Yes. I think so. I think that everyone should be treated equally. I mean, the attitude towards the women. They go back and forth. One minute, they want to handle them with kid gloves. Next minute, they want them to get out there with the boys and do exactly what they do, and become equal.

Q: You think this was a public relations cover-up. Am I overstating it?

MOORER: I don't think it was a public relations cover-up. I think it was an effort to not discourage other women from trying later, and not make a big thing out of it, and hope that they will do better, although the so-called Number 2 is out now. The second pilot that they were trying to train. And I am telling you what it looks like to me from a distance, and what I know about aviation, which is plenty.

In the final analysis, there's a movement to force women and men to be equal. That's what the fundamental problem is. They're never going to be equal. Never going to be equal. They're not made the same way. If you wanted to simply relate to their brain, I'm the first one to admit that all the women are 10 times smarter than I am. But I tell you, when I was telling you that story about being in those life boats with those wounded and dead people, I thought to myself, now, supposing two or three of these people were women. I wouldn't like that. And the Israelis had that serious difficulty with their soldiers, because once they saw a woman all cut up to pieces, it had a major impact on their morale and so on. Well, there's a tendency to divert.... to leave what they were doing and go help her ... . In other words, women give life, and men take life. And the idea of exposing the women to what men have to do is wrong. I don't care what people say. And they're going to find out some day, much to their sorrow. I think this is right at the peak, this movement to equalize everybody. You've got to have the same number of CEO's that you have, man and woman. As I mentioned a while ago, the women can't qualify unless the standards are changed. And they changed them at West Point, and they changed them at the Naval Academy. I don't care what you say. They changed them in the Marine Corps. Even the tough old Marine Corps changes the standards.

Q: So, in summary, is that what's wrong with the Navy?

MOORER: I think that primarily, most of the serious difficulties that occurred in the Navy are related to women. You look at the Naval Academy, for instance, and the problem they've had over there. Now they've got a policy, as I understand it, that if a girl gets pregnant, that's just a routine thing. Everybody gets pregnant. She's allowed to go home and dispose of the baby by one way or another, by an abortion or by adoption or by turning it over to the parents. Then she can come back a year later. But if she was ashore on a Saturday night with a male midshipman and they get married, they both get kicked out. Now, does that make any sense to you?

Q: Going back to earlier areas now.... what about Ted Kennedy's involvement in the Stumpf issue?

MOORER: Well, he's a member of the Subcommittee on Personnel in the Armed Services Committee, and he's voted consistently against promotion of Stumpf, period.

Q: Why?

MOORER: I don't know why. But it makes me laugh for Ted Kennedy to be passing judgment on sexual conduct on the part of anybody. That's my point.

Q: What were the allegations against Stumpf? He was at Tailhook. He flew his own plane out there......

MOORER: He had permission to fly his own airplane. He was invited to come out. He was selected as the best squadron in the Navy, and he was going to receive the award. And he conducted a training flight. He didn't even land at Las Vegas. He landed at another field and got an automobile and drove a couple hundred miles into Las Vegas in order to be there to receive his award.

Q: He was in a suite where there was a stripper.

MOORER: I think he was in a suite with a stripper --not for long, though. But you ever heard of Minsky's and the burlesque shows they've been having for years and years? There's damn few men that haven't been in a suite with a stripper. So what? He didn't touch her. He didn't do anything. He didn't say anything. He left before she performed in any way. What's to keep him from going in there just to see what was going on and so on? I mean, good heavens.

Q: Now, Admiral Pease says, "This guy's not your best case on this." There's lots of bad things about him, and he implies very strongly that Stumpf would not swear that he hadn't participated and witnessed any sex acts; that in his own hearing, he stood up and stormed out; that he was obstinate and not cooperative with the investigation.

MOORER: Yeah, but.... who in the hell is Pease, to pass judgment like that in the first place? Stumpf had been selected at this point. He'd been selected not once, but twice. Nobody I ever knew has been selected twice. In the Navy, you never go before the same selection board two times in succession. That's a policy. You get three times, because some guy may have a grudge against you, that's a member of the board, and try to stop your promotion. So you get a new board. And Stumpf had two boards, entirely different people. And both times, he got selected. Then secondly, he had a court of inquiry, which examined everything he did in detail. And then he had the Secretary of the Navy review.

Then the Secretary of the Navy, after all that, writes a strong letter to the Senate, recommending they promote Stumpf. They'd already confirmed him. But then they tied on this Tailhook thing. And so the Senate didn't have the guts to vote him out. They sent a letter back to the Secretary of the Navy, passed the buck back to him. Said, "We're not going to promote him, but you can promote him"--which the Secretary didn't do.

Q: Not exactly showing a profile in courage...?

MOORER: That's right. After all those reviews and boards and courts, then the Secretary decided to go have another board. Second time around. And the lawyers that were put in there.....Stumpf tried to sue the Secretary and others, because he's lost a lot of money by withholding his promotion.

Q: But isn't that suicide?

MOORER: No. He'd already figured out that they weren't going to do anything. He'd been going through this agony for two years. How much longer you want him to stand it? So he sued. But the judge wouldn't take the case. So he got screwed by the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. And why the Secretary of the Navy needed another review, after he'd already had one and had two selection boards and a court of inquiry and so on, I'll never know. And it was during that review that the lawyers started asking Stumpf questions, that he, Stumpf, just figured....there's no way he's going to get promoted, so he said, "Screw you," and left. And I don't blame him. I mean he had to put a stop to it. They were giving him the water torture from way back.

If I had been CNO, I tell you, every one of them would be gone.

Before you get on to something else, Pease has one job, and that's to make the Secretary look good. So don't forget that. That's his job. And so I discount everything Pease says.

Q: I'm going to ask you about some people that things happened to as a result of Tailhook. Admiral Snyder?

MOORER:Snyder was probably the best test pilot we had. And this girl ambushed him. She, of course, wound up getting $6 million. But she had her pubic region shaved, and signed the papers, said, "You made me see God." And what kind of an individual is that? She should have gone to Snyder right away--she didn't--and reported to him what she was going to do, and what the problem was. She was his aide. So I think that there again, Snyder's an example of a Navy, just cutting its own throat, in terms of destroying a capability.

Don't forget we boast about civilian control. And when you get a group riding on political correctness, the military is going to be pressured like hell all the time to just follow along. For instance, they got seven admirals together over at the Ship System Command and had them given a lecture,, by an individual . The subject was diversity, but all he did was talk about how wonderful it was to be queer. Well, I don't like that. That's why I went to help Stumpf. And I tell you right now, I'm not trying to get promoted. I'm not trying to get appointed. I'm not trying to get elected. I'm going to say what I damn please, and do what I damn please.

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