ARTHUR: I don't think we were totally successful, because one we're dealing with a much smarter, much more politically attuned individual in the Navy today, enlisted and officer. They read the papers more. They do listen and see world news and see what's going on in Washington, much more so than my generation did. Obviously, we didn't ignore it. It was in a different compartment. The young folks today have that compartment very much out front, much closer to the front of the brain than my generation did. So I think great credit goes to the operators out in the fleet. The fleet commanders and the ships CO's and the cags and the squadron CO's and all of the leadership out there, I thought, did a magnificent job of keeping the focus on the job to be done. And quite honestly, it was always a source of amazement to me that sometimes in our darkest hours back here in Washington, when we thought the whole world was collapsing around our ears, there would be just some extraordinary achievement out in the fleet. You just say, "Wow!" You know, "How did they do that? How did they make that happen?" And it continues even today.

Q: Back in time for a moment. You are now part of the Navy's leadership. You're Vice-CNO. And the Stumpf case comes up. He's called in by his CO one day and told that he's being grounded, that he's being investigated by the Navy for this Tailhook related incident. A couple questions about that. At what point do you have to start paying attention to it?

ARTHUR: Well, what we had done to deal with the potential cases stemming from the DOD IG report was to designate one authority to hear all the cases, which was at that time Vice-Admiral Paul Reason, who we designated to hold all of the cases, so there would be a consistent thread of justice imposed. We felt that if we had one individual who was responsible to hear each of the cases or potential cases and make a decision, that there would be some consistency. And Paul was completely detached from the Tailhook evolution. Surface warfare officer. Very, very talented individual. Very bright. And so we had great confidence that he would be able to give us a great product. And he did.

He had considerable difficulty with the Stumpf case. One, because Commander Stumpf did not want to go through that same process; that his lawyers had told him that his best venue for protecting his rights was to demand a different process than what this was. And so that's a little bit of a departure. But the final result was that after Admiral Reason had heard all the cases and was complete with his disposition of those cases, then I, as the Vice-Chief, would be the appeal authority. So if people felt that their cases had not been treated properly by Admiral Reason, then I was the appeal authority. And that's pretty much the standard process that we've used. There's always a person to go to for an appeal, somebody senior to the imposing official. So I was knowing full well that at the end of this process, there would be some appeals that I would have to deal with.

Q: And you assumed, presumably, that Stumpf would be one of them, one way or another?

ARTHUR: Right.

Q: And by the time the Stumpf thing lands on your desk, you're not necessarily carrying Bob Stumpf's flag.

ARTHUR: No. I'm sure that if you talk to Commander Stumpf, my first words probably, as he recalls them, would have been, when we finally had a chance to discuss his situation, was the fact that I did not come from the camp of Bob Stumpf fans; I felt that his going for outside legal assistance showed a certain amount of lack of faith in the system, and personally, I grew up in the system and felt very comfortable that it was a good system. But I also told him on retrospect, maybe you were smarter than the rest of us. You know, things sort of got out of our hands, somewhere along the way. Somebody had advised him that was a potential, and he had protected himself, or tried to protect himself against some things getting out of the normal scheme of events.

Q: You do believe that overall, the system was fair and honest, and did a good job.

ARTHUR: Right. Oh, the job that Paul Reason did for us was [an] extraordinarily good job. I have no problems with it. I thought he did a very good job, and I thought that once we were able to deal with the cases, that there was a very solid base for that process and the findings.

Q: Do you think that on any level there was a targeting of Bob Stumpf because of who he was?

ARTHUR: No. I don't. No.

Q: The only question I have about that is-- And possibly, the answer lay in the nature of the military hierarchy. But here you have a squadron commander and his squad. Two of the guys in his squad make lieutenant. They decide to have a wetting down party. Things ultimately progressed to a point beyond propriety. But that wasn't Stumpf's doing. The question, of course, is whether or not he was there. But why was it only Stumpf who was put to the screws, and not his other men, many of whom were given immunity?

ARTHUR: Well, there was concern at the time, from the report, that he had been there and had observed a very untoward act, and had taken no action. In a leadership role, you can forgive youth and sometimes too much alcohol. You can say, "Okay, you made a mistake." But leadership becomes another issue. Was there activity that he witnessed, that he should have or could have shut down and prevented, and exercised that leadership? That's where the detour went. Started to focus at him from his leadership position, not from just a guest at an event. Even though it was a private event, it was not associated with Tailhook. It happened at the same place, of course. But it was, a private party. But there were some who said, even if it was a private party, here was the leader. And did he or did he not observe this thing? And did he or did he not take action to keep it from happening?

Q: His court of inquiry exonerates him. Do you believe in that exoneration?

ARTHUR:Yes, I did.

Q: And yet you still had some reservations. Did you ever convey those reservations to him?

ARTHUR: You know, there was still a lot of uneasiness. I felt that he had been exonerated and that he should be promoted, and that the system had worked. But there was no total closure on this. There seemed to be no way that we could say, "Okay, we have completed our actions." My final hoorah on this thing was to call him in and counsel him. And basically, the now famous letter got exposed, which was not part of the process.

The process was a personal counseling session from me to him. As I told him, "Your career is not over, you know. If you continue to track the way we think you should track, you're going to be in leadership positions in this Navy for a long time to come. And I want to make sure that as you walk into this new era that we're dealing with, that you understand that the rules have changed. If it's private and you know about it, you can't influence it. In other words, we are now truly responsible for those that we lead, 24 hours a day. Not just in combat. Not just when they're aboard ship or on board the base. But if we can influence their behavior in other areas, so that we have a citizen alive and well the next day, that's our responsibility. And so here are the guidelines that I want you to remember for the future." And it was strictly a sort of a counseling session.

And tragically, due to my sloppiness as I retired out of the job, I left a piece of paper behind that was not supposed to have been left behind. And that's been used against him.

Q: Did you have similar counseling sessions with other aviators?

ARTHUR: Yes.

Q: As you know, your friends over in the SASC know that, for example, now Admiral Jay Johnson got a similar letter. Did you have a similar session with him?

ARTHUR: Admiral Johnson was given a letter, as all flag officers who attended, by the Secretary of the Navy. And I talked to each one of those flag officers at the time they received the letters, and explained to him why the Secretary felt that he needed to give them a letter, and basically for them to understand that what we were doing was trying to make sure that nobody could come back and say the Navy leadership failed to counsel and provide the correct type of leadership for those that were following behind. The last thing that Admiral Kelso and then finally Admiral Boorda and I wanted, was to have somebody come back and say we never cared to even talk to them about whether they did wrong or did right or anything else. We did care.

And we knew that almost everybody that was at Tailhook, except for a small number, had behaved in good fashion. But we wanted to make sure that nobody could say later on in life that, gee, we didn't know that these kinds of things were inappropriate.

Q: And so when you and Stumpf part, in your mind, what do you see? Him going back and--

ARTHUR: I see him going back and on to future assignments. He was selected for captain. I thought he would be a captain. I thought ....and the next time we'd see him is probably a flag rank somewhere along the way. He's very talented, very talented officer.

Q: That, of course did not occur. Did it surprise you when you heard that he was being held up by the--

ARTHUR: It did and did not. The process that they used to move promotion boards and nominations over on the Hill got very unpredictable during all of this. There was never a moment where you really felt confident that everything was going to go through like you expected it. There was always some concern, there may be a bump in the road. But I fully thought that we had done our homework well enough that this one would go through okay.

Q: How did it happen that his certification was missing, do you think?

ARTHUR: If there was ever a guy that had a black cloud hanging over his head that he didn't know he had hanging over his head, it was Bob Stumpf. And depending, who you talk to today, there are some who still think that the Navy deliberately did not put the appropriate flags on his record when it went over on that captain promotion board. It was purely, as best I can tell (and I still consider myself reasonably able to sift through fact and fiction), it was an honest mistake. We caught it. The Navy caught the mistake after the list was over there. And we called it back and said, "We made a mistake. We owe you a piece of paper on this individual because it was not there when we sent it over to you the first time." The last thing we wanted anyone to ever find was a name on a list that was supposed to, by the protocol that we were now operating under, had to have an explanation: Were they at Tailhook? Were their cases heard by the CDA . Was appropriate action taken? Are you satisfied that this is never going to occur again? That type of thing. So the last thing we wanted to happen was somebody to find that, and us be surprised. So we found it. We recognized we made a mistake. And from that moment on, it took on a new life.

Q: As you know, some people on the Hill, staff in particular, on the Senate Armed Services Committee, believed absolutely from the beginning, that the Navy had engaged in a cover-up, trying to sneak one by.

ARTHUR: I know. You can really get me excited about that, because that's just not my nature. And it was not the nature of anybody that had their hands on that piece of paper. That's the last thing we would have ever tried to do.

Q: Do you think that in any way played into your own subsequent nomination, and all the politics and the pull and tug over that?

ARTHUR: Quite honestly, I don't know. I don't think so. But perhaps it could have. I don't think so.

Q: When you are asked to be Commander in Chief of our Pacific Naval forces, do you feel ready for it?

ARTHUR: I certainly felt qualified. I probably felt that this is going to be too much fun; that it's an area that I was comfortable with. It's where I've spent my whole operational life, is out in the Pacific. It's a place I love. I love the people. I love the cultures. I got a son and daughter who live out there, two grandsons who live in Hawaii. I said, "This is really going to be quite a way to finish out your tour."

Q: You were a savvy enough political player, even though politics wasn't your first calling, but you had been around Washington enough, and certainly directly involved enough with this new political heat that was occurring, that there might be some bumps in the road of your nomination.....Did you have any reason to anticipate any difficulty?

ARTHUR: No. In fact, I thought that in general, my friendships with the Corps had gone for a long time. When we had disagreements, we had honest disagreements. I think that in my generation of folks, the Marine Corps that we dealt with, that there was great trust and admiration on both sides for the jobs that we had done. And I knew a lot of the characters. So I thought that we could help. And this was going to be a little parochial, and it was going to be hard for me to deal with, because as CINC-PAC you're really a joint commander. And you have the Air Force and Army that you're watching out for, and making sure that you don't unnecessarily detract from their contributions. But Pacific was a maritime region. And I felt that the Navy and the Marine Corps had great opportunities because there were going to have to be some reconfigurations. I thought that the Navy and the Marine Corps had a great opportunity to make some major contributions to this reconfiguration that would eventually have to take place out in the Pacific as time change. I think, over a period of time, we'll all see a lot of those changes take place.

Q: But before your new appointment even came up, you are one of the top two leaders in the Navy. You're having to deal with all kinds of things: Tailhook related things and other. And then there came the case of Rebecca Hansen. In what context did she arrive on your desk? When did the case of Rebecca Hansen first present itself to you?

ARTHUR: I guess the first time I became aware of the case was the concerns expressed from Senator Durenberger's office, over on the Hill, relative to what actions had the Navy taken regarding the sexual harassment case of Rebecca Hansen. We received inquiries. We had an IG investigation. But the issue didn't seem to resolve itself. We continued to receive inquiries about what we were doing, and what was her status. And then, as I got involved in answering these questions, her status was being protested relative to the recommendation made for her termination from flight training. By this point in time, had gotten down into the Secretariat end of the Navy, Secretary of the Navy staff, relative to: Was the uniform recommendation relative to terminating her training status as an aviator appropriate, in view of the possibility that her training had been impacted by a case of sexual harassment, which she felt had not been handled properly. And the IG said it had been handled properly.

And so now there was this open-ended question of: Did the fact that she was sexually harassed impact her ability to successfully terminate-- or complete flight training? The system just came to all dead stop because of the continuing questions coming from the Hill. The system said, "We made the right choice. She shouldn't come back to flight training."

So obviously, in an attempt to demonstrate some sort of leadership, which I felt I was qualified to do, I went to the Secretary of the Navy and said, "You and your staff are having trouble with this issue. And let me step in and see if I can resolve it for you." I said, "The fact of the sexual harassment and what happened to the individual that perpetrated and all that is a matter of record. Your people in the personnel side of the house have reached a determination where they think it was properly handled. I'm not going to do that. If you want to reopen that, you've got the people to do that. I can, based on my background, give you a recommendation relative to whether she should be returned to flight training. I can determine whether her failure at this point in time was any way impacted by the sexual harassment that took place. And so I will do that for you."

Q: And you undertook to do this by reviewing her record, by going back into her jacket and seeing her fitness reports and her flight reports and all of that. Did you have any particular expertise in being able to look at such records?

ARTHUR: Oh, yeah. (laughs) In one of my tours, back here in Washington, when I was in the Bureau of Personnel heading up the Junior Officer Detailing shop, the fitness reports and that sort of thing were second nature to me. The other thing was that, as the aviator in that job, my job was to sit on the final board for, naval aviation evaluation boards, where we make a recommendation for somebody to pull their wings, who have already been designated naval aviators and then run into some difficulties out in the fleet, and then make a final determination whether they should or should not be retained as a naval aviator, or whether we should send them back for retraining. So I said, "I have seen more than these than probably anybody still left on active duty. So I think I can review these." Plus, I'd been an instructor, not in the training command but in a fleet replacement squadron. So I'd been an instructor pilot. I knew the pressures and demands on instructor pilots. And I also knew what they were looking for, relative to progress in certain stages of flying. So I felt pretty qualified to do this. Plus, the number of times out in the fleet, when you're a fleet squadron CO or an OPS officer in squadrons and all the squadron time, these things happen all the time. And so I had been involved in more cases than I could ever possibly count.

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