ARTHUR: Well, when I agreed with the Secretary of the Navy that I thought I could do this, and he said, "Yeah, would you please give me your recommendation," I said, "I will do that. I want to go over and see Senator Durenberger and make sure that he understands exactly what my charter is." So we arranged a meeting, and I went over to visit with him and staff. And told them basically that, one, my job was not to review and go back in history and sort out all the issues relative to the sexual harassment case and whether it was properly handled. That was being done again, under the regular system. And we would let it take the process. But I was comfortable that they would come to the proper conclusion on that. I said, "My job," and basically went through a summary of why I thought my qualifications were to be doing this for the Secretary, was purely and simply to understand the issue relative to the recommendation for her termination in flight training, to determine, one, if it was a valid recommendation, and two, if it was a valid recommendation but had been perhaps influenced by the fact that this sexual harassment had occurred, and perhaps her record had been tainted a little bit because of that evolution. And I said, "I can sort through that. I've been at this business quite a while." And I said, "And finally, I will not make a decision on this case until I have an opportunity to interview her in person," that I never felt comfortable making these kinds of determinations without having the ability to meet the individual in person and fill in some of the opening questions that I might have in my mind, and you always have those sorts of things.

Q: Did you feel like you were dealing with people of good will? Or had they had their mind made up?

ARTHUR: That particular meeting was a very cordial meeting. I thought everybody was in agreement with what I was saying that I wanted to do. I knew from previous correspondence and phone calls that I was probably not as welcome as I was made to feel there. But at that time, I thought we were all in agreement.

I guess the only thing that caused me some concern was the fact that it was obvious to me that Senator Durenberger had not seen all of the correspondence that he had sent out under his name, nor had he seen some of the return correspondence that I had sent back. Either he had forgotten it or was just not aware of it. But my impression was that he had not forgotten it; that he was just unaware that those pieces of paper had been exchanged, one way or the other.

Q: You mean, this was being staffed?

ARTHUR: Yes.

Q: Were you surprised, as I was when I first heard about this story, that this case, this young woman could get all the way up to you?

ARTHUR: It was certainly outside the normal chain of events. It had been elevated outside that chain by a Senator. And I'm not disagreeing that Senators don't have the right to do that. They certainly do.

Q: But why was he in the middle of this?

ARTHUR: Well, I never did understand that, other than he said this was a constituent who he felt obligated to make sure that we were doing everything possible. And I said, "Well, my job is to assure you that we are doing everything possible, and have done everything properly to this point in time. But you have asked and have not accepted the previous assurances that everything has been done properly. I said, "I'm sort of the last-- court of last resort. But I think we're fortunate in this case, in that I don't know of anyone else in the Navy at this point in time that has more experience in doing this sort of thing, to sort of sort this out and make sure that we made the right call."

Q: One of his staff members remembered you saying, "And I have daughters, and I care about women in these kind of situations."

ARTHUR: Yes.

Q: So you look at the report, and what do you see? Is Rebecca Hansen a pilot?

ARTHUR: My determination, after I went through all that I could see on the reports, and then after meeting her, was no. She was not going to be a Navy pilot. And my concern, more than anything else was, I felt that she was an individual with lots of care and attention, we could have probably got through the flight training program. But it would have been a sad mistake because we would have had a statistic on our hand at the end. I was convinced. And if I had to review and had to start all over again, I'm sure I would come back with the same conclusion. I knew this was an accident waiting to happen, that at some point in time there would be a failure, and the failure could well be tragic. And we just didn't need that. I didn't think she needed that, nor did I think it was fair to her and her family to set her up for a potential fatal accident.

Q: It's that thing you talked about earlier, about the right stuff--

ARTHUR: There are so many things. If you had to sit down, you could never write it all down. If you had to explain it, you could take 10 years to try to explain it. You've had the feeling before. I've watched people die when I had that feeling, saying, "Maybe this individual shouldn't have been here. Why were they here? This is an accident waiting to happen." And then the next thing you know, it's an accident that happened. And you say, " Am I responsible because I didn't say anything, even though I was probably not at that time in a position to say anything?" You know. I know today that was the right call, in my mind.

Q: Probably would have been easier though, wouldn't it, to say, sure.

ARTHUR: It would have been much easier to have said, "Go back to flight training. Try it again, and let's see how it works out." But felt that all that would do would raise false hopes. And there was no guarantee that at some time in that training there would not be an accident. And then you would say, "That was the wrong call."

Q: Of course, both things could be true. There could have been a reprisal, and she could have been a terrible pilot. Right?

ARTHUR: Both things could have been true. Yes.

Q: But you weren't there testing whether there had been a reprisal. You were really--

ARTHUR: Well, I was there to see if in fact, within the grading criteria, there could have been a reprisal. And you don't fly with the same instructor. You don't fly with the same group. Anyone who subscribes to a theory that all the instructors get together and decide that somebody is not going to be successful, just doesn't understand the program. Things that were consistent before, were consistent after. Things that weren't working before, weren't working after. There was enough to go by, that said: If there was, by one individual, the consistency that runs through all of the people there's a very clear picture here, and it never varies.

Q: Do you know now anything about her past?

ARTHUR: Just at part of this interview, I have been told of certain things that, was I aware of and I was not aware of. The only thing that I knew from previous history, prior to her entering the Navy, was that basically, a college graduate, a college athlete, had worked for a short period of time after college, and then came into a commissioning program which is the standard knowledge that you always pick up.

Q: And now we know....trouble with male authority figures, ... Senator Durenberger puts a hold on your nomination. When do you hear this, Admiral?

ARTHUR: I can't recall the date. I'm sure I've got it written down. After it's announced, after President Clinton announces that I have been nominated and so now my nomination package is over on the Hill for confirmation. I get this list of more than two questions to answer, relative to my background and thoughts on different issues. And then all of a sudden I think it was one afternoon or one evening, the CNO, now Mike Boorda, called me in and said, "There's been a hold placed on your nomination over on the Hill by Senator Durenberger, relative to not fully answering all the questions on the Hansen case."

Q: What did you think?

ARTHUR: I was surprised, and yet I wasn't surprised. This thing between his office and the Navy-- the Department of the Navy, the civilian leadership of the Navy, and the uniformed part of the Navy, was a continuing, "You haven't answered by questions." We'd get all the papers out. I'd have individuals go, "You go look at all the letters. You go look at all the replies. And tell me, did we answer all these questions?" "Yes, sir, you did. You've answered all these questions." So I thought, well, this is just a momentary blip. One last gasp to make a statement in behalf of his constituent. And all we have to do is say, "Here are the questions that we're asked. Here are the answers to the questions." We've done it in a way it will go. It took on a different life after that hold was put on there which is probably nothing to do with the Hansen case at all. The ability to go from staff to staff to say, "Put a hold on this nomination," is one of those things that, once there's a perturbation in the system, then people get very suspicious about what's going on.

Q: How do you feel about it?

ARTHUR: Well, my feelings on that are basically, one, this is the price you pay for the form of government we had. And so it's okay. Civilian leadership of our military is an absolute prerequisite for the way our life in America has to be. We never want the military to have control of the state, so to speak. And so there's a price you pay for that, because you say, "We serve at the pleasure of the President and the Congress." And so they have a right to say, "Are you the right person to serve?" I don't disagree with that at all. I might disagree with the outcome in my particular case--I think I was qualified to serve.

If I'd just felt more comfortable that it was members who were making the decision, and not staff that was driving the decision, I would feel better. But in any case, 38 years, wonderful time. I'm not going to complain.

Q: Well, I would. What do you mean, staff?

ARTHUR: Obviously, in any big organization, you can't expect every Senator or every Congressman to know fully all the issues and be totally up to speed on the myriad of things that have to come across their desk and through their minds each day. You're beholden to the people that support you for accurate and proper framing of issues. I'm not sure that Senator Durenberger had the full support of his staff, but I don't mean that to say that I know that there was something bad going on, because I don't. I just don't think that he was totally apprised of all the issues involved. I don't think he understood what a hazard it is to all of a sudden interrupt a process unless you're prepared to say specifically, "Here are the issues that I disagree with about this individual." And I think he was not prepared to do that. He was just prepared to put a marker on the table that says, "I don't think they've answered all my questions."

Q: When you are told that your nomination is being withdrawn, who tells you and how does it happen?

ARTHUR: Well, the nomination was never really withdrawn. Because the President of the United States was the individual that nominated me for the position. And I would not presume to take that process into my hand. Once I was told that my nomination was in trouble and that there was a lot of concern about leaving the job vacant for a period of time. The Hill it was saying to get my nomination approved might be too excessive. I said, " If you're convinced that it is too excessive and that you can't wait for that process to come to completion, then I'll retire." And so I retired.

Q: Durenberger says, "Why didn't they just send me those answers to my five questions? It would have been all over. Send me the IG report-- And I would have let this guy go."

ARTHUR: We did. We sent all those reports. That's the great mystery. I don't know how many times I had people go through and sort through every piece of paper, every question, and then go find our replies, to make sure that there were no unanswered questions.

Q: Tell me about Admiral Boorda and your relationship.

ARTHUR: We had been friends for a long time. We had worked well together in the building. We had a lot of fun. I said I would retire, he said, "Well, I want you to stay here for my first full year on the job." I said, " Boss, when it's time to go, it's time to go." And I said, "You need a guy in here now that everybody's not going to be wondering about." He said, "No, I need you here." I said, "Look, my agreement with you is that I'm not going to walk out on this job. You know me better than that. I will be here, and I'll do the job, as I've been doing for almost three years (two years at that time). And until you find the person that you want to replace me. You and the Secretary find the individual that you want to replace me. Take whatever time you need. And I will spend the time with that individual, once here, to do a proper turnover. I don't want to walk out and leave the job unfinished."

Q: Were you surprised that Mike Boorda got picked as the CNO?

ARTHUR: No. No. I thought he was a great choice. I thought he was an excellent choice for the job.

Q: What happened to you....should he have stood up for you a little more, or put his stars on the line.....

ARTHUR: I think that Mike Boorda and I had a good understanding of what this meant once my nomination got in trouble. We were all shocked by how badly Admiral Kelso had been treated at his confirmation hearing to retire his four stars. It really shocked us. Here was a very noble man, a very principled man. There was a fight going on of whether this individual should have been retired at four star. Well, nobody had served his country in a more honorable fashion than Frank Kelso.

Q: What was going on there?

ARTHUR: That was still an aftermath of Tailhook. He had been at Tailhook. And maybe if he had exercised more leadership. And so it was really sad, very sad and very upsetting, both to me and Mike. And so we could see this sort of public forum again, where the integrity of the Navy was going to be just brought out. And so I said, "Look, I'm willing to fight it. I'm willing to stay here and fight this, because I think that in the long run we will be successful. But the fact is, there's an important job to be done out in the Pacific, and it's not one of those jobs that you just let lie fallow and not step into." When I said, "I'll retire because it looks like it's going to be too long," he understood that. He understood that there would be some criticism. I said, "You've got an important agenda. You're here to accomplish a lot for the Navy. And I know you have a clear picture of where you're going and what you're trying to do. And don't let this impact your plans. You know what needs to be done. You know where you're going. Get on with it. Make it happen." We were both comfortable with that.

Q: Virtually everybody I've talked to on the story......In the middle of their talking about what's happened, what the problems are, your name comes up as the greatest casualty of the post Tailhook Navy. Spontaneously. That's how we heard about the story......that Rebecca Hansen took you out.

ARTHUR: She provided a lightening rod. And the one thing you learn about this town is that once somebody puts a lightening rod on you, you can't always control where the next piece of stray voltage is going to come from. It's an amazing place. And if you work around this town and don't understand that, well then you've missed a big signal someplace. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying that's the way this town is. We see it all the time with our politicians and any public figure in this city. It's just one of the real interesting things about Washington.

Q: So what happened to Bob Stumpf? He got a lightening rod attached to him, too?

ARTHUR: He got one. He's retired, or asked to be retired now. And I guess, probably like me, I'm sure he would love to fight it, but he's got a family and another life to live sometime. Sometimes when you read those signs, you may not like the message but the sign says it's time to open up a new book and get on with it.

Q: Michael Boorda meets with Rebecca Hansen at Great Lakes Naval Air Station. What did you think of that?

ARTHUR: Well, I knew we called the airplane on the way out there, to let him know, because we knew that she wanted to meet with him, and just to make sure that he knew. He knew of the case, knew of my disposition of the case, and knew all the angst around it by that time. But I didn't want him to get blind-sided by not knowing. So we called the airplane. I didn't talk to him directly. We just had his executive assistant call and say, "You will probably have an occasion to meet with Lt. J.G. Hansen while you're there at Great Lakes. She wants to meet with you."

Q: Were you shocked to get the report back of what happened?

ARTHUR: Well, (laughs) I heard back from him before I heard anything about the reports. He walked in and said, "I got to tell you this." He said, "I did something I don't think I probably should have done, but I met with Lt. Hansen and I told her that I was comfortable with your decision not to return her to flight training. But if she still wanted a career in the Navy, I would give her another opportunity for some other career, if she'd just let me know what she wanted to do." And he said, "I'm sure that you wouldn't agree with that." And I said, "No, that's your prerogative." I said, "I would fight you. I would want to talk to you at great length if you wanted to overturn my decision to send her back to flight training, because I would want to go back through and explain to you in a little more detail why I arrived at that decision." But I said, "If you want to offer her another position in the Navy," I said, "You're the CNO. And that's the way you normally have done things. I said, "You will always go the second mile for somebody ... for the individual."

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