Swabbing The Deck

Even as Defense Secretary Dick Cheney moved last week to put the Tailhook scandal behind him by naming a squeaky-clean number cruncher as Acting Navy Secretary, the Pentagon found itself embarrassed by new reports of sexual harassment and misconduct in the Navy.

% At the center of the new charges is Navy Lieut. Paula Coughlin, one of 26 women sexually molested during last year's Las Vegas Hilton convention of the Tailhook Association, an organization of Navy and Marine pilots. Coughlin told officials at the Naval Investigative Service in November that the agent assigned to her case, Laney Spigener, not only invited her to dinner and a drive in the country but, as she was sorting through photographs of Navy and Marine aviators in an attempt to identify those who had pawed her, also called her "sweetcakes." Spigener was removed from the case and suspended for three days. In 1990 the agent had been suspended for abusing his power in another matter.

In his first message as the Navy's Acting Secretary, former Pentagon comptroller Sean O'Keefe, 36, called on all officers to cooperate "fully and truthfully" with the Pentagon probe into Tailhook. Appointed by Cheney for only a 120-day term, O'Keefe will sidestep Senate approval. Good news for the Navy, since confirmation hearings would have given lawmakers another chance to sound off against the already scandal-weary service.