Public Eye

By MARGARET CARLSON

In the unfinished drama of women in the military, Admiral Stanley Arthur and Lieut. (j.g.) Rebecca Hansen were antagonists in the making. Arthur was the former commander of U.S. naval forces during the Persian Gulf War, holder of 11 Distinguished Flying Crosses; he was looking forward to being confirmed by the Senate as commander in chief of the Pacific forces in July. Hansen, an honors student in Aviation Officer Candidate School, wanted to fly. The problem: she had been dismissed from flight school with only eight weeks left in an 18-month training course. As Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Arthur had reviewed the expulsion and approved it. In June, however, Senator David Durenberger put a hold on Arthur's nomination. He wanted the Navy to respond to Hansen's charge that she was dismissed for having filed a sexual-harassment claim against an instructor. The Navy then abruptly withdrew Arthur's nomination, explaining that any delay in filling the post would be intolerable.

Had another admiral taken the fall over an incident that was actually the fault of those below him? Anyone who thinks that picking off admirals is an unfair tactic in the sexual-harassment wars should look at the 10-inch file in the Hansen case, and at the fact that it took the intervention of three members of Congress -- Senator Paul Wellstone and Representative Bruce Vento in addition to Durenberger -- to get the Navy brass to pay attention. Durenberger told TIME last week that the Navy still hasn't given him an unedited report on the Hansen case: "I'm not one to put a hold on anything, but I didn't have any choice but to use Arthur. The way the Navy has handled the Hansen case is absolutely incredible. They don't want to examine in the open how the Navy handles reprisals against women for filing sexual-harassment charges."

In primary training, Hansen, now 27, was assigned a flight instructor who routinely made remarks so inappropriate Roseanne would have a hard time brushing them off. Lieut. Larry Meyer called Hansen a "wench," advised her to wear a pink bikini and dye her hair, and turned required discussions, such as one on friction, into running sexual jokes. Hansen let it pass, she says, until one day when he grabbed her by the hair, forced her head down to his groin (a witness says he only saw her head go down as far as Meyer's chest) and said, "this is how I like to control my women." She filed a complaint. She had corroborating witnesses for most of the incidents, and there were two other women who were not in Meyer's class who had complained about him. Meyer's superior officer conceded that the instructor could on occasion be an "obnoxious loudmouth." The Navy claims it punished Meyer with a letter of reprimand that effectively ended his career. In fact, the case was handled as a personnel matter rather than a judicial one; he was found only to have used "indecent language." Meyer insisted he was just "trying to provide a relaxed atmosphere." He left the military on his own timetable, a year later.

One night at the officers' club before he left, Meyer swore to a fellow officer that he had "buddies waiting to fly with her" and that Hansen "would get hers." This threat was reported to Hansen's superiors but ignored. Despite some ostracism, Hansen maintained passing grades -- 3.0 out of a possible 4.0 in all phases of training -- with some flyers giving her rave reviews like "one of the best boost-off approaches I've seen." Her final flight, however, was with a captain who had previously chewed her out. Her average fell to 2.997, and she was bounced in March 1993.

Hansen then began a long series of appeals for congressional help. As a result, her dismissal was put on hold while the Navy investigated. During this time, in February 1994, Hansen hurt her knee in a skiing accident in Vail, Colorado, and found out just how much the Navy had turned against her. "I should have believed my superiors when they said filing charges would ruin my career," Hansen says. What she didn't know was that it could ruin her health. When she called her commanding officer from the emergency room in Vail, he ordered her to leave there and go to the Air Force Academy Hospital in Colorado Springs, although this meant taking a three-hour Greyhound bus trip and carrying boots, skis and luggage while on crutches. Once she was there and + scheduled for surgery, her CO changed his mind and ordered her to return to the base hospital in Pensacola, Florida. Wellstone and Vento intervened, and she went to a VA hospital near her parents' home in Minnesota. But her travails weren't at an end. Because her CO refused routine authorization to take an Air Force shuttle back to the Denver airport, she again traveled unassisted on two buses. Still suffering from that, she had another operation on July 25.

Arthur says Hansen failed flight school because she was a marginal flyer who would not improve with training. Maybe so, although she flew for more than a year, sometimes solo, with good marks. Some admirals are more enlightened than the men below them, but until they shake up the ranks little will change. For the moment, perhaps the only way women can make their point is to take a few admirals down with the ship.