An argument can be made that Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton is directly responsible for the suicide of Adm. Jeremy Boorda. In a recent episode related to his resignation as secretary of the Navy, Mr. Dalton placed another layer on the depth of his complicity in the coverup of his role in carrying out a radical feminist agenda on the U.S. Navy -- an agenda dictated by Bill Clinton, the commander in chief. This agenda has been responsible for the witch hunt that ruined the careers of scores of innocent naval officers as a result of the Tailhook '91 debacle, led to a deluge of young naval aviators leaving the Navy (as well as experienced commanding officers after their first command tours), and, arguably, led directly to the death of Adm. Boorda.

     Recent newspaper stories ("Quietly, Navy says admiral was entitled to wear medals," etc.) all repeat the conventional wisdom that Adm. Boorda committed suicide because he was about to be exposed by Newsweek reporters for having worn unauthorized combat decorations on his uniform. Belief in this version of the story is understandable since two respected reporters, Peter J. Boyer and Nick Kotz reached just that conclusion in lengthy articles on the subject.

     Col. David H. Hackworth, a Newsweek syndicated columnist, was summarily fired for his part in arranging the interview with Boorda that led to the controversy over the unauthorized combat decorations. He has been forced to continue his reporting on military affairs via the Internet since adverse publicity resulted in his loss of syndicated outlets. He has since used this outlet and his syndicated newspaper column to build his weekly readership back up to 4 million. Col. Hackworth was instrumental in finding the truth about Adm. Boorda's "combat awards."

     Col. Hackworth has been made the public scapegoat of this story. Why? Because the combat "Vs" were, in fact, a red herring. An unfortunate coincidence of events placed this event at the emotional center of the story. Considering that only selected portions of Boorda's suicide notes have been publicly revealed, the unauthorized combat "Vs" had very little to do with the underlying reason for Boorda's suicide. In fact, Boorda was in the process, at the time of his suicide, of submitting his resignation as chief of naval operations to Mr. Dalton, a private admission of which preceded his suicide by a full two days.

     Why? Becaue Jeremy Boorda had lost the trust and confidence of the entire naval aviation officer corps. This is what led to his suicide, not the red herring about combat "Vs." He lost the trust and confidence of the retired flag-rank officers when he promised, at an ANA conference in Pensacola, Florida on May 10 1996 -- only seven days before he committed suicide -- that he would send Robert Stumpf's name (on the official Navy promotion list) to the Senate Armed Services Committee for promotion to captain.

     Bob Stumpf was a former leader of the Nay's premier flight demonstration team -- the Blue Angels -- and a decorated veteran of the Gulf War as well as an F-18 fighter squadron commander whose squadron won an award as the best in the Navy. He attended Tailhook '91 primarily to receive this award for his squadron. This was the second time that Bob Stumpf's name had been placed on the Navy promotion list. The first time resulted in his name being removed due to his record being "red flagged" for attendance at Tailhook '91. At the time of Adm. Boorda's suicide, the sending of Bob Stumpf's name to the SASC was in its final stage of consideration.

     Adm. Boorda obviously knew he had lost the trust and confidence of flag-rank active duty naval aviators when he, in effect, fired Adm. Stan Arthur (his vice chief of naval operations) and hired a failed female naval aviation candidate. He also realized that he had lost the trust and confidence of junior officer naval aviators when he went on national television and lied about the cause of Lt. Kara Hultgreen's fatal aviation accident (engine failure vs. the truth -- pilot error) and his directed coverup of the reduced training and qualification standards for the first crop of female Navy combat aviators. Only recently have we learned the truth in this matter.

     Lt. Patrick J. Burns appeared on "60 Minutes April 19 and for the first time on national television told America the truth about the Navy's coverup of the cause (pilot error) of Lt. Kara Hultgreen's 1994 fatal accident and the fact of reduced qualification standards for the first female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilots. Lt. Burns, after being rebuffed by his chain of command, reported to an outside source the reduced standards being invoked by the Navy to ring the first female fighter pilots into the fleet on a timetable that fit the agenda of political activists inside and outside the Navy. Jeremy Boorda knew first hand that, had the Navy leadership listened to Lt. Burns at the time, Lt. Hultgreen would not be dead and her classmate, Lt. Carey Dunai Lohrenz, would not have taxed the operational Navy with the necessity of a long, drawn out, and costly FAENAB proceeding before jerking her from carrier aviation. (She had displayed risky, unsafe, and dangerous flying tendencies around the boat while maintaining an arrogant know-it-all attitude toward any attempts by her superiors to improve her performance. She no longer flies from the deck of an aircraft carrier.)

     Jeremy Boorda knew all of this on the afternoon he took his life. He had been placed in a position where he had completely lost the trust and confidence of the entire "warrior" Navy -- that is, the naval aviators. This disgrace was a mountain compared to the petty mistake of wearing a couple of unauthorized combat "Vs" that nearly every retired flag-rank believes could have been dismissed in the blink of an eye. Adm. Boorda would have had their undivided support with a simple apology.

     The controversy over the wearing of combat awards is a red herring that is being used by Mr. Dalton and President Clinton to cover up the real reason for Jeremy Boorda's suicide. Within two short weeks of Adm. Boora's suicide, Mr. Dalton convened yet another "investigation" of  activities at Tailhook  '91. Despite the fact that three independent Navy investigations of these matters had occurred in the past, completely exonerating Cmdr. Stumpf of any wrongdoing, Mr. Dalton's lawyers proceeded to harangue Bob Stumpf and his attorney, Charles Gittins, on these same charges. In addition, they suggested that Cmdr. Stumpf had engaged in unspecified "criminal" activities.

     When asked the nature of such activities, Mr. Dalton's lawyers refused to reveal the nature of such a charge and continued the harangue. After three hours of this verbal abuse, Cmdr. Stumpf lost his patience. Disgusted with this turn of events, he walked out of the meeting and retired from the Navy.
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Gerald Atkinson
Author

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