March 30, 2000
Female general accuses peer of harassment
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Army's most senior female officer has filed a sexual
harassment
complaint against a fellow general, accusing him of groping her
in her
Pentagon office in 1996, The Washington Times has learned.
Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, deputy chief of staff for
intelligence,
lodged the charges stemming from the general's visit to her
office when she
was a major general and assistant deputy chief for intelligence.
Agents of the Defense Department inspector general's office
have been
investigating the charge and have interviewed Gen. Kennedy's
former staff
members.
An Army spokesman at the Pentagon said yesterday, "Lt. Gen.
Kennedy has
no comment."
One ex-officer told The Times that he was interviewed by
the male
general's defense lawyer, who asked him about Gen. Kennedy's
demeanor on a
certain October date in 1996 and about her office layout.
An Army source said Gen. Kennedy complained to the IG of
"inappropriate
touching."
An Army lawyer identified by sources as the male general's
attorney
declined to comment to a reporter. The accused general's
identify and
current rank could not be learned yesterday.
Gen. Kennedy's charge apparently represents the military's
first case
of purported general-on-general sexual harassment. Such charges
typically
involve superiors making unwanted sexual advances to
subordinates.
Gen. Kennedy, 52, who is single, recently told her staff in
a memo that
she is retiring. She had been mentioned in the past year as
possibly the
next director of the Defense Intelligence Agency or deputy CIA
director.
"As you may have already heard, this summer I will retire,"
she said in
the Feb. 9 memo.
Gen. Kennedy is one of the armed forces' most high-profile
generals,
one of only three three-star female officers in the armed
forces. She was
the Army's first three-star female officer when she gained
promotion to
lieutenant general in 1997, becoming the service's top
intelligence officer.
She is said to be first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's
favorite general.
Gen. Kennedy is also friends with Walter Kaye, a Democratic
Party financial
contributor who got Monica Lewinsky her White House internship.
Mr. Kaye is
an Army "civilian aide," one of 50 such volunteers who sell the
Army to the
public and advise senior service leaders.
In an October 1997 interview with USA Weekend, Gen. Kennedy
said she
had been sexually harassed during her 31-year career.
"I dealt with it individually," she said. "I just said no
in the way I
needed to say no, and there were times when I had to say no very
forcefully.
I can remember making an absolute threat to someone that if he
ever did this
to me, or said it, or made me even think he was about to, I
would be taking
him in to see the person that was pretty high up in our chain.
So you have
to come back like that sometimes."
In her message to staff members on her impending
retirement, she said:
"I have the usual twinges about retiring . . . unsure of
the future pay
for housing. No more push-ups. The wrenching away from you and
other
soldiers. But I also view this as a great opportunity to
redefine the terms
on which I live and am already enjoying the exploration process.
The
timeline will probably be this: stop being the [deputy chief of
staff for
intelligence] in early June (and no I don't know who the new
DCSINT will
be). Retire on 1 August. Big party to which you are all invited
on Friday
the 4th of August at the Mayflower."
Gen. Kennedy raised some eyebrows when she spoke last year
during an
annual conference of sergeant majors at Fort Huachuca, Ariz.
The sergeants said they were expecting a talk on the Army's
changing
intelligence structure but instead received a lecture on the
service's
Consideration of Others (COO) program. COO brings soldiers
together to talk
about personal and professional problems and their feelings.
"She giggled, much like a little girl, as she inferred that
they had
not been 'COO'ing at those bases," one sergeant said. "I really
was tempted
to ask about training down to the weak link, but I could not
risk being
politically incorrect at the venue present."
The nonpartisan White House Project listed Gen. Kennedy in
1998 among
20 potential female presidential candidates.
The Army has been forced to deal with several high-profile
sexual
harassment cases. Its former top enlisted man was
court-martialed on
sexual-misconduct charges, but a jury cleared him of all but an
obstruction
of justice count. A retired major general was convicted at
court-martial of
having affairs with the wives of his subordinate officers.
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