It seemed probable that this writer was among those in World War II who heartily backed the slander against women in uniform. Nothing in the intervening fifty years had changed his mind. I asked my executive officer to draft a polite reply in which I noted, “It is clear that you have a strong sense of loyalty to our nation and to our beloved Army.” And I cited my gratitude to the sacrifices his generation had made during World War II. But I also noted that I was proud to have had the opportunity to serve my country in uniform for more than thirty years.
On April 8, 2000, I received a letter postmarked Colorado Springs with a return address “Highly Pissed Veterans.” Whether that referred to their emotional state or their state of inebriation was not immediately clear. There were some obvious illogical elements to the letter, which was addressed to me by rank followed by “(Ms Gutless).” The writer had typed “Eyes only” on the envelope, but then proceeded just below with the message “Woman: you are a disgrace to all good American women. We are ashame [sic] of you. You are a man hater. You should volunteer for hanging at once …” The message on the envelope face continued in that vein for several lines, ending with, “Get lost!” The letter inside was equally enlightening. “Dear Trouble Maker: Good thing the women were not permitted to serve with men in WW II. The war would have been lost on their account. Did you ever have sex before? Go after that man. The military is no place for virgins.”
This writer (writers?) apparently had never heard of the WAC or the several thousand military nurses who had helped save countless lives of wounded during World War II. But I didn't bother to reply to the letter.
A card from St. Louis, addressed to “Claudia ‘He Groped Me’ Kennedy, U.S. Homosexual Army, Pentagon,” got right to the point: “Kennedy: By your idiotic accusations, you prove that women should
not
be allowed in the armed services. Perhaps male homosexuals, female lesbians and women could form one division to be used
in combat
not just high paid paper shufflers!”
He did not receive a reply.
Several men wrote, inviting me out for dinner, sending photographs and biographical information.
Every day, the staff would deliver similar letters to be sorted in my outer office. One called me a “Generalette,” another the “Princess of COO.” (The fallacy that I had created the program would not die. Conservative columnist Mona Charen wrote, “Gen. Kennedy introduced an innovation in military training with the acronym COO, ‘Consideration of Others’ training.”)
With the Inspector General investigation moving slowly ahead, there was no way I could publicly reply to any of this criticism. Instead, I discovered the true value of having a thick skin. People I knew and cared about were wonderfully supportive. These detractors were strangers. That said it all to me.
In addition to the personal support my friends provided, a few became surrogates, taking it upon themselves to privately contact the media as inaccuracies about the case surfaced.
And the tone of media coverage began to moderate when it became evident that the reason I had not raised the Smith incident in 1996 was because it was not necessary to do so and that I had only come forward in 1999 after Smith was in line to become the Deputy Inspector General.
I also had a solid base of public and private support during this period. In a letter to the editor, retired Brigadier General Evelyn “Pat” Foote wrote a stinging rebuff to the original Thomas Ricks
Washington Post
article. She cited Ricks's “less-than-heroic and nameless sources of information” at the Pentagon who had attacked my personal and professional credentials. General Foote added that “Kennedy had the audacity to place her convictions on the line, knowing the price she would have to pay. Perhaps if more generals in the armed forces held all of their peers to the same standards they demand of the troops, fewer scandals of personal or professional dereliction would be played out in the press. Bless Kennedy. She truly has the ‘right stuff.’”
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a Democrat from New York, told the
New York Times
that I “broke the glass ceiling but still was not immune from sexual harassment.” She added that “It took courage to come forward and file a complaint, knowing her own reputation would be first on the line.”
I was surprised that the
Washington Post,
apparently stung by readers' criticism, withdrew support for their original story on the incident. On April 23, 2000,
Post
ombudsman E. R. Shipp acknowledged that Thomas Ricks's April 1 story had “misfired,” and noted that Ricks now said, if he were doing the first article again, he would “reconsider the tone of the story.”
Even the
Washington Times
began to moderate its tone somewhat. That might have had something to do with the fact that politically savvy Washington attorney Chuck Ruff represented me. He didn't tell me what approach he was taking, but it's reasonable to assume he made a few phone calls on my behalf. Additionally, Kathy Bonk, executive director of Communications Consortium Media Center, provided wise counsel on the increasingly complex relations with the news media.
Throughout this period, Steve Meyer of the
New York Times
had the best track record for accuracy and balance.
At the private level, messages of support came rolling in. For example, a decorated Infantry colonel and colleague from a previous assignment e-mailed a brief message: “Just sending a very respectful ‘hang in there.’” An Army chaplain sent an e-mail: “I continue to keep you in my thoughts and prayers.” A member of the DCSINT staff sent a message with an uplifting quote from President Theodore Roosevelt praising those who stood by their beliefs. His message ended, “Again, you have our unequivocal support.” Retired Major General Mary Clarke, who had been a colonel commanding the WAC Center and School at Fort McClellan when I'd been a young captain commanding a company, wrote a touching note citing my decision to file a complaint with the Inspector General as epitomizing the “special trust, confidence and fidelity” found in an officer's commission. These qualities, she said, came at a time when they needed reinforcement to show that the senior leadership of the Army really cared about their soldiers and was willing to “stand up and be counted.”
And the support I received was often direct and personal. One evening as I was walking to my car in the South Parking Lot of the Pentagon, a Navy lieutenant commander ran up behind me and saluted. “Ma'am,” he said, “you don't know me.”
Okay,
I thought,
this could be good or it could be bad.
What he said was good. “I don't mean to impose, but I just want to tell you how sorry I am this thing happened to you and how grateful I am that you reported it. Guys like that general have no place in the service. Men are as outraged about this as women.”
Later, after I had attended a promotion ceremony, a senior NCO approached. The man came to attention. “Ma'am, I just want to salute you.”
All this support was a source of great strength. In the days following the first press stories, I had felt like avoiding the Pentagon corridors. But I knew I had to keep my head up and look people right in the eye. They smiled, indicating their strong support. “Hello, ma'am,” I heard from strangers whenever I walked the corridors. There were as many men as women voicing this tacit support.
Among my close circle of personal colleagues and friends, everyone believed me and no one ever pressed for additional details on the October 1996 incident.
On May 8, 2000, the U.S. Army Inspector General Agency completed its investigation of my complaint against Larry Smith. Although the IG report was labeled “FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY,” parts of it were leaked to the press within two days. The press references to the report still contained errors, but the major conclusions were accurate: The Inspector General had substantiated my complaint against Smith.
But senior Pentagon leadership was reviewing the IG report, so that I received no official notification of the investigation results.
Later, I obtained a redacted version of the report under the Freedom of Information Act. The report revealed no evidence that Smith had committed acts of sexual misconduct earlier in his career. In summarizing the reasons for substantiating my complaint, the Inspector General noted that evaluating the allegations “came down to a question of credibility. There appeared to be no motive for LTG Kennedy to jeopardize her career and reputation by making false allegations. … She was senior to him. They were not in competition for assignments. She did not arrange the office call. There was no apparent incentive for her to ruin his unblemished career and destroy their friendship with false allegations.” I had acted “out of loyalty to the Army” to prevent similar incidents from recurring. “Thus, when one weighed all the testimony and considered all the evidence, coupled with the lack of motive to lie, the preponderance or greater weight of the evidence was sufficient to substantiate LTG Kennedy's allegations.”
The report also substantiated that Smith had committed an “assault consummated by a battery,” but that this “lesser included offense” would be combined into one allegation of improper sexual harassment. The Inspector General also substantiated that Smith was guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.
It was not until July 7, 2000, however, five weeks after my retirement ceremony in the Pentagon central courtyard, that the Army officially announced that the Inspector General had “substantiated charges of sexual harassment made by Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy against Maj. Gen. Larry Smith.” After briefly describing Smith's October 1996 behavior, the official statement noted that I “did not report the incident to any Army official until Maj. Gen. Smith was identified in 1999 to be the Deputy Inspector General of the Army,” a position that involved overseeing investigations of sexual harassment.
The statement continued that Smith had received an administrative memorandum of reprimand from General John M. Keane, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. Such a reprimand effectively ended Smith's career.
The Army had upheld my credibility, even though Smith stated publicly, “I have always and continue to maintain that I did not commit these allegations and I am deeply disappointed with the decision to substantiate them. However, for the good of my family and the Army, we have elected to put it behind us and move on with our lives.” The Army accepted Smith's request to retire on September 1, 2000.
I released a brief public statement through Army public affairs: “I am satisfied with the Army's action in this case. As far as I am concerned, this matter is closed.”
That statement ended a troubling time for me. But the closing of the Smith incident certainly did not end the chapter on sexual harassment and misconduct in the Army. As the work of the Review Panel demonstrated, an unacceptably large proportion of women and men soldiers experience sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and sex discrimination, but many of their colleagues and leaders did not share this perception or attach much significance to it.
Others, however, including the most successful commissioned officers and NCO leaders the panel contacted, were very aware that the human relations environment in their units was a key factor in achieving their missions. In this regard, these successful leaders held the same attitudes as their civilian counterparts. It is widely assumed among many women activists that men “just don't get it” when it comes to sexual harassment. But what I learned in my own case and from membership on the panel is that many men
do
get it. They feel bad about sexual harassment. And they work consistently to eliminate it from their organizations.
Here is the lesson to take from this: Sometimes women do not give these men enough support in discussions of sexual harassment when the issue of gender is raised as if it were an unbreachable barrier dividing men and women. From my own experience, it has become quite clear that it is not gender that divides us any more than it defines us.
Behavior
defines and divides us. If we act appropriately, and more importantly, if our leaders from the most junior NCO to the most senior general exemplify high standards of behavior and require all of us to follow them, the issues of fairness and equality would soon be resolved.
For me, recent troubling incidents have brought home some important lessons. It used to be entirely up to the individual soldier, not the Army, to deal with cases of sexual misconduct. But the shameful crimes at Aberdeen put an end to that. Now the Army has to respond to an individual soldier's complaints.
In my own case, some displeased senior generals have said that I should have dealt with Smith privately and not officially involved the institution of the Army. But they miss the point. I did deal with the Smith incident privately at the time. Only when he was assigned to become the Deputy Inspector General, a position for which he was not qualified given his behavior toward me, did the matter become an institutional responsibility.
Do I wish none of this had happened? On a personal level, absolutely. My last few months on active duty were a time of distraction and unwanted publicity. Until then I valued my privacy. And I also knew my decision to come forward with a complaint would definitely affect my professional future. There were positions outside the Army for which I am qualified, but which would never be open to me after the notoriety of the Smith case.
That is just a fact of life. It's human nature (not only in the Army) for people to react negatively to injured parties. They get cut from the herd. Call it the whistleblower syndrome. It is an important question for both civilian and military leaders to address as they try to resolve problems of fairness and equality in their organizations.
Given the nature of the highly publicized Smith incident, my guess is that a lot of readers will have turned to this chapter first. I hope they don't stop here, but go back to the beginning of the book. I think they'll find an interesting story.
Fitness P
hysical,
M
ental, and
S
piritual