Lehman Refuses to Apologize for Firing : Navy Rejects Kennedy’s Request for Explanation of Cassidy Case

Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman Jr. said Friday that he will not issue an apology for publicly firing and then quietly reinstating retired Rear Adm. Thomas J. Cassidy Jr. after the purchase of two $659 aircraft ashtrays.

In a prepared statement issued in Washington, Lehman said he is “satisfied that all actions in the case were appropriate.”

On Thursday, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) charged that Lehman has failed to fully explain why he “fingered” Cassidy, who was dismissed last year as commander of the Pacific Fleet’s Airborne Early Warning Wing at Miramar Naval Air Station.

Kennedy and all 18 of his colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee asked President Reagan in an Oct. 8 letter to “rehabilitate the reputation and standing” of Cassidy.

Navy officials responded Friday by accusing Kennedy of using Cassidy’s case to criticize Lehman.

“There is a get-Lehman kind of philosophy,” said one admiral who asked not to be identified. “Kennedy is totally up against Lehman like you wouldn’t believe. There’s absolutely no love lost between them at all.”

Kennedy’s staff director, Jim Wieghart, said Kennedy is “not interested in Lehman-bashing. He is interested in doing justice to a distinguished American.”

Wieghart added, “This letter is an effort to undo the damage that the Secretary of the Navy did in his headline-grabbing effort of shooting from the hip to get out from under a longstanding Navy problem with procurement...

“He has been trying to extricate himself from this horrendous and really inhumane blunder.... It’s a mean-spirited, vindictive and outrageous action that you are seeing by a very politically minded Secretary of the Navy, who does himself and the Navy a disservice by this kind of activity.”

The Navy found an unlikely ally Friday in Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego), a constant critic who first raised charges last year of Navy-wide deficiencies in the purchasing of spare parts. Bates said Kennedy and other members of the Armed Services Committee erred in backing Cassidy.

“I don’t think Kennedy knows enough about it, really, to be making the charges he’s made,” Bates said. “I think he is way off base....

“(Cassidy) took his licks ... then out of the blue they want to exonerate him like he didn’t do anything. It seems a little far-fetched to me.”

Lehman dismissed Cassidy; Capt. Gary Hakanson, commanding officer at Miramar, and Cmdr. Jerry Fronabarger, a supply officer, on May 30, 1985, for their roles in the purchase of two Grumman Corp. ashtrays for the E-2C Hawkeye, a reconnaissance plane. Cassidy was the only officer reinstated to his Miramar post by Lehman, after an internal Navy investigation concluded that no disciplinary action should be considered.

Hakanson has since retired and Fronabarger was transferred to the Navy International Logistics Control Center in Philadelphia.

Capt. Michael Sherman, Lehman’s spokesman, emphasized Friday that Adm. James D. Watkins, then chief of naval operations, concluded in a report to Lehman that Cassidy’s performance “was not all it should have been.”

Watkins issued Cassidy an administrative letter of instruction for not taking aggressive action to make sure that purchasing regulations were followed at Miramar.

Cassidy said in a telephone interview Friday: “They spent an awful lot of money out there tearing things apart to support the actions of the civilian people at the Pentagon. The reality is the investigative report did not substantiate the firings.

“The facts of the report are what people have to look at, not a bunch of rhetoric from people who work for Lehman.... Those are the facts of the investigation. If Lehman and Watkins chose to ignore those facts, there is nothing I can do about it.”

At the time of the ashtray purchases, Cassidy said, he was working in Washington for the chief of naval operations as director of tactical readiness. But the purchases came to light after he had been transferred to Miramar.

Cassidy, who retired last fall, has been doing independent consulting work for defense contractors while looking for full-time employment in the San Diego area.

At least one top Navy official acknowledged that Lehman mishandled Cassidy’s case by acting hastily instead of waiting for the results of the investigation.

“Cassidy had a moral responsibility to assure that the money was being spent properly,” the official said. “He was accountable, no question about it. But ... we could have accomplished the same thing had we done the thing properly. The actions were so precipitous that they caused a tremendous number of people to yell foul. We could have avoided it.”

According to this official, news of the ashtray scandal infuriated Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and Lehman because the negative publicity led Congress to make further cuts in the military budget. As a result, Weinberger ordered Lehman to get the scandal “squared away” by firing the officers responsible, the official said.

A Navy spokesman in Washington conceded that it was “regrettable” that the publicity surrounding the ashtray purchases has “overshadowed” Cassidy’s career.