Kelso Not at Tailhook Party, Ex-Aide Testifies

NORFOLK, Va. — The chief of naval operations did not attend a party at the 1991 Tailhook convention where dozens of women say they were molested, the admiral’s former aide testified Tuesday.

Capt. Philip G. Howard, now commander of a carrier air wing in Mayport, Fla., also denied that he once said Adm. Frank B. Kelso II accompanied him to the party at the Las Vegas Hilton.

Howard backed up Kelso’s testimony given Monday at a pretrial hearing for two naval aviators charged in the Tailhook scandal.

Howard said he learned in April that the transcript of an unrecorded interview he had with an investigator in December showed that he and Kelso went to the party on Saturday, Sept. 7, 1991. Howard said he told investigators the transcript was wrong.

Retired Rear Adm. Richard M. Dunleavy, the Navy’s top aviator at the time of the convention, testified that he did not see Kelso at the Saturday night party. But he said the party was so jammed he could have missed the admiral.

Howard said that while he attended the party on the third floor, Kelso gambled in a casino on the hotel’s main floor.

Howard, who does not face charges in the Tailhook scandal, said he never saw any inappropriate behavior at the party during the convention of naval aviators.

Kelso, 60, testified Monday that he first heard of misconduct allegations two months after the convention when Lt. Paula Coughlin said her male colleagues groped her at the party.

In all, 83 women have said they were sexually assaulted or harassed at the convention.

Kelso and Howard testified in the pretrial hearing for Cmdrs. Thomas Miller and Gregory Tritt.