Over The Side

Embarrassing the boss is never a good move. In September, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney fired General Michael Dugan as Air Force Chief of Staff for disclosing sensitive Air Force war plans for the Persian Gulf. Last week Vice Admiral Richard C. Gentz, head of the Naval Air Systems Command, became another casualty. He was sacked because he was in charge of an oversight system that failed to alert the Pentagon to problems in the Navy's A-12 attack-bomber program. That led Cheney to assure Congress in April that the plane was on schedule and on budget. In fact, the development turned out to be 18 months behind and $1.3 billion over its estimated cost of $4.38 billion.

Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III ordered Gentz to retire by next February, ending a 33-year career. His top two subordinates overseeing the A- 12 Avenger, a carrier-based plane that will use stealth technology, were censured. A Navy report accused the Avenger's developers, McDonnell Douglas ! and General Dynamics, of falling behind on the aircraft and concealing this from the Navy. The report also blamed the excessive secrecy surrounding the A- 12 program for the failure of high-level Pentagon officials to spot flaws sooner in the contractors' rosy estimates.

The Avenger program is now expected to be reviewed, but not scrapped. The Navy still wants to buy 620 of the planes, costing at least $92 million apiece, to replace the aging A-6 Intruder as the fleet's most potent attacker by 1995.