Groping Generals

By Mark Thompson/Washington

Lieut. General Claudia Kennedy, the Army's top intelligence officer, has long been the service's best advertisement for gender equality. She was the first--and is still the only--female three-star general in the Army. Defense Secretary William Cohen lauded her last fall as "an officer who has made a career of defying barriers." Moreover, fellow officers say she is an Army loyalist who would never take a "cheap shot" at the service she loves. Nevertheless, she has dealt the Army a major blow by filing a sexual-harassment complaint against a fellow general. The incident allegedly occurred in Kennedy's Pentagon office in late 1996, when a male major general--the same rank as hers at the time--"inappropriately touched" her, according to an Army officer familiar with the case. The alleged harasser has not been identified.

Kennedy's charge is the latest in a string of sexual-harassment episodes that have plagued the Army. In 1996 male drill sergeants at the Army's training base at Aberdeen, Md., were charged and later convicted of sexually assaulting female recruits. A year later the Army's top enlisted man, Sergeant Major Gene McKinney, was charged with--but later acquitted of--sexual assault. In the past year the service has punished two generals for adultery.

When Kennedy, 52, got her third star nearly three years ago, she said she had been sexually harassed during her 30-year Army career. Initially she handled these incidents privately, she said, but began reporting them as she rose through the ranks. "I was very impressed with the way it was handled," she told ABC in June 1997. Kennedy, who is retiring this year, filed a formal complaint about the '96 incident only late last year, after the Army gave the man involved a new and better job. If Army investigators believe her account, the general could face a court-martial.

--By Mark Thompson/Washington