Captain’s Promotion Halted By Accusation Of Sexual Harassment White House Aide Allegedly Was Lewd, Insulting To Female Staffers

Navy Secretary John Dalton has decided that a Navy captain accused of making sexually inappropriate remarks while working at the White House should not be promoted to rear admiral.

Dalton is making his recommendation to President Clinton and Defense Secretary William Perry in the case of Capt. Mark Rogers, who served as the deputy director of the White House Military Office from May 1993 to January 1995, the Navy said in a statement Monday.

Rogers was one of 25 captains selected by a Navy promotion board last November to be promoted to the rank of rear admiral lower half. Only Clinton has the authority to overrule a promotion board, but there is little chance Dalton’s recommendation will be reversed, officials said.

Dalton made his decision “based on the results of a Navy Inspector General investigation that Capt. Rogers had, on several occasions, made inappropriate remarks while assigned as deputy director of the White House Military Office,” the Navy statement said.

“The Navy IG concluded that the statements made by Capt. Rogers … would fall within the Navy Department’s definition of sexual harassment,” the statement said. “Secretary Dalton concluded that he could not recommend Capt. Rogers for promotion to rear admiral given these facts.”

The statement noted that Rogers was accused only of making inappropriate remarks and that there was no allegation of physical misconduct.

The complaint arose in late 1994 when an anonymous caller to the Pentagon’s sexual harassment hotline accused the Navy captain of sexually harassing co-workers in the military office.

The matter was first reported in the independent weekly Navy Times, which obtained a copy of the inspector general’s report through the Freedom of Information Act.

Co-workers told the inspector general that Rogers repeatedly and publicly made lewd remarks. “They said that he called a female White House staff member a ‘dumb bitch’ and that he used the term ‘fat pig’ to describe women in the office,” the Navy Times said of the IG report.

The co-workers said Rogers also made sexually inappropriate remarks concerning male White House workers, including at least one homosexual.

The newspaper said several military officers accused Rogers in the report of asking a female Air Force major who had won an early promotion to lieutenant colonel how she had gained the promotion, asking whether it had been in return for sexual favors.

Although Rogers could be considered for promotion at a later date, the letter of reprimand makes it unlikely he would be selected for one of the highly competitive admiral slots, officials said.

The Navy has been strictly enforcing its anti-sexual harassment policies, particularly since the 1991 Tailhook sex abuse scandal.