Last week, however, Greene became the highest-ranking naval officer since World War II to face a court-martial. The charge: that while serving as the chief of a unit charged with fighting sexual harassment in the wake of the 1991 Tailhook scandal, Greene sexually harassed female subordinates. The case is a nightmare for Greene, 47, who is married with three children and whom his colleagues regarded as a sober family man. And it is a twisted tale of sexual and racial politics in a service that seems to be having an especially difficult time integrating blacks and women into its officer corps.
Quiet and articulate, Greene, who turned down Princeton to attend Annapolis, is not “a balls-to-the-wall, knife-in-the-teeth” commando, says a fellow SEAL who has known him for 20 years. Instead, Greene was seen as methodical and determined (he chose to be a SEAL even though he could barely swim). In 1991, the year of Tailhook, Greene was made the navy’s director of equal opportunity. He became close to Lt. Mary Felix, who was working on a sexual-harassment hot line in his office. After Felix confided in Greene that her boyfriend had given her sexually transmitted diseases, Greene wrote her a poem called “I’ll Be There.” (“Whenever you need to be adored, I’ll be there.”) Over several months in 1993, Greene jogged and liked weights with Felix and sent her letters and small gifts, including an old pair of men’s running shorts.
Driving home one evening in April 1993, Felix consoled Greene when he became distraught while talking about his wife. A few days later, Greene sent her a card offering thanks “for making one of my dreams come true.” In another letter, Greene wrote, “What you offered to do with me was very special, very precious. I wanted you just as much, if not more, than you wanted me.” Felix, who is 28, says she never sought sex with Greene. She testified last week that she was “horrified” by his letters. “The only thing I could think of it was some kind of fantasy he had. It made me sick,” she said, her voice quavering in the small courtroom at the Washington Navy Yard. “I didn’t want to believe this was happening. He was a married man, my boss, and old enough to be my father.” Significantly, Greene and Felix agree Greene never touched her. Greene insists he was just being comforting and avuncular.
Felix, as well as another woman who claimed to have been sexually harassed by Greene, filed complaints in the spring of 1995. But the matter was informally resolved when Greene agreed to stay away from both women. Then the navy decided to promote Greene. At the time, President Clinton’s secretary of the navy, John Dalton, was pressuring the service to promote more blacks, and Greene was offered his first star. This was too much for Felix, who last February threatened to go public with her charges against Greene if he was given flag rank.
Burned by Tailhook, the navy felt compelled to reopen Greene’s case. He could have avoided a court-martial by agreeing to an “admiral’s mast,” a less formal–and private–disciplinary proceeding. But Greene insisted on a public trial, he said, “to clear my name and my reputation.” Close friends of Greene’s say he didn’t feel he would get a fair hearing from the vice chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Joseph Prueher, who would have conducted the admiral’s mast. As the navy’s top equal-opportunity officer, Greene had investigated several cases in which Prueher had a role in disciplining minorities. Greene said that Prueher and other admirals had shown racial bias because the conviction rate for blacks was high. Greene told NEWSWEEK that he sees race as “a factor” in his court-martial, partly because both women who filed complaints are white. And Greene is one of three captains recently removed from the promotion list to admiral. The other officers were both white. One had an affair with another officer and another made cracks about the breast size of a White House aide. Greene says the navy tried to hush those cases up, but leaked his to the press. “Nobody wants Greene to look bad,” a navy official insisted, denying Greene’s allegations. Admiral Prueher did not comment.
The navy has dismissed the sexual harrassment charges by the second woman, Lt. Pamela Castrucci. But even if Greene is cleared of the Felix charges, his career is ruined. Greene told NEWSWEEK he plans to go public with accusations of the top brass’s racial bias. Greene should know his fate in a week or two. But the navy’s trials will just go on and on. .
