On Friday night, May 19, the Iowa’s executive officer, Commander Morse, telephoned Truitt and warned him that The Washington Post would be reporting that he was a homosexual and had contributed to the explosion. “I was furious,” Truitt recalls. “I mean, suddenly they were trying to make me into this homosexual, mass murderer, homicidal freak.” Truitt, still without the benefit of a lawyer, telephoned the newspaper and threatened to sue if they printed his name. The telephone call was only partly effective. The newspaper decided to run the story but mask his identity. At 1:00 A.M. the Newport News Daily Press and Times Herald arrived at Truitt’s apartment and questioned him about the breaking story. According to the Truitts, they also promised not to print his name, a representation the newspaper disputes. The next day his name was in the paper’s article, tied to the investigation as a suspect.
With the encouragement of Commander Morse, the Truitts left Norfolk to visit Carole’s family in Tampa. On Sunday they saw a copy of a Tampa Tribune article implying that Truitt was a homosexual and a possible murderer. By this time Newsday, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times had jumped on the story. The Associated Press and United Press International had sent the allegations worldwide. None of the reports ever named their “source.” Every day for a week, the Truitts telephoned Morse or the Iowa’s public-affairs officer, and were told to extend their stay until everything “cooled down.”
Later that week, the national news media began citing “a special relationship” between Truitt and Hartwig, and implying that foul play might have caused the accident. These reports contained substantial inaccuracies, including assertions that a book entitled How to Get Even Without Going to Jail, as well as detonating caps, had been discovered in the Truitts’ home the day N.I.S. investigators searched it. (There was no such book, and nothing remotely resembling a detonating cap had been found at the Truitts’ home.) Some reports also claimed that detonating devices were found in Truitt’s locker aboard the Iowa. Again they were wrong–the locker contained only the cleansing foil common to gunner’s mates.
The reports were devastating to Truitt, since at the time no one knew they were incorrect. Carole Truitt was worried. “My husband was going to be the most hated man in the country, more than even Charles Manson and Ted Bundy. I felt very helpless.”
Truitt did not know where to turn. He knew he wasn’t gay. He knew he wasn’t a mass murderer. Now his friendship with the introverted Hartwig was being misconstrued and was destroying him. Carole sought help from her father. He remembered a newspaper article about a Miami lawyer, Ellis Rubin, a premier trial attorney and a specialist in protecting his clients against the intrusion of the news media. The Truitts telephoned Rubin, who agreed to meet with them the next day, May 25. Once again, Ken and Carole Truitt were subjected to hours of questioning. But this time, the interrogator believed them. Rubin took their case.
The following day, May 26, Rubin appeared at a national press conference with his clients. It was the first chance the media had to grill the Truitts since the scandalous story had broken. Only Rubin’s frequent interventions saved Truitt from knuckling under to the day’s pressures. “I couldn’t believe how shallow some of the reporters were,” he recalls. “They kept trying to get me to say that Clay always spoke of suicide, or [asked] questions like, ‘When was the first time you knew Hartwig was gay?’ I would say for the tenth time that he wasn’t gay. Then someone would ask the same question again in a couple of minutes. It was unbelievable. Everyone was asking questions like I was already guilty of something. It was like I had at-ready been tried and convicted.”
Later that night, Tom Brokaw interviewed Truitt via satellite, and some of Truitt’s denials were broadcast on the nightly newscast. But it was too late to help him. The damage was done.
Truitt was furious. “I saw this and thought it was bullshit. It’s not enough that I’ve been through this entire ordeal, could have been killed, picked up pieces of my friends, put them in bags. I’m thinking this is unbelievable. I figured that people who didn’t know the truth were probably going to want to kill me. If this continued, I figured they were going to put me in jail for something I didn’t do.”
While the Navy continued its investigation, matters worsened for the Truitts. Over the Memorial Day holiday, Truitt, whose transfer had been granted, returned to the Iowa to collect his goods and say good-bye to friends. “It was an emotional visit for me,” Truitt says. “it was my own way of saying good-bye one last time to the friends I had lost.” But, according to Truitt, the Navy did not want him on the ship. He was eventually given a security escort and allowed to gather his personal possessions, but not to have any contact with other seamen. Truitt, the hero of several weeks earlier, was now being treated with suspicion and contempt. “That was a real slap in the face,” a bitter Truitt remembers. “I’ve cried about those fellows who died. I’ve really missed those men. It was terrible to do that to me on my own ship.”
Although the Navy categorically denies it, Truitt is convinced that he and his family were subjected to mail intercepts and telephone taps during the investigation. His father-in-law, who was very outspoken on Truitt’s behalf, saw a drastic drop-off in his fast-food restaurant business.
The only thing that prevented the Truitts from hitting rock bottom was the help and support of Ellis Rubin. But Rubin knew the most important support his client could receive would be found in the Navy’s upcoming report, which would supposedly settle once and for all what had happened aboard the Iowa. Rubin hoped that the Navy, in the course of thousands of tests, would eventually settle on the facts, not on the wild speculation that had fueled media interest. By late May, there was strong evidence the Navy might have found the probable cause of the accident. Investigators were shocked to discover that the powder charges aboard the Iowa on the day of the disaster had been improperly stored for five of the hottest months of 1988 on uncooled barges on Virginia’s York River. The stabilizers used to make the powder charges safe begin decomposing at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. At 100 degrees, the powder decomposes at a fast rate. At 110 degrees, it destabilizes at a dangerous clip. During the time the Navy was storing the powder on the river barges, there were 43 days when the temperature reached 90 degrees or higher. Moreover, the temperature inside the aluminum-covered barges was often 25 degrees hotter than outdoors.
The powder charges used aboard ships such as the Iowa have caused problems in the past. All of the powder used on the Navy’s four World War II battleships was manufactured either during that war or the Korean conflict. When the battleships were reactivated in the 1980s, many of the charges were deemed unstable and destroyed. The Navy monitors the remaining powder to detect dangerous losses of the crucial stabilizer. But unable to offer an explanation, the Navy bypassed the overcooked powder that found its way onto the Iowa.
Moreover, investigators discovered that the powder in the ill-fated center gun had been rammed in more than 22 inches farther than normal. Thus instead of some space existing between the first powder bag and the 2,700-pound projectile, the powder had been slammed into the metal warhead. The sailor responsible for the manual ramming device was on his first gun assignment. In addition, unknown to the Iowa’s captain, the ship’s master chief petty officer had ordered experimental powder loads for that morning’s practice shooting. Instead of the normal six bags, the center gun was filled with only five for its first shot. To many experts, the possibility that an untrained rammer had shoved the experimental load of unstable powder into the warhead, causing the explosion, was the likely answer.
But Rubin’s hope that the Navy’s investigation would produce definitive results was dashed on Thursday, September 7, 1989. On that day the Navy released its report of more than 1,000 pages in which it concluded that the disaster was caused by a “wrongful intentional act … most probably committed” by Clay Hartwig. Separate from the N.I.S. investigation, the Navy had interviewed 82 witnesses, employed more than 50 explosives experts from all of the armed forces and the FBI., conducted more than 20,000 technical tests, and spent more than $4 million in taxpayers’ money.
The report made no mention of the more scandalous allegations that had been widely disseminated in the press sullying Truitt’s reputation.
The Navy condemned the shoddy handling of the powder during the scorching summer months. But it dismissed the idea that unstable powder had caused the accident, although scientists contended that even if the remaining powder tested stable, this finding did not rule out defective powder as the explosion’s cause. Temperatures in a sealed barge vary, rendering only some of the charges dangerous. Although the Navy destroyed all of the Iowa’s remaining charges, and banned the storage of powder on unventilated barges, in the end it ignored the weight of the evidence. The Navy also ignored the inexperience of the rammer, as well as that of the sailors responsible for the primer and for hoisting powder. The NIS decided on a demonstration to disprove the Navy’s conclusions that the powder was old and unstable and built a “drop test” rig, however the results showed that the powder was definitely unstable, detonating the device in each test drop. In spite of these findings, the NIS stuck with the accusation of a deliberate crime by Hartwig.
Instead, the Navy placed the blame on a dead sailor, using evidence so weak that it would have never garnered an indictment in a civilian court. Microscopic particles found in the gun were subjected to F.B.I. tests. They proved “inconclusive.” But even so, the Navy decided the particles belonged to a detonating device.
The Navy never even attempted to explain why, seconds before the explosion, one of the sailors in the confined center gun room announced: “We’ve got a little problem here–tell them we’re not ready yet.” Why? What problem? With an admiral visiting the Iowa that day, there was great pressure on the seamen to perform well. Had a miscue appeared at the last moment? The Navy never found out. If Clayton Hartwig was trying to place an explosive device between the powder bags, as the Navy charges, would a sailor announce that there was a “little problem,” or would he have sounded an emergency alert?
Under close analysis, the case against Hartwig falls apart. The Navy could never explain how Hartwig could have premeditated such a complex action, since he was not even on the job list for the fatal exercise–he was only a last-minute replacement. Are we to believe that he was desperately suicidal but was waiting for his next assignment to the turret to take his life, rather than doing so beforehand? Hartwig’s psychological profile doesn’t fit that of either a suicidal individual or a mass murderer. Independent psychiatrists who analyzed his background found no signs of psychosis, paranoia, or clinical depression. Instead, the therapists concluded that Hartwig was content with his job, anticipating his next assignment in a security role in London, and that the great weight of the evidence ran counter to suicide. The Navy ignored these findings.
Kendall Truitt is embittered over the report: “They owe me an apology at the very least. Their leaks have really left the public with a lot of doubts about me, and none of it is true or fair.”
Ellis Rubin worries that there may be. a more devious reason for the report’s conclusions. “It certainly is a lot better for the Navy if it looks like this accident took place because some deranged sailor caused it. If they have to acknowledge the problems with these World War II ships, the aging powder, and the danger involved, they would raise real concerns about the safety aboard the other battleships. But by failing to confront these issues head-on, they may be endangering the lives of other innocent young sailors.”
Although the Navy feels no need to apologize to Truitt, Navy officials have “unofficially” told reporters that the accusations against him were wrong. But justice is not served by such a quiet correction. At the very least, the Navy should restore Truitt’s reputation with the same aggressiveness with which it impugned his honor. The clock should be turned back to April 24, when in the presence of President Bush, Truitt was hailed as a hero.
The Gays and Lesbians Comment.
GLAAD Asks Navy Apology for USS Iowa Slur
LOS ANGELES, CA — October 18, 1991 —
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation believes the United States Navy owes the gay and lesbian community an apology for slurs issued during the early stages of the Navy’s investigation of the explosion aboard the USS Iowa, which claimed the lives of 47 sailors in April 1989. In May 1989, “unnamed sources” within the Naval Investigative Services (NIS) leaked to NBC correspondent Fred Francis claims that there was evidence of a murder/ suicide involving a “homosexual relationship” between Gunner’s Mate Clayton Hartwig (who was killed in the blast) and Gunner’s Mate Kendall Truitt (who survived). In June, Francis reported that Navy investigators were “convinced” that Hartwig was a “troubled homosexual” who was suicidal because other sailors had rejected his advances. In both cases the national media picked up the story, with attribution to NBC. In October 1989, the Navy claimed that the blast was “most probably” intentionally caused by Hartwig.
Later, the Navy announced that over a year of tests and analysis by the Navy and independent scientists had led to the conclusion that the blast may have been an accident after all and not sabotage. The Navy also announced that it had issued an apology to Hartwig’s family. GLAAD/LA Executive Director Richard Jennings called on the Navy “to apologize to the gay and lesbian citizens of this country,” explaining that the Navy’s original “theory” as to the cause of the blast was “an insulting and insidious attempt to buttress the Navy’s policy of prejudice with a yarn concocted wholly out of myths and stereotypes, with absolutely no basis in fact.”
According to Jennings, the NIS has long been criticized by civil rights groups for its tactics in probes of suspected gays and lesbians. Moreover, a New York Times story in July 1989 revealed that, contrary to the NBC story, a psychological profile of Hartwig assembled by the FBI did not prove homosexuality, but suggested a tendency to form dependent relationships with his male friends. The Times also reported that Congressional officials said they were told by the Navy in private briefings that investigators did not believe Hartwig was homosexual. On September 4, 1989, Seaman David Smith recanted testimony that Hartwig had made sexual advances toward him, saying that Navy investigators questioned him in sessions lasting up to 12 hours and threatened to charge him with 47 counts of murder and as an accessory to murder if he did not cooperate.
In October 1989, GLAAD issued a press release questioning the Navy’s motives in leaking its preliminary theory, and pointing out the Navy’s vested interest in suggesting that a “troubled homosexual” was behind the blast. According to GLAAD/NY Media Chair Stephen Miller, “Several court cases were then being litigated involving gay men and lesbians fighting discharge from the Navy, and the Navy was attempting to defend its discriminatory discharge policy by claiming that gays were a disruptive influence to proper military functioning.”
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