NATION IN BRIEF : VIRGINIA : Kelso Is Called ‘Man of Integrity’

The Navy’s top officer would have stopped misconduct at the 1991 Tailhook convention if he saw it, a former assistant Navy secretary testified as a month of hearings on the scandal came to a close. Adm. Frank B. Kelso is “an honorable man of integrity,” said Barbara Pope, former assistant secretary of the Navy for manpower and reserve affairs. He would have intervened if he saw misconduct, she said. Kelso, chief of naval operations, has denied seeing any misconduct. Capt. William T. Vest Jr., a military judge, has been hearing testimony in Norfolk, Va., on whether Kelso’s presence at the Tailhook convention and what he might have seen there taints charges against two Navy commanders. The commanders, Thomas R. Miller and Gregory Tritt, are accused of failing to stop misconduct by junior officers. Dozens of women say they were sexually assaulted by drunk aviators at the Las Vegas convention.