Fall from Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy

Tailhook was just the tip of the iceberg, as Gregory Vistica documents in this searing epose of the U.S. Navy from the Reagan year to the present.  The culmination of four years of research, involving hundreds of interviews with U.S. naval officers and a wide array of newly declassified revelations about the United States Navy:

Secretary of the Navy John Lehman and a group of admirals repeatedly misled Congress about the cost of the Navy buildup and inflated the dangers of the Soviet Naby

The Navy has kept secret the fact that it dumped a hot nuclear reactor into the Atlantic off the coast of Newfoundland in the 1970s

The Navy routinely protects its senior officers whoa re involved in wrongdoing, and has even gone so far as to promote an admiral linked to a manslaughter case.

Senior male officers in the submarine and aviation communities meet in secret each year to pick officers for promotion to command posts, a procedure that excludes women from important jobs.

The U.S.Navy condoned outrageous conduct by naval officers on shore leave in the Phillippines.

Some Navy pilots have flown their aircraft while drunk, while others with poor performance records have been allowed to fly, putting scores of people at risk.

John Lehman repeatedly took part in the debauchery at Tailhook when he was Navy Secretary, and before that a a reserve Aviator.