The West Wing : Arctic Radar
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* Adultery in the Military
* UN v. NYC over Parking Tickets

Adultery in the Military (last updated November 27, 2002) (back to top)

Adultery remains a violation of military law and can be punished with jail time and a dishonorable discharge, but policies have been clarified and more guidance has been given in the wake of some public controversies over what some have called selective and uneven application of the law.

In May 1997, Lt. Kelly Flinn, the first female B-52 bomber pilot, faced charges arising from her involvement with one married civilian and from a brief fling with an unmarried airman not in her chain of command. The charges drew much criticism from the public and from such politicians as Sen. Trent Lott, but some military personnel defended the charges as justified because Flinn had lied about her conduct and had disobeyed orders to break it off. Flinn agreed to a general discharge in May 1997 and avoided a court martial.

At the time, Secretary of the Air Force Dr. Sheila Widnall faced public pressure to avoid the court martial but reportedly could not offer leniency without violating rules against using a position of command to influence a court proceeding.

Several other cases involving adultery and/or fraternization have drawn public attention, especially in the wake of Flinn's discharge. Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, for example, withdrew his name from consideration as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the summer of 1997 over an affair 13 years earlier with a civilian and over his reported decision to end the career of a lower-ranking Air Force general who had confessed to committing adultery with a civilian.

Adultery is not a specifically defined crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but falls under Article 134's prohibition of "all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces" and "all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces." According to the Manual for Courts-Martial, which provides guidance for how the Uniform Code of Military Justice is applied, adultery is a crime under military law when the accused wrongfully had sexual intercourse with someone when either one was married to someone else, and when that conduct was "directly prejudicial to good order and discipline or service discrediting."

This final element is somewhat subjective and can allow for differences in application. Under the MCM, adulterous conduct is "directly prejudicial to good order and discipline" when it "has an obvious, and measurably divisive effect on unit or organization discipline, morale, or cohesion, or is clearly detrimental to the authority or stature of or respect toward a servicemember." Adulterous conduct, even when "indirectly or remotely prejudicial to good order and discipline," can be service discrediting when it tends to "injure to the reputation of the armed forces" or to "bring the service into disrepute, make it subject to public ridicule, or lower it in public esteem."

In the wake of controversies surrounding Lt. Flinn and other military personnel, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen directed actions to standardize good order and discipline policies among services and to clarify guidance on adultery under UCMJ. The Manual for Courts Martial was subsequently amended to provide more guidance on how adultery charges should be applied.

Flinn, who was 26 at the time, was charged with adultery, fraternization, disobeying an order, making a false statement, and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. She had been stationed at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, near the Canadian border, and had become involved with a soccer coach who was married to another airman at the base.

According to opinion surveys done in the 1990s by the National Opinion Research Center, about 15 percent of people who were married said they had had sex with someone other than their husbands or wives. About 78 percent of people surveyed in the 1990s who gave an opinion said adultery was always wrong, about 14 percent said it was almost always wrong, and about 6 percent said it was wrong only sometimes. Only 2 percent said it was not wrong at all.

Sources: Elaine Sciolino, From a love affair to a court-martial, New York Times, May 11, 1997. Elaine Sciolino, Air Force's chief said to seek deal on court-martial, New York Times, May 15, 1997. Ian Fisher, Army's adultery rule is don't get caught, New York Times, May 17, 1997. Elaine Sciolino, Pilot facing adultery charge agrees to a general discharge, New York Times, May 23, 1997. A July 29, 1998 Department of Defense press release on Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen's directive to standardize policies regarding adultery is on-line here. Survey data is from the General Social Survey Codebook, on-line here. Revised amendments to the Manual for Courts-Martial's adultery provisions are on-line here. Some biographical information on Lt. Kelly Flinn is on-line here.

United Nations and Parking Tickets (last updated November 27, 2002) (back to top)

A long-running battle between New York City and the United Nations was resolved once again in August 2002 when the city agreed to provide more dedicated parking spaces for diplomatic and consular officials in return for their paying some of their prior debt and for a general reduction in the number of allowed diplomatic vehicles.

New York City began requiring diplomats to pay their parking tickets in April 1997, a decision that sparked international criticism. The UN's Committee on Relations with the Host Country responded with a 13-1 vote recommending further action, with the United States voting against the recommendation and the United Kingdom abstaining.

Since then, the city and the United Nations have continued to have disagreements and temporary truces over the issue, with the city complaining that diplomats were abusing their privileges and diplomats complaining that they were being singled out unfairly. By the summer of 2001, a city plan to start towing consular vehicles that had more than $230 in unpaid tickets drew criticism from the United States Department of State as potentially having international consequences and was averted with the State Department's intervention. At the time, diplomats reportedly owed more than $20 million in outstanding tickets issued between 1997 and 2001.

Most recently, in August 2002, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and U.S. Ambassador Patrick F. Kennedy announced a diplomatic parking program that would assign specific street parking spaces to each mission to the United Nations, reduce the number of diplomatic and consular vehicles with on-street parking privileges from 2,600 to 530, and require foreign countries to pay their parking-ticket debt.

The United Nations has been headquartered in New York City for about half a century. The result of a conference in 1945 in San Francisco, the United Nations was officially created in October 1945 and held its first meetings in January 1946 in London. The present headquarters in New York was completed around 1952.

Sources: An August 22, 2002 press release by the City of New York announcing the new diplomatic parking program is on-line here, and a statement by U.S. Ambassador Patrick F. Kennedy on the new program is on-line here. Daniel J. Wakin, 11th-hour agreement spares scofflaw diplomats from tow truck, New York Times, August 11, 2001. The United Nations, on-line here, has some press releases about the parking ticket controversy available via its search engine, and has some information on its background here.