BOORDA NOTE REVEALS FEAR OF SCANDAL.

Byline: Philip Shenon The New York Times

In the final minutes of his life, Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda sat down to type a letter of apology to the men and women of the U.S. Navy - ``my sailors,'' as he had always called them.

The one-page letter was a suicide note. And according to distraught colleagues who have read it, Boorda, the chief of naval operations and the highest-ranking officer in the Navy, poured out his fear that a dispute over the legitimacy of two of his wartime medals would harm the already battered reputation of the Navy.

The Navy said it would not release the letter without the agreement of the Boorda family.

But officials who have read the note, addressed simply to ``the Sailors,'' said Boorda described his wearing of the two Vietnam War combat decorations as, in his words, ``an honest mistake'' - yet one that could be easily misinterpreted, given a series of scandals and embarrassments that have traumatized the Navy.

``He was concerned about what he did and how it would be perceived by the fleet, by the sailors, by the media,'' said a Pentagon official who saw the letter, one of two that Boorda left behind in his Washington home before walking out the front door to shoot himself in the chest.

The other note was addressed to his wife and children, who were gathering Friday in the family home in the Washington Navy Yard in preparation for a funeral Sunday at Arlington National Cemetery.

``In the letter to sailors, he wrote about how he cared about the core values of the Navy - honor, courage and commitment - and about how he would be viewed,'' the official said. ``He tells the sailors that they are doing a good job. Don't let people get you down. You're a good Navy. There are times when they have to take care of other sailors, take care of themselves. It was vintage Mike Boorda.''

The admiral, who once lied about his age to join the Navy, was 56, although official Navy records listed him as 57.

Navy officials said Friday that they remained perplexed by Boorda's suicide, given his cheerfulness in the days before his death, and even more so given the tone of his suicide letter, which suggested that sailors gird themselves for adversity and fight on. ``The tragedy for him, for all of us in the Navy, is that he chose not to fight on himself,'' said a former colleague in the Pentagon.

Boorda, the first sailor to rise from the lowest enlisted rank to become a four-star admiral and the Navy's supreme commander, committed suicide Thursday afternoon, hours after he learned that Newsweek magazine was preparing an article suggesting that he was not entitled to two Vietnam War combat decorations that he had worn until last year.

The degree of tragedy appeared only to escalate Friday when Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, who was the chief of naval operations during part of the Vietnam War, said in an interview that he believed Boorda had been fully entitled to the two decorations in question - two small brass ``V'' for valor pins worn atop rectangular ribbons that symbolize medals. The pins signify that a sailor was involved in combat operations.

``In my judgment, he was entitled to them,'' said Zumwalt, now retired, who was chief of naval operations from 1970 to 1974. Boorda received the two citations for his service on naval ships off Vietnam in 1965 and from 1971 to 1973.

``When I was CNO, I certainly would have told him to wear it,'' Zumwalt continued. ``This is a horrible thing. I think the man was absolutely innocent with regard to any intent to do wrong.''

Boorda may have been in technical violation of the rules, since his citations for the two ribbons - the Navy Commendation Medal and the Navy Achievement Medal - mention ``combat'' missions but do not say specifically that he was entitled to the two ``V'' pins.

But Zumwalt suggested that it was simply a bureaucratic oversight, and that it easily could have been rectified if Boorda had brought it to the attention of the Navy.

``AppaNrently, the bureaucratic rule is that you shouldn't wear it unless the citation has a specific sentence saying you are entitled to wear the combat `V,' '' he said. ``But I would have gotten that brushed aside in a minute if I had been aware of it.''

Still, senior Navy officers and other military specialists said Boorda should have known that he was in violation of the rules and done something about it, and they agreed that a senior military commander would find it mortifying to have to explain away the error, even if it was entirely innocent.

Navy officials said Boorda removed the ``V'' pins after the National Security News Service, a military research group that has worked with Newsweek, filed a Freedom of Information request for copies of the citations supporting the decorations.

``I would certainly give him the benefit of the doubt, although frankly it would be easier to understand this if he were a more junior officer,'' said Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, a retired Marine Corps commander who is now director of national security programs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. ``Certainly, as you become more senior, particularly as you sit on awards boards, you are aware of these regulations.''

Eugene R. Fidell, a Washington lawyer and military law specialist, said that someone of Boorda's rank had an obligation to follow the rules precisely, especially when it came to something as sensitive as his own wartime record. ``Even if it's an inadvertent mistake, he's not entitled to wear the `V' until it's corrected,'' he said. ``And there are ways to correct it.''

Newsweek and the National Security News Service have expressed sorrow over the suicide.

But they are not apologizing for the reporting, and Friday the Navy's chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Kendell Pease, said that ``Newsweek did nothing wrong'' in pursuing the story and in requesting the interview with Boorda on Thursday, only hours before his suicide.

Roger Charles, a reporter with the National SecuNrity News Agency and a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, said in an interview that the two news organizations had been eager to give Boorda the opportunity to respond to questions about the medals. ``We were prepared to give the admiral his say,'' he said. ``We wanted to be fair.''

Charles disputed Zumwalt's assertion that it would be acceptable for Boorda and others to wear the ``V'' pins without specific reference to the decorations in the Navy's paperwork.

``Your history is on your chest, and there are very precise regulations about this,'' Charles said. ``This is a big deal in the military.''

He said his research showed that one of the two medals - the Navy Achievement Medal - did not even qualify for a ``V'' pin, and that the ``V'' could be attached to the second one, the Naval Commendation Medal, only if a sailor had been involved in the fighting. Boorda received that medal for service on the USS Brooke off Vietnam from 1971 to 1973.

``It was not sufficient just to be in a combat theater,'' Charles continued. ``Boorda was in a combat theater. There was no question about that. But there is absolutely no evidence that his ship was ever shot at.''