By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Pure Damage Control

The Pentagon claims that the TAILHOOK REPORT can't be released because there's no Secretary of the Navy in place to receive it. The full story: the Defense Department has a designated candidate for the Navy post but is holding back the public announcement in order to justify not releasing the Tailhook findings. The unreleased report on drunken aviators molesting women at the 1991 Tailhook Association convention is devastating: it's expected to recommend courts-martial for at least 12 senior Navy officers. Pentagon officials (with White House blessing) want to stall the findings until after March 23--when the defense budget goes to Congress.

...And More Good News for the Pentagon

Journalist and author RANDY SHILTS (And the Band Played On), who revealed last week that he has AIDS, has more bombshells planned for May. On Memorial Day, St. Martin's Press will publish his new book, Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military, in which he claims "a vast gay subculture has emerged within the military," complete with gay Marines in the White House honor guard. An advance excerpt: "At least one gay man has served in the astronaut program...The Navy and the Marine Corps had at least one gay person at four-star rank since 1981, and at least one gay man has served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff in that time."

Death Becomes Her

Like brother, like sister. Margo Janus, sister of assisted-suicide crusader DR. JACK KEVORKIAN, is a regular attendee at his deadly house calls. "She's been at every one," said Geoffrey Fieger, Kevorkian's lawyer and spokesperson. But why? According to Oakland County, Michigan, prosecutors, the 66-year-old Janus, who has worked as a secretary for Chrysler, has no medical background and doesn't participate in the suicides in any substantive way. "She feels the way Jack feels," explains Fieger. "Her firm conviction [is] that human beings who are suffering have rights over their bodies." Last Thursday, Kevorkian assisted two more suicides, bringing his total to 15, and Janus was present. This time Kevorkian had a fellow physician on hand: Dr. Susan Grenz, a specialist in internal medicine from Palm Harbor, Florida, and sister of one of the suicides.

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

As the cold war defrosts, Americans and Russians are discovering common interests: rock music, fast food and...MIND-CONTROL TECHNOLOGY. Former KGB General George Kotov has told American visitors about Russian research into "acoustic psycho-correction." The process involves transmitting commands into the subconscious through static or white-noise bands. The U.S. Army says it's "looking into" these reports.

Hails from the Chief

Oxford University isn't the best place to learn American military habits. Word is that PRESIDENT CLINTON'S sloppy salute is drawing winces from the Pentagon. Aides are subtly suggesting that he work on it.