Adm. Jay Johnson, chief of naval operations, described the death of Machinist's Mate Fireman Dennis O'Brien as "a tragic occurrence that caused great pain not only for the family, but it also caused great pain for us.

"We looked very hard at how that happened and how we could prevent it from happening to some other young men and women.... The lessons that we needed to learn from that have been learned and have been applied force-wide."

Johnson, on his second visit to the islands, yesterday told reporters that the O'Brien incident was one of the topics he discussed with the 500 sailors he met earlier in the day at Pearl Harbor.

During his brief news conference, Johnson, a former F-14 Tomcat jet pilot, said:

He doesn't favor relinquishing control of several prime military golf courses here since they are "fundamental to the support structure that we have for our sailors."

A preliminary recommendation on what naval bases - Pearl Harbor, San Diego or Bremerton and Everett Island in Washington - will be the home port of two Nimitz-class aircraft carriers won't be out until the spring of 1998.

He's comfortable with Pentagon planners' force reduction figures, which trim the Navy to 390,000 sailors and to between 330 and 346 ships by 1999. Johnson is not committing himself beyond those numbers.

O'Brien, a victim of a hazing incident, shot and killed himself while standing topside watch on Oct. 18, 1995, aboard the attack submarine Los Angeles in Pearl Harbor.

It was later determined that O'Brien's death was caused by pressure by his command to name shipmates who had "tacked on" his submarine warfare pin, an outlawed Navy rite of passage.

Up to 12 members of the crew of the Los Angeles tapped or punched the fish badge into O'Brien's chest. O'Brien never identified the sailors involved in the pinning and hazing incident.

Last month, Johnson said investigations proved that O'Brien was subjected to undue pressure to reveal who was responsible and "the chain of command was responsible for this pressure."

Reiterating in a message to all Navy admirals that hazing is prohibited, Johnson said that the Navy "has taken action to eliminate senseless and dangerous behavior that accompanied ceremonies, initiations and rites of passages."

He added: "Such actions often masquerade as a means to promote loyalty within a group; they are not.

"They are the deliberate application of humiliation, embarrassment and physical pain and are clearly unacceptable."