One of you exceedingly salty admin types with a sh*thoarder complex needs to come up with an equally old copy of SECNAVINST 1620.6 (Separation of Naval Officers). This instruction was revised in 83 and again in 99. We need to see the instruction that was operative in 78 when he got his honorable discharge.
From what I can tell from the latest iteration of the instruction, an officer being separated involuntary MUST BE NOTIFIED of the pending action. Translated from NavSpeak: Kerry got a letter from either NRPC or BUPERS telling him that he was to be separated (discharged or dropped from the rolls), when it was to happen, and why.
The subject instruction is referenced in Navy Military Personnel Manual (nee BUPERSMAN in Kerry's time) as the governing policy document. See Kerry's NAVPERS 1926/2 discharging him from the USNR; it's cited as reference (c).
I appreciate the info and it only points out that it is easy to get confused using these terms. Perhaps I should have not written what I did in upper case since it may have been seen as disrespective towards others service. I was trying to make a point about Dishonorable Discharges and Bad Conduct Discharges not applying to officers but only to enlisted. I guess I did not make my point clear.