Tower’s Ordeal Illustrates Capital Power Games

WASHINGTON —  No one has agonized more in the first month of the presidential transition than John Tower, the former Texas senator who aspires to be secretary of defense.

As President-elect George Bush keeps deferring what once appeared to be an imminent appointment, Tower has been left to suffer what one close associate called “the death of a thousand cuts.” Tower has been the subject of a barrage of leaks, whispers and unfavorable news reports about his business connections, his senatorial record, his alleged lack of executive ability and his personal life.

Tower’s ordeal illustrates not only the serious problems that lie beneath the pleasant surface of President-elect Bush’s efforts to form an effective team but the merciless way Washington power games are sometimes played.

Adding to Humiliation

The Bush inner circle is adding to Tower’s humiliation, openly shopping for key Defense Department deputies even before Tower is named to the top position because, they say, Tower needs experienced managers to run the $300-billion-a-year Pentagon bureaucracy and reform the scandal-tainted procurement system.

Bush compounded Tower’s misery Tuesday, when he named two more members of his national security team: William H. Webster will stay on as CIA director and Thomas R. Pickering will be ambassador to the United Nations. With the State Department and National Security Council jobs already filled, now only the Pentagon spot remains vacant.

Bush still seems determined to reward Tower for his defense credentials, his Capitol Hill connections, his personal loyalty and his unstinting service as a campaign adviser. But he also wants to be sure that any potential dirt on Tower is uncovered before naming the Texan to the critical defense post.

In essence, Tower supporters complain, the press is being allowed to conduct a background check on Tower, a job usually reserved for the FBI.

“The Bush people are playing a very clever game,” said a senior Defense Department official with ties to Tower. “Tower is taking the most thorough scrubbing of any Cabinet candidate.”

Scarred and Embittered

As a result, if Tower gets the job he will be flanked by deputies forced on him by Bush, and is likely to be scarred and embittered by the gantlet he has had to run to win the post, Tower loyalists contend.

Part of the delay in naming a defense secretary stems from the Bush team’s inability to find a suitable candidate for deputy defense secretary, an $89,500-a-year job with much of the authority of the top position but traditionally with chief responsibility for running day-to-day Pentagon operations.

Bush, apparently concluding that many of the military’s problems in the Reagan Administration grew from a lack of firm management, is resolved to hire a strong executive for the No. 2 job. Aides say that he has been looking for a top industry official who can bring order to the confused Pentagon bureaucracy and clean up problems in military procurement.

The Justice Department and the FBI now are preparing indictments of a number of Pentagon officials and weapons-industry consultants who allegedly conspired to defraud the government out of billions of dollars on military contracts.

Bush wants to avoid the taint of the scandal by bringing in a defense team whose members are committed to reform, transition officials said. The problem is that few top industry executives are willing to take a huge pay cut to be somebody’s deputy.

“I’m not sure people are appreciating the nuances” of putting together the Defense Department team, said John H. Sununu, the incoming White House staff chief, explaining the delay in filling the Pentagon posts. “If some of them are coming from the private sector, it takes time to clear it.”

Asked whether the protracted process is not insulting to Tower, since other secretaries were appointed and could then put together their own group, he said: “Nothing is as big and as complex as the Defense Department. Everyone recognizes that.”

Tower, for his part, is putting out the word through his network of current and former aides that he will insist on a complete review of the weapons-buying system and a new look at how the Pentagon conducts its business.

“The word from the Tower crowd is that the world is going to see a wholly new, improved John Tower, who will do a complete review of roles and missions and undertake procurement and management reform,” an official close to Tower said.

As the weeks drag on without Tower being named to the job, a steady stream of negative stories about the diminutive Texan has circulated through the capital. A number of them have found their way into print, usually with their sources well masked.

After a long career as one of the Senate’s most partisan conservatives and toughest in-fighters, the former Armed Services Committee chairman has accumulated scores of enemies. Some of his old rivals and critics are now getting their pay-back.

His consulting business has made him too cozy with defense contractors, according to one part of the anti-Tower camp. He is unqualified to run the huge Pentagon, according to another. He has “personal problems,” including two failed marriages, that could embarrass the new Administration, according to a third.

The source of these tales is often obscure, but those close to the transition process believe that some are coming from aides to Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), the current chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Democrats’ leading expert on military affairs.

Although there is no evidence that Nunn himself is responsible for the campaign, he stands to benefit from Tower’s distress. If Bush backed away from Tower and brought in an outsider as defense secretary, Nunn would have no credible rival as Washington’s foremost spokesman on defense, at least for the year or two it takes the new secretary to learn his way around the Pentagon and Capitol Hill.

“Sam Nunn does not want to have a guy with the stature of John Tower at the Pentagon,” said one Tower partisan. “He (Nunn) is running for President. That’s what this is all about. He would love to have an industry guy (as defense secretary) so Nunn . . . can dominate national defense issues.”

Nunn is in Africa on a fact-finding trip, but an aide denied that he is trying to scuttle the Tower appointment. The aide, who asked not to be named, said that any negative comments by Nunn staff members are “unauthorized and certainly not directed by Sen. Nunn. I’m certain they do not reflect Sen. Nunn’s position.”

Other anti-Tower reports are believed to be coming from old Tower congressional staff foes who have no hope of winning good defense jobs if Tower is named secretary and are trying to push another candidate or another agenda. Several of Tower’s favored committee aides have moved on to senior jobs at the Pentagon and are expected to prosper if Tower moves into the secretary’s office.

“There are big stakes here, obviously, and there’s always evil afoot,” said a former Tower aide who would like to see his former boss get the job. “Mostly, somebody else has a candidate and wants to trash someone along the way.”

Tower, for his part, has maintained a public silence while communicating indirectly through his supporters. He may have something to say after Bush ends the suspense, and he may have a few pay-backs of his own to deliver, aides say.

“He’s a Texan, make no mistake, and he’s no angel,” said one Tower supporter.

Staff writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this story.