Headstrong Realist : Texan Faces Superhuman Pentagon Task

In 1979, John Goodwin Tower, the man named Friday to lead the Defense Department in the new Bush Administration, donned blue leotards to star in a Dallas production of “Superman.” The trademark “S” emblazoned on his chest, the diminutive Texas senator burst from the stage wings to a howling crowd, bellowing the motto “Truth, justice and the American way.”

Now that the “S” stands for secretary of defense, Tower truly will have a mission worthy of a super-hero, and he will have to move faster than a speeding bullet to accomplish it.

Problem With Budget

Tower, 63, must protect American military muscle in the midst of a budget crunch that could cut as much as $200 billion from the Pentagon’s current blueprint for the next five years. He must restore truth and justice to a management system that has been mired in procurement scandals since the beginning of the Reagan Administration.

And, in the end, he may have to rethink the American way of fulfilling military commitments worldwide.

Those who know Tower say that by selecting him, President-elect George Bush will get someone with a depth of knowledge and broad policy vision that make him particularly qualified for these huge challenges.

At the same time, he also gets in the former Armed Services Committee chairman and arms control negotiator a headstrong, implacable advocate of military might who may inflame confrontations and partisan hostility in the process of reaching solutions.

“He’s not going to be a wallflower, no,” said former Maine Sen. Edmund S. Muskie, a Democrat who worked under Tower on the presidential commission that investigated the Iran-Contra affair. “That would apply to his dealings with Congress as well as his dealings with fellow Cabinet members.

“John is a strong advocate of defense and a strong critic of what he regards as congressional interference with the President’s role in national security and foreign policy. And he makes no secret of his views.”

Controversial Choice

That could be bad news for James A. Baker III, Bush’s nominee for secretary of state, who reportedly had raised questions about whether Tower would stick to managing the Pentagon and stay out of foreign affairs. It also could be a test for Richard G. Darman, the newly named director of the Office of Management and Budget, who is expected to wield the budget ax aggressively and brook no whining from Cabinet secretaries.

Such concerns have helped make Tower, among Bush advisers and many in Congress, the President-elect’s most controversial choice for his Cabinet so far. But many of the same people also note that Tower is a realist and that this trait may prove the key to his success.

“John Tower is one of the best poker players I’ve ever encountered,” said Frank Gaffney, a former Defense Department official, remarking on a Tower pastime honed during countless transatlantic flights, weekend retreats and late-night Senate sessions. “And that’s the way he operates. He’s got an outstanding ability to size up his opponents.

“And like the song says, he knows when to hold his cards and he knows when to fold them.”

Tower’s move to the top Pentagon post comes as the pinnacle of a career based on a lifelong attraction for the military and the world of politics.

Born in Houston as the son and grandson of Methodist ministers, he enlisted in the Navy at age 17 and served as a boatswain’s mate on a gunboat in the western Pacific during World War II.

After returning from the war, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science and became a government professor at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Tex. As he worked on his master’s degree, Tower moonlighted as an insurance agent and a radio announcer, known as “Tex Tower.”

Tower made his break into public service in one of the most remarkable upsets in his state’s history. Against steep odds, he ran for and won a special election in 1961 for Lyndon B. Johnson’s Senate seat after Johnson was elected vice president. He was the first Republican to be elected to statewide office in Texas since Reconstruction. And, although his election was considered at first a fluke, it ushered in the election of another Republican, Phil Gramm, as his successor after he retired from the Senate four years ago.

Once in the Senate, Tower demonstrated the canny skill and stubborn--some say arrogant--resolve that would make him both widely respected and sometimes detested by his colleagues.

Reelected in 1966, 1972 and 1978, he moved into the GOP leadership in the Senate and headed the platform committee at the 1980 Republican National Convention. But his power truly grew when the Republicans gained control of the Senate in the 1980 elections.

As the new chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he took over a panel that had operated with little partisan squabbling under hawkish Sen. John C. Stennis (D-Miss.) and imposed a new political pecking order that pushed through Reagan Administration appointments but bruised the sensibilities of some Democrats in the process.

Wielding bluster and deft skill, Tower, who continued to serve in the Naval Reserve as a chief petty officer, generally got what he wanted on defense issues and other committee business.

“Tower negotiated with total intransigence,” said a Democratic Senate staff member who specialized in defense issues during Tower’s tenure. “ . . . It was just understood that the Democrats would lose all the time. He’s a consummate actor who knows who to make deals with that offer both fantastic incentives and incredible penalties. The next thing you’d discover, your wallet’s gone.”

On Capitol Hill, Tower cut a colorful 5-foot-5 1/2-inch figure, nattily turned out in Savile Row suits, bejeweled cuff links and monogrammed cigarette case.

His swaggering manner offended some, but others maintained that it gave a false impression of the true man.

“He would come barreling down the hall at breakneck speed, with aides struggling to keep up,” one Senate staffer said. “He always had his eyes fixed at the end of the hall with this absolute, perfect conviction. It conveyed the impression of an unbelievably arrogant man. But the moment he was seated, he took on an entirely different character--very personable with a wonderful self-deprecating humor.”

Urged Biennial Budgets

In 1984, citing “personal reasons,” John Tower retired from the Senate, complaining to the New York Times in a parting shot that few lawmakers think in broad national security terms and that some are “creations of the news media.” He urged congressional discipline, saying Congress should approve biennial budgets, a once-unthinkable political feat toward which the Pentagon and Congress are now moving.

In January, 1985, Tower took his negotiating skills to Geneva, serving as chief negotiator on strategic nuclear arms reduction talks. When Tower left his arms negotiations post 14 months later, he complained of Soviet intransigence and said he “did not intend to make a career out of being a negotiator.”

He returned to private life to become a consultant for some of the nation’s top defense contractors, shuttling between Washington and a home in Dallas where he could lavish attention on what an aide called his “pride and joy”--a gas-guzzling, high-powered 1972 Dodge Charger he lovingly dubbed the “Green Bullet.”

But at the same time, he kept his options open for a return to government. After a turbulent divorce from his second wife, he threw himself into the Bush campaign and put out the word among friends that his new, settled social life was now fitting for a defense secretary.

Friday, his ship came in with the announcement of his new appointment.

Now, friends and critics wait to see whether his skills as a defense policy expert and negotiator will overcome reservations about his manner and his reputation as an uncompromising proponent of a big military.

Backers insist that he will show the heart of a true reformer. “He feels that management of the Pentagon needs to change in a very dramatic way,” one says. “ . . . If left to his own devices, John Tower would paint the Pentagon a different color as an indication of how deeply things are going to change, that there’ll be no more business as usual.”