Tower Says Defense Firms Paid Him Over $763,000 : Insists He Won’t Be Influenced

Defense Secretary-designate John Tower told a Senate confirmation hearing today that he made $763,777 as a consultant for major defense contractors but that it would not influence his decisions at the Pentagon.

The second day of hearings before the Armed Services Committee opened with a lengthy review of Tower’s dealings with defense contractors after 1985, when he ended a 24-year Senate career that included a stint from 1981-84 as chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Tower testified that he terminated all financial ties and contracts with defense companies on Dec. 1 last year, one day after learning from Bush’s transition staff that he was under serious consideration for the defense post. He said he did not “stand to gain from the prosperity of any former associate.”

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he was concerned about Tower’s former ties with those defense contractors.

“Frankly, the difficulty here is not that you have worked for a contractor as a consultant, but a number of them, five or six or seven of the major corporations,” Nunn said. “If you were to recuse (not involve) yourself on all of them, you couldn’t be secretary of defense.”

Tower said, “The likelihood is I will bend over backward” to avoid favoring his former associates.

“Your former clients might worry,” Nunn said.

“That may be true,” Tower responded.

Tower told committee members that he had never engaged in the types of activities described in the “Ill Wind” investigations of consultants who are accused of selling contractors inside information on Pentagon procurement deals.

Under persistent questioning from Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Tower said he would recuse himself from making decisions on the CFIN system, the combat flight inspection system that allows airborne aircraft to check on whether landing transmitters are working correctly, because of the extensive lobbying he did for the program on behalf of LTV Corp.

But he refused to specify other systems he would recuse himself from.

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) asked Tower whether tougher ethics laws were needed for people who transfer between jobs at the Pentagon and in industry.

Tower said that “in light of what has happened” in the procurement cases, legislation was needed to “reduce the likelihood if not foreclose anyone who had been in the Defense Department from profiting unfairly, unethically, or illegally or inordinately” in an industry job.

Still, Tower noted that Donald J. Atwood, whom he has chosen as deputy defense secretary, has been vice chairman of General Motors Corp., a major Pentagon contractor. He said other top aides would be drawn from the defense industry as well.

“I don’t believe I have ever violated the trust of my stewardship . . . of power,” the former Texas senator said. “So I would have to stand primarily on my reputation as a public servant.”

Tower also promised the committee that he would not return to the defense consulting business.

“Once I depart the job of secretary of defense . . . I’m going to cross the Potomac heading West and I ain’t coming back here again,” the 63-year-old Texan said.