Tower Paid $763,777 by Defense Companies Since 1986
Secretary of Defense nominee John G. Tower disclosed Thursday that he has received $763,777 in consulting and lobbying fees since 1986 from six defense contractors but said that he has severed all ties to the firms and that his decisions as defense secretary will not be swayed by past affiliations.
“There will always be people who will suspect anyone who has been formerly associated with the defense industry,” Tower acknowledged at the second day of his confirmation hearings.
The former Texas senator promised to “bend over backwards” to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, and he said that he would remove himself from decisions that could result in a former client’s being suspended or barred from doing business with the federal government. But Tower said he would participate in other actions involving those firms.
He said also that he would take no part in Pentagon decisions on an Air Force reconnaissance plane known as C-Fin, for computerized flight information system. He had lobbied for the $100-million program on behalf of the LTV Aerospace & Defense Co., a subsidiary of Dallas-based LTV Corp., which paid him $246,860 for his services from June, 1986, to December, 1988.
Tower said he had resigned on Dec. 1 as a consultant to the six firms and insisted that he retains no financial interest in any of the companies. The defense contractors are LTV, Martin-Marietta Information Systems, Rockwell International Inc., Textron Inc. and the Washington consulting firms Hicks & Associates and Jeford-McManus International Inc.
According to Tower’s financial disclosure forms, released Thursday, the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee earned $528,200 in 1988 in addition to his income from defense lobbying and consulting.
Did Non-Defense Work
The payments came from consulting contracts with non-defense firms, including British Aerospace Inc., which paid him $104,166, and Maxwell Communications, which paid him $153,334. In addition, he received tens of thousands of dollars in payments for serving on corporate boards, writing and lecturing.
Tower testified Thursday that he had served primarily as a “sounding board” for his defense industry clients on broad “political or strategic” issues, rather than obtaining information on specific contracts. He said he gleaned information from former colleagues in Congress, from officials of the Defense Department and from other lobbyists around Washington.
He said that he was aware of allegations of illegal traffic in sensitive military information arising from the federal “Ill Wind” investigation into corruption in Pentagon weapons-buying, but he declared that all of his activities were “within the bounds of law and ethics.”
“It’s just a general information-gathering process but never doing anything that was illicit or soliciting classified information or highly sensitive information from anybody in government,” Tower said.
He acknowledged, however, that the Ill Wind investigation has uncovered a “substantial problem” with illicit traffic in sensitive Pentagon data that must be addressed “swiftly and decisively.”
The federal inquiry already has yielded several indictments and guilty pleas from companies and consultants involved in defense contracting, and the investigation is continuing.
Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, in a letter to the committee, said that the Justice Department had found no evidence that Tower was implicated in the procurement scandal.
Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is considering the Tower appointment, said he is troubled not by the fact that Tower had served as a defense consultant but by the number of firms for which he had worked.
He suggested that, if Tower were to remove himself from decisions involving all of his former clients, he could not function as secretary of defense.
Tower replied that the law requires him only to sever all ties to the firms and told the panel: “I will have to stand primarily on my reputation as an honest public servant.”
Tower said he would support stronger “revolving door” legislation barring public officials from going into highly paid industry jobs immediately after leaving government; and he indicated support for a bill to require consultants doing business with federal agencies to register and list all of their clients.
