New Charges Delay Panel’s Vote on Tower

John Tower’s confirmation as defense secretary was called into doubt Thursday as the Senate Armed Services Committee received new allegations of personal impropriety on the part of President Bush’s nominee to head the Pentagon.

Sources said that the charges involve additional alleged episodes of drinking and womanizing by Tower, 63, who has been the subject of numerous unproven charges about his morals. One of the charges involved Tower’s misbehavior while intoxicated; another involved an alleged liaison with a woman who was not his wife, sources said.

Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) forwarded the new charges to the FBI, which already had conducted an extensive background check on Tower, a former Republican senator from Texas.

Calls Allegations ‘Credible’

Nunn characterized the fresh allegations as potentially “credible.” He added: “They are allegations that are serious enough for us to want to check out.”

Asked if Tower’s nomination could be rejected if the charges were proven true, Nunn said: “It depends on the nature of the findings. It’s not a yes-or-no matter. It’s a judgmental matter.”

One highly placed source said the allegations are so serious that if proven, Tower’s confirmation likely would be doomed.

Several members of the committee, including Democrat J. James Exon of Nebraska, said that they were “troubled” by the new charges but that they were not ready to decide whether to reject the nominee.

Nunn said: “It’s not over until it’s over. The investigation’s not complete until all serious allegations have been checked.”

Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, ranking Republican on the panel, said that he expects the investigation to be completed by Monday and that the committee then could vote on Tower’s nomination.

“I don’t think you should read anything alarming into this process,” Warner said. “The issue, John Tower’s qualifications . . . has been before the American people, it’s been before the Senate, for a sufficient period of time that it’s my hope that this is the last of the information to require any delay.”

Thursday’s developments are certain to add at least several days to Tower’s public agony, which began shortly after Bush’s election. Tower was considered a shoo-in for the Pentagon job, but the nomination was held up for five weeks as rumors circulated around the capital about Tower’s private life.

Tower’s nomination was the last major Cabinet choice announced by Bush, and Tower has endured the longest and toughest confirmation hearings of any appointee. In the four days of testimony on Tower’s qualifications, Nunn and Warner have said that they want to avoid any appearance of favoritism toward their former colleague, who headed the Armed Services Committee from 1981 to 1985.

Review Information

Nunn and Warner met Thursday afternoon with FBI officials and with Sherrie Marshall, assistant to White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, to review the new information. Earlier in the week, Gray had assured Nunn that the White House had received no “specific allegations of impropriety” on Tower’s part.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said that Bush had been made aware of the delay.

“Obviously the President has confidence in Sen. Tower. He urges prompt consideration of his nomination,” Fitzwater said.

Armed Services Committee sources said that the allegations were conveyed in a number of unsolicited telephone calls received Wednesday and Thursday by Nunn’s office and the White House. The informants cited occasions on which Tower had allegedly been drunk and accompanied by women to whom he was not married.

It could not be learned when or where the alleged incidents occurred. A source said that some of the allegations investigated earlier and dismissed involved purported incidents overseas, where Tower had attended arms control negotiations.

Charges of drunkenness and womanizing were leveled Tuesday by conservative critic Paul Weyrich, who testified before the Senate panel that Tower lacked the “moral character” to serve as Pentagon chief.

Seen as Possible Embarrassment

Weyrich suggested that Tower’s alleged fondness for women and drink could cause embarrassment to the U.S. government or even compromise state secrets.

A number of similar allegations had been investigated by the FBI as part of its pre-nomination background check on Tower. The FBI report, which runs more than 60 pages, delved into allegations by Tower’s former wife that Tower had been involved with several other women while he was married to her.

Other sources reported to the FBI that Tower drank heavily and that his drinking could impair his ability to perform his job.

Tower has acknowledged that he once drank excessively but says that now he indulges only in an occasional glass of wine. He attributes the rumors about his relations with women to the bitterness of his second wife, from whom he was divorced in 1987.

When Bush announced Tower’s nomination for the defense post on Dec. 16, he said that the FBI had given Tower “a clean bill of health.”

A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, scoffed at the suggestion that Tower may be facing additional obstacles. “When Weyrich goes up there and makes loony statements, it causes other loony tunes to leap out of the woodwork,” he said.

This official, an ally of Tower’s, pointed out the years of public service in Tower’s career, and said: “His personal life has never inhibited his service in the past. This is ludicrous. He’ll be confirmed. This is a momentary pause.”

The delay in Tower’s confirmation came the same day that the Washington Post’s gossip column ran an item about his behavior at lunch in Washington Wednesday with a steady woman companion, Dallas socialite Dorothy Heiser.

The Post’s “Personalities” column reported that while Tower and Heiser lunched at the stately Jefferson Hotel he “playfully lunged at Heiser, his arms reaching toward her under the table, and said: ‘I’m going to fondle you.’ She gave a little shriek and jumped slightly and said, ‘Don’t you do that.’ He stopped and they resumed eating.”