Top Senate Republicans Defend Tower : Deny Allegations About His Drinking, Contractor Ties

Republicans rallied today to defend Defense Secretary-designate John Tower, whose confirmation vote has been delayed while the FBI investigates allegations about his drinking and his financial ties with military contractors.

“For those who have known him for a very long time, it’s very significant that they have never seen him incapacitated, never seen him drunk,” Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee that is considering the nomination, said on NBC’s “Today” show.

‘Flake Allegations’

“And indeed neither have all the waiters who have been interviewed in response to all of the many flake allegations that have been thrown in over the transom,” Wilson said.

He said he has reviewed “as much of the FBI files as are available to date and there is nothing in there that in any way shakes my complete confidence that John Tower is the smart, tough secretary of defense that we need.”

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said of the nomination on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that “I don’t think it’s in a bit of trouble. I think that these rumors are going to be checked out, as they should be. They’re going to be proved false and we’ll confirm John Tower, hopefully in the next couple of weeks.”

‘Never Seen Him Drunk’

“The experience of people, including the chairman of that (Armed Services) committee, have been that they have never seen John Tower impaired because of drinking. . . . They have never seen him drunk, they have never seen him unable to perform duty, never seen him fail to show up for an appointment,” Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.) said on “CBS This Morning.”

The committee chairman, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), said Wednesday after a meeting with White House counsel C. Boyden Gray that he still had “serious concerns” that would prevent him at this point from voting in favor of Tower’s nomination.

Charges ‘Groundless’

“Each of the charges that have been leveled against him and investigated subsequently have all proved groundless, baseless,” Wallop said.

But Sen. Timothy E. Wirth (D-Colo.), appearing with Wallop, noted that the White House asked that the vote be put off until the FBI completes its investigation.

Wirth said that “to suggest that there are a whole lot of just silly accusations . . . simply is not the information that we’re getting from the White House. . . . Clearly they must believe that there is something in these reports or they would not have asked us to put off the vote.”