Tower Delay Weakens Pentagon’s Policy-Making Role

While John Tower’s confirmation as defense secretary is mired in the Senate by allegations of possible impropriety, key decisions that the Pentagon chief ordinarily would take the lead in making are being co-opted by the White House and State Department, senior Pentagon officials complained Thursday.

A review of the first critical military decision facing the Bush Administration--how to modernize the nation’s arsenal of land-based nuclear missiles--is being directed by National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, not by Tower, Administration officials said.

The decision, due next week, will have far-reaching effects on the Pentagon budget, on U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations and on the structure of America’s nuclear deterrent.

Power Ebbing Away

On other central questions, from conventional arms control talks to the Strategic Defense Initiative, Defense Department officials say, power is ebbing away from the Pentagon and toward Scowcroft, Secretary of State James A. Baker III and White House Budget Director Richard G. Darman.

“The guy’s taken such a beating, it’s going to take a long time to recover,” a senior Defense Department official who supports Tower said. “Darman’s moved in on the budget, Scowcroft’s moved in on the strategic review and Baker’s off making policy with the NATO allies.”

These Defense Department officials worry that, even if Tower is confirmed, he will have difficulty re-establishing the Pentagon’s authority over military policy-making.

Tower has been working for the last week at a special Pentagon transition office and has met regularly with Bush, Scowcroft and other top Administration officials. But the intense controversy generated by continuing allegations about his behavior have been a considerable distraction, officials said.

Not a Full Partner

Tower has joined in substantive discussions about the missile decision and arms control talks, but he is not a full partner, Administration sources said.

The government faces an immediate decision on which mobile missile system to recommend to ensure that the nation’s land-based missile force could survive a first strike. Congress has set a Feb. 15 deadline for choosing between putting 10-warhead MX missiles on railroad cars or building the single-warhead, truck-mounted Midgetman.

Congress has reserved $350 million for research and development on one of the two systems and is awaiting the Administration’s recommendation on how the money should be spent.

During his second debate with Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis last fall, Bush said that “my secretary of defense is going to have to make a very difficult decision (on) which system to go forward with.”

Now, as the deadline approaches, Bush has no secretary of defense and the decision has been assigned to Scowcroft. Deputy Defense Secretary William H. Taft IV, a Ronald Reagan Administration holdover, is acting defense secretary but he is not part of this deliberation, Administration officials said.

A White House aide confirmed that Scowcroft is leading the policy review on the missile question, but Air Force officials suggested that the decision may be postponed until a new defense secretary is installed.

Favors Midgetman

In 1983, Scowcroft was chairman of a commission that concluded that the Midgetman was the best alternative for solving the problem of vulnerability of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. He has been an outspoken advocate of the Midgetman, although he supported building a limited number of the bigger MX missiles also.

Meanwhile, Republican senators rallied around the embattled nominee in a round of television talk-show appearances Thursday. Tower’s confirmation has been held up by allegations of drinking, womanizing and receiving illegal campaign contributions.

“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, which is considering the nomination, said on NBC’s “Today” show.

And, speaking on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said of the nomination: “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.”

“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.”

However, Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) said that Tower will be unable to deal with the biggest procurement problem in recent years, flaws in the B1-B bomber. Pressler noted that, in 2 1/2 years out of government, Tower received more than $600,000 in consulting and lobbying fees from defense contractors who worked on the bomber program.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said that, if Tower eventually is confirmed, he will not be so damaged that he cannot manage the Pentagon.

“If the outcome is a green light, then it’s my view that he will have gone through the most exhaustive process and investigation anyone’s gone through in my memory in the Senate. It’s been painful but, I think, necessary under the circumstances,” he said.