More Reservations About Tower Surface : 2 Democrats Say FBI Report Doesn’t Answer Drinking Question

President Bush’s nomination of John Tower to become defense secretary ran into fresh difficulty today when two Democratic senators said the latest FBI background report does not end questions about Tower’s drinking habits.

“It is not the clean bill of health that one would have us believe,” Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.) told reporters.

“If he (Tower) hadn’t touched anything but a couple of glasses of wine at dinner since 1982 I wouldn’t be concerned. There are parts of the report that indicate that several people don’t think that’s the case,” Exon said.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) also questioned anonymous White House officials who have been quoted in published reports in recent days as saying the report found Tower had a drinking problem in the 1970s but no longer does.

“That is not an accurate description of that file,” Levin said.

Even Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas said Bush “wasn’t totally accurate” in his assessment of the FBI report, but Dole told reporters, “there’s nothing in that report that any fair-minded person reading it would disqualify Tower.”

Many Republicans, taking their cue from Bush, were rallying around Tower.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said this morning on NBC’s “Today” program that he believed the tide was turning in Tower’s favor, adding, “So far there has been no substance to this veritable blizzard of allegations that we have seen.”

Both Levin and Exon are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which scheduled a closed-door meeting today to discuss the latest FBI report.

The panel had tentatively been expected to vote on the nomination Thursday, and Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the committee’s senior Republican, said he hoped that would still be the case.

Bush gave Tower a strong vote of confidence on Tuesday and said the FBI report had “gunned down” the allegations against Tower.

But Sen. Alan J. Dixon (D-Ill.) said on NBC this morning he had reservations about taking a vote Thursday.

“I’d have to say there’s a lot of hearsay and innuendo in there (the FBI’s latest background report on Tower’s activities); on the other hand, there are some substantive things that I think need further evaluation,” Dixon said.

The report included some damaging allegations, Dixon said, including “recent statements, not things from the 1970s, unfortunately by people that refuse to be identified.” The allegations were mostly regarding Tower’s personal actions rather than his business connections, he said.