Growing Doubts Doomed Tower, Democrat Says

Richard C. Shelby, a freshman senator from Alabama who joined 10 other Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday night in voting against Defense Secretary-designate John Tower, has never had any trouble crossing party lines to vote his own conservative conscience.

As a four-term member of the House of Representatives, Shelby regularly defected from the Democratic ranks, voting for aid to Nicaragua’s Contras and Angolan rebels, for the MX missile and against limits on “Star Wars” anti-missile research funding.

Even when early reports of Tower’s heavy drinking and alleged sexual improprieties began reaching the committee, Shelby believed that he would join most Republicans--and some fellow Southern Democrats--in voting to confirm the feisty former senator from Texas.

But, three weeks later, as fresh allegations of Tower’s misconduct continued to surface, Shelby’s ideological kinship with Tower finally was overwhelmed by growing doubts about the nominee’s fitness for the Pentagon’s top job.

“Sen. Tower and I share a lot of ideological beliefs and views . . . . If it were strictly ideological, I would certainly have voted for him,” Shelby told The Times on Friday. “But the cumulative effect of all these allegations bothered me, and they never went away. It was a very wrenching decision.”

Although Shelby is the Armed Services Committee’s most junior Democrat, his vote against Tower may be second in significance only to that of the panel’s chairman, Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn.

If the White House had hoped to obtain a favorable recommendation on Tower from the committee, it needed the backing of such Southern conservatives as Nunn, Shelby and Tennessee Democrat Albert Gore Jr.

And, if the President hopes to pull Tower’s nomination out of the fire on the Senate floor, Shelby said, he will need the support of other Southern Democrats.

“But he lost us,” Shelby said, and the White House’s task will be doubly hard as a result. The committee Thursday night voted down the nomination, 11 to 9, along party lines.

It became apparent to Shelby by Tuesday night that Nunn was turning against Tower and that his confirmation prospects had suffered a major blow.

“Nunn’s position makes a lot of difference,” Shelby said.

Shelby did not come under any pressure from the White House. Although his defection from the Democratic camp might have been the crucial break in the otherwise party-line vote, no one in President Bush’s Administration ever contacted him, he said.

Shelby said he had received no clear signals from his mostly conservative Alabama constituents either. In a recent round of town meetings in Alabama, Shelby said, only five constituents had approached him on the Tower nomination, all urging him to oppose it.

Shelby’s reaction to continuing new allegations was echoed by other Democrats, including Nunn.

“I closed in on it gradually,” said Nunn, who said he had believed that he would support Tower “not only at the beginning, but through the first few hearings.” Nunn said the cumulative effect of the allegations began to take hold after a hearing at which conservative activist Paul M. Weyrich testified that Tower lacked the “moral character” to lead the Pentagon.