Inman Selected for Defense Post : Cabinet: Clinton nominates a highly regarded national security expert to succeed Aspin at Pentagon. Leaders from both parties predict easy confirmation.

President Clinton Thursday tapped retired Adm. Bobby Ray Inman to be his next secretary of defense, choosing one of the most highly regarded members of the national security Establishment to replace Les Aspin.

Inman will bring to the job “penetrating analysis, strong leadership and a rock-solid commitment to this nation’s security,” Clinton said in a brief statement in the White House Rose Garden as Inman, Aspin and national security adviser Anthony Lake looked on.

Congressional leaders from across the ideological spectrum praised the choice of Inman and predicted rapid approval once the Senate returns to work in late January.

In picking Inman, 62--who would be only the second retired military official to serve as defense secretary since the job was created in 1947--Clinton gets a Pentagon boss who is highly regarded within the military and the vast, interlocking circles of bureaucracy and industry that surround it.

After serving more than 30 years in the Navy, Inman went on to become head of the National Security Agency and deputy director of the CIA.

With such experience, he can be expected to provide Clinton a strong shield against criticism from the military Establishment--a role Aspin conspicuously failed to play. But the same qualities that make Inman valuable will also serve to give him considerable independence, a point he subtly emphasized.

“I did not seek the job. In honesty, I did not want the job. Ultimately, you would ask then, why am I here? Duty and country,” Inman said Thursday as Clinton stood next to him, smiling.

The President’s smile faded briefly, however, as Inman added: “I would tell you up front, honestly, I did not vote for President Clinton. I voted for President (George) Bush, even though I was mad at him about his handling of the economy, but because I considered him a personal friend.

“The President did know that when he asked me to take this job,” Inman added.

Inman’s independence could be tested rapidly as he moves into his new post. He will be plunged into the battle over the size of the defense budget, the attempt by conservatives to derail Aspin’s choice of former national security aide Morton Halperin for a senior defense post and the effort to extract U.S. forces from Somalia before the President’s March 31 deadline.

The choice of Inman also places in Clinton’s Cabinet a man that the President barely knew until a few weeks ago--a sharp contrast to the closely woven net of connections among most of his key aides.

Inman does, however, have one key confidant within the Administration--Vice President Al Gore, who worked with him on arms control issues while in the Senate and, according to White House officials, played a key role in the decisions leading up to Aspin’s replacement. “Gore is the key to this,” a senior White House official said. “He’s the person Clinton consulted with the most.”

The events leading to the decision began in early November, officials said, as Clinton, Gore and Lake began discussing the need to fix the President’s troubled national security apparatus in the wake of a series of setbacks in Somalia and Haiti. That same set of conversations also led to a higher foreign policy profile for Gore and to the firing of former Deputy Secretary of State Clifton Wharton, whose replacement is expected to be announced soon.

Aspin also was involved in the discussions from the beginning. But while White House aides realized early on that those talks probably would end with Aspin’s resignation, the defense secretary came to that realization only later in the process, according to accounts of White House and Pentagon officials and others close to the decision.

In mid-November, a senior White House official said, Clinton asked Chief of Staff Thomas (Mack) McLarty to draw up a list of possible successors to Aspin. Although McLarty did so, Inman was the only candidate Clinton actually met with, the official said.

The first meeting between the two men occurred late one evening shortly before Thanksgiving in the White House residential quarters. Clinton and Inman had what officials described as “broad” talks about the role of the post-Cold War military, the need to restructure U.S. forces and the general direction of Clinton’s policy. At the time, Clinton did not specifically broach the idea of replacing Aspin, but was “very impressed” with Inman, the senior official said.

Clinton continued to discuss the pros and cons of his situation with a small group of top advisers--principally Gore, Lake and McLarty. Primarily because of the small number of people involved, no word of the discussions was leaked--a key concern for Clinton, who hoped to spare Aspin the ordeal of public speculation about his resignation.

Early this month, as Clinton moved closer to a decision, McLarty sounded Inman out about the job. Inman met on Monday with Lake and again on Tuesday with Clinton, who offered him the job Wednesday morning, a few hours before Aspin signed his resignation papers.

Because of the desire to move quickly, officials said that Inman’s appointment was announced before the usual background checks were done. But they voiced confidence that Inman would pass muster.

In sharp contrast to Aspin, who was widely described as brilliant but disorganized and lacking in the skills as a manager, Inman labeled himself as “an operator, hopefully with a strategic view.” And in describing his priorities for the job, he played down his long service in the nation’s spy agencies and, instead, emphasized his more recent experience in business.

“In these last 10 years I’ve learned a lot about how business works, and I would hope to spend a lot of my time on bringing best business practices to the Department of Defense,” he said.

“My sense in traveling the country is that the public is less concerned about what we’re doing overseas or our commitments than whether we are getting a dollar value for a dollar spent in defense. And I would hope at the end of our years of working together we will have persuaded them, Mr. President, that they are.”

As White House officials had hoped, Inman’s nomination drew wide and quick praise from the military and from Congress, pushing aside questions about Aspin’s troubled tenure.

Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that he expected to hold the first confirmation hearing for Inman on Jan. 25, the day the Senate reconvenes following its winter recess. “I don’t anticipate any confirmation difficulties,” Nunn said.

Nunn praised Aspin for making “a very positive mark on our nation’s security,” but predicted that Inman would bring “a very different approach” to running the Pentagon. Whereas Aspin understood “how the system operates” in Washington, Inman will bring strong managerial skills and military expertise to the top defense job, Nunn said.

Nunn added that he had “had discussions with the President and some of his top people on the general topic of leadership at the Department of Defense over the past several weeks” in which they discussed “possible successors” to Aspin.

Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, the senior Republican member of the armed services panel, called Inman “an absolutely superb choice.”

Times staff writer Michael Ross contributed to this story.