Clinton Selects No. 2 VA Official for Top Job

Deputy Veterans Affairs Secretary Hershel W. Gober, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and a longtime confidant of President Clinton, will be nominated to head the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The president Thursday announced his intention to nominate Gober as he spoke to several hundred veterans at the start of a White House ceremony to build support for expanding membership in the NATO. Clinton’s selection of Gober, who mobilized support for the Democratic presidential ticket among military veterans during the 1992 campaign, had been widely expected since the resignation last month of Secretary Jesse Brown.

Gober, 60, whose 20-year military career included service in both the Army and Marines, was director of the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs when Clinton was governor. If confirmed by the Senate, he would become the third former Arkansas state official named to the Clinton Cabinet. Rodney Slater, who was state highway commissioner while Clinton was governor, heads the Transportation Department and James Lee Witt, who directed the Arkansas state disaster assistance agency, heads the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“I would like to say what I hope is obvious now, and I’ve never said it formally--that is I intend to nominate Hershel Gober to the next secretary of Veterans Affairs,” Clinton announced to applause. “We have been good friends for many years.”

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The president, who embraced Gober at the end of the event, cited his work as “a good partner” to Brown and expressed hope he would be an advocate for veterans issues within the administration.

Later, in an interview, Gober said he wants to continue the same veterans agenda. “I hope to take what Jesse and I have done over the past 4 1/2 years and expand on it,” he said.

Gober, who has been regarded as the department’s chief operating officer under Brown, said he was pleased with improvements made to the department’s huge health care system. Now, he said, the department needs to improve its handling of nearly $20 billion a year in benefits.

The department has been criticized by Congress and others for its inability to handle claims swiftly, and Gober said his mandate to the undersecretary for benefits will be a direct one: “to fix it.”

The position is vacant, and Gober acknowledged that whoever gets the job won’t have an easy task. “You can’t wave a magic wand,” he said. Both he and Brown were frustrated in their efforts to reform the benefits program. “We couldn’t make the progress there we did on health issues,” Gober said.