Army Secretary West Is Likely Pick for VA

Army Secretary Togo D. West Jr. has emerged as President Clinton’s leading candidate to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, a mammoth Cabinet-level agency that has been dogged by reports of sexual harassment within management ranks, Senate sources said Tuesday.

The president focused on West after VA Deputy Secretary Hershel W. Gober withdrew from consideration for the top job Friday amid allegations that he had made unwanted sexual advances to two women in 1993 and that the inquiry into the accusations was mishandled.

If confirmed by the Senate, West, a former Army officer, would bring to the VA an expertise on the issue of sexual harassment. He presided over the Army’s investigation of recent sex scandals.

White House officials and West’s office declined Tuesday to confirm his likely nomination. But key Senate Democrats did, including one who said that he was informed of Clinton’s intentions by White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles.

“He’s terrific,” the senator said of West. “Everything I hear about him is good.”

West got high marks for his handling of the Army’s inquiry into sex scandals, which began with the uncovering of sexual abuse of female recruits at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and included sexual harassment charges against former Sergeant Major of the Army Gene C. McKinney, who was the Army’s top enlisted man.

West “handled it very well,” said Lawrence J. Korb, a defense analyst and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “He reacted strongly, but he didn’t overreact.”

The VA’s top job has been vacant since July 1, when Jesse Brown left to return to the private sector. Since then, Gober, 60, has run the second-largest of the 14 Cabinet departments.

The $38-billion-a-year agency administers 114 national cemeteries, an array of benefit programs for veterans and their dependents and a health care system for more than 26 million veterans that includes 173 medical centers and hundreds of clinics and nursing homes.

The 255,600-employee department has been tainted by accusations from workers that top managers have been too lenient toward proven sexual harassers.

Amid such charges, congressional committees with jurisdiction over the agency conducted hearings earlier this year. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee focused on why only 1 in 12 supervisors was demoted in substantiated cases of senior manager-level sexual harassment.

Representing the department at that hearing was Gober, an Arkansan and longtime Clinton friend.

Gober’s nomination ran into trouble earlier this month when two women claimed that he made unwanted sexual contact with them at a 1993 reception connected to the dedication of the women’s memorial at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.

An administrative complaint was filed within the department, investigated twice and found unwarranted, according to James H. Holley, a VA spokesman.

While the accusations were open to some dispute, many members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee were more concerned about the handling of the first investigation--an informal review conducted by the VA’s then-general counsel, Mary Lou Keener, whom Gober married in 1996.

Gober, a Vietnam veteran, has told Clinton he wants to remain in his current post.

West, 55, a North Carolina native, got his first major military job during the Carter administration, as general counsel of the Navy Department. He served as special assistant to the secretary of the Navy and then as deputy Defense secretary.

West, who is married and has two children, has practiced law and was a senior vice president of Northrop Corp.