NATION, Page 30Friendship Has LimitsPartisan conflicts on the budget and John Tower's stallednomination signal trouble for the President's era of good feelings
By MARGARET CARLSON
Honeymoons have a way of ending abruptly. One day it's roses
and heart-shaped beds; the next, it's dishes to be done and garbage
taken out. George Bush last week had to face up to the messy chores
of governing and give up his notion that making nice with the
Democrats could work forever.
Since his Inauguration, Bush has been trying to keep intact the
tacit gentlemen's agreement forged by his fuzzy call for an era of
bipartisanship and high ethical standards: if everyone in power
would just get along with everyone else in power, all would be
well. A 51% federal salary increase would quietly take effect, the
Cabinet could be swiftly and pleasantly confirmed, sleaze would
disappear in a warm glow of mutual trust. If everyone would make
the same rosy economic assumptions, money would be found to pay for
the savings and loan cleanup just unveiled and the budget just
proposed.
Alas, Washington has gone all partisan on the President. The
new mood stems not just from Congressmen's crankiness over fumbling
their pay raise. Capitol Hill does not want to take the rap for the
irreconcilable differences between what Bush is promising in his
budget and what the Treasury will allow him to do. Nor is the
Senate Armed Services Committee going to rubber-stamp the
nomination of former Senator John Tower as Secretary of Defense.
Last week Bush also got a whiff of trouble in what he promised
would be a squeaky clean Administration. It came from none other
than his chief ethics officer, C. Boyden Gray, the man responsible
for vetting the nomination of John Tower and advising others in the
Administration that they must give up outside income and jobs:
Secretary of State James Baker, for one, would have to resolve the
potential conflict posed by his holdings in Chemical New York
Corp., a bank that holds a significant amount of Third World debt.
But Gray had an ethical problem of his own. Newspaper reports
disclosed that during Bush's eight years as Vice President, Gray
made as much as $50,000 a year as chairman and a director of his
family's $500 million communications company, while collecting his
pay as Bush's counsel. Bush did not fire Gray, or even hold his
nose. The President defended the legality and benign intent of his
aide, showing the same kind of myopia toward one of his own that
got Ronald Reagan in trouble. By midweek, however, Gray had
resigned from the corporation and put his assets in a blind trust.
Bush has an even bigger problem getting John Tower confirmed
as Defense Secretary. Initially, it looked as if the Armed Services
Committee would ultimately observe protocol: the President's
nominee does not have to be someone the committee members would
choose, just someone they can stomach. "Ironbutt," as Tower was
known in the Senate for his imperious ways and wait-'em-out
negotiating style, would never win a popularity contest.
Nevertheless, the hearings started out as a love fest, with the
former chair of the committee receiving a round of applause at the
end of his first day of testimony.
Club rules required that the messy downside of the selection
be glossed over. Sure, the twice-divorced Tower liked to take a
drink and was frequently in the company of women not his wife, but
that was his business. More disturbing was the fact that he
collected $750,000 in consulting fees from defense contractors in
the two years after he returned from serving as the Reagan
Administration's chief strategic arms negotiator during START talks
in Geneva. (The money was for "enlightened speculation," testified
Tower, not inside information.) Senators who may harbor the hope
of someday taking a twirl through the revolving door seemed
inclined to swallow that one as well.
Yet every time it looked as if the nomination would come to a
vote, another sensational allegation surfaced. When the committee
heard that one of Tower's alleged affairs was an encounter with an
East German woman in Geneva, the security risk was too much to
ignore. Last Tuesday the FBI was also called back to investigate
allegations that Unisys Corp. had made a campaign contribution in
exchange for a meeting with Tower when he was a Senator.
Up to this point, Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, who will carry
most Democrats with him, had not uttered a partisan word. Cautious
and conservative, the Georgia Senator had kept his distance from
the messy personal business. He had passed lightly over the
conflict-of-interest questions and was expected to vote for
confirmation. Then the White House blundered by giving committee
Republicans a peek at what the FBI had come up with; Nunn was
excluded. Annoyed, he announced that if he had to vote that day,
he would vote against Tower.
The allegations of heavy drinking were particularly troubling,
Nunn said, since Tower would be "in the chain of command that has
control over the arsenal of the United States. The Secretary of
Defense has to, in my view, have clarity of thought at all times.
There's no such thing as an eight-hour day in that job."
Suddenly Tower seemed doomed. New names began to float through
Washington: Elliot Richardson, Donald Rumsfeld, James Schlesinger.
Bush intervened, inviting Nunn to the White House for a briefing.
Reporters were summoned to the Oval Office, where Bush carried the
damage control a step further by insisting, "I have seen nothing,
not one substantive fact, that makes me change my mind about John
Tower's ability . . ." To emphasize the point, Tower was seated
next to the President at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday.
This revived the gasping Tower nomination for the moment. But
with Congress in recess until next week, there is plenty of time
for new charges to leak out -- and for the snicker factor to grow.
Tower's reputation as a ladies' man, which he took no trouble to
hide, has become more laughable than scandalous. Even now, he
flaunts his latest companion, who sat blond and bored behind him
each day as he testified. Whether out of ignorance or arrogance,
Tower made headlines when he jokingly threatened to fondle her at
lunch in a hotel restaurant during a recess in the hearings. "Not
here, John," she protested.
In Washington titans fall not from a single blow but from a
thousand small cuts. Few believe Tower could survive a "no" from
Nunn. Even if the Bush Administration prevailed in a confirmation
fight, Nunn could make life so miserable that Tower might wish he
were back speculating in an enlightened way for the LTV company.
But Nunn has been careful to leave himself the option of voting
yes.
Why has George Bush, who began his presidency by emphasizing
high standards, found himself so quickly saddled with so many
embarrassments? Part of the answer is that, ethics aside,
friendship and political alliances go a long way with Bush -- and
with the rest of Washington. If Tower does not show up in public
drunk, with an Iranian arms merchant on one arm and a female KGB
