John Goodwin Tower (September 29, 1925 -- April 5, 1991) was the first Republican United States senator from Texas since Reconstruction. He served from 1961 until his retirement on January 3, 1985, after which time he was appointed as the chairman of the Reagan-appointed Tower Commission that investigated the Iran-Contra Affair. He was George Herbert Walker Bush's nominee for Secretary of Defense in 1989 but was rejected by the Senate, 53--47. Tower retired from the Senate after nearly twenty-four years in office. He continued to be involved in national politics, advising the campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Two weeks after his leaving office, Tower was named chief United States negotiator at the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks in Geneva, Switzerland. Tower resigned from this office in 1987, and for a time was a professor at Southern Methodist University. He became a consultant with Tower, Eggers, and Greene Consulting from 1987 until his death in 1991. In November 1986, President Reagan asked Tower to chair the President's Special Review Board to study the action of the National Security Council and its staff during the Iran-Contra Affair. The board, which became known as the Tower Commission, issued its report on February 26, 1987. The report was highly critical of the Reagan administration and of the National Security Council's dealings with both Iran and the Nicaraguan Contras. In 1989, Tower was President George H. W. Bush's choice to become Secretary of Defense. But in a stunning move — particularly given that Tower was himself a former Senate colleague — the United States Senate rejected his nomination. The largest factors were concern about Tower's personal life, in particular allegations of alcohol abuse and womanizing.[13] The Senate vote was 47--53,[14] and it marked the first time that the Senate had rejected a Cabinet nominee of a newly elected president. As The New York Times reported in his obituary: "Mr. Tower's repudiation by his former colleagues, who rejected him as President Bush's nominee for Secretary of Defense after public allegations of womanizing and heavy drinking, left a bitterness that could not be assuaged. In the normally clubby Senate, Mr. Tower was regarded by some colleagues as a gut fighter who did not suffer fools gladly, and some lawmakers indicated that they were only too pleased to rebuke him."[13] In response to the alcohol allegations, Tower told The New York Times in 1990: "Have I ever drunk to excess? Yes. Am I alcohol-dependent? No. Have I always been a good boy? Of course not. But I've never done anything disqualifying. That's the point." After Tower's defeat, he was instead named chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Dick Cheney, then a Representative from Wyoming and the House Minority Whip, was later confirmed as Secretary of Defense. On April 5, 1991, Tower and his middle daughter, Marian, and the astronaut Sonny Carter were killed along with twenty other people in the crash of Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311 on approach for landing at Brunswick, Georgia. The crash was the result of propeller control failure. Tower and his daughter are buried together at the family plot of the Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery in Dallas. A cenotaph in Tower's honor was erected at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. Tower's personal and political life are chronicled in his autobiography, Consequences: A Personal and Political Memoir, published a few months before his death. He donated his papers to his alma mater, Southwestern University. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tower

• published: 25 Jan 2014
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