Many people—including, perhaps, the President, who appointed Tower, Edmund Muskie and Brent Scow-croft to the investigatory body—were surprised that the report would be damaging to Ronald Reagan at all. A hard-nosed conservative who has backed Reagan's military buildup to the last bullet, Tower was thought by some observers to be the President's man on the commission. On the tricky matter of allegiances, Tower says, "I have been loyal to Ronald Reagan throughout his Presidency and still regard myself as loyal. But I am charged with a certain degree of objectivity. I have to put aside personal feelings and loyalties to get at the truth."
John Tower has always had a mind of his own. In 1960, then a 34-year-old political science professor from Wichita Falls, he decided to take on Lyndon Johnson, who was running simultaneously for the vice-presidential nomination and reelection to the U.S. Senate. The decision seemed ill-advised, but Tower—an unknown in an overwhelmingly Democratic state—collected a stunning 41 percent of the vote.
The next year, when Johnson vacated his office to campaign for the Vice-Presidency with JFK, Tower ran in a special election and won. He was the first Republican since the 1870s to win statewide election in Texas and was dubbed by some "the accidental Senator." He gave them ample time to rue that line: He served 24 years in the Senate, heading the powerful Armed Services Committee from 1981 until 1985, when he retired from politics, declaring himself "burned out."
Born in Houston, Tower is the son of a Methodist minister and credits his religious background "with a profound influence on my life." His grandfather, also a preacher, "brought the church into the wilderness on horseback with a saddlebag, a clean shirt, a Bible and a Winchester rifle. And," Tower adds, "I still have his Winchester." Tower enlisted in the Navy at 17, shortly after the outbreak of World War II, and saw combat on a gunboat in the Pacific. After the war he took advantage of the Gl Bill and earned his bachelor's degree from Southwestern University and his master's in political science from Southern Methodist University.
Tower's career has been marked by caution and continuity, but his personal life has had a few turnings. His marriage of 24 years to Lou Bullington, with whom he has three daughters, ended in divorce in 1976. A year later he married Washington lawyer Lilla Burt Cummings, the sister of Britain-based arms dealer Sam Cummings. The couple separated in November 1985, during Tower's 14-month stint as U.S. negotiator on strategic nuclear arms in Geneva. Lately, Tower has been dating a wealthy Dallas socialite named Dottie Heyser.
Tower returned to Washington's highly charged center stage last November with his usual energy. Buckling down to the task of digesting copious National Security Council documents, he often worked 18-hour days and dined at his desk.
The dogged pursuit of difficult truths was what his friends expected of the solemn, tough-minded Tower. "He's a man of integrity, and he's not going to impeach that for anyone," says former Texas governor John Connally. "If they [the White House] expected Tower to be a patsy, they misread the man."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
