Is power of the law still relevant in cabinet decisions?
When I served overseas, I occasionally told the story to my foreign contacts of former Sen. John Tower, the first Republican U.S. senator elected from Texas since Reconstruction.
Tower was nominated by President George H.W. Bush to be Secretary of Defense in 1989 and came with a resume — senator for 20 years, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, former arms control negotiator — that should have easily passed muster.
However, the FBI had been doing its due diligence, and several red flags emerged. Tower had some cozy relationships with defense contractors, but the more problematic findings concerned his abuse of alcohol and his womanizing, which he did little to hide. Tower tried to minimize these allegations by noting that he had not always been “a good boy.”
There was a particular woman, a secretary at the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, who was prepared to testify that an inebriated Tower had chased her around a conference table a couple of times.
She was contacted by the White House concerning her potentially damning testimony and pressured to rethink what she had to say. She responded by getting a lawyer.
Her lawyer called the White House and said, “if you have anything to say to my client, you can say it to me.” The White House backtracked. “Oh, we are not trying to stop her from testifying. We just want to make sure that she gets it right.”
“Don’t worry,” responded her lawyer. “She’ll get it right.”
While her testimony was not decisive, it was part of a preponderance of evidence that doomed Tower’s candidacy. Tower’s former colleagues in the Senate rejected his nomination 47-53, largely along party lines. It was the first rejection of a president’s cabinet nominee in 30 years.
The reason I tell this story is to illustrate that America is a nation of laws. Because that secretary had a lawyer, she could stand up against the awesome power of the White House, and she would not be ignored, lose her job — or in the case of some countries — “disappeared.”
Now, we have a situation that is eerily familiar. Pete Hegseth has been nominated by President-elect Trump to be the Secretary of Defense. While he does not have Tower’s governmental resume nor the cozy relationships with defense contractors, questions of alcohol abuse and certainly womanizing — including allegations of sexual assault — have been raised.
At a time when the U.S. military wrestles with persistent allegations of sexual assault in the ranks that have too often been covered up by commanding officers, one may naturally ask if the Senate should be sensitive to the kind of “resume” that Hegseth brings to the table.
The kinds of offenses that in the past have caused potential cabinet nominees to withdraw — the hiring of an undocumented individual as a nanny, for instance — seem almost quaint today. And while the argument will be made that the Senate should give a certain amount of deference to a president-elect’s choices, where might one draw a line? What are the minimal qualifications needed to do the job?
Sure, you can bring in deputies that will do the real work of managing a department with a budget of more than $800 billion and a workforce of some three million. That would leave the Secretary of Defense as a figurehead who sets the tone and priorities, talks on television and tries to make sure that the president’s wishes are at the top of the inbox.
However, if loyalty and a certain telegenic quality are your only criteria, then will the Senate decide that in these perilous times and for this crucial national security position, blind loyalty is just not enough?
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His new book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.