Word: nunne
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...collegial mood changed abruptly on Jan. 31 with the testimony of Paul Weyrich, an archconservative spokesman for right-wing causes. Weyrich openly declared that he had seen the nominee drunk in public and with women other than his wife. That caused the committee's teetotaling chairman Sam Nunn to ask Tower pointedly and in front of television cameras whether he had "any alcoholic problem." Replied Tower: "I have none, Senator. I am a man of some discipline...
Quizzed behind closed doors, Weyrich was unable to cite specific incidents of Tower's misbehavior, but the genie was out of the bottle. The committee was inundated by telephone calls, many anonymous, reporting "sightings" of Tower misbehaving in public. The White House asked Nunn to delay a committee vote while some of the accusations were being checked out by the FBI. Referring to the leaks to the press, Tower privately protested, "They've practically got me dancing naked on top of a piano...
...Nunn thus readily agreed to a second White House request to postpone a committee vote while the FBI looked into yet another Tower problem. This time it was an allegation, surfacing in the Ill Wind scandal, that some officials affiliated with Unisys Corp., a defense contractor under investigation, gave money in the early 1980s to a Tower associate, apparently to arrange meetings with the Senator. The payment was allegedly made as a campaign contribution...
...When he got to read the FBI report, Warner conceded that the document could readily lead to "credible differences of opinion" on what conclusions could be drawn from it. Bob Dole, who is not on the committee, noted that the President "was not totally accurate" in assessing the report. Nunn observed coldly, "That's the President's opinion, and I'm sure he thought carefully about it. It's not my opinion...
...Nunn had heard enough about Tower. In a closed meeting on Thursday afternoon, he proposed that the committee meet publicly that night, deliver any explanations it wished on how the members had made up their minds, then cast their votes. All along, Tower's fate in the committee had depended on Nunn's own decision. As the Senators debated Tower's strengths and frailties during the three-hour executive session, it was clear that Nunn would not accept the nominee...