Word: pentagon
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Thus when the committee finally began confirmation hearings on Jan. 25, Tower performed with the zeal of a new convert to Pentagon parsimony. He assured the Senators that he backed cuts in the Pentagon budget, including reduced funding for strategic missile defense. At the end of Tower's crisp testimony, the Senators burst into rare applause...
Even if, against all odds, Tower squeaks through to confirmation, he will be seriously damaged. As Pentagon boss, his effectiveness would be hampered by having to deal with a hostile Senate Armed Services Committee whose chairman, Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn, had led the battle against...
...President in recent memory. Though the President cannot get anything done without the cooperation of at least some members of the Democratic congressional majorities, the task of wooing them will now be harder. Within the Administration, the absence of a Secretary of Defense able to assert the Pentagon's view will prolong the review of foreign and national-security problems that Bush insists on completing before he makes major international- policy moves...
...formally reconsidering some 30 issues, including general policy toward whole regions (the Middle East, Central America) and such narrow questions as whether the U.S. should help Japan build its own fighter plane rather than buy an American design. But the reviews are going slowly, and the absence of a Pentagon chief to give military input could stretch them out for additional weeks or even months. Meanwhile, the rush of events may not wait. Said a State Department official: "We are going to pay a big price for sticking with Tower...
Bush, at least initially, refused to admit defeat on Tower and stubbornly insisted that his nomination be debated before the full Senate. On the morning after the committee turned thumbs down on him, Tower reported to work at his temporary office at the Pentagon. In a meeting convened in Tokyo shortly before the committee vote, Bush forbade his aides even to speculate on possible successors to the Pentagon job. If any violators of that rule could be identified, the President declared, "I would like to kick some serious hide." Though a barrage of calls on Tower's behalf from Quayle...