The other defense secretary nominee who promised to stop drinking

John Tower's unsuccessful bid to run the Pentagon has some echoes in the Pete Hegseth story

John Tower testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1989. (Photo: By John Duricka)

On March 9, 1989, former Sen. John Tower told reporters, “it is time for the bitterness, anger and rancor to fade.” His words sounded surprisingly conciliatory coming six days after the U.S. Senate made Tower, as he put it, “the first Cabinet nominee in the history of the republic to be rejected in the first 90 days of a presidency.”

President George H. W. Bush had nominated Tower, his fellow Republican, to be secretary of defense, a job he had sought for years. At first, the odds for his confirmation appeared favorable: He had served for 24 years in the Senate and had chaired the Armed Services Committee. But allegations about Tower’s personal conduct and possible conflicts of interest were cited by senators in the chamber’s Democratic majority who voted to sink the nomination.

In his brief statement on March 9, Tower also said he was at “peace with myself” after the ordeal, would return to…