Introducing Hagel, Nunn and Warner Raise Specter of Tower Hearings

John Duricka/Associated Press John Tower testifying before the Senate Armed Service Committee in 1989.

It has been nearly a quarter of a century since the Southern drawls of Senators Sam Nunn and John W. Warner echoed through a Senate hearing room as an embattled defense secretary nominee fought for his job.

In 1989, the two icons of the Armed Services Committee brawled over the nomination of John G. Twer to lead the Pentagon. Accused of womanizing and excessive drinking, Mr. Tower, himself a former chairman of the committee, was rejected by the full Senate along party lines.

But on Thursday, Mr. Warner, a Republican and former senator from Virginia, and Mr. Nunn, a Democrat and former senator from Georgia, returned to the committee room to urge the confirmation of Chuck Hagel as defense secretary.

Sitting on either side of Mr. Hagel, the two former colleagues hailed his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam and a senator for 12 years. They both said the Senate should confirm him swiftly.

“I know that Chuck Hagel has a clear worldview and that it aligns with the mainstream of U.S. foreign and defense policy,” Mr. Nunn said, adding that “No one is perfect. We all know that. But Chuck Hagel comes as close as anyone I know to hav! ing all of these qualities.”

Mr. Warner offered what he called “a few words from the heart” about Mr. Hagel.

“Certain men are asked to take the point, which means to get out and lead in the face of the enemy,” Mr. Warner said. “Chuck Hagel did that as a sergeant in Vietnam. If confirmed, Chuck Hagel will do it again, this time not before a platoon but before every man and woman and the their families in the armed services.”

The return of the two men recalled the only time in more than 50 years that the Senate has formally rejected a president’s cabinet nominee.

President George Bush nominated Mr. Tower, a Texan, to run the Defense Department, but the nomination quickly became controversial amid repeated allegations of what was termed “hard drinking” and “sexual behaviors” that were documente in an F.B.I. investigation report.

During the hearing in February 1989 when the Armed Services Committee recommended that the Senate reject Mr. Tower by a vote of 11 to 9, Mr. Warner called the accusations “a cobweb of fact, fiction and fantasy.” Mr. Nunn, the chairman of the committee, called the allegations “serious” and said “the record of alcohol abuse by the nominee cannot be ignored.”

Another Democratic senator on the panel at the time, Carl Levin of Michigan, voted against Mr. Tower, citing conflict of interest problems and saying that, “I believe that it would be very difficult for Senator Tower to effectively address the serious revolving door and conflict of interest problems at the Department of Defense.”

More than two decades later, Mr. Levin is the chairman of the committee. He opened the hearing on Mr. Hagel’s confirmation by calling him an “old friend” and saying he is a person willing to give “unvarnished advice, a person of integrity and one who has a personal understanding of the consequences of decisions relative to the use of military force.”

In the years since Mr. Tower was rejected by the committee â€" and later, by the full Senate â€" defense secretaries have been approved without opposition in all but one occasion: President George W. Bush‘s nomination of Robert M. Gates, who was confirmed by a vote of 95 to 2.

This year is likely to be very different.

Several Republican senators have already pledged to vote against Mr. Hagel. On Thursday, Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the committee, called Mr. Hagel “the wrong person to lead the Pentagon at this perilous and consequential time.”

Mr. Hagel has spent the last several weeks meeting privately with senators in the hopes of swaying a handful of Republicans before the full Senate votes.

Follow Michael D. Shear on Twitter at @shearm.