How to Pronounce John Tower
#50
Most Popular
Boost
Sep 29, 1925 Houston, Texas, United States Died on 05 Apr 1991 (aged 65)
Senator from Texas and chairman of the Tower Commission
LibraJohn Tower - Place of Birth, Date of Birth, Age, Wiki, Facts, Net Worth, Birthday, Biography and Family
John Tower, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Family, Facts, Age, Net Worth, Biography and More in FamedBorn.com
About John Tower
- John Goodwin Tower (September 29, 1925 – April 5, 1991) was an American politician, serving as a Republican United States Senator from Texas from 1961 to 1985.
- He was the first Republican Senator elected from Texas since Reconstruction.
- Tower also led the Tower Commission, which investigated the Iran-Contra Affair, and was an unsuccessful nominee for U.S.
- Secretary of Defense in 1989. Born in Houston, Texas, he served in the Pacific Theater of World War II.
- After the war, he worked as a radio announcer and taught at Midwestern University.
- He switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in the early 1950s and worked on the 1956 presidential campaign of Dwight D.
- Eisenhower.
- Tower lost Texas's 1960 Senate election to Democratic Senator Lyndon B.
- Johnson, but performed relatively well compared to his Republican predecessors.
- With the Democratic victory in the 1960 presidential election, Johnson vacated his Senate seat to become Vice President of the United States.
- In the 1961 special election to fill the vacancy caused by Johnson's resignation, Tower narrowly defeated Democrat William A.
- Blakley.
- He won re-election in 1966, 1972, and 1978. Upon joining the Senate, Tower became the only Republican Senator representing the South until Strom Thurmond switched parties in 1964.
- Tower staunchly opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- Starting in 1976, Tower began to alienate many conservatives.
- He supported Gerald Ford rather than Ronald Reagan in the 1976 Republican primaries, supported legalized abortion, and opposed President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Tower retired from the Senate in 1985.
- After leaving Congress, he served as chief negotiator of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union and led the Tower Commission.
- The commission's report was highly critical of the Reagan administration's relations with Iran and the Contras.
- In 1989, incoming President George H.
- W.
- Bush chose Tower as his nominee for Secretary of Defense, but his nomination was rejected by the Senate.
- After the defeat, Tower chaired the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.
- Tower died in the 1991 Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311 crash.
