John Tower

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 (now Midwestern State University) in Wichita Falls. 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, Tower defeated Johnson's appointed successor, Bill Blakley. He won re-election in 1966, 1972, and 1978.


Upon joining the Senate in 1961, Tower became the first Republican Senator to represent a state in the South since 1913. He was the only Southern Republican in the Senate until Strom Thurmond switched parties in 1964. A political conservative earlier in his career, Tower staunchly opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Starting in 1976 with his support of Gerald Ford rather than Ronald Reagan in the 1976 Republican primaries, Tower began to alienate many fellow conservatives. He became less conservative over time, later voicing support for legal abortion, gay rights,^[1] and opposing President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983.


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.

Early life, education, and military service[edit]

Tower was born in Houston, the son of Joe Z. Tower (1898–1970) and Beryl Goodwin Tower (1898–1990). The family often moved throughout East Texas due to Joe's career as a Methodist minister.^[2]


Having attended public schools in Houston and Beaumont, Texas, Tower graduated from Beaumont High School in 1942.^[2] After high school, he enrolled at Southwestern University in fall 1942.^[2] In June 1943, Tower paused his college studies to serve in the United States Navy during the Pacific Theater of World War II on an LCS(L) amphibious gunboat.^[2]


In March 1946, Tower was discharged from the Navy ranked seaman first class and resumed his studies at Southwestern.^[2] He graduated in 1948 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.^[2] While at Southwestern, Tower was a member of the Iota chapter of the Kappa Sigma fraternity, and would later serve the organization in significant alumnus volunteer roles.^[3]


Tower worked as a radio announcer for country music station KTAE in Taylor, northeast of Austin, during college and for some time afterward.^[2] Tower continued his military service in the United States Naval Reserve until retiring in 1989 with the rank of master chief's boatswain mate.^[2]


In 1949, he began graduate studies in political science at Southern Methodist University and worked part time as an insurance agent. Then in 1951, Tower became an assistant professor of political science at Midwestern University (now Midwestern State University), a job he held until 1960. In 1952 and 1953, he pursued graduate coursework at the London School of Economics and conducted field research on the organization of the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom. His research was presented in his thesis, The Conservative Worker in Britain. He received his Master of Arts degree from SMU in 1953.^[2]