John Tower, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJohn Tower
Senator from Texas and chairman of the Tower Commission
Date of Birth: 29-Sep-1925
Place of Birth: Houston, Texas, United States
Date of Death: 05-Apr-1991
Profession: politician
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Libra 
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.
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