John Goodwin Tower (September 29, 1925 –
April 5, 1991) was the first Republican United States Senator from Texas since Reconstruction.
He also led the Tower Commission, which
investigated the Iran-Contra Affair.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.