White House aides didn’t take offense at the arrogance of Inman’s debut. That’s because he gives the administration a fresh start at the Pentagon, where military leaders remain deeply suspicious of Clinton. Inman is one of their own–the first ex-uniformed officer since George C. Marshall to head the Defense Department. His style is a radical contrast to that of the rumpled, discursive Les Aspin. Lean and self-effacing, Inman is a crisply efficient technocrat with a knack for ingratiation. He is widely known among journalists in Washington as a great source. And as head of the National Security Agency (NSA) in the late 1970s, he routinely phoned congressional aides to scope out their bosses’ interests. Waking up at 4 each morning, he’d scan briefcases of cables and file them away in his near-photographic memory bank. When an appropriate piece of intelligence from the agency’s massive volume of electronically intercepted data turned up, Inman would discreetly pass it on to a member.
Still, Inman is likely to face some of the same frustrations as his predecessor. The career military man and former participant in the Reagan-era military buildup (as deputy CIA director) is likely to bridle at painful budget cutbacks sought by the White House. When Reagan budget director David Stockman tried to staunch Pentagon spending in 1981, Inman made an impassioned plea before Reagan and other senior aides. “He gave a long historical lecture going back to the Peloponnesian War on the need for a strong national defense,” recalls Lawrence Korb, then atop Defense Department official. Moved by Inman, Reagan quashed Stockman’s bid.
Yet for all the hawkish rhetoric, Inman is not known to harbor strong policy views. His principal patron was former senator Barry Goldwater, who tried unsuccessfully to place him in the CIA directorship under Reagan. But Inman has also kept close ties with moderate Democrats like Rep. Dave McCurdy. He’ll probably mirror the cautious–critics say drifting–approach of Clinton’s two other senior national-security advisers, Anthony Lake and Secretary of State Warren Christopher. “He’s had his fingers on a lot of parts,” a former Reagan aide says of Inman’s resume. “But he doesn’t have a grand strategy on how to use them.”
Inman once vowed never to return to Washington. He left in 1982 after 16 months as William Casey’s deputy at the CIA, appalled by Casey’s cowboy style and fondness for covert operations. He returned home to Texas–well before the Iran-contra scandal broke–to enter the private sector. Although Inman promises to bring a businessman’s acumen to the Pentagon, his record as a CEO is spotty. Tracor, Inc., a high-tech defense firm that he helped take private in 1987 with a leveraged buyout, later filed for bankruptcy. And he hasn’t always been the best judge of character. His confirmation hearing is certain to include questions about his letter to a judge last year praising the patriotism of arms merchant James Guerin. An NSA operative in the 1970s, Guerin is now serving a 15-year prison term for fraud, money laundering and export of military technology to South Africa. Inman served on a special board of outside directors for Guerin’s firm, International Signal and Control.
It won’t keep Inman from a job he has wanted for years. But he may find his spook’s sense of precision out of step with the ad hoc Clinton White House. “I’m leaving in six minutes,” one stunned aide overheard him say during a phone call last week. “That is a phrase you never hear around here,” the staffer said. To make a difference at the Pentagon, this ambitious operative will have to prove he can do more than make the trains run on time.
