A Clean Bill of Health

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For a month, the rumors mounted as President-elect George Bush let his choice to run the Pentagon twist slowly in the wind. Liberal critics complained that former Texas Senator John Tower was too cozy with defense contractors. Some conservatives questioned his fealty to the Strategic Defense Initiative. Gossips whispered about his reputation for boozing and womanizing. Last week, after one of the most prolonged background checks the FBI has ever conducted, Bush finally named Tower his Secretary of Defense.

Why did the selection take so long? Tower, 63, had been mentioned repeatedly by suspects in the Justice Department's "Ill Wind" investigation of corruption in defense contracting. But after an extensive review of the evidence, the FBI concluded that the suspects were merely dropping his name in an attempt to enhance their purported influence. Tower was cleared of any involvement in wrongdoing. In addition, the FBI probed his former wife's allegations that while serving as an arms-control negotiator in Geneva he had affairs with foreign women. Such liaisons would raise the possibility that Tower had been compromised by a foreign government. He denied the affairs, and the FBI absolved him of any suspicion of entrapment by enemy agents. The bureau, declared Bush, gave Tower "a clean bill of health."

Although Tower is a former Senator, his confirmation is likely to be rough. Because of his renown as the Senate's most voluble defender of the Reagan military buildup, he can expect tough questions on how he will prune as much as $300 billion from projected defense expenditures over the next four years. Last week Tower declared that he was ready to cope with a new era of Pentagon austerity, promising "as much if not more defense for less money." But Bush will nonetheless insist that Tower choose a tightfisted manager as his top Pentagon aide.

Even as the rumors about Tower continued to swirl, they were joined by a new -- and to Bush, infuriating -- round of leaks about the imminent appointment of Jack Kemp as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Bush offered the post to his defeated rival for the G.O.P. nomination last Wednesday. Two days later, the story hit the front pages. At week's end the President-elect had said nothing about the appointment, though aides to both Bush and Kemp said it would be announced this week -- unless Bush changes his mind.

If it goes through, the appointment of Kemp, 53, a nine-term New York Congressman who is retiring from the House next month, will be a political twofer. On the one hand, he is a favorite of the right wing, a supply-side apostle who championed the Reagan tax cuts in 1981. On the other, he is one of the few prominent Republican politicians in good standing with the black community. He has consistently exhorted the G.O.P. to reach out to minorities and the poor. Though Kemp made the short list of possible Bush vice- presidential running mates, the former Buffalo Bills quarterback has never been a favorite of the President-elect. But his selection would add some pizazz to a Cabinet that is quickly filling up with bland, middle-of-the-road pragmatists.