The Week

The emerging presidential candidacy of Jesse Jack-son received a stunning setback last week when he picked up the support of Barry Commoner.

The Republican Party in Texas has been turned upside down by Senator John Tower’s surprise announcement that he will not run for re-election in 1984. Texas Republican leaders doubt that an appealing candidate can be found to replace the veteran senator, who now serves as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Tower’s departure is not merely a loss for Texas. For more than twenty years, John Tower has been a forceful and articulate advocate of a strong national defense, consistently arguing that defense expenditures should both be elevated and be tailored to meet the particular threat we face. Since 1980, his competence and fair-minded leadership of the Armed Services Committee have won him the respect and admiration of virtually all of his colleagues, Republican or Democratic, Right or Left. We only hope that his abilities will continue to serve the nation well in the future, perhaps in a second term of the Reagan Administration or perhaps in private industry. Washington experience tells us that old committee chairmen never die; they just move on.

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The emerging presidential candidacy of Jesse Jack-son received a stunning setback last week when he picked up the support of Barry Commoner.

The Republican Party in Texas has been turned upside down by Senator John Tower’s surprise announcement that he will not run for re-election in 1984. Texas Republican leaders doubt that an appealing candidate can be found to replace the veteran senator, who now serves as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Tower’s departure is not merely a loss for Texas. For more than twenty years, John Tower has been a forceful and articulate advocate of a strong national defense, consistently arguing that defense expenditures should both be elevated and be tailored to meet the particular threat we face. Since 1980, his competence and fair-minded leadership of the Armed Services Committee have won him the respect and admiration of virtually all of his colleagues, Republican or Democratic, Right or Left. We only hope that his abilities will continue to serve the nation well in the future, perhaps in a second term of the Reagan Administration or perhaps in private industry. Washington experience tells us that old committee chairmen never die; they just move on.