John Goodwin Tower (September 29, 1925 – April 5, 1991) was the first Republican United States senator from Texas since Reconstruction. He served from 1961 until his retirement in January 1985, after which time he was the chairman of the Reagan-appointed Tower Commission that investigated the Iran-Contra Affair.
Tower was born in Houston to Joe Z. Tower (1898-1970) and Beryl Tower (1898-1990). The senior Towers were living in Atlanta in Cass Coun...
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John Goodwin Tower (September 29, 1925 – April 5, 1991) was the first Republican United States senator from Texas since Reconstruction. He served from 1961 until his retirement in January 1985, after which time he was the chairman of the Reagan-appointed Tower Commission that investigated the Iran-Contra Affair.
Tower was born in Houston to Joe Z. Tower (1898-1970) and Beryl Tower (1898-1990). The senior Towers were living in Atlanta in Cass County in northeast Texas at the time of their deaths. Joe Tower was a Methodist minister. The young John Tower traveled wherever his father pastored. He attended public schools in east Texas and graduated in Beaumont, the seat of Jefferson County, in southeast Texas in the spring of 1942.
Tower was active in politics as a child; at the age of thirteen, he passed out handbills for the campaign of liberal Democrat and future U.S. Senator Ralph William Yarborough while Yarborough was running for Texas attorney general. Yarborough and Tower would...
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