Bobby Ray Inman would bring at least two qualities to the job of defense secretary that Les Aspin lacked: instant credibility with the military and years of experience in running leading-edge defense businesses.
When President Clinton announced his intention to nominate Inman for the top Pentagon job Thursday, he praised the retired Navy admiral's intellect, integrity and leadership.Inman possesses "the kind of character all Americans respect," Clinton said, noting his humble beginnings as the son of a small-town gas station operator.
Like Aspin, the 62-year-old Inman is widely considered to be a clear and creative thinker, a first-rate analyst of national security affairs. But unlike the man he would replace, Inman is credited with having a flair for articulating a policy or decision and convincing others that it's the right way to go.
James Schlesinger, a former defense secretary and CIA director, once called Inman a "national asset," almost as if the man were some sort of secret weapon.
Indeed, secrets were a staple of Inman's three-decade military career, which ended in 1982 when he resigned as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. At the time he said he had lost his zest for bureaucratic infighting.
In 1974, Inman rose to be director of naval intelligence and two years later he became vice director for plans and operations at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Under President Carter he was the youngest-ever director of the National Security Agency, the nation's most secret spy organization - so secret that its name was once classified. For four years he ran the agency responsible for eavesdropping on the communications of America's friends and enemies and stopping other nations from doing the same to U.S. government communications.
In "The Puzzle Palace," author James Bamford characterized Inman's leadership at NSA as one of "modified enlightenment" in which he took the unprecedented step of speaking publicly about NSA spying issues and dampening what Bamford described as a traditional spy agency phobia about homosexuals in its ranks.
Inman in July 1980 permitted a homosexual NSA linguist to recover his security clearance, which had been withdrawn, and be reinstated in his job. Bamford wrote that Inman "came through the whole affair like a breath of fresh air."
Indications of Inman's unusual style could be seen in his brief remarks at the White House on Thursday, where he spoke with Aspin and Clinton at his side.
"I'm an operator," he said in describing his approach to work. And he is frank.
"I would tell you up front honestly I did not vote for President Clinton," he said. "I voted for President Bush even though I was mad at him about his handling of the economy, but because I considered him a personal friend. The president did know that when he asked me to take this job."
Inman was a frequently mentioned candidate to be Clinton's defense secretary when the newly elected president was putting his Cabinet together. A year later, many Inman admirers said Clinton had done well to persuade him to rejoin the government.
Inman is "an inspired choice," former CIA Director Robert Gates said in an interview. Gates, who credits Inman with helping persuade Congress to confirm him, said Inman brings more to the Pentagon job than just intimate understanding of military affairs.
"On top of knowing the business well, he also is an exceptionally effective administrator of large government organizations," Gates said. "He has almost unique bipartisan support on the Hill" developed over the years.
Indeed, both Republicans and Democrats gushed at Inman's credentials.
"He is a very intelligent, a very ordered man, and one who has one significant trait: Admiral Inman always tells the truth," said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.
"No one has a better understanding of our long-range national security interests than Bobby Inman," said Sen. David Boren, D-Okla., a former chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Inman would be the nation's 19th secretary of defense if confirmed by the Senate, and the first career military officer since Army Gen. George C. Marshall in 1950-51 to hold the post, which was established by the National Security Act of 1947.
Military officers are prohibited by law from serving as defense secretary for 10 years after leaving the service. Inman retired from the Navy 11 years ago.