Many likened him to Ross Perot. Pop-fiction addicts recalled Captain Queeg of The Caine Mutiny. Others believed Admiral Bobby Ray Inman to be an intelligence expert who had lived so long in the hidden world of spies that he now saw plots everywhere. But these were mere nuances to the majority opinion: Inman, explaining why he was withdrawing as nominee to be Secretary of Defense, produced a bizarre TV classic -- an utterly convincing, because utterly unintentional, portrayal of himself as paranoid.
How else could one explain his insistence that he was a target of a "new McCarthyism" by the press? Inman named only three columnist critics, just one of whom had been harsh. Most press reaction to his appointment had in fact been admiring, even excessively so.
And what was one to make of his contention that New York Times columnist William Safire and Senate Republican leader Bob Dole had cooked up a deal: Safire would "turn up the heat" on the Whitewater scandal if Dole would take a "partisan look" at the nominee? Inman says he heard that from two Senators, but hardly anyone in Washington believed there was any conspiracy. "I think he was given bad information," says Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, a close friend. Others speculated that Inman had read implications of hostility into one of Dole's wisecracks. The admiral has never disclosed his party affiliation. Dole quipped that he seemed to be a "Gergen Republican" -- and Inman cited that remark on TV.
There were other explanations for Inman's behavior -- in particular, speculation that he bowed out because he feared disclosure of some damaging secret. But what could it be? Whispers have been going around Washington that Inman is a closet gay. Inman, however, has met them head on. He told the ABC- TV affiliate back home in Austin, Texas, that he is not homosexual, but "I have gay friends. I deliberately ((sought them out)) to try to understand them . . . If that starts rumors, so be it."
Commentators raised three other matters: Inman's failure to pay taxes on wages of a housekeeper; the 1988 bankruptcy of Tracor, a major defense manufacturer, after an investment group headed by Inman bought it out; and a letter to a judge defending the patriotism of James Guerin, a businessman who had been convicted of illegal sales of weapons technology to South Africa.
Safire opines that "Inman was protecting himself" against disclosures about "his defense-related business activities over the last 10 years" and that his fulminations against the press were "a smoke screen." But it is not at all certain that anything remains to be discovered. The basic facts, and Inman's responses, have long been a matter of public record. In an interview with TIME, Inman stressed his extreme reluctance to take the job in the first place -- which helps explain his hypersensitivity to criticism that someone avid for Cabinet rank might shrug off. He says he became so tense and grouchy in intelligence work that it took the first 10 of his 12 years in private life for him to relax. His wife Nancy had begun to make a career for herself as a photographer and dreaded returning to Washington. On Dec. 14, says Inman, he called the White House to refuse the job offer; it took 15 hours of argument by Secretary of State Warren Christopher, an old friend, and two White House aides to change his mind.