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Inman then packed the family -- Nancy, two grown sons and a daughter-in-law -- off to Vail, Colorado, for some skiing. Over the kitchen table in their vacation home, the family perused daily copies of the Early Bird, a Pentagon summary of press clippings that was faxed to them. Inman thought he heard a drum roll of growing criticism that might not have stopped confirmation but could have aborted his major project: instituting reforms in procurement that would save enough billions so the Pentagon's budgets could be stretched far enough to cover its weapons-buying plans. On Jan. 8 he wrote a letter of withdrawal, though he delayed the announcement until after President Clinton's European trip.
To most other observers, the criticism amounted to popgun shots drowned out by a 21-gun salute from most of the press and the Washington establishment. During much of his government career -- as head of Naval Intelligence and later of the supersecret National Security Agency, and finally, in 1980-81, as No. 2 at the CIA -- Inman had been a liaison between the intelligence community, the press and Congress. He was highly regarded by journalists -- including Strobe Talbott, then a TIME correspondent, now Clinton's choice to be Deputy Secretary of State -- and on Capitol Hill as a rare source who always returned phone calls and discussed intelligence matters with remarkable candor and accuracy. It was, in fact, the prospect of having a Pentagon chief who would win bipartisan applause in the press and Congress that led Clinton to accept the urgings of Christopher, Talbott, David Gergen and others to select Inman.
Friends say, though, that Inman always had a thin skin. As an intelligence officer he managed to stay in the background, giving information to the press and Congress mostly on a not-for-attribution basis. But as a nominee for the Cabinet, he began reading criticisms of himself by name and went ballistic.
Of the three columnists Inman named as engaging in personal attacks, however, Anthony Lewis of the New York Times and Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe mainly questioned his judgment, and in not overly harsh language. After Inman's press conference, Goodman quipped that "maybe he was auditioning for the starring role in 'The Prince and the Pea' " -- an allusion to the fairy tale about a princess so sensitive that even a single pea under a pile of mattresses would keep her from sleeping.
Safire, in a column Dec. 23, called Inman "manipulative and deceptive . . . a flop . . . arrogant" and accused him of telling one "transparent lie." There has been bad blood between the two for more than a decade. Inman says it began when, at the CIA, he canceled Israeli access to some U.S. intelligence data. Safire, he says, fruitlessly protested to Inman's boss, William Casey. Safire denies it. He says he aroused Inman's fury by fingering him as the source who told journalists falsely that Israel was trying to provoke the U.S. into an attack on Libya. Inman says he did no such thing.