Don't Call Him Bobby Ray: Portrait of an "Operator"

By Bruce W. Nelan

When Bobby Ray Inman goes up to Capitol Hill for confirmation hearings in January, he will not have any talking dogs with him. He doesn't need them. "Talking dogs" is what the Pentagon calls the notebook-carrying aides who sit behind senior officers, looking things up to whisper into their "masters' " ears. Inman has a memory that is close to total recall. He can, and does, speak cogently for half an hour without notes and answer questions on almost any topic. It is a skill that has helped make the retired admiral a legendary figure in Washington, though most Americans have never heard of him.

"Legendary" is no exaggeration, as the salvos of praise saluting his nomination as Defense Secretary attest. His friends and colleagues keep using the same words: "brilliant" and "honest" and "decisive." He impresses and astonishes people, even the blase power brokers of the capital. The fame and admiration are real, though they could hardly have been predicted for a tall, skinny, bookish fellow named Bobby Ray (he hates it and will settle for Bob) from East Texas who joined the Navy's officer-training program during the Korean War.

Standing beside Bill Clinton at the White House last week, Inman described himself as an "operator." He meant, in military terms, an officer in charge of operations -- but it has another echo in Washington. Networking is one of his great strengths. He is smart and powerful as well as soft-spoken and approachable. So much so that everyone wants to be his friend. Though some think he is a Republican, he is registered as an independent. "He has extraordinary bipartisan support," says Walt Rostow, who was Lyndon Johnson's hawkish National Security Adviser. Ron Dellums, the dovish chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, calls Inman a "brilliant thinker." Most members of Congress value Inman for his straight answers even about secret and sensitive programs. "Admiral Inman always tells the truth," says Republican Senator Ted Stevens. Remarkable for a professional spy, he is at least as good with the press as White House spinmaster Dave Gergen.

Inman is also loyal and willing to stake his name on controversial associates -- within clearly demarcated limits. For example, Inman wrote a letter last year to a U.S. district court judge in Philadelphia commending the "patriotism" of arms merchant James Guerin, who has since been sentenced to 15 years for fraud and smuggling weapons to South Africa. While he praised Guerin for providing the U.S. with "information obtained during his foreign travels," Inman did not ask the court for leniency.

If the ability to speak well is important, so is the audience. As a young lieutenant, Inman landed on the staff of Admiral Arleigh Burke, then Chief of Naval Operations, and became Burke's favorite briefer. "He is one of the great briefers of our time," says former FBI and CIA director William Webster. It is a talent important men treasure: someone who tells you everything you need to know quickly and clearly. At the same time, Inman generated little backstabbing. "Most people," says retired Rear Admiral Don Harvey, a friend, "were able to spot that this was a creature not of their ken. He was so good it decreased the normal competition."

Beginning as a shipboard cryptographer, Inman rose quickly. He became director of Naval Intelligence in 1974 and vice director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1976. In 1977 Jimmy Carter named him as head of the National Security Agency, the supersecret electronic eavesdropping and code- breaking service at Fort Meade, Maryland. He liked that so much it took a direct order from Ronald Reagan to move him to the deputy directorship of the CIA, where his probity was needed to balance the unpredictable chief spook, William Casey. In the process, Inman became the first naval intelligence specialist to reach four-star rank.

It turned out Casey was beyond balancing, and Inman resigned. He said later he understood how Robert Gates could have been kept in the dark about Irangate, because Casey had done the same thing to him on several plots. In any case, Inman said, "I am not a very good No. 2, so my year at the Defense Intelligence Agency and my 18 months at the CIA were not the happier times of my career." In the 1980s he headed a computer-technology venture and a defense-contractor company in Austin, Texas. Neither was a great success, but no one blamed him. Now he wants to bring the "best business practices" to the Pentagon.

When Inman left the CIA, he vowed never to accept another government post. "The frustration," he said, "was in watching the decision makers and thinking they were making a botch of it." Last week he said he didn't want the Defense job either, but he took it for "duty and country." His reputation for straight talk is so solid that no one questioned the statement.

With reporting by Elaine Shannon/Washington and Richard Woodbury/Houston