ArchivesSpace Public Interface

Scope and Contents From the Series: The “Campaign/Political Series” of the John Tower Papers is a rich source for documenting Congressional campaigns of the late twentieth century. Senator Tower started his campaign career in the early 1960s with a personal effort and a small campaign staff that operated out of the Republican Party Headquarters in Houston. His later campaigns were increasingly sophisticated and well-organized, with professional campaign staff and paid consultants. Because the files span 20 years, they...

Scope and Contents Senator Tower maintained a strong interest in defense matters throughout his Senate career, serving on the Joint Committee on Defense Production (1963-1977) and the Senate Armed Services Committee (1965-1985). He was chair of the latter from November 1980 until his retirement from the Senate in early 1985. Official committee materials remain in Washington, D.C., as part of the record of the committee; consequently Armed Services Committee materials are limited and most are copies. Defense...

Scope and Contents From the Sub-Series: These miscellaneous files, generally related to the Senator's office and staff, contained biographical information, letters of thanks regarding gifts of art/prints, books, booklets/brochures, and other objects to Tower by colleagues, constituents, publishers and foreign dignitaries. The biographical files include photocopies of photographs from Tower's high school yearbook. Also found in this group are files such as clippings (one folder containes clippings related to the Senator's...

Scope and Contents From the Series: During his 24 years in office, Senator Tower received thousands of letters from Texans and other citizens that revealed their concerns with the issues of the day: Communism, social welfare programs, Vietnam, environmental issues, women’s rights, foreign policy—and the price of wool in the Texas Hill Country and the closing of the local post office. By far the most correspondence is with constituents, but congressional colleagues, foreign dignitaries, government officials, representatives of...

Scope and Contents From the Series: The Tower papers, when received at Southwestern University, contained two large boxes labeled “General Files” that held folders related to the senator’s office administration, conferences, and a few other topics. The remaining items in this series are miscellaneous files and microfilm that were found scattered throughout the papers.The first folders in Box 1 contain biographical information about Senator Tower including photocopies of photographs from his high school yearbook....

Scope and Contents From the Series: The “Campaign/Political Series” of the John Tower Papers is a rich source for documenting Congressional campaigns of the late twentieth century. Senator Tower started his campaign career in the early 1960s with a personal effort and a small campaign staff that operated out of the Republican Party Headquarters in Houston. His later campaigns were increasingly sophisticated and well-organized, with professional campaign staff and paid consultants. Because the files span 20 years, they...

Scope and Contents The Tower papers, when received at Southwestern University, contained two large boxes labeled “General Files” that held folders related to the senator’s office administration, conferences, and a few other topics. The remaining items in this series are miscellaneous files and microfilm that were found scattered throughout the papers.The first folders in Box 1 contain biographical information about Senator Tower including photocopies of photographs from his high school yearbook....

Scope and Contents From the Series: Few people know of John Tower’s early career as a radio disc jockey, but the country and western style lyrics that he wrote on the back of wire service reports while working at radio stations in either Beaumont or Taylor, Texas, can be found among the pre-Senate papers in this series. The papers, essentially maintained as received, generally fall into two chronological groups within the subseries, 1969-1979 and 1980-1984. Most correspondence between 1962 and 1979 was placed in a...

Scope and Contents From the Series: Senator Tower maintained a strong interest in defense matters throughout his Senate career, serving on the Joint Committee on Defense Production (1963-1977) and the Senate Armed Services Committee (1965-1985). He was chair of the latter from November 1980 until his retirement from the Senate in early 1985. Official committee materials remain in Washington, D.C., as part of the record of the committee; consequently Armed Services Committee materials are limited and most are copies. Defense...

Scope and Contents From the Series: Committee materials remain in Washington as part of the permanent record of Congress. Consequently, there are relatively few files associated with committees and commissions on which Senator Tower served, and the papers in the files are generally copies. Materials concerning the Senate Armed Services Committee are located in the preceding series. Most files dealing with Senator Tower’s work on legislation and matters related to the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee are found among...