On The Second Shot, a Straight Arrow

Dick Cheney is perhaps the only good thing to come out of the John Tower mess. The six-term Wyoming Congressman and new Defense Secretary-designate is many of the things Tower was not: a gentlemanly lawmaker whose low-key style belies his tenacity; a conservative who wins plaudits from colleagues in both parties; a straight arrow whose spotless personal history includes a 25-year marriage to his high school sweetheart Lynne Cheney, 47, head of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Cheney, 48, even passes the all-important Sam Nunn character test. The Georgia Democrat hailed him as "a man of honor and integrity."

Just as important, he is an old friend of George Bush's -- a key asset in this presidency -- and has ties to two other Administration power centers. While serving as Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff in 1975 and '76, Cheney worked alongside Brent Scowcroft, then as now the National Security Adviser, as well as Bush's Secretary of State James Baker, who ran Ford's 1976 presidential campaign.

After Ford's defeat, Cheney returned to Wyoming, where in 1978 he won election to the state's sole congressional seat. His path to the Senate has been blocked -- Wyoming has two entrenched Republicans in Malcolm Wallop and Alan Simpson -- so Cheney has concentrated on climbing the House leadership ladder. Voted minority whip last December, he was considered a likely successor to minority leader Bob Michel. He defended the Reagan Administration during Congress's 1987 Iran-contra investigation and joined several G.O.P. colleagues in a harsh dissent from the panel's final report.

Cheney's principal drawback is his health. He had his first heart attack during his initial congressional campaign, and two more followed before he underwent bypass surgery last August. Cheney -- who said last week that he got his cardiologist's O.K. to take the Pentagon job -- generally shrugs off questions about his condition. "Some people are short, fat and ugly," he told the Casper (Wyo.) Star Tribune last year. "I happen to have coronary- artery disease."

His other shortcoming is a lack of experience: though he spent five years on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, he has never been a member of the Armed Services panel, has never performed military service or worked at the Pentagon. But in the wake of the Tower tempest, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle anticipate a quiet and speedy Senate review. "This time it will be a confirmation," said Senate minority leader Robert Dole, "not an execution."