(MR CLINTON IS LUCKY BOBBY RAY INMAN RESIGNED...)... AND HE SHOULD BE MORE CAREFUL IN MAKING HIS NEXT SELECTION

That quirky little man speaking from the podium had been a career officer in the Navy. Most Texans were Army, but he was Navy--loyal, precise, regimented, cool, calculating, ambitious. In the military, things work on command. When an order is given, the sailors obey. Sometimes the sailors become the commanders and then they bark the orders with an intense ferocity.

When unchallenged authority becomes part of some people's life style, they command obedience. They cannot endure dissent -- any dissent. They equate love with the unanimous acquiescence of all about them.

Then comes a tinge of "disloyalty." Someone thinks you are less than omniscient. Watch that man. He's probably part of a conspiracy to harm me. He's plotting against me. I'll get out of this situation. I don't need this, you know. I've got plenty of other challenges of my own choosing. I'm not a very patient person, you know. I don't need all of the criticism. I was simply offering to do my duty. I was willing to make the sacrifice. I didn't seek the job. I really don't want the job. I'll get out.

First it was Ross Perot, now its Bobby Ray Inman. They couldn't stand the heat. In Inman's case, the stove wasn't even on simmer. Now, in at least one respect, Bill Clinton is like George Bush. The best break that Bush ever had was that John Tower didn't become Secretary of Defense. Same goes for Clinton with Inman.

Inman is smart -- no doubt about it. He knows Washington. He knows Capitol Hill. He has played the Washington game and the Capitol Hill game much of his adult life. He knows who to schmooze and who to stroke.

It cannot have come as a surprise to Inman that someone might view him as less than infallible. Douglas MacArthur was infallible, but MacArthur spent a lot of his life under the benevolent isolation of a doting mother. George Patton was infallible, but no one overtly claims to emulate his psyche. However, Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Ulysses Grant -- they all confessed to being human, and were.

Inman couldn't take it. One nasty newspaper column by a prickly writer drove him out of the game. Inman should have been around when West Brook Pegler and George Sikolsky were doing their routine cadaver jobs three times a week.

"I'm 62 and don't have patience anymore," said Inman. Mr. President, you're a lucky, lucky man. An impatient Secretary of Defense is something the country doesn't need. You can have an impatient Director of OMB or an impatient Secretary of Labor, but you cannot have an impatient pilot of your presidential plane or an impatient Secretary of Defense.

Mr. President, you're in a bit of a fix. The military doesn't like you: The Vietnam draft and gays in the military. New that you are and cutting the defense budget, you'll be liked even less. Every production line you terminate, every unit you eliminate, every base you close, you'll make more enemies. It can't be avoided. The best that can be done is to find a Secretary of Defense who can ease the pain. Inman looked like the guy, but pain was not his specialty.

There's a law prohibiting a military man from being Secretary of Defense unless he's been out of the service for 10 years. If you picked Colin Powell, you probably could get the law changed, but you would have to pay a price: turning over the defense establishment and budget lock, stock, and barrel to Powell, no questions asked -- a limited co-presidency of sorts.

Never hire someone you can't fire. Never hire your brother-in-law, your Uncle Fred, your favorite school teacher, or a folk hero. Powell is a folk hero. On defense matters, he's bigger than life. Hire Norm Augustine or Bill Anders or John Deutch. They are reasonably big, but not bigger than life.

John Kennedy gambled when he gave the two biggest jobs in his cabinet to Republicans, one devout, one tepid: Douglas Dillion (devout), Secretary of the Treasury and Robert McNamara (tepid), Secretary of Defense. Franklin Roosevelt gambled when he gave the two top military jobs in his cabinet to esteemed Republicans: Henry Stimson (very esteemed), Secretary of War and Frank Knox (esteemed), Secretary of the Navy. You can gamble as well.

In the Defense Department, the political label affixed to the Secretary's name is unimportant just as long as the individual is loyal to you, Mr. President. It's a job for a big, big man, but not a God.

Mr. President, never hire someone you can't fire.