Who is General Tom Powers in the play, Visit to a Small Planet?

General Powers is the Army commander assigned to investigate the spacecraft seen hovering over the Speldings' home. Complaining that he doesn't want this assignment and would rather return to his "Laundry Project" (where he oversees the washing and drying of the military's uniforms), Powers suspects that Kreton may be a "hostile alien" who has been sent by a "foreign power" to begin an invasion of the United States. His character is frequently used by Vidal to poke fun at paranoid military attitudes, officious bureaucrats, and the prevalent fear of Communism found in 1950s America.