Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Before Weinstein, Franken, there was Sen. Bob Packwood
WASHINGTON — Bob Packwood was a socially progressive Republican who advocated for women’s equality. He championed issues such as abortion rights and family leave. He hired women to run his campaigns, promoted them to positions of power and supported their careers. Feminists loved him.
But there was another portrait of the former U.S. senator from Oregon — one that he, himself, revealed in his own words, written on thousands of pages of documents.
In his personal diaries, Packwood described women in objectifying terms.
Packwood wrote that there were “22 staff members I’d made love to and probably 75 others I’ve had a passionate relationship with.”
The unraveling of Packwood’s 26-year career in the Senate began Nov. 22, 1992, less than three weeks after his narrow re-election.
The Washington Post ran a front-page story, detailing allegations of misconduct and inappropriate sexual advances against the then-60-year-old senator.
Ten women, many of whom were former staffers, recounted their horror stories to the newspaper.
Some left their jobs within months of the incidents, disillusioned by the boss they once admired.
The image portrayed in the story was that of a troubled alcoholic who groped female staffers behind closed doors and kissed them forcefully against their will, even as he was championing women’s rights in public.
The allegations, which spanned two decades, were hardly a secret on Capitol Hill’s rumor mill.
Yet, in election after election, Packwood managed to secure another term.
Before dozens of women who have gone public with allegations of sexual harassment, there was Julie Williamson, a then-29-yearold legal secretary hired by Packwood after he became a senator in 1969.
She was on the telephone one afternoon, Williamson said, when Packwood, then 36, kissed her on the back of her neck.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she said she told him.
But Packwood followed her into another room, where he grabbed at her clothes, pulled her ponytail and stood on her toes. Williamson said she kept struggling, and Packwood gave up. She quit her job shortly after.
Years later, in the mid-1970s, there was Jean McMahon.
She told the newspaper in 1992 that she approached Packwood’s office about a job and later found herself meeting with the senator in his motel room, once during a visit in Salem, Ore., and again on the state’s coast.
On both occasions, McMahon met with Packwood to talk about a speech she was drafting for him. But during the second meeting, Packwood had other things in mind, McMahon said.
“I remember being chased around the table and being grabbed and kissed once,” she said.
The allegations stretched into the 1990s. Packwood initially denied them, at times saying he didn’t remember the women or that he couldn’t find anyone on his staff who knew them. He was not the type to make such advances, he also said.
He also sent the Post statements suggesting that some of the women either invited the advances or were lying. The statements contained purported details about the women’s sexual histories and personal lives that might embarrass them and cast doubt on their credibility.
Later, he offered an apology:
“If any of my comments or actions have indeed been unwelcome or if I have conducted myself in any way that has caused any individual discomfort or embarrassment, for that I am sincerely sorry.”
Soon, more women came forward.
Packwood’s feminist allies were outraged and felt betrayed. A Senate Ethics Committee investigation dragged on for two years.
In July 1993, the Senate Ethics Committee sent letters to at least 200 women who worked for Packwood in the Senate since his first election in 1969.
“The committee is interested in any information that you may have regarding Sen. Packwood’s conduct, whether that information tends to substantiate allegations of sexual harassment or misconduct, or to refute them,” the panel wrote.
The probe grew wider, with the committee issuing a subpoena for Packwood’s personal diaries.
The fight to make the diaries public became a drawn-out drama — and a pivotal one at that: The diaries — Packwood’s own words — were the strongest evidence against him.
On Nov. 3, 1993, the Senate voted to approve the subpoena, dismissing efforts from Packwood and other Republicans to limit its scope.
On Sept. 7, 1995, after much legal wrangling, the committee released 10,145 pages of documents that came in 10 green-bound volumes. By then, Packwood was on the brink of expulsion from the Senate.
Hours after the diaries were made public, he resigned.
Packwood, who is now 85, went on to a lucrative career as a lobbyist.