Latest / BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback / Episode 469 The Fall of Bob Packwood (Part 3) Thirty Three Months.... An interview with Senator Packwood by Barbara Walters Dole 10

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Episode 469 The Fall of Bob Packwood (Part 3) Thirty Three Months.... An interview with Senator Packwood by Barbara Walters Dole 10 · BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

0:25
SPEAKER_04: Well, sexual urges, diaries perhaps filled with tantalizing secrets, a powerful man facing political ruin.
0:33
SPEAKER_04: A plot straight out of Hollywood?
0:35
SPEAKER_04: No, out of Washington.
0:37
SPEAKER_04: It's the biggest sexual misconduct case since the Clarence Thomas hearings riveted the country.
0:43
SPEAKER_04: It involves a distinguished senator with 25 years in the Congress, Oregon Senator Robert Packwood.
0:49
SPEAKER_04: Tonight, for the first time, he speaks in depth to Barbara about the allegations that surfaced more than a year ago.
0:55
SPEAKER_08: More than two dozen women have accused Senator Packwood of inappropriate sexual behavior during his entire career.
1:03
SPEAKER_08: Not sexual harassment, which is a crime, but sexual misconduct.
1:07
SPEAKER_08: There's a difference.
1:08
SPEAKER_08: The Senate Ethics Committee will be holding hearings into the charges, but back home, many voters are already calling for Senator Packwood's resignation.
1:16
SPEAKER_08: And as you will see, he's engaged in the toughest fight of his cyber two years.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: And then the barn scale when we have to commit to remove that 33 months far backwards.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: He did not turn over the it was discovered because he mentioned in a in a in a deposition, I guess, and he had some diaries, and I think he brought out a few copies of them.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Well now, the course to have explained one of those diaries.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: He fought that in court, and it went all the way to Supreme Court before he was forced to turn them over.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: And this, of course, led to what became of one of the other kind of pieces of accusations that I have against him.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: And as you've heard me say before, I did not think that those accusations particularly were fair concerning whether he doctored his diaries because if he did doctor the diaries, then he gave to his lawyers, but not to the ones after the court ordered him to turn them over to his to the ethics committee.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: So at no point did they ever have diaries that have been offered.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: And I and I thought of the academics that that was the least fair.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Um he was also accused of trying to get jobs for his wife, and we went through that too that about the fairness.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: So you have to find direction where he where he finds the ethics committee of and and um and part of these diaries and and they're investigating now more than just the accusations of the women over the file of 1935 that would uh get into a discussion about public carries.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: But the total artists were rolling down the mountain by the time we did to where we are in 1995.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: And what I thought we would include in this episode is the only interview prior to um the the ending of the title that he gave uh that I was able to find is from 19 about 1994, beginning of March of 1994.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: So we're we're talking almost a full year before he is forced out with Barbara Walter, and uh he will talk in depth about uh about these accusations and um and and his position on them.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so with that, here's Barbara Walters and Bob Packwood.
5:04
SPEAKER_08: This January, Senator Bob Packwood returned to his home state of Oregon.
5:10
SPEAKER_06: Politically infinite, Bob!
5:11
SPEAKER_08: And he was greeted by many with sentiments normally reserved for social outcasts.
5:17
SPEAKER_06: We want you up the state now.
5:20
SPEAKER_08: Others have shown their support.
5:22
SPEAKER_06: You are convicting somebody before the family.
5:26
SPEAKER_08: None of this has anything to do with Packwood's record among legislation or his effectiveness as a senator.
5:33
SPEAKER_08: It has everything to do with sex.
5:40
SPEAKER_08: Twenty-nine women have accused Packwood of sexual misconduct.
5:44
SPEAKER_08: Most of the complaints allege he abruptly kissed unsuspecting women and fondled them inappropriately.
5:50
SPEAKER_08: Others accuse him of telling dirty jokes or dancing too close.
5:54
SPEAKER_08: The allegations reach back a quarter of a century.
5:57
SPEAKER_08: Most of them were from over ten years ago.
6:09
SPEAKER_11: It was inappropriate.
6:10
SPEAKER_12: The senator in his offices did grab me at the shoulders and kiss me forcefully in a way that I had didn't expect, didn't anticipate, didn't want to have happen, and that I did have to resist.
6:29
SPEAKER_08: In addition, Packwood and his staff are under investigation for attempting to intimidate and discredit his alleged victims by giving derogatory information about them to a newspaper.
6:39
SPEAKER_08: The Justice Department has reportedly ordered a grand jury investigation to look into possible criminal conduct by Packwood and allegedly using his influence with lobbyists to find a job for his then estranged wife, and altering portions of his diaries which have become evidence in the investigation.
6:57
SPEAKER_08: Packwood is at the center of the biggest sex scandal since the Clarence Thomas and Nita Hill hearings.
7:03
SPEAKER_08: And because of this, the majority of the people who voted him in now want him out.
7:08
SPEAKER_08: Bob, we'd like you to resign.
7:12
SPEAKER_08: The Oregonians for Ethical Representation is a group formed specifically to hold Packwood accountable for his actions.
7:19
SPEAKER_10: Diane Lynn is a founding member.
7:22
SPEAKER_10: We've felt all along that this is a classic case of an abuse of power, uh, becoming a U.S.
7:28
SPEAKER_10: senator, using the uh power and influence that the voters of Oregon gave him to take advantage of people.
7:37
SPEAKER_08: Packwood, a Republican, was re-elected for his fifth tournament of the Senate just before the scandal vote.
7:47
SPEAKER_08: He began his political life over 30 years ago in Oregon.
7:52
SPEAKER_08: After a successful career in state politics, Packwood came to Washington in 1969 as the youngest member of the U.S.
8:00
SPEAKER_08: Senate.
8:00
SPEAKER_08: He quickly built a solid reputation as a brilliant and effective senator.
8:05
SPEAKER_03: Let me stop you there if I can, because I'm going to support all of those programs and have and will continue to.
8:19
SPEAKER_08: And he is known as a champion of women's causes.
8:27
SPEAKER_08: Even fighting his own Republican Party's stand against abortion, arguing for a woman's right to choose.
8:34
SPEAKER_08: He is known for promoting the women in his office to positions of importance and power and paying them well.
8:42
SPEAKER_08: In spite of all of this, Packwood, besieged by the press and his constituents, is fighting for his political life.
8:53
SPEAKER_08: Now 61, Packwood divorced three years ago.
8:57
SPEAKER_08: He lives in this three and a half room apartment in Washington, D.C.
9:00
SPEAKER_08: Humsy but small.
9:02
SPEAKER_08: He says he has only a modest savings account and must raise money from friends for his legal defense.
9:08
SPEAKER_08: He claims it has cost him over$800,000 so far.
9:12
SPEAKER_08: Senator, I think that there are people who really are not too clear on what it is that you've done.
9:17
SPEAKER_08: Have you ever hired a woman because she allowed you to make a sexual advance?
9:24
SPEAKER_03: That uh that argument has never been raised.
9:26
SPEAKER_08: Did you ever fire a woman because she resisted your advances?
9:30
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely not.
9:31
SPEAKER_08: Did you ever promote a woman because she accepted your advances?
9:35
SPEAKER_03: Not under any circumstances, and I'll say again uh no one in in any of the news stories or any of the complaints uh that has never even been uh alleged or or made reference to.
9:46
SPEAKER_08: Senator, let's go back a little bit.
9:49
SPEAKER_08: What kind of a kid were you?
9:50
SPEAKER_08: I mean, were you were you shy?
9:51
SPEAKER_08: Were you I mean, did you have girlfriends when you were going, you know, in your teenage years?
9:55
SPEAKER_08: What were you like?
9:57
SPEAKER_03: I wore thick glasses, but I was raised in a normal home.
10:00
SPEAKER_03: Uh my mother was a housewife, my dad was a lawyer for a trade association.
10:05
SPEAKER_03: As I grew up, it it seemed to me a normal a normal boyhood, except I didn't have any girlfriends.
10:11
SPEAKER_03: Why not?
10:12
SPEAKER_03: Well, I d I was always afraid of of being uh rejected.
10:15
SPEAKER_03: I was kind of shy about girls, but from time to time I'd ask girls out and they'd turn me down, and so finally you got to the place where you didn't want to be rejected, and so you just didn't ask.
10:25
SPEAKER_08: Well, you wear contact lenses now.
10:28
SPEAKER_08: So do I, by the way.
10:29
SPEAKER_08: You're an attractive man.
10:30
SPEAKER_08: Were you, in those days, what we would call today a nerd?
10:35
SPEAKER_03: Well, I I don't know.
10:37
SPEAKER_03: You'd you hate to think of yourself as that.
10:39
SPEAKER_03: I'd say I had no no romantic relations with women.
10:43
SPEAKER_03: I had women some women who were good friends that were in public speaking with me and in debate, and I had lots of male friends.
10:49
SPEAKER_08: Well, let me tell you why I'm asking this.
10:51
SPEAKER_08: Is it that that behavior that you grew up with in your adolescence continued when you were an adult?
10:58
SPEAKER_08: Is is that where the problems may have begun?
11:02
SPEAKER_03: Well, I don't think so.
11:03
SPEAKER_03: And again, you you go back and the problems that you refer to in these allegations are again a matter of perception.
11:11
SPEAKER_03: Maybe this would be the best example.
11:13
SPEAKER_03: Two cars collide in an intersection and the two drivers get out and one of them says, You ran the red light, and the other one says, No, you ran the red light.
11:20
SPEAKER_03: Well, you've had the incident and two people perceive it differently.
11:25
SPEAKER_08: Forgive me, Senator.
11:27
SPEAKER_08: If this car crashes and two people see it differently, that's okay.
11:31
SPEAKER_08: But when you have twenty-nine car crashes, there's something wrong with the way you're driving.
11:37
SPEAKER_08: Just over a year ago when the allegations of sexual misconduct began, uh, in the Washington Post, you denied them.
11:45
SPEAKER_08: Why did you do that?
11:47
SPEAKER_03: Because as the incidents were related to me when the Post interviewed me five days before the election, they did not bear any resemblance to anything that I remembered.
11:58
SPEAKER_08: Part of the anger in Oregon is that you didn't talk about these sexual allegations or or in any way apologize for them until after the election.
12:07
SPEAKER_08: So the feeling is you deliberately kept it secret to deceive your voters.
12:12
SPEAKER_03: Well, first remember, and you say deliberately kept it secret, the Washington Post interviewed me five days before the election.
12:21
SPEAKER_03: And for the first time, in in the seven instances they mentioned, they presented, in some cases, names that I did not know.
12:28
SPEAKER_03: So it wasn't a question of keeping it secret.
12:30
SPEAKER_03: I didn't know exactly what it was they were going to charge.
12:34
SPEAKER_08: One of the allegations by the ethics committee is that you attempted to discredit some of your accusers, that you sent information on them that was derogatory to the Washington Post.
12:45
SPEAKER_08: Did you do that?
12:46
SPEAKER_03: Well, it not in the sense of intimidation.
12:48
SPEAKER_03: The Washington Post had all of their names.
12:51
SPEAKER_03: The information that we sent simply went to the Post, and we meant it for the Post's private use, to ch to judge whether or not the women were accurately telling the story or whether they were credible witnesses.
13:04
SPEAKER_03: The story is told you're accused and you're guilty.
13:07
SPEAKER_03: Now I haven't found any of the press, or very few, that have actually gone and talked to some of the co-workers of the women and said, just tell me what happened.
13:15
SPEAKER_03: What do you know about this?
13:16
SPEAKER_03: They just take they they take the accusation and print it.
13:19
SPEAKER_08: And so we tried to talk to the women and their co-workers.
13:23
SPEAKER_08: We could not interview all 29.
13:25
SPEAKER_08: Many were anonymous, and most of the accusations were similar.
13:29
SPEAKER_08: So we focused on the first and last significant charges.
13:33
SPEAKER_08: The first accusation came from Julie Williamson, who worked for the senator for about a year twenty-five years ago in 1969.
13:43
SPEAKER_08: She spoke with Good Morning America just after the scandal broke.
13:54
SPEAKER_07: And walked into another office.
13:56
SPEAKER_07: He followed me, grabbed me, I tried to get away.
14:00
SPEAKER_07: At one point he stood on my feet, pulled my hair, tried to kiss me, and with his other hand was trying to uh take off my underwear.
14:09
SPEAKER_08: But some of Packwood's ex-employees are willing to publicly stand up for him.
14:13
SPEAKER_08: Carol Baron worked in his office at the time and says she was a friend of Williamson's.
14:19
SPEAKER_05: I was over at Julie's house probably in the late spring of 69.
14:25
SPEAKER_05: Julie remarked, Bob Packwood made a pass at me.
14:29
SPEAKER_05: And I found that very strange.
14:31
SPEAKER_05: She wasn't upset about Packwood at all.
14:33
SPEAKER_05: She seemed very proud of the fact that he made a pass at her, if in fact he did.
14:38
SPEAKER_05: Um she was very outspoken at the time, she still is.
14:42
SPEAKER_05: And it would have been my thought that if Packwood did do that, she would have screamed bloody murder at that point, kicked him where it hurt, and just would have told everybody.
14:55
SPEAKER_05: And I don't believe that happened.
14:57
SPEAKER_03: That just isn't my nature.
14:58
SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm not forwarding.
15:00
SPEAKER_03: I'm too shy.
15:00
SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't yank some woman's ponytail back and stand on her toes.
15:04
SPEAKER_08: Williamson quit her job a few weeks later.
15:07
SPEAKER_08: She disputes Carol Byron's recollection of their conversation, and she says Packwood and his supporters are trying to discredit her.
15:14
SPEAKER_03: What does discredit mean?
15:15
SPEAKER_03: If if somebody comes forth and says, Well, that isn't the way I recall her telling it to me, is that discredit?
15:21
SPEAKER_03: It are are we to be put in a position where when we're accused, there is no defense.
15:27
SPEAKER_03: You just say, Well, I'm sorry.
15:29
SPEAKER_03: It happened.
15:29
SPEAKER_03: Whatever they said happened, uh, that isn't fair.
15:32
SPEAKER_08: The last major accusation came in 1993 years ago by a woman who worked for you for two and a half years, and she accuses you of attempting to kiss her in your office after an evening with your staff members.
15:45
SPEAKER_08: Do you remember this?
15:47
SPEAKER_03: This was one uh it took me a long time to put together the evening.
15:51
SPEAKER_03: Eight or ten of the staff had been out uh at a place called the Irish Times, and and uh others have indicated that all of us may have had a fair amount to drink, and she and this woman and I came back to the office.
16:01
SPEAKER_03: I don't remember uh kissing her per se.
16:05
SPEAKER_08: The woman whose name was not revealed refused to comment to us on the incident.
16:09
SPEAKER_08: But co-worker Karen Belding, who works in Packwood's Portland office, says they spoke on the phone the next day.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: And she told me it was in a sort of a boasting way.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: She was clearly surprised that it had happened, but she was not traumatized in any way by it.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: And I would say that a period of some weeks went by before it was ever mentioned again.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: So it was not something that she seemed to be bruised or devastated by in any way, shape, or form.
16:33
SPEAKER_03: She'd come frequently at 5 or 5.30 and hang around outside my office and have a glass of wine with me.
16:39
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and uh a year after this incident, she kissed me uh very warmly, sent me warm letters over the course of her career, stayed a year and a half afterwards.
16:47
SPEAKER_08: Of the 29 women, or the 29 accusations, how many of these women do you actually know?
16:54
SPEAKER_08: And how many of these incidents, if any, do you remember?
16:57
SPEAKER_03: Of the 29, six or seven, Barbara, I can't remember right now, are anonymous.
17:02
SPEAKER_03: So cut that down to about twenty-two.
17:06
SPEAKER_03: Of the remainder, I took all the employees we'd ever had in the years I've been here, it comes to eight or nine hundred em uh employees, and I tried to look back and think, how many can I remember?
17:18
SPEAKER_03: I could remember about a quarter to a third.
17:21
SPEAKER_03: In many of these instances, I simply cannot remember in some cases the person, but in in many cases the incident.
17:31
SPEAKER_08: Well, what I'm getting at, of the twenty-nine allegations, do you remember like six of the women, five of the women?
17:36
SPEAKER_03: It's just very hard to remember.
17:38
SPEAKER_03: When we get to a hearing, okay, and and we have a chance to hear them under oath tell their stories, and we will have a chance to present some witnesses that say that isn't gee, that just isn't the way she told it to me then.
17:49
SPEAKER_08: It was my nevertheless, in December, a year ago, just after the election, Packwood publicly apologized in a press conference.
17:58
SPEAKER_03: What I did was not just stupid or boorish.
18:03
SPEAKER_03: My actions were just plain wrong, and there is no other better word for it.
18:08
SPEAKER_08: So it was a general apology.
18:10
SPEAKER_03: I was apologizing for any misconduct that I might have done, whether I could remember it or not.
18:16
SPEAKER_08: Do you feel the same way today, or are you fighting back today?
18:19
SPEAKER_03: Well in this sense, I wonder how many people, if you went back on them 10, 15, 20, 25 years, or men, and put out a hotline as as as some of the the women did, uh they put out a hotline and said, anybody who has any complaints over the last uh 25 years, they'll call up.
18:38
SPEAKER_03: Well, I don't know, could you stand that test?
18:41
SPEAKER_03: Could any any member of the Congress or any man say, got any complaints over 25 years?
18:46
SPEAKER_03: Call up.
18:47
SPEAKER_03: And uh it it seems to me unfair, I guess, to go back in somebody's life a quarter of a century, and you're supposed to be able to instantaneously remember it all.
18:58
SPEAKER_03: If somebody sued me in court, uh there would be no cases because the statute of limitations would have run on all of them.
19:05
SPEAKER_08: Sandra, the New York Times did an article uh on you last uh year, and they raised some questions that that I'd like to hear your answers.
19:15
SPEAKER_08: Uh one was, is kissing a woman goodbye when a handshake would be expected a form of sexual misconduct?
19:21
SPEAKER_08: What do you think?
19:23
SPEAKER_03: Over the years I've hugged and kissed and been hugged and kissed by hundreds of women.
19:28
SPEAKER_03: Uh without without sexual overtones to it.
19:33
SPEAKER_03: I don't do it anymore, but over the years it it has happened hundreds of times.
19:38
SPEAKER_03: Uh and nothing was meant by it.
19:41
SPEAKER_08: Is telling a duty joke uh sexual misconduct.
19:44
SPEAKER_03: Well I I guess it uh it may be.
19:47
SPEAKER_03: Uh uh I and is it only misconduct if it's men and women telling it together, or can men tell it to men or women can tell it to women, but men and women cannot tell it to each other.
19:57
SPEAKER_03: Uh I would hate to think we'd I there's there's lots of humor in this country, but I guess some people would perceive some jokes as off-color and others wouldn't, and you're just safer to you're just safer to stay on the side of don't run any risks at all.
20:13
SPEAKER_08: Do you think making a boorish pass is sexual misconduct?
20:18
SPEAKER_03: I assume it would in int depend on the intent.
20:22
SPEAKER_03: Uh if you try to kiss a woman in the hopes or the thought that she might want to be kissed and she doesn't, is that sexual misconduct?
20:30
SPEAKER_03: Or is it just misperceived?
20:33
SPEAKER_03: Uh you perceived one thing and she perceived another.
20:36
SPEAKER_08: When you had your press conference last year, you said that if it was necessary for you to have professional counseling, you would do that.
20:43
SPEAKER_08: Have you?
20:44
SPEAKER_08: Do you think it's necessary?
20:46
SPEAKER_03: Uh I have had professional counseling both uh uh on alcohol and on this, and and continuing the professional counseling on on uh the sexual aspect.
20:56
SPEAKER_03: Can you be a little more Well it's a it's a uh it's a psychologist in Portland that I've been seeing off and on when I go there.
21:03
SPEAKER_03: And uh and beyond that, uh I'll just leave it at that.
21:06
SPEAKER_08: And the major paper in your estate said that you had a drinking problem.
21:10
SPEAKER_08: You now uh feel that you did, right?
21:13
SPEAKER_03: I was a binge drinker.
21:14
SPEAKER_03: I'd I would go for days or weeks without drinking, and then I would sit down and I would drink a lot.
21:18
SPEAKER_08: Do you think the drinking had anything to do with with this conduct?
21:22
SPEAKER_03: I'm inclined to think in retrospect, it probably did, but I didn't realize it at the time.
21:27
SPEAKER_08: Would your drinking be why you can't remember some of the incidents?
21:31
SPEAKER_03: It could be.
21:32
SPEAKER_08: When was the last time you had a drink?
21:34
SPEAKER_03: It's been fifteen months.
21:35
SPEAKER_08: Do you feel the need for one?
21:37
SPEAKER_03: No.
21:38
SPEAKER_03: No, it's been uh you hate to say it's been a very sobering experience.
21:42
SPEAKER_08: Are you a member of AA?
21:43
SPEAKER_03: Just let me put it this way.
21:44
SPEAKER_03: I am very familiar with their twelve-step program and the traditions, and many recovering alcoholics who have been in AA or are have have been of immense help to me.
21:55
SPEAKER_08: Have you changed?
21:59
SPEAKER_03: Again, without at the moment conceding any of the allegations.
22:03
SPEAKER_03: Um I must have.
22:06
SPEAKER_08: One of the reasons Packwood says he has changed is that he has surrounded himself with strong, capable women.
22:13
SPEAKER_08: Out of a staff of forty six, twenty-eight are female.
22:16
SPEAKER_08: Over the past sixteen years, four of his chiefs of staff have been women.
22:21
SPEAKER_08: One of the most important to Packwood is his current chief of staff, Elaine Frank.
22:25
unknown: Ms.
22:26
SPEAKER_08: Franklin, how would you describe the atmosphere in the office now?
22:30
SPEAKER_08: And is it any different since these allegations?
22:33
SPEAKER_09: Yes, it is different.
22:35
SPEAKER_09: Um we are much more formal, uh much more stilted than we used to be.
22:40
SPEAKER_09: Uh in the past, we used to sit down uh totally gender neutral, uh banter, have a free flow of ideas between the staff.
22:50
SPEAKER_09: All that has stopped.
22:52
SPEAKER_09: We are much more formal now, and I think to the detriment of some very creative ideas.
22:58
SPEAKER_08: Is the senator different now with the staff?
23:00
SPEAKER_09: Yes, he is.
23:01
SPEAKER_09: In what ways?
23:01
SPEAKER_09: Uh he does not go through the office uh bantering, exchanging ideas with the staff, especially the younger staff, nearly as much as he used to.
23:12
SPEAKER_08: Have you helped him deal with his problem with alcohol?
23:16
SPEAKER_09: Yes, I have.
23:18
SPEAKER_09: We do not have uh alcohol in the office anymore.
23:23
SPEAKER_08: Are all the women in the staff as loyal as you?
23:26
SPEAKER_09: Yes, they are.
23:28
SPEAKER_09: This is a very, very loyal staff with women who have worked with the senator for years and years.
23:35
SPEAKER_08: Senator Packwood has had his problems with women, but that is not all.
23:39
SPEAKER_08: He is facing additional investigation of possible wrongdoing from the Senate Ethics Committee and the Department of Justice.
23:48
SPEAKER_08: And when we came back, Senator Packwood's diaries, the words he thought would help to vindicate him may ultimately be used against him in Senate Ethics Committee hearings.
23:58
SPEAKER_08: What could the diaries reveal about Senator Packwood and about his colleagues?
24:02
SPEAKER_08: Stay with us.
24:09
SPEAKER_04: The allegations of sexual misconduct against Senator Robert Packwood are just the beginning of his troubles.
24:15
SPEAKER_04: Two days ago, the Supreme Court ruled against him in his bid to keep his extensive diaries out of the hands of the Senate Ethics Committee.
24:23
SPEAKER_04: What secrets do those diaries hold?
24:25
SPEAKER_04: And why did he reveal the existence of the diaries in the first place?
24:29
SPEAKER_04: Well, as Barbara's interview continues, Senator Packwood considers the possibility that his own words will be turned against him.
24:38
SPEAKER_08: During the Senate investigation, Packwood handed over 5,000 pages of personal diaries to support his version of one of the allegations.
24:47
SPEAKER_08: What did you say in your diaries that you thought would help you?
24:50
SPEAKER_08: That's how this whole thing began.
24:52
SPEAKER_03: Well, what what happened is again it relates to uh this last woman that uh that said I kissed her in 1990 there was in the diary a reference a year later where uh she was in my office uh uh late in the evening.
25:08
SPEAKER_03: She came over and she wrapped her arms around me and she gave me a big kiss and said, You're wonderful.
25:12
SPEAKER_03: Well, I I noted that in the diary.
25:15
SPEAKER_03: And I was asked by the the counsel for the ethics committee, was there anything in the diary to corroborate that statement?
25:22
SPEAKER_03: And I I turned to my lawyer and I said, Well, if I say that yes, it's in the diary, I have to mention the diary.
25:28
SPEAKER_03: So that's how it came out.
25:30
SPEAKER_08: The Justice Department has now decided that your diaries will be turned over to the ethics committee.
25:35
SPEAKER_08: What's your response?
25:36
SPEAKER_03: These diaries are so personal.
25:38
SPEAKER_03: Every dream and every despair or every joy and sorrow of life I put into these diaries.
25:44
SPEAKER_03: Some people talk to their psychiatrists, I talk to the diary.
25:49
SPEAKER_03: And when this started, and when they first asked for the diaries, I said I would, although it it almost repelled me to do it, I would give them everything in the diary that related to the charges.
26:02
SPEAKER_03: But they want everything.
26:03
SPEAKER_03: They want everything no matter how private, no matter how personal, no matter that it has any relation to anything I've ever been charged with.
26:11
SPEAKER_08: The ethics committee say that they will protect your privacy, that the only things that they will comment upon are things that are relevant.
26:20
SPEAKER_03: Well, you've been around this town a long time.
26:23
SPEAKER_03: Uh how many things remain secret?
26:27
SPEAKER_08: And the ethics committee In a speech before the Senate, Packwood made more specific references to the content of the diaries.
26:34
SPEAKER_03: Two days ago, my lawyer put out a statement indicating some of the things that were in the diary, including uh an extended affair that one senator had with a member of his staff, including an affair that a staffer had with a member of the current congressional democratic leadership.
26:53
SPEAKER_03: This diary, Barbara, is about 8,200 single space pages.
26:58
SPEAKER_03: There are comments about everything.
27:00
SPEAKER_08: Are there possibilities that you might have commented on a senator's drinking problems or sexual problems somewhere along the line of the subject?
27:06
SPEAKER_03: Again, I'm not uh I'm not gonna get into why.
27:08
SPEAKER_08: Is it possible?
27:09
SPEAKER_03: I'm not even gonna say if it's possible or not.
27:11
SPEAKER_03: Let's just say that I poured everything into it.
27:16
SPEAKER_08: Ultimately, admitting the existence of the diaries got Packwood into more trouble.
27:21
SPEAKER_08: After reviewing the portion supplied, Senate Ethics Committee lawyers suspected criminal misconduct in connection with Packwood's divorce in 1991.
27:30
SPEAKER_08: Investigators claim Packwood might have used his influence to help his ex-wife find a job so that he would pay less alimony.
27:39
SPEAKER_08: There is now an allegation of criminal misconduct because you asked various friends to go to your soon-to-be ex-wife and offer her a job.
27:50
SPEAKER_08: She didn't take any of these jobs.
27:52
SPEAKER_08: Now, without saying that you did anything at all to help these friends, they were lobbyists in areas where you might have been able to help them.
28:03
SPEAKER_08: Can't you see that that could be construed as a conflict of interest?
28:07
SPEAKER_08: It's against federal law to do this sort of thing.
28:22
SPEAKER_08: Another accusation before the ethics committee uh are the comments of your former secretary, Kathy Cormack, who says that you altered the diaries.
28:31
SPEAKER_08: Can you comment on that?
28:32
SPEAKER_03: Uh I could, but I won't.
28:33
SPEAKER_03: And and again, that issue will come out in court, uh, and it would be inappropriate for me to say anything now.
28:39
SPEAKER_08: The majority of the people in your state want you to resign.
28:44
SPEAKER_08: They say a senator should be a role model.
28:47
SPEAKER_08: You are not.
28:48
SPEAKER_03: Assuming I had any knowledge about subjects before this happened, assuming I knew something about communications or trade or health reform, you're not struck dumb.
28:57
SPEAKER_03: What when when these allegations come, you don't suddenly forget everything you knew about these subjects.
29:03
SPEAKER_03: So, can I be effective here?
29:04
SPEAKER_03: You bet I can.
29:05
SPEAKER_03: Can I offer amendments in committee and people will vote for them or against them on their merits?
29:10
SPEAKER_03: You bet.
29:11
SPEAKER_08: Much more forgiving or understanding or in the upcoming months, Bob Packwood will get a chance to answer his accusers.
29:17
SPEAKER_08: His supporters argue he's being judged harshly for old deeds using newly sensitive standards, a conflict between generations.
29:26
SPEAKER_08: His detractors say he will never again be effective.
29:29
SPEAKER_08: And if allowed to get away with this, the Senate will be tarnished.
29:33
SPEAKER_08: Whatever happens, there is no doubt the episode will play a role in redefining working relationships between the sexes.
29:40
SPEAKER_03: I haven't paid much attention.
29:41
SPEAKER_08: And for Bob Packwood, this is the most crucial time in his life.
29:45
SPEAKER_08: He is facing a scandal that threatens to bring his remarkable 25-year Senate career to a humiliating end.
29:53
SPEAKER_08: Why not just resign and I'll have a life?
29:56
SPEAKER_03: Because, Barbara, if I were to resign now without the chance for a hearing, 30 years of a public career, which I frankly think is a pretty good public career, and the things I've accomplished are totally forgotten.
30:10
SPEAKER_03: And what I'm remembered for is the senator who resigned because of allegations that I never had a chance to answer.
30:18
SPEAKER_03: I thought, damn it, I am not going to resign.
30:21
SPEAKER_03: I am not going to go out of this world with people remembering me in history for only this.
30:27
SPEAKER_03: So for better or for worse, uh, I'm in this for the long run now until it's done one way or the other.
30:31
unknown: Tch.
30:33
SPEAKER_04: Barbara, you might want to explain the difference between sexual harassment and sexual misconduct.
30:39
SPEAKER_08: Okay.
30:39
SPEAKER_08: Senator Packard is not being charged or accused of breaking any of the sexual harassment laws.
30:44
SPEAKER_08: Those apply to job-related allegations.
30:47
SPEAKER_08: The Senate Ethics Committee is evaluating him for possible conduct unbecoming a senator.
30:52
SPEAKER_08: This does not involve the law or neither Court of Ethics for the Senate.
30:55
SPEAKER_08: Also, I should point out that the statute of limitations for sexual harassment in almost every state is no more than two years anywhere.
31:02
SPEAKER_08: The accusations against Senator Packard go back as far as 25 years, so they would not stand up in court.
31:08
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and it isn't the accusations aren't sexual harassment.
31:11
SPEAKER_04: Now the Senate committee keeps putting off the date that he's going to appear, but when he does appear before them, what could happen to him?
31:16
SPEAKER_08: By the way, that's one of the reasons that he when we approached him, he didn't want to talk because the committee keeps postponing the time.
31:22
SPEAKER_08: Okay, they have essentially four choices.
31:24
SPEAKER_08: The first thing they could do would be to expel him.
31:25
SPEAKER_08: That's unlikely.
31:26
SPEAKER_08: Only two senators have been expelled in history.
31:28
SPEAKER_08: They were both traitors.
31:29
SPEAKER_08: They could censure him, which would cause a loss in his seniority, and that would be a serious blow to him because he's got very high seniority.
31:36
SPEAKER_08: They could reprimand him or they could just clear him of the charges.
31:43
SPEAKER_04: Thank you, Robert.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: And that interview, uh, you know, I thought Pack would actually held his own with it, but like I said, these accusations, they kept coming.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Um I think there were about 20 25 or 26 of them, and uh the reporter claimed that she had as many as 40 names.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: So he was he was he was in a box uh by the time uh we get to where the ethics committee is gonna make a decision.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: And uh I you know I don't have any way of of uh uh you know of this being anything other than a side story, but uh uh we had a mayor here who sadly passed away um named Bob Childs.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: And Bob Childs worked in the Capitol, and he told me something that I have uh always remembered, and that is you can always tell uh the popular members because when they get in trouble, they get helped out of it.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Whereas um you know the ones that uh that are not particularly po popular, like uh John Tower or a uh uh uh Anthony Wiener, you know, the scale takes them out in in no time.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh and this is a case where this to tell you something, this this case was so overwhelming that there was no way to bail Bob Packwood out because if you look at it, a lot of people were trying to help him.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: That's why this thing went on for 33 months, uh in that he was a popular member of the Senate.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Both because he was Bob Dole's uh chief lieutenant.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: And you know, he had a lot of very liberal positions for a Republican.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: So he was a Republican who worked on Roe v.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: Wade, he was a uh or on uh being pro-choice or on abortion, he was an environmentalist.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: So there were a lot of uh more uh liberal organizations who actually considered Bob Packwood an ally.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: And so this was a slow go, uh, which caused it to go on, like I said, for 33 months before it finally blew up in September of 1995.
33:31
SPEAKER_02: Numerous witnesses with information contrary to what the accusers have said were completely ignored by the Ethics Committee.
33:39
SPEAKER_02: Continuing the quote from the statement released by Senator Packwood, quote, the committee has been the judge, jury, and prosecution.
33:48
SPEAKER_02: And he ends with this sentence quote, this process makes the Inquisition look like a study in fairness, unquote.
33:56
SPEAKER_02: That statement from Senator Bob Packwood.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: He will be a guest tonight on Larry King Live at 9 p.m.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: Eastern.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: And as I keep repeating, as soon as he holds his news conference in the Senate Gallery, CNN will take you there live.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: Continuing now with our brief.