The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

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Payton Smith, Rosellini’s biographer, says the episode underscored the
prejudice Rosellini endured as an Italian-Catholic politician. “It is painful
for many of us to go back in time and relive prejudices that now seem
archaic,” he wrote in 1997. “Yet as recently as 1972, otherwise enlightened
political figures” such as Evans and Gorton “grossly played on the public’s
worst fears of Italians in order to achieve their political objectives.” 26
Smith and Gorton first met in the 1950s when Slade was a Young
Republican and Smith a Young Democrat. Decades later they were in
the same law firm for a couple of years. In a 2010 interview, Smith was
asked if he accepted Gorton’s denial of any foreknowledge of Dysart’s
moonlighting. “I don’t believe that for a minute,” he said. “When Slade
gets going on something, especially politics, he can be ruthless. I don’t
think he was losing any sleep over what those guys were saying about
Rosellini.” Smith believes, however, that Evans wasn’t in the loop on the
Dysart caper. “I think Dan is pretty sharp and (would have) said ‘I’m not
going to go down that corridor with you guys’ . . . But his campaign was
doing it.”
Rosellini’s biographer paused for a moment to reflect. Then he allowed
that it also should be remembered that “it was sort of dog eat dog in that
race” and if Rosellini “had had some stuff” on Evans like the Colacurcio
connection he might have gone with it, too. “Al’s an old boxer. He would
have fought his way out.” 27
When Rosellini turned 95 in 2005, Evans recalled that he and Al
had sat together at a Husky football game a couple of months earlier. “I
admire him greatly,” Evans said. “I hope I’m as active at 95.” But time
doesn’t heal all wounds. Thirty-eight years after one of the most bitterlycontested
campaigns in state history, Democrats were still grousing about
Evans’ Teflon-coated reputation as “Straight Arrow.” Dolliver, in fact,
liked to tell this story: “One day somebody rose in the (State) Senate and
said, ‘What would Jesus Christ say about this particular piece of legislation?’
And, just like a shot, somebody on the other side of the aisle rose up
and said, ‘Well, why don’t you go and ask him. He has an office on the
second floor.’” 28
As for Gorton, the Democrats figured Slade got what was coming to
him when they bounced him out of the U.S. Senate, not once but twice in
cliff-hangers. Privately, however, they grudgingly admired his toughness
and resiliency. Gorton, who grew up watching the Chicago Cubs, has always
maintained that there’s no crying in baseball—or politics. When it
comes to 1972, however, he’s emphatic about three things: He didn’t know
what Keith Dysart was up to. If he had, he never would have countenanced