The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

deficit hAwKs 175
ing side, summed up the intangibles. “Some of it is party loyalty,” the
Ohio Democrat said, “and some of it is sitting down with the most powerful
single person in the free world, maybe the whole world. When the
president says, ‘I need your help,’ that’s a rather potent argument.” 9
goRton teAMed up with Jackson in 1982 to hand Reagan a rare—but as
it turned out, temporary—defeat on a defense-rated issue. The Defense
Department’s budget request included 50 new Lockheed C-5B Galaxy
troop transports at $182 million apiece. Jackson and Gorton offered a bargain-basement
alternative that also benefitted Boeing and the commercial
airlines, which were being battered by the recession. The C-5’s were
way too pricey, the Washington senators said, also pointing to the aircraft’s
troubled lineage. They asserted that the country could save as
much as $6 billion by instead acquiring “the most cost-effective commercial
wide-body cargo aircraft,” namely surplus Boeing 747s at $44 million
each. In the battle that ensued, Jackson and Gorton faced off against two
powerful members of the Armed Services Committee, John Tower, the
Republican chairman from Texas, and Sam Nunn, the ranking Democrat
from Georgia, as well as Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. Despite
his nickname—“Cap the Knife”—Weinberger argued forcefully that the
expenditure for the C-5’s was well justified since the Galaxy could use
rough landing strips and discharge cargo from both its nose and tail.
Jackson and Gorton countered that the C-5 was unreliable and more costly
to operate and maintain. But Senator Nunn wanted those 8,500 jobs for
Lockheed’s plant at Marietta, Georgia.
“The whole establishment was against us,” Gorton says, marveling at
the memory of Jackson in action. Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge
of the issues and legislative moxie, Jackson tailored their case to
winning over “the broad coalition of senators either alarmed by the cost
of the Reagan buildup or representing districts with economically distressed
industries hoping for similar help from the Reagan buildup.”
Boeing’s powerful lobby shifted into high to help, buoyed by bankers,
subcontractors and the airlines. Jackson and Gorton won a bruising victory
when the 747 amendment was approved 60-39 in May of 1982. “That
was our first, almost equal partnership we had on a major issue in the
time I was there,” Gorton says, “and it was all kinds of fun, between
Scoop’s reputation and authority in the field of defense, and my being one
of the new majority and pretty outspoken.” Then Gorton learned another
fact of life in Congress: The lower house often has the upper hand. The
Pentagon and the defense establishment wanted the new plane and gen-