The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

27 | The Comeback
RetuRning to the cApitoL in defeat was devastating. Outwardly,
though, at least around his wife, Gorton was neither melancholy
nor brooding. “Just quiet,” Sally says. And she knew what that
meant: He was trying to come to grips intellectually with what he felt
viscerally—profound disappointment and a sense of loss. Being a senator
was his life’s ambition.
“He simply would not talk about it. So I was quiet, too.” On the morning
he had to go back to his office on the Hill, he dithered. “I knew he
couldn’t bear the thought of facing the staff he loved so much. When he
finally left, I went to see the good soul of the neighborhood. I called at her
door, unannounced, went in and sat down at her kitchen table and poured
out the whole horrible story for the whole afternoon—all the dirty tricks;
everything that went wrong that shouldn’t have. And at the end of the
afternoon—and I mean three or four hours—she walked me back to my
garden gate and we stood there laughing. I’d gotten it all out of my system
to a wonderful friend who would just listen. Otherwise I don’t know what
I would have done. Slade didn’t need to know how badly I felt—how badly
our girls felt. But the truth is I’m sure he did because he’s often said he
could let all of those attacks—‘the Ivy League lawyer,’ as if that was a derogatory
statement; ‘the cold, calculating patrician politician’—just roll
off his back. He always said it’s much harder on the spouse and the children.
And he’s right. When he lost, he didn’t make anyone else feel badly.
He didn’t blame anybody. He kept it all inside.”
Gorton got busy writing letters of reference and making calls to help
his staff land new jobs. He told them how great they were and said it was
going to be all right. As for himself, he planted a seed that a seat on the
9 th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would be palatable. Five judges on the
28-member court based in San Francisco had offices in Seattle’s Federal
Courthouse. Dan Evans told reporters he would “enthusiastically support”
his nomination. 1 With a vacancy to be filled, Reagan had an oppor-
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