The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

68 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
claiming that a redistricting settlement was imminent.” Gorton was as
angry as McCurdy had ever seen him, “convinced not only that Copeland
had devastated the strategy for the governor’s bill, but that the minority
leader, who had entered the negotiations with only an elementary knowledge
of redistricting, had surrendered the Republican position.” 7
Fearing his frustration might make things even worse, Gorton suggested
that Joel Pritchard and Moos should be the ones to read Copeland
the riot act. They told Copeland he faced a vote of no confidence if he
didn’t knock it off. He desisted reluctantly and never entirely. Two years
later, when the Republicans finally gained a majority in the House, Copeland’s
decision to consort with Greive was one of the grudges that cost
him the speakership.
“One feature of the Evans-Pritchard-Gorton leadership that always impressed
me,” McCurdy says, “was their ability to ‘lock’ the House caucus —
to convince the minority Republicans to vote as a bloc. It meant that
Greive had to deal with Gorton and the Republican leadership instead of
building a majority by picking off stragglers one by one. The solidarity of
the House caucus in both the 1963 and 1965 sessions was a tremendous
source of power for the leadership in general and Gorton in particular.
The Democrats were never able to achieve it —but then, they were in the
majority. The House Republicans understood that any division in the
caucus would doom them to minority status for years to come.”
the feAR And LoAthing in Olympia lasted 47 days. One night the Senate
was still squabbling at 3 a.m. In the other Washington, Defense Secretary
McNamara was testifying that the situation in South Vietnam was “grave
but by no means hopeless” and the key testing ground of whether the
United States could prevent “Chinese communist aggression throughout
Asia.” In Selma, Alabama, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led a march of
1,300 Negroes to the courthouse to register to vote.
Humor was the potion that precipitated a brief outbreak of comity between
Gorton and Greive. They were invited to address the state’s Chambers
of Commerce. Greive went first. He launched into a witty standup
routine on his relationship with Gorton and how much fun they were
having. The audience loved it. So did Slade, who replied in kind. Tension
broken, two tacticians at the top of their game proceeded to offer a spellbinding
discourse on the intricacies of legislative politics. When it was
over they walked back to the Capitol together and talked in Greive’s office
for a couple more hours. “They had developed a tremendous respect for