16218 | The Giant Killers
T
he R geAtcoMMunicAtoR was having a difficult time communi-
cating with the freshman senator from Washington State. The
aura of the Oval Office and the president’s charm usually did the
trick. But Gorton had been spending too much time with Pete Domenici,
the stubborn Budget Committee chairman, worrying about the deficit,
insisting some tax increases were necessary. Gorton had a “Yes, Mr. Pres-
ident, but.. .” comeback for every argument. Finally, Ronald Reagan
threw down his pencil and muttered, “Damn it, I can’t listen to all this!”
Afterward, Gorton tried not to smirk. “I must say I did speak rather
sharply.” Being a U.S. senator was wonderful.^1
Steeped in seniority, wrapped in marble and fastidiously decorous,
some say the U.S. Senate is the world’s most exclusive club; others de-
scribe it as the world’s greatest deliberative body, while cynics dismiss it
as “the place where bills go to die.” Gorton’s knowledge of the institution
allowed him to hit the deck running. He relished its traditions. Why was
Daniel Webster’s desk assigned to the senior senator from New Hamp-
shire when Webster represented Massachusetts? Gorton knew. He en-
joyed the banter in the private dining room where the senators could let
their hair down. He quickly absorbed the rhythms of the place, the strat-
egy sessions and committee hearings, the 19th-century, third-person eti-
quette on the floor.
The 97th Congress could have been called The New Faces of 1981. Most
senators were in their first terms and few members of the House had
served longer than six years. Reagan’s coattails carried 16 freshmen to the
Senate. Ten of them, like Gorton, had no prior service in Congress. The
freshman class also included 33-year-old Dan Quayle of Indiana, Chuck
Grassley of Iowa, Al D’Amato of New York, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania
and Slade’s friend Warren Rudman, the former attorney general of New
Hampshire. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Irish, ambitious and the son of
a former senator, was one of the Democrats’ two freshmen. “Only 10
states have the two senators they had six years ago,” Dodd observed. “Of