186 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
1956 campaign for the Legislature. Evans was conflicted. Secretary of
State Ralph Munro, a former aide and good friend, prodded him to call
Governor Spellman. The Korean Air tragedy was all over the radio as Ev-
ans drove to the Governor’s Mansion. “Good God,” he said to himself,
“with this many problems and the challenges that we’re facing... how
can you not want to really get involved?”^11
Once appointed, Evans was instantly in campaign mode to serve the
last five years of Jackson’s term. With Slade joining him on the stump,
Evans handily outpolled Lloyd Cooney in a primary barely a month later,
then took 55 percent of the vote against Congressman Mike Lowry. Jim
Waldo and Steve Excell, the leading strategists in the Evans campaign,
had deftly contrasted Lowry’s bearded rumpledness and hot rhetoric with
Evans’ senatorial mien.^12
goAdonRt n JAcKson had conducted hearings in Spokane, Seattle and
D.C. on their proposal to protect from development an additional 1.6 mil-
The Washington State congressional delegation in 1982: sitting, from left,
Gorton, Pritchard and Evans; standing, from left: Rod Chandler, Al Swift,
Norm Dicks, Tom Foley, Sid Morrison, Mike Lowry and Don Bonker.
Gorton Center