216 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
wholly owned subsidiary of organized labor and the Democratic Party,”
adding that when Adams left Congress the Social Security system was
hemorrhaging $1 million an hour. Gorton insisted that every vote he’d
cast was to help make the trust fund solvent and reduce the deficit. Ad-
ams responded with a rally featuring Congressman Pepper, who cele-
brated his 86th birthday in Seattle by declaring that if Reagan and Gor-
ton had their way seniors would be eating Alpo. Democrats also alleged
that Gorton had over-stated his role in securing passage of the wilderness
bill. The Manion-for-Dwyer hostage swap helped create more doubts
about his integrity. Hanford was the game-changer.
whenhefede t RAL depARtMent of eneRgy named Hanford as one of
three finalists for a national nuclear waste repository and wanted to drill
an exploratory shaft deep into the basalt caverns beneath the Columbia,
polls found the citizenry overwhelmingly opposed. Scoop and Maggie
had “real clout,” Adams said. Where was Gorton when the feds wanted to
dump on his state? In 1982, Adams noted, Gorton said a nuclear waste
repository was “a national responsibility from which no state should
be allowed to remove itself unilaterally.” True, said Gorton, but he also
helped write an amendment mandating a second repository so that Han-
ford, if selected, wouldn’t have to carry the whole load. “My opponent
doesn’t tell you that.” Adams shot back that Scoop had favored an amend-
ment calling for a national survey of potential sites and delaying the
whole process until 1987. Gorton opposed it. Gorton said the process was
now being politicized, the administration having shelved studies for a
second repository in the East. The process should be turned over to an
independent board, he insisted.^4
It was radioactive tit for tat. Adams had the best one-liner. When Gor-
ton urged his constituents to write letters to Energy Secretary John Her-
rington, a Reagan appointee, Adams snorted, “It’s time to fight, not write.
He couldn’t deliver for the state, so he’s asking the Post Office to deliver
for him.”^5
Governor Gardner was busy ginning up a referendum on the issue to
help energize the Democratic base for November. Adams also denounced
a proposal by Gorton, Evans and Congressman Morrison to investigate
converting one of the mothballed Washington Public Power Supply
System plants to produce less-radioactive weapons-grade fuel so the old
“Chernobyl-style” N Reactor could be decommissioned. They said the
plan offered the added advantage of helping the struggling Supply Sys-
tem. Among the proletariat, sympathy for WPPSS was in short supply.