BicentenniAL foLLies 149
1972, had been pushing to declare Puget Sound an orca sanctuary. After
the Budd Inlet capture, he and his staff whipped up an amendment. “We
worked at breakneck speed on the act for two days,” says Gerry Johnson,
the Seattle attorney who was then an administrative assistant to the sena-
tor. “Still, it wasn’t fast enough. Time was running out on the restraining
order. The senator said, ‘Get me Mo (Judge Morell Sharpe) on the phone.
I was surprised and told Magnuson, ‘You can’t interfere with a federal
judge.’ But he insisted. Magnuson told him, ‘I’ve got this little bill on
marine mammals but I need just a few more days to work it out.’ When
he hung up, Magnuson said, ‘He’s going to extend the order.’ We passed
the bill through Congress a few days later.”^17
Magnuson and Gorton were politicians who got things done—each in
their own way. Maggie, however, was clearly in decline. By the fall of 1978,
Gorton was bored with being attorney general. The wind was also blow-
ing the right way, with the recession deepening and Carter floundering.
Bob Moore, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial
Committee, came to Olympia to sound out the prospective candidate and
reconnoiter.
“Did he give you any encouragement?” reporters wanted to know.
“The fact that he was here makes it obvious they’re interested,” Gorton
said. “I’m going to spend the next year making a decision.”^18
He was already 90 percent decided.