280 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
As a menacing column of tanks rumbled into Beijing’s Tiananmen
Square on June 4, Curtis Hom was glued to the TV in Gorton’s Senate
office. Famous for his 16-hour days, the young legislative assistant was
alone in the office, watching the showdown with anxiety and fascination.
He’d been there. Many of the protest leaders were from Peking Univer-
sity, where Hom had spent two years. “The soldiers were dispersing the
crowds. Then all of the sudden CNN got chopped off and the studio went
crazy. I spent that night, working ’til 3 or 4 a.m., writing a memo to Slade.
I told him everyone in Congress was going to be making ‘I’m pissed at
China’ speeches, but he should talk about what needed to be done rather
than just say ‘I’m outraged.’”
Hom’s memo, which impressed Gorton as first-class staff work, out-
lined a possible overture to Boeing to help evacuate frightened Ameri-
cans. It explored the opportunity to prod the Bush Administration to play
good cop/bad cop to promote human rights and free-enterprise reforms.
And, Hom emphasizes, it addressed the question of “what do you do with
all the Chinese who are in the United States who are now scared witless
about going back. First of all, they have been tainted by America and,
second, most them likely had been participating in demonstrations in the
United States. So they are quite possibly marked people.” There were up-
wards of 80,000 Chinese nationals in the United States, including
45,000 students. In all, they were among the best and brightest of the
most populous nation in the world. The legislation Gorton and Hom
drafted offered them the chance to seek permanent residency. It stream-
lined the often lengthy green card process by waiving some of the visa
and interview requirements.^11
Nancy Pelosi, whose San Francisco-area congressional district is heav-
ily Chinese, picked up on Gorton’s idea. Ted Kennedy, who headed the
subcommittee on immigration, also championed the plan. Hom was
miffed that the Democrats were getting most of the ink but Gorton re-
minded him that when you’re in the minority you can often achieve your
goals by greasing the skids with the majority. “Besides being scary smart,”
Hom says, “Slade is great at strategy. He kept nudging it along, working
across the aisle, lobbying Bush.”
In 1990, the president signed an executive order staying the deporta-
tion of Chinese nationals. Many Chinese students, however, were unable
to land the jobs for which they were well qualified because their immigra-
tion status was uncertain. The Chinese Student Protection Act finally
became law in 1992.
“America is a land of immigrants, but I really like it when immigrants