Packwood: The Public and Private Life from Acclaim to Outrage

Prior to a 1993 Senate Ethics Committee probe into charges that Oregon Senator Robert Packwood made sexual assaults on, or uninvited advances toward, dozens of female associates, the maverick Republican won plaudits from feminists and liberals for his vigorous support of the Equal Rights Amendment, day care, pregnancy leave, gay rights, environmental legislation and solar energy. In this brisk political biography, Kirchmeier, who has written on politics for the Wall Street Journal and the Portland Oregonian, sets Packwood's rise and fall in the context of his reported binge drinking, hollow marriage, emotionally barren childhood and a Senate milieu that allowed him to elude accountability for sexual misbehavior for 25 years. Drawing on interviews with Packwood's friends, relatives and accusers but not with Packwood himself, Kirchmeier portrays a cynical, ambitious would-be president who, by this account, saw the feminist movement merely as a device to advance his own career. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (Mar.)