Thirteen more women say that Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) made uninvited sexual advances toward them, and according to their accounts, his unwanted kissing and touching extended to campaign volunteers, casual acquaintances and virtual strangers as well as employees and lobbyists.
In interviews, the women described a man whose sexual approaches came out of nowhere, often in unexpected situations. Several women said he took advantage of chance encounters to make abrupt and unwelcome advances, French-kissing them when a handshake might have been appropriate. Some women said he seized on their interests or aspirations to establish a rapport and then maneuvered to be alone with them.
At times, Packwood could be strikingly bold: One woman interviewing for a job said he made it clear he wanted her to spend the night with him, although he hardly knew her. Sometimes, he could be persistent: A former staff member said she rebuffed his advances on three separate occasions before she left for another job.
Two of the 13 women said they were offended enough to talk privately to someone on Packwood's staff, but most said they told only their friends or relatives, if they told anyone. Several said they did not think a complaint would be taken seriously. The incidents described spanned almost two decades, between the late 1960s and mid-1980s. Packwood was married during that period; he and his wife, Georgie, separated in 1990 after 26 years of marriage and are now divorced.
The Washington Post reported Nov. 22 that Packwood, known as a leading advocate of women's rights on Capitol Hill, had made uninvited sexual advances toward 10 women, including employees, prospective employees and lobbyists. Interviewed in the closing days of a tight race, Packwood denied making any such advances. After winning election Nov. 3 to a fifth term, he apologized and said he would not make an issue of any specific allegation. "My actions were just plain wrong," he said at a Dec. 10 news conference. "I just didn't get it. I do now."
Altogether, 23 women now have told The Post that Packwood made unwanted advances toward them between 1969 and 1990. Of the women interviewed for this article, six agreed to have their names published and two others agreed to be identified to Packwood had he agreed to be interviewed. In the earlier article, four of the 10 women allowed their names to be used; two others were named to Packwood in an interview.
Packwood declined several requests to be interviewed about the new allegations. His lawyers said in a statement Friday that "the appropriate course of action is for Senator Packwood to respond to these allegations" before the Senate ethics committee. The committee began its investigation after The Post's November article, which set off a still-raging debate about Packwood's behavior and the broader question of how Congress handles complaints of sexual misconduct.
An Oregon coalition calling itself Oregonians For Ethical Representation has demanded that Packwood resign. The group has complained that his election victory was fraudulent, saying that he lied to The Post initially and also lied to the Oregon media about The Post's inquiries in order to keep his conduct secret until after Election Day. The Senate rules committee is considering complaints about the validity of his reelection.
Packwood, 60, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has said repeatedly that he will not resign. Some of his defenders, calling themselves Oregonians for a Fair Hearing, have said the calls for his resignation are based on unproven accounts which, in some cases, come from women who supported Packwood's Democratic opponent. "We as voters and citizens need to see the totality of circumstances surrounding those allegations," said Jeanette Slepian, who chairs the pro-Packwood group.
Packwood said he would not challenge any specific allegation made in The Post's November story. But during a recent tour of Oregon -- his first trip to his home state since The Post's initial story -- Packwood told interviewers that he has information that contradicts some of the accusations against him. He said his lawyers hope to question his accusers during the ethics committee proceedings. The committee last week ruled that information concerning the women's sexual histories would not be considered relevant to its investigation except by majority vote on individual issues.
The Post's initial story about Packwood led other women to come forward, either calling The Post or contacting a group, the Oregon Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, that offered to handle complaints. Some of the accounts in this article are based on interviews with those women, while others are the accounts of women first contacted by The Post. In all but two of the new accounts, The Post interviewed people who said that the women had told them about their experiences with Packwood, often within days of the incident.
Those who declined to be identified in this article or to Packwood gave several reasons. Some said they did not want to be swept up in the publicity the story has attracted. Some said they did not want to risk hurting their government careers and feared that Packwood might attempt to tarnish their reputations. Some said speaking out was futile because they did not expect senators on the ethics committee to take strong action against their colleague.
Some Recurring Themes
Running through many of the latest accounts are similar phrases and recollections: "I was naive"; the advance came "out of the blue"; a reaction of "shock" followed by a tactful retreat from Packwood. Gena Hutton said that was how it happened to her 13 years ago.
Hutton said a Packwood aide had recruited her to serve as unpaid chairman of Packwood's local campaign in Eugene and Lane County, Oregon's most populous county outside the Portland area. The aide contacted her after she gave money to Packwood's reelection fund, in response to a solicitation signed by Gloria Steinem.
In early 1980, Hutton said, Packwood called and arranged to meet her on a trip to Oregon and introduce her to his chief aide. Thinking that "this powerful person wants to know about me," Hutton, then 35, brought along pictures of her two daughters, maybe even her cats, she recalled in a recent interview.
They got together at a restaurant in a Eugene hotel, she said. Afterward, Packwood walked her to her car. Without warning, Packwood grabbed her, put his arms around her and "kissed me sensuously," she said. "His tongue was finding its way." He invited her to come to his hotel room, she said, but she bluntly turned him down.
Gillian Butler's experience with Packwood occurred in 1980. One day, Packwood was checking out of the Red Lion Inn in downtown Portland, where the 23-year-old college student was working as a part-time desk clerk. Butler said she mentioned that she had written him a letter complaining about the reinstated mandatory draft registration. Shortly thereafter, Packwood called her at the front desk from a phone at the airport and suggested that she write again. "I was real excited because he seemed interested in what I was thinking," she recalled.
Butler wrote again and a few weeks later, she said, Packwood called from Washington to suggest that they discuss her letter over drinks when he returned to Oregon.
She agreed. But she felt wary, she said, so she brought along her boyfriend, Kevin Kouns. Before Kouns arrived, she said, Packwood asked her to dance and she refused. The three of them chatted for 45 minutes or so, Butler and Kouns said.
On a subsequent stay at the Red Lion Inn, Butler said, Packwood was checking out when he leaned across the front desk and kissed her on the lips without warning. "It was kind of a weird thing," she said.
On a later visit, Butler said, Packwood followed her into a storage area as she was retrieving his luggage and kissed her.
She said she did not complain to her superiors because Packwood was a regular and important guest and because she did not consider the incidents that serious.
Packwood also showed a special interest in a high school student who worked for him as a summer intern in 1982 and 1983 -- an interest that turned into an unwelcome advance, according to the former intern, who is now 26.
During the summer of 1982, she served a brief stint as his driver, sometimes taking him to work from the Bethesda neighborhood where they both lived. (Packwood, who suffers from cataracts, frequently uses a driver.) During several trips, she said, Packwood told her how pretty and poised she was and said he considered her a woman despite her youth. The comments unnerved her, she said.
In the fall of 1983, when she was a 17-year-old senior, she asked Packwood to write a recommendation for her college applications. Packwood called her several times to report on his progress, she said. One day in December, he called to say he had finished. He declined her offer to pick up the letter, she said, and insisted on delivering it to her house. After determining that no one else would be home, he arranged a time to bring it over, she said.
Packwood told her he wanted to come inside to see her reaction when she read the recommendation, she said. In the letter, dated Dec. 20, 1983, he began by saying that she was "one of the most impressive young people, male or female, that I have ever run across." Near the end, he wrote, "I know {her} well and can vouch for her in every way."
As they stood in the library of her family's house, Packwood tried to hug her, she said. "I extricated myself and I showed him to the door. He seemed a little heated," she said. She tried to be polite, she said, wishing him well if he made the run for the presidency he had been discussing. She said he replied, "If I ever run for president, I want you by my side as my vice-presidential running mate."
Then, she said, "he laid a juicy kiss on my lips. I could feel the tongue coming." She pushed Packwood away, she said. When he left, "I was unbelievably shaken" -- so much so, she said, that she secured both locks on the front door behind him. Later, she talked to her mother, a high school friend and a schoolmate at Yale University about what had happened; in separate interviews, they confirmed that she had told them about her experience. She agreed to be identified to Packwood.
Casual Acquaintances
Some of the women said Packwood hardly knew them, or did not know them at all, when he made advances toward them.
Lois Kincaid said Packwood had never met her when he walked up behind or alongside her -- the only other person lingering in a room during an August 1971 fund-raising event at a central Oregon ranch -- and tried to embrace her. "All of a sudden he just grabbed me, out of the blue, without saying a thing," said Kincaid, a teacher who lives in Portland. At the time, Kincaid was 27.
When she stopped him, Kincaid said, he "acted kind of confused and mumbled some kind of apology, like 'excuse me,' like it was inadvertent, which was pretty ridiculous considering the size of the room."
According to Tiffany Work of Springfield, Ore., Packwood had not met or talked to her when he walked by and grabbed her backside during a 1973 political gathering in Eugene. Work, then 13 but dressed and made up to look older, was one of several young models serving as hostesses at the event, she said in an interview.
Work, now 33, said she has since encountered far worse conduct from men and considers Packwood's behavior to be "no big deal. . . . Guys do that all the time." Work later told a friend and a relative what happened.
An account of Work's story appeared Dec. 8 in the Portland Oregonian. A couple of days later, at the news conference where he apologized for his actions, Packwood specifically dismissed Work's account. "That one I do deny," Packwood said.
Gayle Rothrock, then 23, said the senator made an uninvited advance toward her in 1969 after a night of baby-sitting his children.
Rothrock, a native Oregonian who worked in another Capitol Hill office, made occasional visits to Packwood's office, she said in an interview. On one visit, Packwood's wife, Georgie, was in the office and asked Rothrock, on the spur of the moment, to baby-sit that evening, according to Rothrock. Rothrock's account was first published in the Oregonian Dec. 16.
When the Packwoods returned, the senator volunteered to drive her home, she said. On the way to the car but out of others' view, she said, Packwood kissed her forcefully. "I was in a state of shock," she said. On the drive home, she said, Packwood reached out and touched her legs several times. She said she kept talking to distract him and to let him know that she was not interested. "It quickly ceased because I was talking so much," she said.
A woman who had never met Packwood said a brief visit to his office during the mid-1970s led to an unexpected advance. Friends who worked for Packwood had arranged for her to meet him. At the end, she said, the senator escorted her to the public corridor outside his office and without warning gave her a French kiss. "He took me completely off guard," she said. She did not want to be identified; two friends said she had told them about the incident.
Sharon Grant was a 28-year-old anti-poverty worker when she met with Packwood in 1969 in his Capitol Hill office to discuss a possible job. During their talk, he made it clear that he wanted to spend the night with her, she said. Grant remembers talking her way, nicely, out of the office. She does not recall Packwood touching her, she said.
"He didn't know me at all, yet he felt he could have what he wanted with impunity," said Grant, who is a consultant now living in Washington state. "I was young, vulnerable and he felt he could just do what he wanted."
Rumors Were Widespread
Among women who have worked for or with Packwood, there are those who said they were aware of his advances and those who said they were not. Rumors were widespread, according to many staff members.
Several former female staff members said they had firsthand experiences with Packwood, and some said they had to fend off Packwood's advances more than once.
One former staff member said Packwood made three unwelcome advances toward her in 1982. One time in his personal office, he locked the door behind her and grabbed her, getting so close that he stepped on her toes, said the woman, who was then in her early twenties. He kissed her and made a motion toward his office sofa, she said. "When something happens to you out of the blue you have to take a step back and convince yourself, 'Yeah, that did happen.' "
The woman, who said she did not want her name published, said she shrugged off Packwood's first advance as his way of testing whether she was interested. But when he made another advance in his office, the woman said, she accelerated her effort to find another job. "When I made it clear that I wasn't interested and it still happened, that's when I knew I had to get out of there," she said.
The third advance took place sometime later, the woman said, when she was typing her resume after hours in the office's reception area. Packwood came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders momentarily, she said. "I just froze," she said. Then, she said, he put his hand inside her shirt and tried to touch her breast, the woman said. She told him to stop, and walked away. She took another job soon after.
The woman asked a friend who also worked on Capitol Hill if she could complain to anyone, according to the friend. "We decided it would be his word against hers. . . . and chances were people wouldn't believe her," the friend recalled in an interview. "I told her that we basically were there at the whim of Congress, that we had no rights at all as employees."
Several of those interviewed said they tried to make sure they were not alone with Packwood in the office at night. One night in 1980, another former female staff member said, she had to work late and realized that she might be the last one left in the office. Packwood had been drinking, she said, as he was known to do late in the afternoon. Since the November article in The Post, Packwood has acknowledged he has sought advice for a drinking problem.
The woman, who did not want to be named, said she felt uneasy so she telephoned a male friend to pick her up. She had heard about one female colleague's encounter with Packwood and rumors of other incidents. Packwood had made her uncomfortable with a comment about her clothes and an unwanted arm around her shoulders, said the woman, who was in her early twenties at the time.
Before her friend arrived, she said, Packwood made an advance. He put his arms around her, she said, and "I remember him trying to push me on the couch in his office." She fought him off, she said, and burst into tears when she left. "I felt extremely vulnerable. I felt like I was in danger," she said. "I've always wondered why he never got caught."
A former employee in Packwood's Portland office said the senator kissed her on the mouth on nearly a dozen occasions in the mid-1970s, usually "out of the blue." The employee, who declined to be identified, said Packwood did not press her for more and she does not consider her experience serious. Her impression at the time, she said, was that "he would go around and kiss people."
Another former employee in the Oregon office said the senator "chased me around the desk" one day when she was in a back office working. She viewed his conduct as juvenile. "I remember thinking it was very strange behavior for a grown man," she said.
Alerting the Staff
Packwood said last month that he could recall no warnings from people on his staff about his behavior. Moreover, he said during his December news conference, "I didn't have any warnings from friends. And, I wish I had, but I didn't."
The Post reported in November that one former aide had said she and others warned Packwood that his behavior would damage him someday. And two of the new accounts suggest that Packwood and some members of his staff have been aware of the issue for years..
Gena Hutton, the Lane County campaign chair in 1980, said she told Packwood campaign manager Craig Smith about Packwood's advance toward her. As Hutton recalled it, Smith told her "it happens all the time, that they've talked to him over and over about it." Smith's advice, she said, was to stay out of Packwood's way.
Smith, who now teaches at a California university and is president of an organization Packwood helped set up to study press freedom issues, said he doesn't remember such a conversation with Hutton and does not think he would have said something that specific because he had only heard rumors about Packwood's behavior at that time. Smith characterized Hutton as "a very honest person."
In another incident, a Eugene woman said she complained to a top Packwood aide in 1985 after Packwood made an unwanted advance. At the time, Packwood was considering her to chair his 1986 campaign in Lane County, she said.
The woman, who did not want her name published but agreed to be identified to Packwood, said the advance occurred after a campaign meeting at a restaurant in Bend, Ore. Packwood asked her to dance, she said, and "his hands were all over my back, sides, and buttocks and he made suggestive movements" and kissed her on the neck.
"I knew he had had a couple of drinks and was obviously loose," she said. Believing that the alcohol was to blame for his behavior, she said, she decided not to dance with him anymore.
But later in the year, she said, he made another advance. After a political event in Eugene, the woman drove Packwood and a top aide, Elaine Franklin, to their hotel. Franklin got out of the car, but Packwood remained. Suddenly, she said, he kissed her. "It turned into a French kiss, and I said, 'I don't appreciate that,' and I pushed him away." As she remembers, Packwood told her it was no big deal and left.
The woman said she later called Franklin, told her about the advance, and asked if putting up with such behavior would be part of her job responsibilities. She said Franklin asked for details.
A week later, the woman said, Packwood called her. She remembers that he sounded upset and told her never again to tell Franklin or anyone else about any problems she had with him. "I felt like I was being reprimanded," she said. Uneasy with Packwood, she said she turned down the Lane County position.
Franklin, who has worked for Packwood since 1981 and has run his Washington office since the mid-1980s, said through an aide last week that she would not comment. She told The Post in a written statement Nov. 20: "Never in my tenure did anyone hint at or complain of untoward conduct on the part of Senator Packwood."