BOB PACKWOOD 1932 - 2026 A look back (Special Edition) Plus a preview for our special series

BOB PACKWOOD (1932–2026): A Look Back

Special Edition — Plus a Preview of Our Upcoming Bob Packwood Series

This special edition of our podcast is dedicated to the life and legacy of Bob Packwood, who passed away this weekend at the age of 94.

For nearly three decades, Packwood was one of the most influential, controversial, and consequential members of the United States Senate. A senator who often defied easy ideological labels, he played a major role in shaping tax policy, budget negotiations, health care debates, environmental legislation, and some of the most significant legislative battles of the late twentieth century.

In this episode, we look back on Packwood's remarkable life and career through obituary coverage, historical reflections, and an assessment of his impact on the Senate and the nation.

Like many influential public figures, Packwood's legacy is a complicated one. His legislative accomplishments and political skill are inseparable from the controversies that ultimately ended his Senate career. This episode seeks to examine the full story of the man, his achievements, his flaws, and the lasting impact he left on American politics.

Adding a bittersweet dimension to this tribute is the fact that our production team had just completed a comprehensive 14-part series on Bob Packwood's life and career before learning of his passing.

As a result, this special edition also serves as a preview of that upcoming series, giving listeners a glimpse into the topics we will explore in greater depth, including:

• Packwood's rise in Oregon politics
 • His years in the United States Senate
 • His role in major tax and budget legislation
 • His relationships with fellow senators, including Bob Dole
 • His influence on the changing Senate of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s
 • The controversies that brought his career to an end
 • His place in the larger story of American political history

For listeners who have enjoyed our long-form Senate and Bob Dole series, Packwood's story offers another fascinating look inside an institution that shaped modern America.

This episode is both a remembrance and a beginning.

A farewell to a senator whose influence stretched across generations.

And a preview of a series that will explore one of the most complex figures ever to serve in the United States Senate.

Bob Packwood. 1932–2026.

A life.
 A career.
 A complicated legacy.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:08

It is my duty to resign. It is the honorable thing to do for this country for the Senate. So I now announce that I will resign from the Senate. And I leave this institution not with malice, but with love.

SPEAKER_05 0:37

Good luck. Godspeed.

SPEAKER_17 0:50

Mr. President. Chair recognizes the majority leader. I'll just take a minute or two. I would just say he's been an outstanding legislator, an outstanding United States Senator. And someone whose legacy will be around for a long, long time. And a friend of mine.

SPEAKER_11 1:44

Senator, the first time you went public about this, we did that first interview, you and I together, and you said, I don't want to be remembered uh as the senator who was forced to resign. Is that inevitable now?

SPEAKER_07 1:56

Oh, yeah. Is it going to go down in history this way? Yes. Would I like to be remembered for the uh author of the Tax Reform Act? You bet. Would I like to be remembered for saving Hell's Canyon, uh, that great gorge between Oregon and Idaho, you bet. But I uh I understand after uh three years of headlines in the press uh that I will go down remembered for this one thing in this one case. Do I like it? No. Can I stop it? No. Uh therefore go on with life.

SPEAKER_14 2:24

Hi, everybody. This is Randall Walsh, your host for the Randall Walsh Presents Podcast. And we come to you with sad news. Over the weekend, Senator Bob Packwood, who was 93 years old, passed away. He had been in hospice care in California. Uh we did not know that, but um we have just finished putting together a 14-episode look at Bob Packwood and his fall. Uh in 1995, he was uh the Ethics Committee recommended that he be expelled from the U.S. Senate, and he was forced to resign after a three-year scandal had engulfed his uh life and career concerning sexual misconduct and assault charges, plus uh some accusations about doctoring his diary after a legal fight to get control of them, and uh that he had uh pressured lobbyists into trying to find a job for his ex-wife, uh Georgie, that was called Jobs for Georgie. I think two of those were pretty weak charges, frankly. I don't think the doctoring the diaries or finding the jobs for Georgie was really very fair. It was like they were trying to pile on. But anyway, it ended what had been a remarkable career. Here was a man who who had um worked very hard on environmental causes, including saving uh uh or preventing a dam on the Snake River, uh and save saving Hell's Canyon from from uh being dammed up there in in uh Idaho and Oregon along that border. Uh and uh who was uh very active in women's rights, including being the person who introduced legislation to be pro-choice on abortion, which is an issue that I disagreed with him about, but uh uh he was a leader in that area, and it was a sad thing to see his career come down uh crash down the way it did. And uh, you know, his his uh defense was of course that he had an alcohol problem. Uh and you know, history will tell whether that is uh or you know, was a was a reasonable defense or not. Uh I still believe that some of the uh the the system that he was drawn into wasn't very fair. Uh you do have to wonder about charges that are twenty-five years old. I don't think there was any that were that were within twelve years. But it was terrible behavior and indefensible. But he was a brilliant man. And uh as d as Diane Feinstein says in her remarks that her father told her, uh, Diane, don't ever let a man be known for uh the the worst thing he did or the last thing he did, let him be known for the best thing he did. And when we get to this uh 14 episode uh look at Bob Packwood and his father, we are going to look at who he was, the things that he accomplished as a U.S. Senator, and we're gonna hear speeches that he gave after he left office, one that was done during his time in office. And we're also gonna listen into his oral history in its entirety because it's the best oral history I've ever listened to. And I've been doing this show close to six going on six years, going into our seventh year now. I've listened to a lot of oral histories, and his is the best one of all of them. Uh so he was he was a brilliant mind, no matter his other flaws and the sadness of of of of how his career ended. And frankly, the fact that he he did do something that was pretty reprehensible. Uh but um you know, don't want to dwell too much on that. We're gonna talk about that in the 14 episodes. But this may be a moment right now at his passing to look back on the good things that he did. He was he was Bob Dole's right-hand man. I've always said that Bob Dole uh losing Bob Packwood in the Senate was almost like Robert E. Lee losing Stonewall Jackson. Uh, you know, it w it was a very tough Bob Dole really found himself in a position where he was trying to run the Senate, run the presidential campaign, and oversight uh the finance committee because there were so many bold and ambitious plans that the Republicans had in 1995 going into 1996. And I think along with the big money that was spent by Steve Forbes to run his negatives down or up, and and Bill Clinton's skills and the economy, uh, this was a major part of why Bob Dole did not win the 1996 election, was losing Bob Packwood, his faithful his friend and faithful lieutenant in the Senate. Uh I did find a news article here that I thought I would share. It is uh from the local television station in Oregon this weekend as a look back on the life of Bob Packwood.

SPEAKER_12 7:32

We start off tonight with breaking news. Former United States Senator Bob Packwood passed away today at the age of 93, according to his family. The Republican represented Oregon in the Senate from 1969 to 1995 before stepping down after allegations surfaced of sexual harassment, sex abuse, and assault. Tonight we take a look back at the controversial longtime senator. In the hands of a politician, that is where we go. For over a quarter century, Oregon's Bob Packwood was a fixture in the United States Senate. But the Portland native became just as well known for the reason he left that governing body as for the mark he made on it. Packwood was elected to the U.S. House in 1962 and the U.S. Senate in 1968. The Oregonians' most well-known political accomplishments were his support of abortion rights and a push to preserve the Columbia River Gorge as a national scenic area. He was also an early member of the Republican Party to call for President Nixon's resignation and orchestrated a massive tax cut bill with the Reagan administration. Packwood would eventually become the ranking Republican on the powerful Senate Finance Committee. 1992 marked the beginning of the end for Packwood's political career after the Washington Post published an investigation detailing numerous accusations of sexual misconduct towards female staffers, including grabbing and kissing a 17-year-old intern. KGW was at Packwood's Portland office the next day and spoke with staffers about the vote. He was replaced in a special election by current Senator Ron Wyden, Wyden's team releasing this statement on Saturday, saying, quote, As the Oregonian who replaced Bob Packwood in the Senate and on the Finance Committee, I acknowledge his commendable record on abortion rights and tax reform. But his horrible history, as documented in his own diaries, will forever overshadow that public record. Simply put, historian's first line about Bob Packwood must include those women who he abused and assaulted for years and years. Packwood stayed mostly out of the spotlight after his resignation from the Senate, but did have a second act as a political lobbyist. He passed away on Saturday at the age of 93.

SPEAKER_14 10:59

It truly was a remarkable life. Flaws and all. That's Bob Packwood. And you will hear when we get into this uh into this series, you'll hear people like like Lawrence O'Donnell, the host on MSNBC, and uh Robert Novak and Mark Shields and the editor of the Wall Street Journal talk about the fact that Bob Packwood was the best member of the Finance Committee, the uh the the the most one of the most intelligent senators there, a guy who can make tax code policy on the Senate floor in a speech mesmerizing. Uh he was uh just he was an outstanding senator. Uh and we're gonna talk about that because it needs to be told because right now all that people think about is this sex scandal that took him out. And it's reprehensible. It's bad. And we're gonna cover it in detail in the fall of Bob Packwood. And it will be and it's interesting because this is fourteen episodes. That's as large as our look at Gerald Ford in the in season uh ten. So uh, but because of w of the timing in our timeline, it's in the middle of this look at nineteen ninety-five with Bob Dole. Uh I you know, I can't package it in a separate season. I almost wanted to, but it's a very special series. I'm proud of it. We put it together, and it also, just so you know, I my it it was because of an op-ed that I wrote that I have in it all this material on Bob Hackwood to start with, because it was the first story I wrote for the college newspaper at the Lander Forum. And I went on to have about a year and a half brief journalism career that I was very rewarding, and I'm very thankful I got it to do, and it was largely because I was asked as the college Republican chairman and as a Mass Com major to write an editorial on Bob Packwood for the student newspaper. We're gonna cover my little brief journalism career as part of this series as well. So, with that, here's the preview for the fall of Bob Packwood. And our thoughts and our prayers go out tonight to Bob Packwood's family. He he is survived by his widow, who had been a chief of staff, I think, for him in his Senate office and his children. And we do remember these people are human beings. And Bob Packwood, two things I would remind you is that he went on to have an extraordinary next life uh as a lobbyist with his firm, the Sunshine Research uh group, uh, in Washington, DC, and that all this material was sent to the Justice Department and they chose never to try and indict him or try him, which tells me that one of the assumptions that I always had, which was the jobs for chorgie charges and the doctrine of the diary as some kind of obstruction of justice never held water, and I didn't think it did. Uh you know, the charges about the women they were so old by the time they came out that might have been outside of the of the prosecutorial window uh statute limitations, and and that's what stuck. But the the other charges I think were not very fair uh that were made against him. With that, here is our look at the fall of Bob Packwood, and again, our show sends our deepest condolences to Bob Packwood's family and friends. Bob Packwood was 93 years old. It is my duty to resign.

SPEAKER_07 15:21

It is the honorable thing to do for this country for the Senate. So I now announce that I will resign from the Senate, and I leave this institution not with malice, but with love.

SPEAKER_05 15:45

Good luck. Godspeed.

SPEAKER_15 16:42

And I resent assumptions that all men in this institution require an object lesson made of Bob Packwood so that we might learn to treat one half of humanity with dignity.

SPEAKER_14 16:57

One of the masters of the tax code, one of the giants of the United States Senate, laid low by scandal.

SPEAKER_06 17:09

First of all, no workplace in America ought to tolerate the kind of offensive, degrading sexual misconduct that the Ethics Committee finds Senator Packwood to be guilty of. And it certainly cannot be tolerated in the United States Senate either.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

That this was a calculated and designed effort to deceive and mislead the committee with respect to the nature of the charges.

SPEAKER_14 18:48

The fall of Bob Packwood coming this summer to Randall Wallace presents.

SPEAKER_04 19:12

And I voted for Senator Boxer, and he declined to do so. So on two occasions, Senator Packwood had an opportunity to request a hearing to face his accusers, and then chose in August to reverse his position.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

You voted on the floor. In fact, you spoke on the floor, unless I'm sadly mistaken, in favor of public hearings, and then after he said, Okay, I have changed my mind. You say we are not going to have public hearings. Is that fair?

SPEAKER_04 19:39

Speak only for myself. Our responsibility was to examine the evidence. We did so. It was overwhelming, it was powerful, it was compelling, clear and convincing that the senator was guilty on each of the charges.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

That this was this was not due process, that he did not get his day in court, came from two of your fellow Westerners, Senator Simpson of Wyoming and Senator Stevens of Alaska. I think fairly well-respected figures in the Senate, not extremists or nut nut cases. Uh uh Isn't it isn't it, would you want to go through that process where you cannot face your accuser, you cannot question your accuser, uh, that there is it's everything is done behind closed doors? Bob, he had the right to do that.

SPEAKER_04 20:27

He saved that right. He had the right in late July. He was asked, you know, he was before the committee for three consecutive days, and he notified us in writing, but I do not desire a public.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Well, we have a we have a trial going on in in Los Angeles, O.J. Simpson, and every witness is is it can be interrogated. You have preliminary hearing. He could not interrogate any of these people, and he says that the witnesses he wanted you to question that gave conflicting evidence you wouldn't even question.

SPEAKER_04 20:59

It's not true. We asked the senator to provide a list of witnesses. He delayed weeks and months. Finally, we got the list.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

All of those, all of those witnesses were questioned by the chief. Now, let me ask you this Senator You're the judge, you're the jury, you're the prosecutor, you're everything that we don't have in our criminal justice system. You're all wrapped up. Did you personally question a single witness? I did not. I reviewed the question. The senator didn't do that.

SPEAKER_04 21:29

But Bob, you're missing the point. You're missing the point. The senator had the right to do so, and he waived that right. He expressly declined. You said that, sir. And on the floor of the United States Senate.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Let me finish my point. You say that several times because it is fact. No, but I want to go on to- You cannot one time say, Look, I don't want to be positioned unimportant, and then later say, Look, I want to move on to something else. I want to say that no, I don't think our viewers know that after you had made before you had made a decision to expel one of your colleagues, not one of you, of these six senators, had ever questioned one of these complainants.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

We had we had the depositions before us. We had not personally examined that. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Johnny Cock will be calling you tomorrow. You're talking about deflecting because he's still making it a firm trial, you're making it a system trial. I mean, I've told the system trial.

SPEAKER_14 22:24

The fall of Bob Packwood. 14 episodes. A thorough examination of the remarkable rise and the swift and tragic fall, and even some of the life after the Senate. And the high cost to the presidential campaign of Bob Dole. Coming this season to the Randall Wallace Presents Podcast: The Fall of Bob Packwood.

SPEAKER_11 22:59

Senator Packwood, thank you for being with us. Happy to do it. The first question one has to ask is how are you feeling? You look pretty good.

SPEAKER_07 23:08

Actually, uh Barbara, I feel like a gigantic cancer has been lifted off of my shoulders and uh much relieved and uh frankly very happy.

SPEAKER_11 23:20

Senator, the first time you went public about this, we did that first interview, you and I together, and you said I don't want to be remembered uh as the senator who was forced to resign. Is that inevitable now?

SPEAKER_07 23:33

Oh, is it going to go down in history this way? Yes, would I like to be remembered for the uh offer of the tax reform action debt? Would I like to be remembered for saving Hell's Canyon that great gorgeous in Oregon and I'd owe you bet. But I uh I understand after uh three years of headlines in the press that I will go down remembered just for this one thing in this one case. Do I like it? No. Can I stop it? No. Uh therefore go on with life.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

California.

SPEAKER_09 24:06

I did not know an attack was well. Don't let a man be known for the last thing he died. Let him be known for the best thing he does. And I think that is the legacy that hopefully is being written here.

SPEAKER_13 24:27

Join us with the fall of Bob Packwood. On Bob Doe, 1995. The Randall Wallace presents I the fall of Bob Packwood.