THREE BLIND MEN WHO BROKE OREGON HEARTS

Oregon State Capitol

Sometimes I shake my head over people I’ve known slightly who turn out to be famous some kind of way.  A little group of three handsome, politically outstanding men make me finally sad to have known them a little and liked them a lot, only to see them crumble.  One was Mark Hatfield, one was Neil Goldschmidt, and one was John Kitzhaber -- though I’m cheating a bit to include him.  I knew him the least and his downfall is too recent to be understood.  

Mark Hatfield

Mark Hatfield (b.’22) is related to me in a shirttail way.  My aunts all married his cousins.  Only one was as handsome as Mark, though they all had a family resemblance, but the uncles that I knew far better than Mark were sheep ranchers, quite unlike Mark's dressed up image.  Every time the uncles thought my mother might have a chance to interact with Mark at some public event when he was governor, they’d instruct her to tell him they need something done about the coyotes.

I went to a Hatfield family picnic once where Mark took a roll of the wide paper being used to cover the tables in order to make a family tree with everyone coaching.  He was a little startled when he came to the three Hatfield men who married three Pinkerton women.  But it was Antoinette, his wife (whom we were instructed NEVER to call “Tony” because it sounded like a gangster) who remembered all the information.  She had an uncanny gift for learning names and faces.  Originally they both came out of the academic world but the family opinion was that she was the sharp and driven one.  He had been his mother’s boy. In fact, his grandmother had come into the household when he was five, so that his mother could go to college.

Neil Goldschmidt

Neil Goldschmidt (b. 1940) was mayor when I was an animal control officer and education coordinator for Multnomah County, which is Portland.  I was once on a hiring panel to find a new staff member in his office.  He had been threatened by a drunk not long before -- a guy who managed to get into the office waving a gun.  So while we were between candidates, he came reeling in, pretending to be drunk and then joking about whether we were being careful to hire someone who would take a bullet for him. He’s a bit like President Clinton, except Jewish.  Charming and funny.

The family had an old black lab and enough young kids that they could never keep all the doors and gates closed, so we impounded that dog a number of times.  When we got so we could recognize the dog, we just took it home. There were other things that didn’t stay closed, which led to a really nasty scandal.  He’d been banging the babysitter who was either thirteen or fourteen, for either a year or four years, depending on whom you believe.  His first wife was not happy, even before the story got out, but it wasn’t revealed until after the statute of limitations had expired.  His second wife is tall, blonde, and -- well, I wouldn’t cross her.  They live a political corporate life.  No children.

Goldschmidt Second Wedding

Once I was given a pair of comp tickets to “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” because the daughter of a Bozeman parishioner, Gordon Julian, was in the Portland play.  The production was truly marvelous and began with the fairies in the garden swinging right out over the heads of the audience!  My mother and I were seated next to the Goldschmidts.  They came late so we had to stand to let them in.  I said to him, “I’ll stand up for Goldschmidt anytime!” and he patted my shoulder.  I didn’t know then about the statutory rape, which was technically also pedophilia, the hebephilia kind.  When he finally got to civil court, his rabbi testified for him.  Like the other men, he did a lot of good and carried a kind of little boy charm that was hard to resist.  

Now it’s Fitzhaber (b. ’47) clearly aging who has been blind-sided by developments, though he seems to have known and rationalized that the money was not clearly managed.  Others see he is most clearly a victim of an ambitious female.  How she managed to become “first lady” without marriage is unclear.  She was the one accepting major money.  He has said frankly that he was burned out and he looks it.  But then yesterday he said he wasn’t altogether gone and planned to be active in future.  It’s unclear where the woman is, but few citizens express love for her.

There are other tall handsome men everywhere with similar stories.  At first we interpret them as leaders, stronger and smarter than anyone else, like those Alpha male BBC actors who make “Game of Thrones” so convincing.  Anthropologists have a theory called “Big Man” which “refers to a highly influential individual, especially in Melanesia and Polynesia. Such person may not have formal tribal or other authority (through for instance material possessions, or inheritance of rights), but can maintain recognition through skilled persuasion and wisdom. The big man has a large group of followers, both from his clan and from other clans. He provides his followers with protection and economic assistance, in return receiving support which he uses to increase his status.”  Jane Goodall could explain about “silverback gorillas,” big and old enough to dominate -- and protect -- all the others.  They sleep where and how they want to.

I’ve never run across a “female enabling the alpha male” theory in biology or even anthropology, but certainly history provides many examples, sometimes queens (both female and otherwise), sometimes mistresses, and often moms.  It works well until the female becomes personally ambitious so that instead of adding her energy to the male, she begins to play both sides of the game.  Feminists advocate “separate but equal.”  The “equal” criterion knocks out the barely teenaged babysitter.  

Mark was so known for his virtue that some called him “Saint Mark.” Antoinette Hatfield was indignant when what looked a lot like a bribe for him was what she claimed was actually the product of her independent real estate business.  Originally educated as a counselor, it’s unclear why she was selling houses but it was a great way to disguise large sums of money.  Maybe the family needed the money.  Maybe he didn’t even realize what was happening because he was praying with Billy Graham.

His cousins considered Mark a sissy.  He had to have been deeply shaped by a tragedy when he was seventeen.  In fuzzy circumstances he struck and killed a woman crossing the street.  He was not criminally convicted but the woman’s family won in civil court.  It was 1940, the beginning of WWII, and he served in the Navy in the Pacific Theatre where he witnessed many atrocities and battles.  He was with one of the first forces into Hiroshima after the Atomic Bomb was dropped.  Much of his life was guided by advocating peace.

Roy Hatfield, Mark's uncle and a family Alpha, and my mother, who openly competed.

It seems that our craving for a big Alpha male is biologically deep, way back in the dark gorilla limbic brain somewhere, and so is the male wish to be “Big Daddy,” whether in a military or political context.  “Context” is probably what needs to be explored.  None of these three leaders could have been so powerful all alone and it wasn’t just wives and other females who made the difference.  The relevant movie here is “House of Cards,” and the swarm of lesser beings who think of every “Big Man” as merely a pawn for their own ends.  It’s never impossible to find a vulnerability: every Achilles has his heel.