'A Beautiful Race Horse' Remembering Charlie Porter BY LAURA OLSON On a fall evening in 1956 in Roseburg I was working late on a news story for The Roseburg News-Review when someone knocked on the locked front door. It was Charlie Porter. I knew he was running for Congress and when he asked if he could use a typewriter, I could think of no reason to refuse. After Charlie had finished, I took some time to interview him. After all, he was news. He thanked me and walked out into the dark. Weeks later, following the election which he'd narrowly won, Charlie called me at home about 10 pm to ask if I'd like to work on his Washington, D.C., staff. Surprised and a bit stunned, I said I'd think about it and call him back. I wondered "why me/" Later I learned that he had followed the advice of Sen. Dick Neuberger to take a southwest Oregon staff with him and add one or two longtime Capitol Hill caseworkers to help with the mail and to educate us. My Oregon colleagues were to be Jack Billings as administrative assistant, Barbara Burke as secretary, and Rolf Harlow Schillios as press assistant. I would do research. I'd use my spare time to help on his monthly television report to the district. Working on Capitol Hill in the late '50s was fun and pretty simple. We had no computers. Phone calls were reserved for emergencies. Staff members wrote and typed letters to constituents after Charlie approved our drafts. We could send telegrams, but the Postal Service handled about 95 percent of our work. Charlie wrote many drafts which Barbara finalized. As a member of Congress, he received two paid trips home each year. He wrote most of his own speeches, sometimes with help from experts at the Library of Congress's Legislative Reference Service. Before leaving Eugene, Charlie began his career in congress by suggesting that Democratic Speaker of the House John McCormick should not have accepted a high honor from Dominican Republic Dictator Trujillo. This didn't set well with the speaker and Charlie was placed on the Post Office and Civil Service committee to "train" him. Rather he worked hard to improve postal service at home and abroad and he was successful. The Eugene parents of a young pilot, Gerry Murphy, who had disappeared in the Dominican Republic where he's worked for the dictator, asked Charlie to help them find out what happened. That request got him more deeply involved in Latin American affairs early in his congressional career. Small "d" democrats in Latin America soon came to know about Charlie because he had begun to speak of the need to encourage democracy in that part of the world. We grew accustomed to greeting well-known South Americans coming to see him in his office. At the same time, Charlie always first took care of business related to the Fourth Congressional District. He came in early each morning and "nibbled the mail" to see what needed to be done. He asked us to make sure that responses went out in 24 hours. And we did our best to do this. When he was in the district, he'd make notes of requests and bring them back to us to work on when he didn't have the answer. Charlie's wonderful wife, Priscilla, was probably his greatest admirer and severest critic. She let him know when she felt he was off track, and sometimes she was successful. I can also remember Jack Billings telling me in 1957 that "you know, he's like a beautiful race horse. We just have to keep him on track" — and we did try.   Charlie's biggest problems, I believe, were created because of his brilliance and his compassion. He looked out and saw what needed to be done, and he was never too busy not to try to help make things better. At that time in his life, he just needed more patience. His ability to find "spare time" after taking care of Fourth District business did lead to his defeat in 1960. He fought to end nuclear testing, strongly supported by Norman Cousins and others. He sought to have the U. S. recognize then-mainland China and start trade in non-strategic goods, strongly supported by groups like the San Francisco Commonwealth Club. And he strongly supported the environmental work of Rachel Carson and others. Perhaps more damaging though was his work to democratize Latin America. When he went to Venezuela to meet with President Betancourt we staffers were proud. We learned that he addressed a crowd of more than 100,000 who had gathered in a huge soccer field in Caracas. The audience waved banners and shouted "Viva Porter." Pretty heady stuff for a junior congressman. National magazines such as Life and Time began reporting on his efforts and calling him the secretary of state for Latin America. National radio programs such as Meet the Press interviewed him. Yep. Pretty heady stuff. So his defeat in 1960 was his loss, but it was also Oregon's. He might have become a U.S. Senator. Who knows? After his defeat he came home, and for more than 40 years worked to solve problems both inside and outside Oregon.   When I returned home to Oregon in 1982, I quickly learned that once one was a member of Charlie's staff, one never left. I found myself helping him and others establish a World Affairs Council. Later, at his urging, I joined the Wayne Morse Historic Park Corporation board. Charlie had helped found the corporation. The board, working with the Lane County commissioners, established the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza and a new federal courthouse would be named for Morse. Active in achieving all of these was my old boss. Working with him was never dull, because, most likely, it helped someone or something somewhere. I never knew Charlie to hold a grudge, and I don't remember his losing his temper. Life to him was a wonderful game, and he played it well. Gadfly? Maybe. But he'll be missed. Laura Olson is a long-time liberal activist who lives up the McKenzie River.
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