BETRAYED BY HIS KISSES

By Jill Smolowe

Bob Packwood tossed restlessly in bed on Wednesday night. He had ended the day with an in-your-face vow on Larry King Live that he was not going to quit his Senate post. Yet he was sleepless, pondering the prospect of an expulsion by his Senate colleagues. At about 1 a.m., the Oregon Republican told TIME, his ruminations were interrupted by the click of the air conditioning switching off. As he strained to see the time on his electric clock, Packwood realized there was a power outage. Worried that he might not have adequate light to groom himself for the morning talk shows just hours away, the Senator searched in vain for a flashlight. In a closet he found a Coleman lantern, only to discover that the glass was broken. Further gropings turned up a second Coleman, but Packwood fumbled in the dark, spilling kerosene. Finally, an hour after beginning his quest for light, Packwood produced a flicker--at which point, all his exertions were for naught. The electricity had come back on.

That long night's journey into day would prove metaphorical for Packwood. The Senator arose Thursday morning still thinking he had a chance of facing down the Senate Ethics Committee's unanimous, bipartisan call for his expulsion. He took to the airwaves, decrying the charges against him of sexual and official misconduct and vowing that his decision to fight on was irrevocable. But then certain lights came on. At 12:30 p.m. Packwood slipped into his second-floor hideaway in the Capitol Building to confer with two of his staunchest defenders, Republican Senators Alan Simpson of Wyoming and John McCain of Arizona. Gently, but persistently, his colleagues delivered a firm message: this has got to end. Twenty minutes into the meeting, majority leader Robert Dole joined the session. Ten minutes more and a deal was cut.

Four hours later, and precisely 24 hours after first learning of the ethics panel's recommendation, Packwood stood on the floor of the Senate and spoke with humility. "Duty. Honor. Country," he said, his voice trembling. "It is my duty to resign. It is the honorable thing to do for this country, for this Senate." Thirty-three months after embarking on an often clumsy campaign of threats and lies to rescue his 27-year Senate career, Oregon's junior Senator had finally rediscovered his dignity. Bowing his head momentarily to blink back tears, Packwood delivered his valedictory: "I leave this institution not with malice but with love."

With that, Packwood's political nightmare--and the one he had threatened to visit upon his Senate colleagues--was laid to rest. By bowing out now, Packwood spared the Senate the dual anguish of deliberating over the ouster of one of its own members while seeing a huge agenda to pass welfare reform, Medicare and other budget cutbacks, and tax reductions derailed by an ugly floor fight. Had Packwood battled on, he might have become the first Senator since the Civil War--and the 16th in history--to be expelled. The committee's damning recommendation left little doubt of the eventual outcome of such a fight. In unflinching language, it lambasted Packwood for bringing "discredit and dishonor upon the Senate" and detailed three violations of laws and rules: sexual misconduct that involved at least 18 unwelcome advances toward women between 1969 and 1990; improper use of his political office for financial gain; and, most damagingly, obstruction of the panel's inquiry by tampering with portions of his diaries.

Last Thursday, when Ethics Committee chairman Mitch McConnell of Kentucky released his panel's 10-volume, 40-lb., 10,145-page record, there were ample depositions, affidavits and a 174-page bill of particulars to document those charges. There were also diary excerpts that revealed a vain, lecherous, insecure man still caught in the clutches of adolescence. In a 1989 entry, Packwood described an office encounter with a female staff member. "'Would you like to dance?' She says, 'I'd love to.' So I slipped around the side of this gigantic desk and we danced. Boy, she wrapped her arms around my neck...I knew and she knew what we were both thinking... [She] and I made love, and has the most stunning figure. Big breasts." A 1992 entry disclosed: "I tried something. I just blew my hair. I didn't use any gel on it at all...It had just the right amount of bounce to it and wave to it. I came back rather confident."

Though such tidbits made for both titillating and amusing reading, McConnell made clear that in his view, the most serious charge was that Packwood attempted to obstruct the investigation by "deliberately altering and destroying relevant portions of his diaries." He told reporters that the obstruction charge would be referred to the Justice Department and that, if found guilty of obstruction, Pack wood could face a prison sentence of up to 16 months. Justice officials confirmed that they plan to launch an investigation but warned that the case was hardly open and shut, since they would have to prove that Packwood altered the diaries with criminal intent.

The biggest surprise in all this was the severity of Packwood's recommended punishment. Until a few weeks ago, most Beltway insiders were wagering that Packwood would get away with a Senate reprimand, which amounts to little more than an embarrassing public scolding. Only in August did people begin to speculate about censure. A few weeks earlier, a woman told the staff of the ethics panel that Packwood had made unwanted sexual advances to her in 1983, when she was 17 years old, but that statement did not become known to committee members until Aug. 3, the day after the full Senate upheld an Ethics Committee recommendation by a vote of 52 to 48 to forgo public hearings. After the news broke publicly, California Democrat Barbara Boxer renewed her crusade to force the hearings. As the scandal escalated, it became increasingly apparent that Pack wood's sen iority and chairmanship of the pow erful Finance Committee were in jeo pardy. But the speculation fell short of expulsion.

And the ethics committee still seemed badly divided over how to proceed. On July 31 the panel had split along party lines to issue its recommendation rejecting public hearings. Yet when the six-member panel convened last Wednesday to debate Packwood's fate, there was no debate at all. Earlier in the day, Richard Bryan of Nevada, the senior Democrat on the panel, had informed chairman McConnell that he planned to put forward a motion to expel. When the meeting opened, McConnell pre-empted Bryan by offering the motion himself, which Bob Smith of New Hampshire, a fellow Republican, quickly seconded. After a 30-minute discussion that Smith says included no dissent, the vote was taken. The remainder of the session was given over to logistics: how to tell Packwood before news of the vote leaked. At 4:30 p.m. McConnell and Bryan phoned Packwood at the Russell Senate Office Building, saying they wanted to come by his office to discuss the panel's findings. As it happened, four friends--two men, two women--had just dropped in on the beleaguered Senator to cheer him up, though they knew nothing of the panel's deliberations. Packwood excused himself and retired to his private office. When he returned 15 minutes later, he was plainly shaken. Grateful for the immediate solace and support provided by his friends, Packwood would later offer a one-word explanation for their unannounced visit: "Providence."

Had Packwood exercised fore sight, he might have avoided the Ethics panel's harsh recommendation. Packwood has long been perceived as arrogant and lacking in team spirit. As late as last Tuesday, he was tying up the Republicans' weekly Senate luncheons with long-winded arguments in his own defense. Undeterred by his colleagues' disgusted looks and icy silence, he protested that he was guilty only of kissing women and fumed that he was the target of an unfair investigation. At the end of his monologue, Republican Don Nickles of Oklahoma said dryly, "If you're through, Bob, the meeting's over."

Throughout the 33-month investigation, Packwood's unrepentant hostility appalled the Ethics Committee, which is accustomed to deference and some measure of groveling. Instead of quickly coming clean on the sexual-misconduct charges, he essentially denied knowledge of his lewd behavior by blaming alcohol and charging his accusers of lying, a maneuver that served only to bring forward new complainants and to persuade the committee to investigate charges that Packwood was intimidating potential witnesses. Instead of complying with the committee's demand that he surrender his diaries, Packwood first tried to threaten colleagues, warning that his memoirs would expose other legislators' sexual dalliances. He then petitioned a federal court to protect his right to privacy. That ploy took almost a year to resolve, going all the way to the Supreme Court, where Packwood's bid was rebuffed. By the time he turned over his diaries, the committee had again widened its probe, looking into charges that Packwood tampered with evidence and used his position to seek work for his ex-wife in order to pare his alimony payments.

Packwood kept on irritating the ethics panel right up to the moment of his resignation, greeting their recommendation with a stunning lack of remorse. "This process makes the Inquisition look like a study in fairness," he blustered soon after the panel's vote. Point by point, he sought to dilute the committee's charges. "I am accused of kissing women," he said. "Not drugging, not robbing. Kissing." That in vited McConnell to respond, "These were not merely stolen kisses" but rather "physical coercion" directed primarily at women who depended on Packwood for their livelihood. Packwood's eleventh-hour demand for public hearings also earned the contempt of the panel, which noted he had waived his right to request a public airing and opposed Boxer's campaign to force the hearings. "The one who deliberately abused the process now wants to manipulate it to his advantage," said McConnell. "That won't wash."

Indeed Packwood seemed intent on pulling levers even after his resignation. Friday morning he sauntered onto the Senate floor, behaving as if he planned to play the Finance chairman's role in shepherding wel fare-reform legislation. After word circulated that Packwood, who will keep his pension and health benefits, worth $88,922 annually, had cut a deal to stay on for 90 days-a charge Dole vehemently denied--the majority leader announced that Packwood would leave office on Oct. 1 and surrender his chairmanship immediately. Now, with the less seasoned William Roth of Delaware heading Finance, Dole must manage a raft of bills--even as he runs the Senate and campaigns for President.

Still, the majority leader must be relieved to have the Packwood mess out of the way. A parade of heavy legislation is headed for the House and Senate. This week Dole's welfare-overhaul bill is expected to come to a vote on the Senate floor. Almost immediately, debate over Medicare follows, along with sweeping tax cuts that will be rolled into a jumbo bill carrying out the G.O.P.'s economic agenda. And on top of all that, Congress has yet to complete 12 of its 13 major spending bills--at least four of which face the prospect of a presidential veto.

Meanwhile, the Packwood debacle promises to reverberate for months--perhaps years--to come. In Oregon, state law does not authorize the Governor to appoint an interim Senator, but instead requires a special election. If Governor John Kitzhaber, a Democrat, selects a date within 80 days, the two parties will choose the candidates, who will then face an open election. If Kitzhaber chooses a later date, there will be both a primary and a general election. Oregon has not sent a fresh face to the Senate since Packwood's first election in 1968-when he ran a memorably aggressive campaign that unseated a veteran incumbent. Already Democratic Representatives Elizabeth Furse and Peter DeFazio have declared their candidacy, and Republican Congressman Ron Wyden and G.O.P. state senate president Gordon Smith are being closely watched for their intentions. Predicts state G.O.P. chairman Randy Miller: "It's going to be quite a contest."

In Washington the pundits will long ponder what exactly did Packwood in. His transgressions have not yet proved to be criminal and hardly seem worthy of harsher condemnation than those of others who have stumbled into sex or corruption charges and yet held their seat. Does Packwood's fall reflect a new moral climate in the Capitol, one that mirrors the family values championed by the religious right? Or was Packwood, who turned 63 this week, the fall guy for a bunch of Senators who stood accused of not "getting it" in the wake of the 1991 Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings? Certainly, this time around, women who felt victimized by sexual aggression could claim victory. Said Julie William son, one of Packwood's accusers: "This is the best possible outcome."

Or perhaps it was simply that Bob Packwood, once respected for his intelligence, discipline and formidable deal-making skills, had become too much of an embarrassment in the only place on earth he felt at home: the Senate. Two years ago, shortly after his 26-year marriage and his relationship with his two children had come apart, Packwood's ex-wife Georgie told the New York Times about a marital-counseling session the couple had had in 1989. Georgie recalled her husband's saying, "I don't want a wife. I don't want a home. I only want to be a Senator. That's all there is for me." And now all that is gone.

--Reported by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Karen Tumulty/ Washington and David S. Jackson/Portland

With reporting by JEFFREY H. BIRNBAUM AND KAREN TUMULTY/WASHINGTON AND DAVID S. JACKSON/PORTLAND