cious, I settle into the back seat with Jane, as Greg drives, Weaver riding shotgun. Introductions over, both candidate and wife hoist sections of The Oregonian and bury themselves therein. It’s a lovely, crisp fall day as we move out of the lower Willamette Valley into narrower canyon country. Weaver glances up occasionally to comment on his reading: “Here’s an article on Wally Priestley (an iconoclastic Oregon State Representative); he’s anti-establishment and he’s always been on the mark. He’s terrific. And he’s never lost an election ... they’ve tried to redistrict him out of it twice.” We slowly begin to construct a conversation, about beached whales, the Republicans’ “negative campaign” tactic, etc. When I mention fellow progressive member of Congress from Oakland, Ron Dellums, Jane Weaver raises the oft-mentioned issue of his effectiveness. Jim Weaver responds: “Dellums enunciates the issues. Then, as momentum shifts his direction, others take credit.” Before we know it, we’re entering the small logging town of Drain, our first stop, where a group is assembled to talk about the Nuclear Freeze. I was surprised, expecting economic issues to override any such lofty concerns. But here in City Hall are 75-100 people, many seniors, many students, watching a Haskell Wexler film on the Freeze. Weaver absorbs the film, soaking up information and impressions. As he takes the floor, at film’s end, the audience applauds loudly. Weaver’s comments condensed: “This is the issue of our times — it could be the last issue. We need to stop the madness of the arms race ... it can be stopped, it will be stopped. Experts are the ones that have led us astray.... Up to now, debates in Congress have been between proponents of different defense contractors. This year, Ron Dellums led the fight and made the case that we were weakening the U.S. by the arms buildup. He made a magnificent case. ... Last month 148 House members voted no on military appropriations. We’re going to win. “I never told my three daughters about this, though I’ve been acutely aware of this since Hiroshima — I didn’t want to frighten them — until all of a sudden we were faced with the awful truth: That we will perish if we allow the politicians in Washington and the Kremlin to continue. I’m blunt; now I scare the hell out of people.” Many people ask follow-up questions, about arms to Israel (“I don’t think we should be selling arms anywhere. It's awful, immoral, dangerous and shameful.”); obsolescence (“My first fight in Congress was on MIRV. We went ahead, and the Russians caught up in two years. You invent a weapon and it can be countered.”); and about the Reader’s Digest articles calling the Nuclear Freeze movement communist (“Those articles are planted in there. I don’t think the American people are being fooled.”) Here in tiny Drain, Weaver is relaxed, greeting old friends and making them feel part of a larger movement. The mood is hopeful, not doomsday, and we leave the group feeling buoyed. We wend our way back to the freeway and head south toward Roseburg, a town where the right to keep and bear arms is as sacred as the right to cut fir trees. Weaver has no bones to pick with the former. He receives the unqualified support of the National Rifle Association (NRA) election after election. He’s got enough irons in the fire as it is, pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, a down-the-line environmentalist, that it’s not worth being picked off on such a deeply felt issue. In Roseburg, Weaver’s been targeted in the past by the John Birch Society itself, which advised voters in half-page ads that Weaver supported “The Federal Plantation,” “The Federal Money Machine,” “The Federal Bulldozer,” and “The Federal Follies.” But it’s not just the reactionary Right that has clouded Weaver’s status locally. Only brief years ago, he was about as popular in Roseburg as the Tussock moth. The Douglas Timber Operators (DTO), chafing under the environmental restrictions Weaver was pushing through Congress, drew up in wrath against Weaver-sponsored RARE-II wilderness designation hearings being held locally. The DTO insisted that Weaver had destroyed the entire timber industry in the area. Yet, in Weaver’s words, the entire proposed wilderness would have “tied up about 3 percent of the timber in Douglas Weaver and nurses at SWOC The Candidate Jane Weaver at the IWA Hall, Reedsport County.” Even organized labor was turned against him. “Douglas County was the only one I lost in the last election ... the only one Hatfield [Sen. Mark ... also a wilderness proponent] lost in the entire state.” After one hearing, at the height of the fervor, Weaver exited Roseburg fearing for his life. The town’s streets filled with hundreds of logging trucks, bleating their horns, while a crowd chanted, “Up Weaver’s rump with a cedar stump.” Now, driving into town years later, Weaver reminisces: “I’ve been hung in effigy a number of times. They’ve threatened to run me out of town on a rail.” We go directly to KPIC, Roseburg’s TV station, where he’s greeted coolly, officially. Wife and aide go for lunch (Wendy’s), Weaver goes into the studio, and I wait in the lobby, overhearing this exchange. Receptionist: “What do you think of Jim Weaver?” He seems shorter than I expected him After one wilderness hearing, Weaver exited Roseburg fearing for his life. The town's streets filled with hundreds of logging trucks, bleating their horns, while a crowd shouted, "Up Weaver's rump with a cedar stump." to be.” Visiting schoolteacher, whose class is on tour: “I wouldn’t vote for Weaver for nothing. I don’t know who Anthony is [Weaver’s 1982 opponent], but I’d still vote for him. I’d vote for Mickey Mouse if he was running against Jim Weaver.” Passions die hard in Roseburg. Weaver handles the lunch-hour talk show with ease, blunting questions that could have been written by his opponent with rejoinders that emphasize the positive, “I’m going to be leading a trade’ delegation to China. This is a billion-person nation with no timber... . ” Session over, we gulp down burgers and visit the nearby home of lumberman Sid Lycan and his wife Martha. She greets us cordially, and Weaver settles in, clearly at home. A Louis Bunce painting adorns one wall. The entire feeling is tasteful, unpretentious elegance. It’s a reminder that Weaver himself was once a well- to-do contractor, with friends like the timber wealthy, liberal Democratic Lycans. Conversation here is intimate, informal. It’s a place to repair, where comments about his opponent, the press, and other rancorous subjects can be discussed freely. Offstage, Weaver is wittier, more candid, more inclined to intelligent cynicism than he can be in public. He repeatedly attacks the fourth estate, and having "The President vetoed the Housing Bill ... it was vetoed because it took away from the Ml tank and all these military programs." read the vitriolic slurs on his character and competence in Oregon’s major dailies for years, I’m inclined to be sympathetic. Some element of his attraction to Jane must be the fact that her life work has been journalism, and their give and take throughout the trip, though always friendly, is on the jousting side of chivalric. “Prove it,” she says, to one Weaver statement, “I’d like to see it.” She’s a spunky woman, pleasant to be around. Revived, we depart. En route to our next stop, Weaver points out the site of a land exchange he tried to arrange for the Forest Service. Complications involving the Douglas County Commissioners ensued, and one of their relatives ended up with the prime parcel, which he al74 Clinton St. Quarterly
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