My dad hung out with Kennedy; or, perhaps should I say, Kennedy hung out with my dad. He served two terms in the U.S. Congress in the late 1950s. He was probably too outspoken and too far to the left to remain in office long. He criticized U.S. support of Latin American dictators. He picketed Glen Echo, an amusement park outside of D.C., because it was segregated. He advocated for the normalization of relations with China. He supported Castro until it was clear Castro was not going to allow democratic elections. That kind of thing. He worked for six months in the Kennedy White House in the Food for Peace program under George McGovern. He left D.C. for Eugene, Oregon to try to get re-elected and to be an attorney activist/engaged exemplary citizen, which included removing, on Constitutional grounds, a 51-foot cement cross erected on Skinner Butte, a city park, overlooking Eugene by two businessmen who didnt even consult the city council before they put it up in 1964. It came down in 1997 as a result of a case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for which my dad was the lead attorney. My dad, mostly agnostic Id say, was actively engaged all my life in First Congregational Church, Eugene, though he was by no mean uncritical of religion. Yet, according to Willamette Week (Portland, Oregon) reporter Ron Abell in 1976, “Asked how it felt in those heady days when Life magazine praised him extravagantly as ‘The Congressman from Latin America,’ when ‘Meet the Press’ sought his appearance though he was but a fledgling congressman and when everything good and noble seemed to be going his way, Porter replies in a quiet voice: ‘I felt a little overwhelmed. All I was doing was saying the things I learned in Sunday school.’”
Posted on: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 05:49:25 +0000
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