The high-profile 9/11 panel, charged with investigating the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, includes a Dartmouth alumnus and former U.S. senator whose self-professed ambivalence about national intelligence issues led to his departure from the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Slade Gorton '49, a former Republican senator from Washington state, was appointed to the bipartisan commission by former Senate majority leader Trent Lott of Mississippi.
"I had been a very close friend of Sen. Lott while we were in the Senate together," Gorton said in a telephone interview with The Dartmouth. "He asked me to be one of his appointees on the committee, and I jumped on the opportunity."
Congress established the 9/11 panel, whose formal name is the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, to investigate U.S. readiness prior to the attacks and the response to them.
The panel is intended to be "independent and bipartisan" and "is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack," according to its official government website.
The panel is currently collecting testimony from various high-level administration officials and is slated to release its report in July. It announced Thursday that it will hear testimony from national security advisor Condoleezza Rice on April 8.
Despite possible political ramifications for the Bush administration that could result from the findings of the commission, Gorton said he hopes "that all 10 committee members will be unanimous" about the report.
Gorton said he was not able to discuss details of the commission with The Dartmouth, but said that "it's been a wonderfully fascinating challenge for the past almost year and a half."
"I can say that we are of course to make recommendations about national security," he said. "In the long term, probably our most important task will be to write an objective and fact-based history of 9/11 and the relevant events that led up to it."
Gorton majored in government at Dartmouth, with a focus in international relations. He characterized himself as a "good student, but not particularly active."
Gorton was quick to assert, however, that he had no serious plans to run for a government office while at Dartmouth.
"I sort of idly thought it was something I would like to do some day," Gorton said, "It wasn't a principle goal while at Dartmouth by any means."
Gorton came to Dartmouth after the end of World War II. Although officially a member of the Class of 1949, he went into the army for a year and graduated in 1950.
After Dartmouth, Gorton attended Columbia Law School and moved to the state of Washington after receiving his degree. He once again participated in the military, by joining the U.S. Airforce for three years. In 1956, he returned to Seattle, Wash., where his public policy career began.
"By then I had a pretty specific political interest," Gorton said.
In 1958, Gorton waged a successful campaign for the Washington state House of Representatives and went on to serve as the state House majority leader. Gorton was elected attorney general of Washington in 1968 and then went on to serve 18 years in the U.S. Senate.
Gorton said that while in the Senate, he preferred to have his hand in many issues rather than devoting all of his energy to specific interests. There, he sat on several committees, including the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and the Energy Committee.
Gorton said that his involvement in the Senate had little influence on his appointment to the commission, citing his departure from the Senate Intelligence Committee after serving only two years. He said that he discontinued participation in the committee due to lack of interest, but currently enjoys his position on the intelligence-oriented 9/11 Commission.
