1989 in support of Curt Smitch, the Booth Gardner appointee to head the state
Wildlife Department. The Seattle Times called Smitch’s confirmation hearing
“one of the stormiest in the state’s history.” Image-Dick Baldwin, Washington State Senate
Chapter Twelve of “Where the Salmon Run” written by Trova Heffernan and sponsored by Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed.
Chapter Twelve | Bridge Builder
Billy has the flawless timing of an orchestra conductor. He understands when to push, when to quit, and when to laugh, letting the tension out of a room like a balloon that slowly deflates. Tom Keefe, a longtime friend, compares his striking ability to read people to the talents of a gypsy fortune teller. “In some ways, I think Billy Frank is a lot like Barack Obama,” assesses Keefe. “They are both similar to a Rorschach test. They tend to be what you want them to be, but not deliberately. I don’t think either sets himself up to do that. With Billy, I think there’s a unique simplicity about him, and how he views life. I don’t think he even graduated from high school, but he’s brilliant. His brain works on levels that mine doesn’t even approach. He sees events and situations against a larger background, rather than in the crisis of the moment.”
As 1980 neared, Billy’s star rose. He settled into American politics as a back-slapping, handshaking, joke-telling tribal leader with a disarming way to win support for the Pacific salmon. Once, at a Red Lion in Portland, Billy spoke to the power companies and utilities about the dangers of cheap electricity and dams. “You see these god damn light bulbs?” he asked, pointing up at the ceiling. The crowd nodded in response. “I don’t see no god damn fish swimming out of those god damn light bulbs.” The audience howled. “He had great timing when things were getting real hairy in a room, or just going up and giving somebody a hug. He’s a great hugger. And even in the tense moments, [he’ll say], ‘I think we ought to listen to this a little bit longer,’” Bill Wilkerson says.
Billy could charm just about anyone, even one of the most influential men in the U.S. Senate. Keefe saw it firsthand as legislative director for Warren Magnuson. Keefe had persuaded his boss to retain a sharp attorney named Sue Crystal, a law school graduate with red hair and a vivacious personality to match. Crystal had just finished an internship with the Senate Appropriations Committee. Assigned to a delicate tribal funding case with the committee, she walked into Keefe’s office. “Do you know who Billy Frank is?” she asked.
Keefe laughed, “Do I know who Nelson Mandela is? Yeah, I know who Billy Frank is. I went to St. Martin’s College just up the hill from Frank’s Landing. I could practically smell the tear gas from my dorm room!”
Crystal was pushing Keefe for a legislative earmark that would allow an Indian school at Frank’s Landing to run independently, limiting interference from the Nisqually and Puyallup Indian tribes. “Billy was kind of a hot potato at the time,” Keefe says. “The whole fishing rights battle was a major headache for our congressional delegation. Politically, it wasn’t a very popular thing to get involved in. I worked Magnuson a little bit on it, about the school, and about Billy Frank and his dad. As a result, I kind of opened the door for Magnuson to get to know Billy as a human being, rather than as the renegade symbol of this seemingly endless struggle. They became really good friends.”
When the Senate recessed, Keefe typically flew home to the Pacific Northwest. Typically, Billy waited on the airport drive in a big red Chrysler to provide one of “Professor Frank’s Windshield Seminars,” a crash course on the environmental hazards facing the salmon.
Once, on the banks of the Hoh River, Billy called the 50 percent allocation to the tribes meaningless without any fish. “What we should have done,” he told Keefe, “was all pile into my canoe and taken a ride up the Nisqually River, or the Hoh or the Puyallup, to where Mr. Weyerhaeuser and Mr. Simpson and Mr. Georgia-Pacific was destroying the salmon’s nursery, while we were fighting over the harvest downstream. Time is running out for the salmon.”
