Women of Washington

forget the donkeys, forget the elephants. meet the nation's favorite daughters

Is It Something in Washington's water? Walk through the halls of Congress, take a summer stroll through Georgetown at night, meander down Connecticut Avenue during lunch hour. Park yourself by the Pentagon parking lots. What you'll see are svelte, sexy young women who would look at home and soignée on the boulevards of Milan or the streets of Monte Carlo. Most of these women are from Somewhere Else, drawn to the nation's capital by the promise of (text concluded on page 96) career and adventure. And who can blame them? When Washington takes over the nightly news and dominates the front pages of newspapers, the city assumes the glitter and glamor of power.

Perhaps that is what makes Washington women so interesting. They are on the move. They are here for a purpose.

Politics, of course, is still largely a man's business (of 100 Senators, only two are female; and of 435 Representatives, 22 are female). But women continue to make history—whether it's Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, Elizabeth Dole in the Cabinet or Texas treasurer Ann Richards helping shape the destiny of her party. And not a few have penetrated the corridors of power to bask in the reflected glow of, well, their men. Who can forget the stunning Fawn Hall, who riveted attention during the Iran/Contra hearings?

Perhaps it is precisely the fact that Washington is a man's town that causes the women to sparkle so brightly. The limelight enhances any woman. And raises questions. Only in Washington would Fawn Hall's boss, Oliver North, feel compelled to defend her virtue (and his) before the world, assuring Congress that he and his secretary had never been romantically involved. The lieutenant colonel's defensiveness was understandable; Fawn would not have been the first to stake out her own territory in this lair of the opposite sex. True, not every Washington woman goes as far as Rita Jenrette, the Congressman's wife who decided that she was sick of attending Moose Lodge meetings in South Carolina and having constituents show up at her Washington doorstep asking for lodging. When Jenrette posed nude for Playboy in 1981, she set Washington on its ear, violating every unwritten rule of the Congressional wife as the long-suffering helpmate.

She also gave the city a little glamor; Washington is fundamentally a conservative town, not the Sodom portrayed by some politicians campaigning to replace incumbent sinners. Journalist Barbara Howar once described sex in Washington as "Henry Kissinger slowing down to 35 miles per hour to drop you off from a date," and there's some truth in that. Politics is the engine that drives the city, and, like gambling, it can make a man or a woman forget about sex. But, in the right hands, power—as Kissinger observed when he explained why leggy blondes seemed to enjoy his company—can be an aphrodisiac. In his own league, a politician is a rock star, catered to by a staff whose jobs depend on his success, quoted by the press, flattered and lobbied by special-interest groups. He gets invitations to the right parties and tickets to sold-out events. Even a paunchy, middle-aged Congressman of little account from a Midwest farm district can parlay those perks into sex appeal.

So imagine the allure of the high and the mighty. Washington women, whatever their station, share a finely tuned sensibility to the possibilities of glamor and power. For their part, men must learn one simple rule: Don't get caught. Because, lest we forget, hypocrisy still reigns in Washington. In a town where a person's best currency is his reputation, the stakes are high for both sexes. Yet politically shrewd and powerful men have shown a lemminglike willingness to make fools of themselves—and wrecks of their careers—for the sake of Washington women, the very ladies one sees on Connecticut Avenue (and in Playboy pictorials). Nor did the history of such shenanigans start with J.F.K. or Gary Hart. Comedian Mark Russell likes to joke that Thomas Jefferson was so loved by his slaves that some had a special name for him: Dad. There was Grover Cleveland's illegitimate child and a host of lesser-known scandals.

Is it the allure of Washington women that makes their escapades the stuff of headlines? Certainly, these capital women have prompted some bizarre behavior. Consider the influential Congressman who was stopped for speeding one autumn night. His mistress—who worked as a stripper—jumped out of his car and leaped into the Tidal Basin as startled police watched; it was the opening chapter of the Wilbur Mills—Fanne Foxe scandal in 1974. And would anyone believe that weeks later, he joined her on stage at a Boston burlesque house?

Or what about the curvy Capitol Hill secretary who permitted Washington Post reporters to follow her on dates with her boss, a Congressman, because she was miffed that she hadn't been invited to his wedding reception? That was the explosion in 1976 of the Wayne Hays—Elizabeth Ray scandal.

Perhaps no story is as telling as that of Paula Parkinson, the blonde lobbyist who had a love affair with Representative Tom Evans, a married Delaware Republican whose star was on the ascent when his friend Ronald Reagan became President. The relationship doomed Evans' re-election but inspired Parkinson and her husband to consider secretly video-taping politicians having sex with her. The scheme never got past the fantasy stage, but Parkinson's back in the news with tales of a 1980 "golf vacation" in which she shared a Florida house with Evans, another Congressman and George Bush's VR choice, Dan Quayle.

It may be the perceived drabness of Washington that draws such attention to sexual scandal. Or maybe we simply like to be reminded that our often remote Government is composed of men of the flesh, and the Washington woman is imbued with almost magical allure.

Perhaps that's her reward for living in this city that's a playground where men may make the rules but women decide if they want to play. Whether the object of a D.C. man's affection is a secretary or a Secretary of State, she's likely to be savvy, attractive and up on current events. Beware only that her very love of adventure and her charms don't make her the current event.