THE FALL AND RISE OF BOB PACKWOOD

IN WASHINGTON, BOB PACKWOOD GOES BRISKLY ABOUT HIS BUSINESS, DASHING from budget-strategy meetings with majority leader Bob Dole to hotels where he makes public speeches about tax policy and then onto the sets of Sunday morning talk shows. The Senator from Oregon appears to be at the pinnacle of his career. But his dignified demeanor is at odds with the image he conjured up two years ago: a whirling dervish of sexual voracity who planted his lips on the mouths of shocked female elevator attendants, secretaries and lobbyists, snatched at women’s clothes or stuck his hands under their shirts.

Packwood’s road back to respectability has astonished most Washington bookmakers, who had once expected him to resign in disgrace. He was publicly accused shortly after his re-election in 1992 of having harassed more than two dozen women over his career. After stonewalling inquiries and then impugning the sexual histories of his accusers, he apologized for his behavior and entered an alcohol-rehabilitation program. When his Senate colleagues started shunning him, he kept on smiling and glad-handing. He also began to oppose issues that Dole opposed, such as requiring employers to pay for workers’ health insurance. Packwood had once supported such legislation.

Still, his refurbished image–and the strength of his bonds with the Senate leadership–are about to be tested. After two years, the Senate Ethics Committee staff has concluded its Packwood investigation and presented its findings to the six Senators on the committee. “Now the committee is faced with doing something,” said a source familiar with the operations. The committee staff has compiled thousands of pages of interviews, transcripts from Packwood’s diaries and several days’ worth of deposition from Packwood, who last appeared before the committee in February.

Women’s groups, and especially the “Packwood 26,” as his accusers came to be known, have been angered by the committee’s pace. “His resurrection is a casebook example of crisis management,” said Patricia Reilly, a spokeswoman for the National Women’s Political Caucus who worked with the accusers. “As time goes by, the justice dwindles away. As in everything in Washington, if there isn’t a sense of urgency, nothing gets done.”

Even if, as many sources predict, the Ethics Committee merely issues a harsh reprimand, Packwood still faces a probe by the Justice Department into whether he used his influence with a lobbyist to get a job for his wife at the time, and whether he altered his diaries before submitting them to the Ethics Committee. The Justice Department is waiting for committee action before proceeding.

Still, Packwood is not without friends. Since January 1993, he has raised $520,934.50 in private donations to a legal-defense fund. He may also be able to count on Dole, who has said the case should be dealt with swiftly. But neither Dole–nor the Republican revolution–is likely to be hurt politically if Packwood resigns or takes a leave of absence to argue his case in court. “Legislatively, I don’t know how much difference any one Senator’s absence or presence makes,” says Dave Mason, a political analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation. “Packwood is clearly one of if not the most knowledgeable Senators on tax policy. If he leaves, the Republicans lose an able Senator. But in a year, it won’t make any difference.” –By Nina Burleigh/Washington