Exploring the complicated legacy of former Oregon Gov. Neil Goldschmidt

Charismatic , super smart and politically savvy. These are the words colleagues used to describe former Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt, whose legacy was forever tarnished by his sexual abuse of a girl.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- Charismatic, super smart and politically savvy. These are the words colleagues used to describe former Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt, a Portland city commissioner in the early 1970s, before being elected as Portland's 45th mayor from 1973 to 1979. He remains Portland's youngest mayor in history at age 33. Goldschmidt was also Oregon's 33rd governor for one term starting in 1987.

Goldschmidt died June 12. He was 83.

Former Oregon governor Barbara Roberts succeeded Goldschmidt in 1991 after he decided not to seek a second term. Roberts called Goldschmidt "an idea man" and a political powerhouse.
She told KOIN 6 News she was devastated when the reports surfaced of Goldschmidt's statutory rape of a minor.

"It was shocking, it was upsetting, it was disillusioning," she said. "It changed how he was seen by thousands and thousands of people in Oregon who saw him as an incredible leader."

Before his secret became known, Goldschmidt's ascension to the highest office in the state seemed almost inevitable, based on his track record as mayor of Portland. For one, he's credited with jump-starting Downtown Portland development, especially in the area of public transportation. The subsequent downtown transit mall and max light rail became a model for other cities. He also worked to strengthen the connection between neighborhoods and City Hall and essentially put Portland on the national radar.

"There was a larger vision and purpose to all of our lives because of the vision he had for the future of the city," said Former Portland City Commissioner Mike Lindberg.

Lindberg was a classmate of Goldschmidt at the University of Oregon, where they served on student government together. He credits Goldschmidt with jumpstarting his political career, including appointing Lindberg as Portland's director of public works and director of planning and development, before Lindbergh himself was elected to City Council.

At the time, Lindberg said he didn't know Neil Goldschmidt's dark secret -- that he had raped a 13-year-old girl during his first term as mayor.

"Two things can be true at the same time," he noted. "Somebody can be involved in a major scandal like that, and at the same time, they could make major contributions. And there's hardly a person I talk with in the community now that was involved with city government in any way back at the time he was mayor that still doesn't think he was probably the best mayor that the city ever had."

The national recognition proved itself in 1979 when then-President Jimmy Carter nominated
Goldschmidt to become the U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

"I would say to the Senate that I bring to the job of Secretary of Transportation a simple lesson learned as Mayor of Portland," he said at his Senate confirmation hearing. "Finish what you begin. Public confidence in Government isn't guaranteed. It must be earned."

After his federal role ended, Goldschmidt worked as a senior executive at Nike, nurturing relationships that helped turn Nike into a global juggernaut. Then, he returned to politics, running for Oregon governor in 1986 and winning. Oregon voters loved his determination, confidence, and brashness.

But Goldschmidt's meteoric rise to the pinnacle of Oregon politics crumbled under the weight of the terrible secret that he had raped a teenage girl, the daughter of a friend and one-time aide. The secret surfaced in 2004 when Willamette Week followed up on a tip and went public with the facts of Goldschmidt's dark past.

In 2005, Willamette Week and reporter Nigel Jaquiss won a Pulitzer Prize for their investigation. When Goldschmidt confessed to The Oregonian, they called it "an affair" and not a rape, something the newspaper later apologized for.

Oregon Historical Society executive director Kerry Tymchuk said, despite the great accomplishments of Goldschmidt, his legacy is forever tarnished.

"The legacy is one that he made for himself. An unforgivable crime that he committed and destroyed the life of a young girl. That will always be the lead about him," she stated. "Politically of course, he was Portland's youngest mayor, one of the youngest cabinet secretaries in history, a one-term Governor of Oregon. That's the political side of the story. But it's a story that will always be overshadowed by the other side of the story."

The other side of that story was told by then-Oregonian columnist Margie Boulé, who interviewed Goldschmidt's victim multiple times after the story became public, before the woman's tragic death in 2011 at age 49.

"I talked to her many, many times at great length," Boulé recalled. "It came about because I got a telephone call one day from someone I had written a column about some years earlier previously. And she said my best friend's his victim and she's upset that his side of the story got told, and she was portrayed really negatively and she wants her side to be told."

Boulé continued, "My immediate impression of her was that she was very fragile, she was tiny, she was very thin, her hands shook a lot. She was quite upfront about the fact that she was an alcoholic, she was drug dependent and she was on a lot of medication for mental illness and that was easy to believe."

Boulé added that she believes most of those problems in her life were caused by her relationship with Goldschmidt.

"She was in 8th grade. And by the way, her best friends from 8th grade corroborate that," she noted. "And after my story ran in The Oregonian after her death, I was contacted by a nun at Saint Mary's Academy. She attended Saint Mary's through her freshman year of high school. Then she dropped out of school so she would be more available to Mayor Goldschmidt."

Goldschmidt's victim was smart and, according to Boulé, a straight-A student before Goldschmidt started the abuse. Additionally, she didn't realize that what Goldschmidt did was a crime until after the statute of limitations for statutory rape had run out.

Boulé said the victim tried to sue, but ended up taking a settlement, partly to pay for the medication she was taking to address her mental health issues. Her life became a series of dead-end jobs, drug and alcohol episodes, as well as hanging with the wrong crowd.

Today, Boulé wonders what the victim's life would have been had she not been abused by Goldschmidt.

"She told me the relationship with Goldschmidt continued until she was in her late 20s and the last time she saw him, he was governor," she said. "So that would have been the years when he was mayor and then Secretary of Transportation in D.C. and then back home as governor in Oregon."

She continued, "She told me once that she felt really she wasn't good for anything in life except to be someone's sexual object. And that caused her to doubt herself on many levels."

A number of people knew about the relationship, according to Boulé. But they didn't say anything because either they owed their careers to Goldschmidt or were afraid of reprisals from the most powerful man in Oregon politics at the time.

"Few people in Oregon political history rose as quickly and as highly as he did. To achieve the Mayorship, Cabinet Secretary at such a young age, then become Governor," Tymchuk acknowledged. "But no Oregonian in political history that I know of so damaged and tarnished their reputations forever and their legacy by their own actions."

Goldschmidt's portrait at Portland City Hall was taken off the wall and burned by a citizen.

His official portrait at the State Capitol was removed and is now buried in storage.