FREDERICK C. BOUCHER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86B00337R000200320007-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 7
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2008/08/27: CIA-RDP86B00337R000200320007-1
9 Frederick C. Boucher (D
Of Abingdon - Elected 1982
Born: Aug. 1, 1946, Abingdon, Va.
Education: Roanoke College, B.A. 1968; U. of Va. Law
School, J.D. 1971.
Occupation: Lawyer.
Family: Single.
Religion: Methodist.
Political Career. Va. Senate, 1975-83.
Capitol Office: 1723 Longworth Bldg. 20515; 225-3861.
The Path to Washington: On first im-
pression, the slight, bespectacled Boucher
seems poorly matched to the rough-and-tumble
politics of southwest Virginia. But this articu-
late. carefully organized and hard-working
young lawyer capitalized on high unemploy-
ment in his mountain district in 1982 to oust
veteran Republican William C. Wampler.
Their election was the closest in the
fiercely competitive "Fighting Ninth" since
1Vampler lost to Democrat W. Pat Jennings by
999 votes in 1954. The official 1982 tally
showed Boucher a winner by 1,123 votes out of
more than 150,000 cast.
In spite of his scholarly look, Boucher
came naturally to politics. Both his grandfather
and great-grandfather served in the Virginia
House of Delegates. His father was Common-
wealth's Attorney in Washington County
(Abingdon).
After graduating from the University of
Virginia Law School, Boucher joined the Wall
Street firm of Millbank, Tweed, Hadley and
McCloy. He took time out to work as an
advance man for George McGovern's 1972
presidential campaign. The following year he
returned to Abingdon to practice law, ulti-
mately joining his family's firm in 1978. He and
his mother operate the firm, with his mother
specializing in real estate and Boucher han-
dling trial work.
Following his return to Abingdon he began
laying the groundwork for his political debut,
which he made in 1975 by running for the state
Senate. Energetically buttonholing district con-
vention delegates, Boucher defeated a veteran
incumbent for the Democratic nomination,
then coasted through the election.
Boucher fashioned a reputation in Rich-
mond as an activist legislator, but he was less
than ideological. "I don't like labels," he said.
"I'm a pragmatic person." Boucher lacked the
seniority to gain a committee chairmanship,
but he promoted a wide variety of legislation.
Among his bills were measures to encourage
increased oil and gas exploration, to pave sec-
ondary roads, to revise the rape laws to encour-
age greater reporting and to rewrite the mari-
juana laws to lessen the penalties for use while
increasing the punishment for distribution.
Democratic Gov. Charles S. Robb and
other state party leaders encouraged Boucher
to challenge Wampler in 1982. Viewing the high
unemployment in the district's coal fields and
the politically marginal nature of the 9th, Bou-
cher was not hard to convince. By mid-March
he had begun full-time campaigning, inter-
spersing his frequent travels across the 200-
mile-long rural district with trips to Washing-
ton to plead with party officials and political
action committees for money.
Boucher raised $241,000, less than Wam-
pler, but enough to finance billboards and
media advertising on the three television sta-
tions that together blanket the district. As
Boucher's name identification increased, Wam-
pler began to react. He sought to dismiss Bou-
cher as "a Henry Howell with an Ivy League
look," a reference to the controversial Tide-
water populist who lost decisively in his last
gubernatorial race in 1977.
But Boucher jabbed back, describing the
affable Wampler - known to constituents as
the "bald eagle of the Cumberland" - as a nice
man but an ineffective legislator who had a
minimal impact in Congress. Boucher termed
himself the true fiscal conservative, citing
Wampler's support for Reaganomics and its
ensuing budget deficits.
The economy was a powerful issue. In
some of the district's coal counties, unemploy-
ment approached 20 percent during the fall of
1982. Turnout there approached the level of
the 1980 presidential election, and Boucher,
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 Approved For Release 2008/08/27: CIA-RDP86B00337R000200320007-1
Frederick C. Boucher, D-Vo.
Virginia 9
The "Fighting Ninth" is so named be-
cause of its fiercely competitive two-party
system and its ornery isolation from the
Virginia political establishment in Rich-
mond.
Southwestern Virginia was settled by
Scotch-Irish and German immigrants who
had little in common with the English set-
tlers in the Tidewater and Piedmont re-
gions. The Civil War divided the anti-
secesssion mountaineers from slaveholding
Confederates elsewhere in the state. In the
postwar era, when Democrats routinely
dominated Virginia politics, the 9th was the
only district in which Republicans were
consistently strong.
But as the state GOP has moved into
alliance with Richmond's business estab-
lishment, the party has lost ground in the
9th. Some of the region's burley tobacco
growers and other small-scale farmers now
are teaming with the traditionally Demo-
cratic coal miners. When Democrat Charles
S. Robb won the governorship in 1981, the
9th gave him 56 percent. his third highest
tally among all Virginia districts.
Democrats are strongest in coal-mining
Southwest - Blacksburg;
Bristol
counties along the Kentucky and West Vir-
ginia borders. In the 1982 Senate race, Dem-
ocrat Richard Davis carried seven of eight
border counties. But here as elsewhere in
the district., the parties are closely matched;
several pro-Davis counties chose Republi-
can NVilliam C. Wampler in House voting.
Republicans have an edge in the corri-
dor of counties roughly traced by Interstate
81 as it runs north from Bristol past
Blacksburg. Republican Paul S. Trible Jr.
took all but one of the eight counties in that
region in his 1982 Senate contest.
Blacksburg, the district's largest city, is
atypical of the 9th. Home to Virginia Tech
University, the state's largest, it is a tidy
and prosperous-looking city quite unlike the
dreary factory and coal towns common
throughout the district. Fed by a Tech
enrollment boom. Blacksburg's population
burgeoned 227 percent during the 1970s, to
more than 30,000.
Population: 538,871. White 523.299
(97%), Black 12,920 (2%). Spanish origin
3,045 (1%). 18 and over 388,333 (72%), 65
and over 58,900 (11%). Median age: 29.
drawing on the active support of the United
Mine Workers, ran exceptionally well.
Boucher also neutralized Wampler's
strength in the Bristol area, just north of Ten-
nessee. In the past, Wampler had run well
Committees
around Bristol, his home turf, building up his
crucial margin of victory there in his last close
race in 1974. But Bristol was also part of
Boucher's state Senate district and Wampler
was able to win it only narrowly.
District Vote For President
Education and Labor (17th of 20 Democrats)
1980 1976
Elementary, Secondary and Vocational Education; Human Re-
D 84,218 (47%) D 87,783 (52%)
sources: Postsecondary Education.
R 86,251 (48%) R 76,627 (45%)
I 4
573 ( 3%)
Science and Technology (26th of 26 Democrats)
Energy Development and Applications; Science, Research and
Technology.
,
Campaign Finance
Select Aging (31st of 38 Democrats)
Retirement, Income and Employment.
Receipts Expend-
Receipts from PACs itures
1982 General
Frederick C. Boucher (D) 76,205 (50%)
William Wampler (R) 75,082 (49%)
1982
Boucher(D) $241,116 $54,111 (22%) $233,356
Wampler (R) $302,128 $160,326 (53%) $315,496
Key Vote
Adopt nuclear freeze (1983)
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