Opinions

Goodbye to Richard Foster

Some of the fun went out of my life this week when Rep. Richard Foster died of a heart attack. Foster, who had represented Nome since 1988, had been in health trouble for some time, since his kidneys failed. More than one person offered him a replacement, but he never got quite well enough to have the surgery.

Everybody who knew him liked Richard. He was, for the most part, a friendly, gentle soul with a terrific sense of humor. Until his health prevented it, he celebrated the birthdays of House members with floor speeches of facts glued together with bad jokes. Nobody laughed louder at the bad jokes than Richard did. He also hosted a regular Friday evening sing-along in his Capitol office called Fridays at Foster. People have told me that the singers and the listeners sometimes wetted their whistles with cheap beer.

There are a lot of forces that push legislators apart: doctrinal differences, regional differences, ambition, bad personal chemistry. Richard was one of the few forces that pulled us together. We'll miss him for that.

We'll miss him for a lot of reasons. But instead of going on, I'm going to reprint a column I wrote about Richard in 1990, before I got into the political game. In its own way, it says everything that needs to be said, by me anyway, about Richard Foster.

NOME LIKES RICHARD FOSTER MACHINE GUNS, SILENCERS, MORTAR AND ALL
Anchorage Daily News | Oct. 2, 1990
By Mike Doogan

Nome isn't impressed by the indictment of its state representative.

"Nothing's changed since we first heard about it," said Mayor John Handeland. "It's old news here."

Last Tuesday, the federal government hit Richard Foster with a five-count indictment, claiming that he had "six (6) firearms in the form of machine guns fully capable of automatic fire," a couple of silencers, "four (4) machine gun receivers," a sawed-off shotgun and "a destructive device, to wit: a Soviet 50 mm. mortar."

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The indictment claims the weapons and weapon parts were unregistered, which makes them illegal. These are big-time charges; each count could be worth 10 years in jail and a $250,000 fine.

Nome, and everybody else, first heard about Foster's problems in March, when federal agents seized some parts Foster had made at a Juneau machine shop, parts they said were for machine guns.

Foster said at the time that he planned to use the parts to build inoperable machine guns for a display at his Nome gun store.

"They were just for a dummy machine gun, like in a movie," Foster said then. "They're making a big deal out of it."

I don't know what Foster's saying now. I left messages all over for him, and one of his aides called back to say Foster's lawyers had asked him not to talk about the indictment. That's too bad. I really wanted to ask him what a guy does with a 50 mm mortar.

Chances are he has a funny answer. This is a man who said of himself, "Everybody thinks I'm going to be an astronaut because I'm taking up space in the legislature."

Foster's not the only one keeping mum. The prosecutor isn't talking much, either.

"The rules of ethics that apply make it inappropriate to comment on the trial evidence," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Rosenbaum.

If I were Rosenbaum, I'd be concerned about my case. Most Alaska towns have more privately owned machine guns than stop lights. So it might be tough to find a jury that doesn't see Foster's case as the failure to fill out some probably unnecessary paperwork. Unless I had solid evidence that Foster was about to invade Chukotsk, or planned to use one of the machine guns to take caribou out of season, I'd be worried about getting a conviction.

Certainly, Foster's colleagues aren't rushing to judgment.

"He hasn't been convicted of anything yet," said House Speaker Sam Cotten. "So I suppose we could try to get all excited about it here, but . . ."

But they all knew about Machine Gun Foster, too. He carried a .50-caliber machine gun through the halls of the state Capitol, joking he was hunting for ultra-liberals. He gave guns as gifts to fellow lawmakers, including Cotten. He is a Vietnam veteran who often wore pieces of his uniform to work and sponsored a resolution supporting former Green Beret Lt. Col. Bo Gritz's wacky plan to reduce Southeast Asian drug traffic.

Like Nome, the legislature took all of this in stride. Having "probably the finest arms collection in the Arctic" was just another quirk there, even when he carried the guns around with him. Having a mortar probably didn't even help Foster get his way in caucuses.

In his hometown, they've rallied round.

Nobody bothered to file against him in the election. That might be because it's not wise to run against a guy with six machine guns. But people in Nome don't scare easy, so it's more likely that a guy with six machine guns is the kind of guy they want representing them in Juneau.

And this fall the residents held a benefit to help Foster pay for his defense, Handeland said.

"Richard never made any secret of the fact he has the guns," Handeland said. "He's a collector of all kinds of items."

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Like guns.

And, apparently, friends.

Mike Doogan is an Alaska state representative, author and former newspaper columist. This column appeared in his email newsletter.

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