WASHINGTON -- Relax, congressmen. Lobbyist-Playboy model Paula Parkinson says she's got only one of you on videotape -- and that tape is in a safe place.
Ms. Parkinson, 30, is the green-eyed, thrice-married blonde who met with officials over the weekend, presumably to discuss a possible FBI look into whether some congressmen may have sold their votes for sexual favors.
Some of Paula's story was told Sunday in a lengthy interview she gave Washington Post columnist Rudy Maxa.
Items:
--Rep. Tom Railsback, R-Ill., whom she met at a cocktail party in September 1979, was the one who began introducing her to other Republican congressmen.
Margi McGrath, a spokeswoman for Railsback, today read a statement prepared by Railsback in which the congressman said Ms. Parkinson's 'recollections about me are basically accurate.'
--She fell in love with Rep. Thomas Evans, R-Del., and saw a great deal of him for about seven months, spending nights in his office or her rented flat. 'I deeply regret having any association with her,' Evans said in an earlier statement. 'It is clear to me that Mrs. Parkinson is a troubled person and I resent and regret that this woman is using my name in an effort to gain publicity for a possible book.'
Terry Ware, a spokeswoman for Evans, said today the congressman will stick by his earlier statements.
'Our constituent mail has been running 25-to-1 in support of the congressman,' she added in response to questions, and Evans has not been contacted by the FBI for questioning.
--Ms. Parkinson flatly denies going to bed with any congressmen in her efforts as a lobbyist to defeat a bill on crop insurance, 'though she admits that being on a first-name basis with legislators didn't hurt,' according to The Post.
--Her nude appearance in a Playboy layout on the women of Washington finished her as an effective lobbyist. 'It was a disaster, an absolute disaster,' she said. 'Not only would no congressmen return my calls, but they were absolutely panic-stricken if I even called their offices.'
--One of her congressional encounters left her pregnant and she received $500 for an abortion.
She identifies none of her congressional partners except Evans and does not say how many affairs she had.
In early summer of 1980, with her husband traveling, Ms. Parkinson 'had one-night stands with two influential Republicans,' The Post reported.
She recalled renting a video camera and one of the congressmen noted it while she was showing him the house.
'He said, 'Oh, so you have a camera?' remembers Paula Parkinson. For some 20 minutes, she says, she and the congressman made love in front of the camera, watching themselves simultaneously on her television set.'
That episode gave rise to rumors that Ms. Parkinson videotaped several of her encounters and sent shock waves through Capitol Hill.
No, says Ms. Parkinson, that was the only one and the tape is being kept 'in a safe place.'
The Post quoted the unnamed Republican congressman as saying he did not have sexual relations with Paula Parkinson or go to her home.
Evans told the newspaper her claims are 'ridiculous' and said he would not elaborate on his 'association' with her.
A spokesman for Railsback said he would not elaborate on earlier comments in which the congressman from Illinois said, 'She didn't proposition me. I didn't touch her.'
Maxa introduces his interview by noting that some congressmen are cracking jokes about the latest Capitol Hill malady -- 'Parkinson's Disease -- it makes your hands shake.' And that Democrats, taking note that Republican lawmakers have been hit with homosexual allegations in recent months, try to comfort their colleagues by saying, 'At least this time, it's a woman.'
Ms. Parkinson recalls that when she and Evans were in Florida in January 1980, sharing a house with two other congressmen on a golf holiday, she found some marijuana cigarettes in her purse one night and began to laugh.
'I said, 'You know, I can just see the headlines now: 'Woman Lobbyist Caught in Bed with Congressman.' Sex, drugs, you know, all kinds of stuff involved.' It just seemed hysterical to us,' she told The Post.
But she also recalled her fellow guests didn't think the late night private joke was funny.
