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The crucial—and most bitter—issue was abortion. Roy, a Catholic obstetrician, admitted that he had performed legal abortions; Dole took a strong stand against abortions. During the last days of the campaign, Kansas was flooded with anti-abortion literature that included graphic illustrations of dead fetuses. Dole has always insisted he had nothing to do with the material, which clearly hurt Roy. The Senator won—by only 13,500 votes out of nearly 800,000. The victory still embitters many Kansas Democrats. Curiously, although Dr. Roy flatly accuses Dole of distributing the literature, he says he bears him no hard feelings.
On December 6, 1975, after nearly four years as one of Washington's most eligible bachelors, Dole married Elizabeth Hanford, then 39, a softly beautiful North Carolinian who had been for years one of the most eagerly courted women in Washington. They live in an apartment at the Watergate. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Duke University, Elizabeth Dole has both a law degree and a master's in education from Harvard. She began to work in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1966 during the Great Society years, then moved into consumer interests as an assistant to L.B.J.'s White House advisor, Betty Furness. When Nixon arrived in 1969, she stayed on to work in the same office, as the deputy to Virginia Knauer. Addressing a meeting of oil-company executives in Houston, she coolly excoriated them for not regulating mechanics at their service stations.
In December 1973, Nixon named Elizabeth to a seven-year term on the Federal Trade Commission. She tackled the job eagerly—too eagerly for Mississippi Congressman Sonny Montgomery, who was then squiring her around town. Says he: "If we were planning to go out and something came up at work, boy, forget going out." During this period, she spent a good deal of time lobbying on Capitol Hill, where she soon met Dole. Recalls one Senate staffer: "We always wondered why he'd dash off the floor so often, until we realized he was meeting Libby Hanford."
The Senator's wife has done her best to make the stodgy FTC more responsive to the needs of consumers. She has written orders prohibiting the Encyclopaedia Britannica from using fast-sell techniques, and stopping Chrysler from misrepresenting fuel-economy test results. "Elizabeth Dole," says Virginia Knauer, "is a deceptive package. Behind those good looks, there's a sharp, serious mind." Two years ago, TIME chose her as one of the nation's 200 leaders of the future (July 15,1974).
Senator Dole has already had some influence on the FTC commissioner. "She was a Democrat; now she's an independent," he says. "This year she'll register as a Republican. She's moving in the right direction." There is some concern that Elizabeth Dole would violate federal conflict-of-interest laws if she campaigned for her husband. Both husband and wife are strong advocates of the Equal Rights Amendment, but if there is any question about the issue, she will resign her position.