...concluded, Goldschmidt announced that he was heading a group that itself would buy PGE with backing from the Texas Pacific Group, a private investment firm.

In February 2004, WW began reporting on Goldschmidt's consulting firm, Goldschmidt Imeson Carter, and the extraordinary degree of influence it exercised in the gray space between business and politics. During the reporting, WW kept encountering whispers about Goldschmidt's past. Most involved affairs with adult women, but a few sources said there was also a young girl.

Public-records searches identified court documents in Washington County and Seattle that described his sexual abuse of Susan in great detail, without actually naming Goldschmidt. In late March, WW began to talk to people, eventually speaking with more than a dozen who told a remarkably consistent story about what happened from 1975 through 1978.

On April 7, two WW reporters interviewed Susan in Nevada.

She arrived at a meeting at a sports bar near her home with a Wall Street Journal under her arm--she says she's been a faithful reader of the paper since fifth grade--and a copy of a library book, Tomorrow's God, by Neale Donald Walsch, author of the bestselling Conversations with God.

Before the interview, Susan, a slight, deeply tanned woman with wavy, shoulder-length brown hair, spoke fondly about her Dalmatians, Zoe and Harley, and her love of horseback riding with her stepdaughter. She mentioned that she had recently finished a paralegal course and hoped to find work in that field.

When the interview began, Susan produced a tape recorder and said she was concerned about being misquoted. When reporters showed her court documents and summarized interviews with people who said she had told them about Goldschmidt, the tone of the interview changed. Susan's hands shook so badly she could barely light her Winston cigarette.

Susan acknowledged having been abused in her teens and alluded to earlier molestation by a family member (whom a cousin, in an interview with the Eugene Register-Guard last week, identified as her grandfather). But Susan repeatedly denied that Goldschmidt was the man who began abusing her when she was 14.

Instead, she sang the former governor's praises and mentioned how she appreciated his giving her the novel Cry, the Beloved Country when she was a teenager.

At the end of a 50-minute interview, Susan said she would consider a request to provide documents that would prove that the man who abused her as a teenager was someone other than Goldschmidt.

She later declined to provide such proof.

By the end of April, WW had enough documentation to publish its story. It also learned that Tribune columnist Phil Stanford had interviewed Susan in February and confirmed a portion of the story.

On May 3, Rabbi Emanuel Rose, the leader of Congregation Beth Israel, where Goldschmidt worships, called WW Publisher Richard Meeker, whose family belongs to the temple.

Meeker agreed in advance not to disclose the details of their conversation. Rose did not return WW's telephone calls.

On May 5, Goldschmidt refused the last of many interview requests.

On May 6, he confessed.

In retrospect, it appears that for more than six weeks Goldschmidt was not only aware of WW's investigation but resigned to exposure of his secret.

During the two-month investigation, this paper talked to Goldschmidt only once. That occurred on April 5, after Goldschmidt called WW, inviting Meeker and Editor Mark Zusman to lunch.

In his message, Goldschmidt said, "I really have no agenda. I'm in the news a lot, you guys are interested in a lot of things, and I just think it would be fun."

The April 5 lunch was held at Carafe, a downtown restaurant that serves wine from Goldschmidt's vineyard in Dundee. Goldschmidt's business partner, Tom Imeson, also attended.

At the time, WW was not ready to confront Goldschmidt with its findings. And Goldschmidt never referred to Susan during the lunch.

Instead, Goldschmidt talked about higher ed, the development along the South Waterfront and the job that Gov. Ted Kulongoski was doing.

As they parted after lunch, Goldschmidt pulled Zusman aside, grabbed his hand and said, "Go get 'em."