By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Washington—When Newt Gingrich was House Speaker, lawmakers would routinely arrive at his elegant suite in the Capitol and find an unexpected adviser sitting on the couch: wife #2, Marianne.
Like the wife who preceded her and the one who succeeded her, Marianne Gingrich was her husband’s political sounding board, “my best friend and closest adviser,” he once wrote.
As a young congressman, he took her to private sessions with David A. Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s budget director, and to a dinner in Manhattan with Richard M. Nixon, the former president.
Uncle Newtie sought Marianne’s counsel during meetings; although it made aides and colleagues uneasy, several said. She seemed to feel awkward, and sometimes had little to say. When Speaker Gingrich flew aboard Air Force One to Israel for the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, Marianne was with him.
Now wife #2 is making news with her allegations (denied by Newtie), that he asked for an “open marriage” while he and Callista Bisek, now wife #3, were having an affair.
Wife #2's remarks on ABC News have thrust Newtie's colorful marital history—his pattern of replacing one wife with a younger one—into the spotlight on the eve of the South Carolina primary, just as his bid for the Republican presidential nomination is appearing to surge.
But more than a jilted spouse, Marianne Gingrich, wife #2, serves as a window into the complicated psyche of a man who, those who know him say, seems to need a woman by his side. Friends and colleagues agree that for all his ego and bombast, “Grandiosity has never been a problem with Newt Gingrich.”
Rick Santorum, a presidential rival, declared at Thursday’s presidential debate: Mr. Gingrich has leaned on his wives to help project his vision of himself.
“I think Newt is very dependent on having the support of someone, and obviously he has chosen women,” Sue W. Kelly, a former Republican congresswoman from New York, said Friday in an interview.
“He has a sense of a private personal destiny that is his alone, I don’t think he is certain of himself; he’s got to have someone there,” said Ms. Kelly, who described herself as “very fond of” Mr. Gingrich.
At 68, Gingrich has been in one marriage or another for nearly 50 years, and each of his three wives has played a role in assisting and in her own way advancing his political career.
Editor's note: Does Newtie get to have a fiftieth Wedding Anniversary? It could be a group anniversary bash.
“For Newt, the political life is everything and each of the women in his life was integrally involved in it,” said Chip Kahn, who managed Mr. Gingrich’s two failed Congressional campaigns in the 70s and now runs the Federation of American Hospitals in Washington. “They were advisers. They were sounding boards. They were people he took seriously.”
Wife #1, Jackie Battley, was his high school geometry teacher and seven years his senior. They married in 1962, while Newtie was a 19-year-old college freshman, over the objections of Mr. Gingrich’s mother and stepfather. Nine months later, Newtie and his betrothed had their first child.
Newtie was still married to Jackie when, in 1980, as a freshman congressman, he traveled to Ohio for a Republican fund-raiser (more than funds got raised) and met a county planner. Marianne Ginther was a pretty brunette in her 20s. They were married the following year, and Mr. Gingrich soon brought his new wife into the political fold. In 1984, he listed her as co-author on one of his books.
But by the mid-90s, as he made his political ascent, Newtie became involved with a House Agriculture Committee staff member, Callista Bisek, nearly 23 years his junior. They carried on a secret affair for six years,.
They were married in 2000, after Newtie left the speakership in 1999. Today, Wife #3, with her striking platinum hair and diamond baubles is the subject of controversy because Newtie spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at Tiffany—and bold suits is a constant presence on the campaign trail, often introducing Mr. Gingrich and looking on adoringly as he speaks. Collista is a business partner in developing his book and movie production company.
Many who know Mr. Gingrich see parallels with his earlier wives. “The way he is taking Callista everyplace,” one friend of his said, “that’s how he took Marianne everyplace.”
Mr. Gingrich has said he has been “very open about mistakes I have made,” and about “needing to go to God for forgiveness.” He has declined to discuss in detail his previous marriages, leaving it to his two daughters from wife #1 to defend his conduct.
Some observers, though, see political calculation in the way he moved from one marriage to the next.
Ya think?
“Gingrich is a pragmatist; he’s an ambitious politician and he trades in people the same way he trades in ideas,” said Steven M. Gillon, a historian at the University of Oklahoma who has written a book about Mr. Gingrich.
“Just as he redefines himself politically, he redefines the people in his life that support him in any particular phase. And I think that applies to the people he is married to.” (Hear that, gang?).
The Ice Queen, wife #3, better be careful... No Win and she's out. Yes Win and there will be new paramours to deal with until eventually, she's out. Newtie is a man of opportunity and he lies accordingly. Sadly, he believes his own lies. If they fail, he sheds his skin and morphs into another suit looking for wife #4.
