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Newt Gingrich

b. 1943 Tier II

The product of a marriage that fell apart within days

Portrait of Newt Gingrich — United States Congress — 1995 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

His mother Kit was 16 and Newton McPherson 19 when they married in September 1942, and the marriage fell apart within days. The boy born the next June at Harrisburg Hospital was Newton Leroy McPherson until 1946, when his mother married Robert Gingrich, a career Army officer who adopted him and later served tours in Korea and Vietnam. The family moved to Europe in 1956, first to Orleans and then to Stuttgart, and it was in France that the teenager visited the battlefield at Verdun and came away with a conviction about sacrifice and the weight of political leadership. He graduated from Baker High School in Columbus, Georgia in 1961. The next year, at 19, he married his former math teacher, who was 26.

He took a Tulane doctorate in 1971 on Belgian education policy in the Congo, joined the history department at West Georgia College, and by the account of people who worked there spent little time teaching history. He lost House races in 1974 and 1976 and won in 1978, the first Republican ever to hold Georgia's sixth district. What he built afterward was a method. In 1990 GOPAC circulated a memo over his signature, Language, a Key Mechanism of Control, telling Republicans to describe Democrats as radical, sick and traitors and themselves as principled and courageous. He filed the ethics charges that forced Speaker Jim Wright out in 1989, became minority whip that March, co-wrote the Contract with America, and in November 1994 delivered a 54-seat gain and the first Republican House in 40 years.

He was conducting an affair with a House staffer, Callista Bisek, more than two decades younger than himself, at the time he led the impeachment of a president for lying about one. He filed for divorce from his second wife, Marianne, in 1999, a few months after her multiple sclerosis diagnosis. The first divorce is uglier and disputed. Friends of both said he came to Jackie Battley's hospital room in September 1980, the day after surgery for uterine cancer, to discuss terms, and that she threw him out. Gingrich denies that account. His 2011 campaign maintained that she had asked for the divorce, but the Carroll County file shows her asking a judge to stop it. A judge ordered him in 1981 to pay considerably more support. In 1993 she told a court he had never once complied.

The House reprimanded him on January 21, 1997 by 395 votes to 28 and billed him 300,000 dollars — the first Speaker ever disciplined for ethics, over claiming tax-exempt status for a college course run for political ends. After the 1998 midterms went badly and his own conference turned, he resigned from the House on January 3, 1999. He became a Catholic in 2009, ran for president in 2012 and carried only South Carolina, and served as ambassador to the Holy See from 2017 to 2021. He pushed the Seth Rich conspiracy theory in 2017, backed Trump's claims about the 2020 election, and in 2022 called the January 6 committee a lynch mob. His standing is not settled.

Lifespan

15401700180019002030

Newt Gingrich's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

Notable works

Belgian Education Policy in the Congo 1945-1960 other
His Tulane doctoral dissertation, researched over six months in Brussels 1971
Window of Opportunity book
The book whose promotion was funded by a limited partnership of Republican donors 1984
Language, a Key Mechanism of Control other
The GOPAC memo of contrasting words, written with polling by Frank Luntz 1990
Contract with America other
Ten measures promised a floor vote in the first 100 days of a Republican House 1994
Renewing American Civilization other
The Saturday college course whose tax status brought the 1997 reprimand 1993
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act law
The welfare overhaul he moved through the House as Speaker 1996

Life in brief

with age at each point

1946 aged ~3 Adopted by Robert Gingrich and given the name he uses
June 19, 1962 aged 19 Marries Jackie Battley, his former high school teacher, at 19 She was 26. They had two daughters.
1971 aged ~28 Takes a PhD in European history at Tulane
November 1978 aged 35 Wins Georgia's sixth district on his third attempt He had lost in 1974 and 1976.
March 1989 aged 45 Becomes House minority whip after forcing out Speaker Jim Wright
November 1994 aged 51 Republicans gain 54 seats and take the House for the first time since 1954 Time named him Man of the Year the following year.
January 21, 1997 aged 53 Reprimanded by the House, 395 to 28, and billed 300,000 dollars The first Speaker in history disciplined for an ethics violation.
January 3, 1999 aged 55 Resigns from the House the day his speakership ends
May 2, 2012 aged 68 Suspends his presidential campaign and endorses Mitt Romney He had won the South Carolina primary in January and little else.