Last week’s flurry of tabloid headlines undoubtedly did little to dispel her feelings,or help the marriage. WHO’S A NEWT BOY? the New York Post asked on its front page, reporting on a Vanity Fair magazine story that claimed Newt had affairs in the 1970s while married to his first wife. Stories about his past infidelity weren’t exactly startling news, but Marianne spoke to Vanity Fair writer Gail Sheehy with a bluntness that probably shriveled her husband’s ambitions–at least for now. She doesn’t want Newt to run for president, Marianne told Sheehy. “He can’t do it without me,” she said. “I told him if I’m not in agreement, fine, it’s easy. I just go on the air the next day, and I undermine everything . . .”
It sure sounded like a threat, even if, as Sheehy wrote, Marianne giggled as she said it. “It’s not so much what he’d be doing. It’s what I’d be doing,” Marianne explained. Many politicians’ spouses make the same complaint, only to end up playing the goodsoldier. But congressional wives who have talked to Marianne say shyness isn’t the only problem. She loathes the fact that in Washington the sins of the politician often wash over onto the wife. Marianne speaks from some experience. Back in 1989, Gingrich brought his wife to a press conference to help defend him on a book-promotion deal that Democrats contended was unethical. As reporters shouted questions about her role in managing the partnership, she started crying and bolted from the room.
Since then, she has told other wives that “we spouses have got to stick together,” according to Debbie Dingell, wife of House Democrat John Dingell. At an ethics briefing for congressional family members three years ago, Marianne contended that Betty Wright, wife of disgraced House Speaker Jim Wright, had been victimized during the controversy that led to her husband’s downfall. She told Debbie Dingell that Betty had gotten a “raw deal.” Of course, this was deeply ironic, given that it was her husband who led the GOP’s two-year mudslinging campaign against Wright.
Even after so many years, acquaintances say, Marianne, raised in a small eastern Ohio town, remains naive about the ways of Washington. At a business dinner earlier this year, Gingrich told a story about how his wife applauded a speech by John Dingell denouncing congressional term limits. He related that Debbie Dingell, seated next to her in the House gallery, warned Marianne to stop applauding because it would embarrass Newt, a term-limits supporter.
Gingrich’s public telling of this story may say something about his prickly view of loved ones. He acknowledges in the Vanity Fair story that he has behaved destructively toward women at times. Allegations of affairs have surfaced repeatedly, but for the first time Vanity Fair quoted by name a woman who claims she had oral sex with Gingrich in 1977 in a Washington hotel. The woman, Anne Manning, a married campaign worker for Gingrich, confirmed the story to NEWSWEEK, saying she decided to talk to “expose his hypocrisy and abuse of power.” Spokesman Tony Blankley called the article “trash,” but it still wasn’t the best news for a politician who earlier this year urged Americans to embrace the values of Victorian England.
Gingrich’s marriage to Marianne has been marked by several unannounced separations. Last week, on their 14th wedding anniversary, Newt flew off on a book tour to Phoenix and Denver, and Marianne was nowhere in sight. Friends said she was at their house in Georgia. “She’s got a place that’s kind of hers,” says Williams. “When I call she’s there. He’s not.” The question for Newt is, can he leave her there in a presidential year?
