WHO ARE THE RICH BEHIND GINGRICH, INC.?

By Greg Butterfield

Defender of working Americans. Patriot. Spokesman for families
and traditional values.

This is how Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia describes himself.

But who and what does Gingrich--the new Republican Speaker of the
U.S. House of Representatives--really represent?

Most poor and working people know Gingrich only by his
declarations since the November 1994 elections: vows to dismantle
welfare and public services; scapegoating oppressed peoples,
women, and lesbians and gays; attacks on health-and-safety
regulations.

But Gingrich is no newcomer to capitalist politics. He has
long-standing ties to the U.S. ruling class. His plan of attack
against the working class is based on the class interests of this
small grouping of super-wealthy owners. This article will show
the direct financial connection between two members of the
super-rich U.S. rulers and Gingrich.

Gingrich's aim--and that of the whole capitalist ruling class--is
to push U.S. society back to the era before the New Deal reforms.

Before union rights. Before unemployment insurance and the
minimum wage. Before public assistance and Social Security.

Before civil rights laws. Before all the concessions won by
struggles of the workers and oppressed.

The strategy isn't new. It started with capitalist restructuring,
before Reagan and Bush. But while workers faced attack from all
sides, then the main target of the ruling-class assault was the
Soviet Union.

Today the Soviet Union is gone. And the ruling class is
emboldened to push harder against the workers here. President
Bill Clinton just isn't pushing hard enough to satisfy them.

The bosses are united in this goal--but not about how to achieve
it. Some capitalists fear the headlong attack led by Gingrich,
Helms and Dole. They're scared of provoking a new outbreak of the
class struggle.

THE BOOK DEAL

But some sectors of the billionaire ruling class not only support
Gingrich and company, they have already rewarded them.

An unnamed rival of the HarperbCollins publishing firm revealed
Dec. 22 that Gingrich had signed a $4 million advance contract to
author two books for the publisher.

That kind of advance is virtually unheard of, especially for an
active political figure.

Democratic Rep. David E. Bonior charged the contact was "a four million
dollar Christmas gift" from Rupert Murdoch, the right-wing media
mogul whose empire spans three continents. Murdoch, originally
from Australia and now a U.S. citizen, owns Harper Collins, the
New York Post and Fox television, to name a few.

The Federal Communications Commission is currently investigating
Fox for alleged violation of laws prohibiting foreign ownership
of U.S. television stations. And the FCC is only one of the many
government regulatory agencies Gingrich aims to cut back.

NEW YORK TIMES EXPOSE

But Murdoch isn't the only ruling-class figure behind Gingrich.
His connections to the even more powerful du Pont family can be
traced through his fund-raising committees.

An expose of Gingrich's political connections, written by Stephen
Engelberg and Katharine Q. Seelye, appeared in The New York Times
Dec. 18.

The article raised issues of conflict of interest about the
funding of Gopac, a political action committee headed by
Gingrich. Washington insiders say Gopac played a key role in the
election campaigns of 127 Republican congressional candidates.

Engelberg and Seelye write, "Back in 1987, when most people
thought Democratic control of the House would last forever, Newt
Gingrich had a vision: raise millions of dollars and spend it to
nurture a dynamic new generation of Republican politicians--a
farm team that could some day march from the statehouses to
Congress.

"He had a vehicle as well: a political action committee called
Gopac that is the centerpiece of what has become known as 'Newt
Inc.,' an interlocking set of entities that in recent years has
grown to include a think tank and college course beamed around
the country.

"Gopac helped Gingrich raise money and fashion an ideology, while
operating largely out of public view. To Republican admirers, it
was Gopac that sowed the seeds of this year's victory."

Closely linked to Gopac is the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a
far-right think tank directed by Gingrich aides. The Foundation
underwrites such projects as a weekly call-in program on a
conservative cable network, and a satellite-broadcast college
course, taught by Gingrich, called "Renewing American
Civilization."

The list of Gopac's major funders has never been made public. The
Times describes it as "dotted with the names of investment
bankers, health executives and others with an interest in federal
legislation." Gopac raised $7.8 million between Jan. 1991 and
December 1994, according to Common Cause. The Progress and
Freedom Foundation is projected to raise $2.3 million for the
year ending April 1, 1995.

Gingrich and Gopac are under investigation by the House Ethics
Committee because of his refusal to reveal most of Gopac's
donors. Gingrich claims he needs to reveal just a handful of the
donors since only 10 percent of Gopac's budget goes directly to
federal candidates.

Gopac holds seminars and produces tapes and literature instructing
Republican candidates on how to run campaigns targeting the most
oppressed. Among the most popular of these feature tips on the
use of code words that whip up racism and bigotry.

Freshman Rep. Robert Wicker, elected to Congress in Mississippi,
praised the Gopac method. "One recurring phrase I used throughout
the campaign was 'the liberal welfare state has failed and must
be replaced.' It's straight from Gingrich."

GINGRICH AND THE DU PONTS

Significantly, the Times tied Gingrich to one of the most
powerful and reactionary factions within the U.S. ruling class--
the du Pont family. Gopac was founded in 1978 by former Delaware
Gov. Pierre (Pete) du Pont.

While the Times pointedly draws a connection between Gingrich and
the du Ponts, the article doesn't explain what that connection
means. Even while criticizing Gingrich, the Times, as a major
mouthpiece of the ruling class, does not dare to expose the
forces behind him.

It's widely known that arch-reactionary Senator Jesse Helms, the
new head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has
longstanding ties to the Pentagon and the military-industrial
complex. Both Helms and Senator Robert Dole were, for example,
associated with front groups set up by the Committee on the
Present Danger, a coalition of military and capitalist figures
who pushed for the Pentagon build-up during the late 1970s.

Gingrich's ties to the du Pont family show a similar organic
connection to the military-industrial complex.

The family's flagship, the E.I. du Pont de Nemours chemical
company, ranked eighth in the 1993 Fortune 500 with sales of over
$37 billion. But that's only part of the family's holdings.

Other major corporations controlled by the du Pont family are
Bank of Delaware, Boeing Aircraft, Coca-Cola, Hercules Chemical,
Phillips Petroleum, Remington Firearms, and Uniroyal. The family
also holds major interests in auto giant General Motors and two
of the three largest banks, Citicorp and Chemical Bank.

Like the Rockefellers and the Mellons, you won't find their names
in Fortune magazine's listing of the world's billionaires. They
prefer to keep their power well hidden.

In his 1974 book "Du Pont: Behind the Nylon Curtain," author
Gerard Colby Zilg wrote, "While the du Ponts' direct personal
wealth has been computed at $7.629 billion, a very conservative
estimate, the worth of their fortune is best measured in the $150
billion in assets in which they have a controlling interest."

It is no coincidence that the du Ponts were known as the
"merchants of death" after World War I.

Irenee du Pont, the family scion, got rich selling gun powder to
the U.S. government in the early 1800s. His parents, loyal
supporters of King Louis, fled to the U.S. in 1790 to escape the
great French Revolution.

"As an ordinance enterprise in an era of big wars, Du Pont grew
astronomically, attaining its biggest growth in World War I, and
thus provided the sinews for branching out into at least four of
the biggest modern industries: chemicals, automobiles, oil and
rubber," wrote Ferdinand Lundberg in "The Rich and the
Super-Rich."

The du Ponts opposed the New Deal concessions granted by
Roosevelt, urging naked repression instead. Zilg writes that du
Ponts, allied with the House of Morgan, were involved in a failed
plot to overthrow the Roosevelt government by force.

The du Ponts' National Economic Council authored the anti-labor
Taft-Hartley Act. They helped to launch the McCarthy witch hunts.

The last time Republicans controlled the Congress, in the
mid-1950s, Du Pont-backed officials filled strategic posts in the
Truman and Eisenhower administrations, and directed many
lucrative military contracts to its companies. Today the family remains in the front ranks of military profiteers, supplying arms, ordinance, missiles and vehicles, and high  technology to the Pentagon. It's the du Ponts and others like them who dictated Newt Gingrich's "Contract on America."                              -30-

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