Callaway: Well you see I've known Newt since '66 and I thought he was just as bright as could be. And when he began he ran against a good friend of mine, Jack Flynt, a Democrat. We voted differently a lot of times--but he's still a good friend. But I had to support Newt because I'm supporting a Republican. And the interesting thing was trying to get people to believe in Newt. They would say Newt Gingrich? An assistant professor at West Georgia College? With no political experience and no elected office, except running a little campaign, he is going to run against the dean of the Georgia delegation, who was seen to be the most conservative Democrat in the delegation. And Newt was the liberal. So I went to the business community, the people I knew in the business community, and said, 'I want you to support this Republican.' Well, they thought it was a little strange. But a lot of them did. And they stuck with him through all three elections. So, as they say, the rest is history.

Q: It seems throughout his life he has taken chances and been audacious.

Callaway: It's unbelievable. Everywhere he goes he takes chances and is audacious, but he knows where he's going. And it was not just, 'Hey, I think I'll do this today on a whim and do something tomorrow,' it was a plan that he kept with this Conservative Opportunity Society. They began to get 10, 15 members of Congress together. And it was not something where you sort of sit and talk and have a bull session and go on and do your work. There were plans and you're assigned this role, and another is assigned this one, and a third is assigned that one. And all of a sudden John Rhodes would be coming along. That's why he didn't think that much of Newt. John Rhodes would be coming along with a nice little plan and all of a sudden, "whoof!," these guys would be taking one-minute speeches, doing special orders, and writing letters --they call them "Dear Colleague" letters in the Congress -- to all of the members in the Republican Party. They'd be getting together and they would start doing their agenda, which was to have some confrontation on the issues they believed in. The Republicans' approach was: 'OK, the Democrats control the Congress, always have, always will, so let's accommodate and let's see if we can get a little bit either for our district' or, if they want to, in Jack Kemp's words, 'if they want to paint the room red, let's see if we can paint it a little lighter shade of red.'

And you are never going to win politically that way. How can you get people excited if you say, 'Well here's the bill that the Democrats want. Here's the vision that we've got. And we want it too, but we want a little less.' You have to have your own vision. So, Newt and the C.O.S. were saying, 'Here's our vision. It's opposed to their vision. No, we don't want to compromise. We want to sell our vision.' And that was just unthinkable. I mean, that got everybody pretty well shaken up.

Q: And Newt actually went after members of the establishment in Congress. He went after Diggs on ethics charges, later the Tip O'Neill confrontation and finally, Jim Wright.

Callaway: Oh yeah, and the Diggs was well thought-out. I think O'Neill sort of came as a happenstance. But Wright was really well thought-out. I was pretty close to Newt at that time and he agonized over it month after month, maybe even a year. And he said, 'Am I doing the right thing?' You don't take the Speaker on lightly. And he talked to his colleagues and he went through the issues. He went through the charges that he thought were valid and, of course, to make a charge by a member of Congress to the Speaker, you don't do that lightly. And he's still paying the price for it, I think.