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No Relation No. 2: Wise Man Edition

Bruce Gottlieb
Posted Monday, Oct. 19, 1998, at 5:46 PM ET

The Star reported last month that Marcia Lewis, Monica's mother, is married to Robert Strauss. A tabloid scoop? No: Marcia Lewis is in fact married to R. Peter Straus. Both are Democratic party muckety-mucks. What's the difference (besides the extra "s")?

Robert Strauss (a.k.a. Mr. Democrat), age 79, is a Washington political powerbroker who has served as the U.S. Special Trade Representative, Chair of the DNC, Jimmy Carter's "inflation czar," and George Bush's Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Strauss turned his Dallas law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, and other names (known generally as "Akin Gump" and by some as "Oh My Akin Gump") into a Washington influence powerhouse. Its star partner is no longer Strauss but Vernon Jordan.

R. Peter Straus, age 74, is a New York Democratic fundraiser and publisher with a slightly less glittering string of political appointments (assistant administrator for Africa of AID, director of Voice of America). Straus is also an amateur opera buff, which is how he met 50 year old Marcia Lewis (she wrote a book on the Three Tenors). The two married this April.

Strauss and Straus are not related. However, Vernon Jordan is also a long-standing friend of Peter Straus. He spoke at the funeral of Straus's first wife and Jordan and Straus once applied to buy a Washington D.C. radio station together.

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Bruce Gottlieb is a law student and a former Slate staff writer.
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