The New Gang of Four

The term "Gang of Four" comes of course from the group that ruled
China when Chairman Mao was still alive but too infirm to be an
effective ruler. The leader of the Gang of Four was the wife of
Chairman Mao. After Chairman Mao died and the Gang-of-Four was
overthrown, the gang members were all put in prison where they
remained until they died.

The first time I ever heard the term "Gang-of-Four" applied to chess
politics was during the infamous 1986 "Majority Report" scandal.
There, four members of the policy board conspired to have Al Lawrence
publish in the USCF Annual Report a report highly critical of USCF
President Denis Barry. The problem was that Barry was never notified
of this and given an opportunity to respond. Also, the decision to
publish the majority report was not made at a meeting of the Policy
Board. Instead, the four board members got together in secret and then
instructed Al Lawrence to publish their report. The four members of
that Gang of Four were Vice President Fred Gruenberg, Treasurer Frank
Camaratta, and Members at Large Bill Snead and Robert Ferguson.

For more information on this, do a Google search under
rec.games.chess.politics for "Majority Report".

The reason for a "Gang-of-Four" is of course that the Executive Board
has seven members. Therefore, if four board members form a coalition,
they control the board and the votes and opinions of the other three
board members are irrelevant.

The next time a "Gang-of-Four" emerged was when Tim Redman was
president. There, the gang consisted of Tim Redman, Doris Barry, Jim
Pechac and Helen Warren. This gang obviously met in secret by
telephone conference call and made decisions. These decisions were
announced at the next Executive Board meeting. When the official
meeting was held, Redman would simply read off a list of resolutions
which had been approved by the Redman Gang. There would be almost no
discussion because the other three board members realized that it was
hopeless. Then the vote would be 4-3 with the Gang voting for what
ever nefarious deed was next planned and the other three board members
voting against. This is how we got stuck with the Games Parlor
contract, for example.

Lo how the mighty are fallen. The Evil Redman Gang of Four, which by
then had nearly destroyed the USCF, was swept from power in the 2001
elections when the four candidates backed by the Gang were defeated by
a reform group. The two remaining members of the gang resigned a few
months later.

Now we have a New Gang of Four. The New Gang of Four consists of
Beatriz Marinello, Tim Hanke, Don Schultz and Frank Brady. The
remaining board members, Frank Camaratta and Steve Shutt, are
completely out of it and have no say. The third non-gang member was
John McCrary. Once McCrary realized that he had been completely
marginalized, he resigned from the board.

However, the New Gang of Four is very much different from the previous
gangs. The new gang members do talk some to the non-Gang members. This
is not like under Redman, where those who were not in the gang had no
idea and no advanced warning of what was going to happen next.

However, the biggest difference in my view is that the four members of
the New Gang-of-Four are not really a unified group. The four members
of the Redman Gang apparently had a common philosophy. If there were
ever any differences between them, they were never made public. They
marched in lock step with each other. Nobody else knew anything.

The four members of the new gang have nothing in common with each
other. They do not share a common philosophy. They are held together
only by the fact that they need each other to get anything they want
passed.

The Bully of the New Gang of Four is Tim Hanke. The other gang members
are afraid of him. They know that if they lose him, then they will
lose their majority control. Therefore, they allow Hanke to do
whatever he wants and are afraid to disagree with him or to reign him
in.

I am sure that John McCrary is sorry that he resigned. Nobody knew,
imagined or anticipated that this new gang would emerge. Because
McCrary resigned, they do not even need their full four votes. A vote
of 3-2 still gives them majority control. For example, at the meeting
this past weekend, Frank Brady was told that his attendance was not
needed because the gang-of-four had enough votes to pass anything by
3-2.

I am predicting that the New Gang-of-Four will collapse within six
months and maybe much sooner. I do not know how it will happen.
However, I think it is likely that a board member will resign. That
will require a new election and the gang will break up.

Sam Sloan