NARRATOR: Du Pont--
a name recognized around the world,
famous maker of nylon, rayon, teflon, and paint. Everyone's heard of
the company, but we know little about the
family who founded it. With thousands of heirs, they're
richer than the Vanderbilts, the Gettys, or the Rockefellers. But by and large, you won't
see them on the evening news. The two exceptions-- one who
would be president and one who spun out of control and,
for the first time in years, dragged the family
name into scandal. [music playing] Unlike many wealthy
American families, the du Ponts did
not get rich quick. Theirs is a fortune that took
many generations to build. In fact, tracing
the family history means going all the way
back to 18th century France. It was the time of
the French Revolution, and the country was
in a state of turmoil. Angry mobs roamed the
streets, hunting down noblemen who were brutally
executed in what was known as the Reign of Terror. One of the fugitives
from the mobs was Pierre Samuel
du Pont de Nemours. Born the son of a
humble watchmaker, du Pont's natural
brilliance won him the position of economic
advisor to the king of France. Pierre's position
brought him in contact with men like Thomas Jefferson,
the American diplomat. It also raised the du
Pont family to the level of aristocrats , making
them prime targets of the revolutionaries. Facing death by guillotine,
du Pont very prudently decided it was time to
start a new life in America. On October 2, 1799,
Pierre and his family boarded the American Eagle, a
ship bound for the new world. The passengers had high hopes
as they set sail, blissfully unaware they had embarked
on a voyage from hell. The weather was foul. The ship leaked, and the
captain lost his way. So a trip that should have taken
seven or eight weeks stretched to more than 13. Food was so scarce
that towards the end, the du Ponts were reduced
to eating boiled rats. On New Year's Day,
1800, the ship finally docked in Newport, Rhode Island. LOUISA COPELAND
DUEMLING: They all got off the boat as
fast as they could, anything to get on some land. And there was this farmhouse. So they went up
to the farmhouse, and there was nobody home,
but there was a whole dinner ready to be eaten. And my family ate
that farmer's dinner. And the only saving grace to
their stealing, in a sense, somebody else's dinner was that
they left them a Louis d'or, which was a French gold
piece, which was probably more money than that
family would ever have seen in their lives. NARRATOR: Getting to America
had been a miserable ordeal, but the du Ponts were
eager to start a new life. Since Pierre was
getting on in years, his son, Eleuthere Irenee,
would take the lead in making the family's fortune. As a young man, Irenee,
had studied the manufacture of gunpowder. As this reenactment shows, he
was out hunting with a friend when he got the idea that
spawned a multi-million dollar business. [music playing] [gunshot] I think I got one. That is my third
misfire, Colonel. MAN: You should use
English powder as I do. The American made is very poor. You made powder
in France, Irenee. You're an expert. Maybe you can tell
what's wrong with it. I would have to examine it
carefully before I could tell, but there is no reason. Why don't you
make a study of it? Why not going into
powder making? The chemistry you learned
in France from [french] would make you the best
powder man over here, and you would be rendering a
great service to the country. Hmm. NARRATOR: It was a
golden opportunity. With money borrowed
from French investors, Irenee bought 95 acres
on the Brandywine River just outside
Wilmington, Delaware. He built his powder mills,
incorporating all the tricks of the trade he had
learned in France. For instance, instead
of one big factory, he built several widely
spaced smaller ones. That way, when there
was an explosion, he wouldn't see his entire
investment blown sky high. But by the spring of 1804, EI
du Pont de Nemours and Company was open for business. The first sizable order came
from an old family friend, Thomas Jefferson, now
President of the United States. Jefferson was pleased to hear
about Irenee's new business and saw to it that the US Army
and Navy bought du Pont powder. These contracts provided
the boost Irenee needed to get his company
off the ground and establish what would
be a long-term business relationship between du
Pont and the US government. In those early years, the entire
family worked in the mills. Living in that
somewhat isolated area, cousins often married
cousins, making the family a very close knit group. PIERRE DU PONT IV: Well,
understand that these people were French immigrants. They didn't speak
the language well. They were in a very dangerous
business, where people were getting injured and
killed all the time trying to make gunpowder. I mean one spark, and there
was a very large explosion. So they did kind
of stick together. [music playing] NARRATOR: It was
a point of pride that the du Ponts assumed the
same risks as their employees. Family members not only worked
alongside the powder men. They built their homes
beside the mill yards. LOUISA COPELAND
DUEMLING: My father was trained as a
very little boy. If he heard any explosion,
he was to go and stand in the doorway of his room until
someone came, because that was the strongest part of the house. And the beds were not
up against the wall. They were in the middle of the
room, because if anything had blown, you didn't want a picture
falling over on top of you in your bed or the wall
coming down and hitting you. [explosion] NARRATOR: Despite
all the precautions, there were many accidents
in those early years. One horrific explosion
in March, 1818, killed 40 workers instantly
and shook the ground as far away as Pennsylvania. These accidents were
tough on Irenee, but he never thought
of giving up. GERARD COLBY: The company,
to a certain degree, gave a-- a purpose for the family. The company becomes a statement
to them of their worth. It becomes a
statement of their-- of their patriotism
to their new country. [explosion] NARRATOR: Du Pont would
provide the US government with explosives in every war,
beginning with the War of 1812. [music playing] Though these early conflicts
provided steady profits, Irenee was plagued by a
shortage of working capital. Every dollar earned went
toward rebuilding or expanding. In 1834, the strain on
this hardworking man finally took its toll. Irenee died of a heart
attack at age 63. Ironically, the founder of a
multi-million dollar company died owing money
to his creditors. Alfred du Pont,
Irenee's oldest son, would head the company
for the next 13 years. More a scientist
than a businessman, Alfred's philosophy was, make
it better, make it safer, a policy that very nearly ran
the company into the ground. Fortunately, his younger
brother, Henry, a West Point graduate, took over in 1850. Known as The General, Henry had
an entirely different outlook. Make it quicker, make it
cheaper, was his philosophy, and he saw to it his
workers did just that. It was under Henry
that the company first started making a profit, thanks
to his skill as a manager, as well as to the country's
great push westward. GERARD COLBY: What's happening
is that the United States is growing as a nation. It's expanding
across the continent. In the course of doing
so, it's building roads. It's building canals. So what you have is
a-- is a nation coming into being on this
continent, and du Pont Powder played a big role in
making that happen. NARRATOR: As Henry
got older, the family was relieved when his
nephew, Lammot du Pont, emerged as the star
of his generation. Lammot seemed to have it all. He was tall, good looking,
and a gifted chemist. But in 1884, Lammot was at
Repauno, a dynamite plant he had started in New Jersey,
when a worker alerted him to a problem with a
nitroglycerin experiment. Mr. du Pont? Yes? There's something
wrong in the nitrator. All right, I'm coming. IRENEE DU PONT, JR.: And he
found that the mixture was already beginning to
decompose and bubble and boil, and so he pulled the handle
that would drop the bottom out of the vessel into a
swimming pool-like container and ran as fast as he could. And it did go off
with such force that the barrier around the
machinery moved right over and buried him. NARRATOR: Lammot
was only 53 when he died, leaving his wife,
Mary, to care for their nine children. It was a devastating blow
for the du Pont family. When Henry died just
five years later, there was no one really
qualified to take charge. The older partners kept the
company going until 1902, when they decided to
do the unthinkable. They would sell out to
their biggest competitor. 100 years of hard
work and sacrifice were on the line, when Alfred
I du Pont, a young member of the firm, made a
bold announcement. We will proceed with the sale
as soon as it can be arranged. The meeting is adjourned. Just a moment, sir. I'll buy the company. You, Alfred? Yes, I'll bet against
Laflin and Rand. [music playing] NARRATOR: At the
turn of the century, du Pont's directors were on
the verge of selling the firm to its biggest competitor,
when Alfred du Pont announced he would buy the company. It was a noble gesture,
but no one really thought he could do it. The Laflin and Rand
Company had already put in a bid of $12
million, and Alfred, who worked in the
powder mills, just didn't have that kind of money. Nonetheless, he was determined
that the company stay in the hands of the
family who founded it. RICHARD DENT: He was a
very ambitious young man, and he also was the
eldest son of the-- eldest son of the founder
of the company, EI du Pont. And he thought it was
sort of his birthright that he should eventually
be the head of the company. NARRATOR: The board members
considered Alfred far too inexperienced and impulsive
to run the company, but they gave him a week
to come up with a proposal. Otherwise, they would go
through with the sale. That was all the time Alfred
needed, for he had a plan. He would recruit other young du
Ponts to join him in a buyout. First on the list-- his cousin, T. Coleman du Pont,
a successful businessman living in Kentucky. IRENEE DU PONT, JR.: So
Alfred got on the telephone, and he called his
cousin, Coleman. He said, look, they're
going to sell this company, but I think we can buy it. You'd better come home here and
see if we can't cook up a deal. We've got a week. GERARD COLBY: T. Coleman
du Pont is, of course, looked up to and
admired by everybody. He was a very handsome, dashing
fellow with a dark mustache, stood tall. You could imagine him walking
off a Kentucky ranch, you know. He would always smile and crack
a-- crack a joke when he could. He was notorious for that. NARRATOR: Coleman agreed
to help on one condition-- that he get to be president. JAMES Q DU PONT: How do
you like this for brass? Here's Alfred I with his finger
in the dike holding a wall and calling Coleman, I need you. And Coleman saying, I'll only
play if you make me boss. And then Alfred I, in one
of his finest moments, I think, said just a
five-word sentence. He said, "Very well, Coley. You're it." NARRATOR: The two also decided
to bring their cousin, Pierre S du Pont, in on the deal. Pierre, a hardworking,
responsible young man, was the oldest son of Lammot
du Pont, who was killed in the Repauno explosion. Pierre was only 14 when
he became surrogate father to his eight siblings in 1884. Now 32, he was already
considered a financial wizard when he joined forces
with his cousins. The three seemed
an unbeatable team, but there was just
one small problem. They didn't have enough
money to buy the company. "Not to worry," said Coleman. "We'll offer them shares in the
new company instead of cash." So we have these three
characters coming forward to the elders and saying,
look, we want to keep the company in the family. Let's not lose it. We're ready. We're willing. Give us a break. Accept stock instead of cash. Accept a holding in the company
for your future generations. Well, I think the
elders must've all looked at each
other and thought, you know, what the heck? Let's-- let's give
the kids a chance. That was about the best
decision they ever made. NARRATOR: The three cousins,
all grandsons of EI du Pont, had pulled off the
deal of the century. For virtually no
money down, they bought the largest explosives
company in the world. As long as it was
all in the family, no one seemed to mind
who got the better deal. Plus, the infusion of
youthful management did wonders for the company. EDMUND CARPENTER: Pierre du
Pont was the financial wizard. Alfred du Pont was the
manufacturing expert. And TC du Pont
was the front man, the person that won friends,
the person who made the sales, and the person who was, indeed,
in the corner doing card tricks and delighting everybody. [laughter] Look at Coleman. He's right in his element. And presto. It's gone. Not a mark on it. [laughter] NARRATOR: Coleman was on a roll. Just months after buying
du Pont, he and Pierre came up with a plan to
buy Laflin and Rand, and once again, they did it
without putting up a dime. As Coleman liked to say,
buying companies was no trick. The trick was doing it
with the other guy's money. With ease, Coleman got
the Laflin and Rand people to accept a stock
package instead of cash. The du Pont Company, which six
months earlier, was on its way out, was suddenly master of
the US explosives and gunpowder industry. Now, the most prominent family
in Delaware, the du Ponts began trading in those small
homes in the powder yards for big estates on
the Brandywine River. But with success, the family
would no longer be as close knit as it once was. In fact, an all out
family feud would soon divide not just the cousins,
but the entire du Pont clan. The problems began when Maurice
du Pont, Alfred's younger brother, went to Ireland
and married a barmaid-- not the match most people
expected from a du Pont. The papers had a field day. The family was still
reeling from that revelation when Alfred Victor
du Pont II died. According to first reports,
Fred, a bachelor and one of the leading citizens
in Louisville, Kentucky, collapsed in front of
his brother's house. Two days later, a
Cincinnati paper came out with the real story. He was shot to
death in the best-- I want to make-- emphasize the best
bordello in Louisville. It wasn't the second best. It was supposed to have been
the best bordello in Louisville, by one of the girls, who was
pregnant and claimed that he was the father. And he said he doubted
whether he really was, which I can understand
why in those circumstances. So she shot him. NARRATOR: But even getting
shot in a whorehouse didn't cause half the outrage
and discord that Alfred du Pont's divorce did. In 1886, Alfred and
his younger brother, Louis, both fell in love
with Bessie Gardner, the lovely blonde blue-eyed
daughter of a Yale professor. WILLIAM CARR: Alfred,
being more aggressive, managed to snag her. This just totally
destroyed Louis. He turned to drink. He became the first du
Pont to be a playboy and to throw his money away,
and he ultimately shot himself to death. NARRATOR: There are those
who say this tragedy doomed the marriage from the start,
and sure enough, in 1906, Alfred divorced Bessie and married
his pretty young cousin, Alicia Bradford. RICHARD DENT: He was obviously
sleeping with her long before they were married,
and why he bothered to get a divorce, which was then
considered verboten in the du Pont family. God knows it'd have made
everybody's life a lot easier if he hadn't. NARRATOR: The couple, who
were married in New York City, got a cold reception when
they returned to Wilmington. RICHARD DENT: Alfred
got in the car, and Coley said, now, Al,
you've really done it. From then on, I
think he was really ostracized by the family, both
socially and at-- at work. NARRATOR: Alfred, once the great
savior, was now an outcast. He built a new home on the
outskirts of town, a place where he and Alicia
could be alone. It was called Neumors, a
magnificent 77-room mansion modeled after Versailles. As a finishing touch,
he surrounded the estate with a nine-foot wall
topped with broken glass. That wall, Alfred declared, is
to keep out intruders, mainly by the name of du Pont. In 1915, Alfred I du Pont opened
up his Sunday morning paper to find that his cousin, Pierre,
was the new head of the du Pont Company. Without his knowledge, Pierre
had bought out Coleman's stock so that Coley could pursue
a career in politics. Why Coleman and Pierre
left Alfred out of the loop has always been a question. Some believe it was
their way of getting back at him for the scandal he
caused by divorcing his wife and marrying his cousin, Alicia. RICHARD DENT: Pierre
and Coleman started to pull away from my
grandfather and ostracized him, almost within-- within a year or so after the
beginnings of the relationship with Alicia. I think because he thought that
they were cousins, because they had been friends of his, that he
would always be close to them. I don't think he was aware
of the impact of his marriage to Alicia. NARRATOR: Alfred saw the
buyout as a declaration of war, and in a major breach
of family tradition, he made the dispute public
by taking Pierre to court. Nothing in the
history of the family was ever so divisive as the
case of du Pont versus du Pont. Cousins didn't talk to
cousins, and in some cases, husbands didn't talk to wives. The case dragged through
the courts for years before reaching the US Supreme
Court in 1919, which refused to hear Alfred's final appeal. By this time, he had been
ousted from the du Pont board of directors, and
Pierre was the man in charge. Shy and unassuming, Pierre
could have been mistaken for a college professor,
but beneath that scholarly appearance was a
very shrewd man. PIERRE DU PONT IV: He was a
man who, if you said something, he'd kind of look at
you and say, well, why do you think that? That was terrifying
for a 10-year-old boy. I mean you expected to say
something, and somebody-- an adult to say, oh, fine. But he always looked
at you and said, well, why do you think that,
as if he was searching for some germ of wisdom, some
kernel of wisdom in what you had said. NARRATOR: From the
time Pierre took over, du Pont never stopped growing. In just 10 years, he took
a Delaware-based explosives business and turned it
into the world's largest chemical corporation. The family had been
wealthy before, but Peter would make
it rich beyond belief. Primarily, the
growth was financed by the tremendous profits
du Pont made in World War I, when it supplied 40% of all the
explosives used by the allies. GERARD COLBY: They made an
absolute fortune, probably more money than any other family
did in the United States off that war. The figure that most people
settle on is about $250 million off the war. That is an extraordinary
amount in those days. I mean you're talking
billions of dollars today, in today's dollars. NARRATOR: Pierre would use
that money to branch out into new areas of production. Du Pont was soon making products
like quick dry Duco paint, artificial leather, dyes,
rayon, and cellophane. But Pierre's biggest
postwar investment was a 23% interest in
an American company just getting started,
General Motors. GM had tremendous potential,
but it was terribly mismanaged. By 1918, its board of directors
was begging Pierre to take over as chairman. PIERRE DU PONT
IV: General Motors was going under, because they
were just making automobiles. I mean they had a
bunch of divisions-- Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick--
terrific at making automobiles, but they had no structure. They kind of controlled
the process, marketed, make sure they make money,
keep their loans under control. Pierre was asked to come in. They'd seen what he had
done in the du Pont Company, and they said, maybe you
could come here and fix this. NARRATOR: By reorganizing GM
along the lines of du Pont, Pierre managed to turn
this sagging company around in just four years. ALFRED CHANDLER: It would be
hard to think of anyone that could have come in and saved it,
but Pierre could-- did, and did it very quickly and effectively. And he had the authority,
he had the knowledge, and he had the sense of
getting good managers. No one else could
have done that. NARRATOR: By 1920, Pierre
controlled one of the biggest Detroit automakers and the
most powerful explosive company in America. But being a big business
type left him little time for a private life. By the time he
reached his mid-40s, everyone had pretty much given
up hope that this intensely shy man would ever marry. The only woman Pierre
had shown any attention was his cousin, Alice
Belin, now also in her 40s. So naturally, the family was
stunned when Pierre announced he had married Alice
in a private ceremony in New York in October of 1915. This photo was taken of the
couple on their honeymoon. She had waited 23 years for
him to pop the question. LOUISA COPELAND DUEMLING: She
adored him from the time she was very young and knew him. And there was no other
man for her but him, as far as she was concerned,
even though they were cousins. So eventually, her
perseverance won out, I guess. NARRATOR: No one really knows
why PR waited so long to marry. He was a private man who
did not have close friends outside his family. One of the few exceptions was
Lewes Mason, his chauffeur and handyman. The two spent a
great deal of time together enjoying
their shared interests in music and horticulture. WILLIAM CARR: Pierre made him
a beneficiary of many gifts and other acts that went
beyond ordinary friendship. They could very well-- he
could very well have been just the son that Pierre never had,
or he could have been more than that. NARRATOR: When Mason
died of influenza, Pierre spent more
than a million dollars building a hospital as a
memorial to the young man. It was an uncharacteristically
public gesture, which caused people to wonder. GERARD COLBY: Some people in
the family believed he was gay, and I think there was an
understanding that he had a private life that
nobody ventured into. Nobody crossed certain
lines with him. NARRATOR: If Pierre did
demonstrate a passion for anything, it was Longwood
Gardens, his sprawling country estate in Pennsylvania. He bought it in 1906, when
it was just a run down park. And he spent 48
years transforming it into a fantasy land of
indoor and outdoor gardens. One of Pierre's
greatest pleasures was throwing lavish garden
parties at Longwood, parties that soon became the
highlight of the Wilmington social season. [music playing] EDMUND CARPENTER: You
could arrive at Longwood in the dead of winter
with snow on the ground, and yet walk into this lush,
warm garden with four or five acres under glass and
stroll past orchids and stroll past cactuses and
into one room where Meyer Davis Orchestra was playing and
another room where there was a buffet, and arrangements
were made for dining. So it was really something
redolent of another era. NARRATOR: Pierre personally
designed the gardens at Longwood, and
in 1927, he also installed a number
of water fountains-- not just ordinary fountains. These were jet-powered and
electronically controlled. PIERRE DU PONT IV:
He invented an organ that, instead of putting
out music, put out colors. And you could actually sit and
play a kind of color piano. And when you punched
the key here, the fountain was yellow
there, and then it was red, and then it was green. And you can watch today a
sound and light show in which this very organ is used
on the fountain displays, and it's a wondrous
thing to watch. NARRATOR: In 1931,
the fountains were turned on for the
first time in public. But that year marked the last of
Pierre's great garden parties, for as the country got caught
up in the Great Depression, public sentiment began to shift. Families who had
profited from the war were seen as villains, or as
the du Pont's came to be known, merchants of death. The du Pont family had
always been proud of its role in providing munitions, whenever
the United States was called to war. But all that changed in the
early 1930s, when they became the focus of a highly
publicized Senate investigation. Senator Gerald Nye,
head investigator, went on a rampage, calling the
du Ponts "merchants of death" and claiming they had
defrauded the US government. International racketeers
in hate, fear, suspicion, in the hell that war
is, racketeers in death. GERARD COLBY:
There's a difference between making a profit and
making an absolute fortune, becoming a war profiteer. And that was-- that were the
charges that came against du Pont, that they were
overcharging, that they were producing powder much cheaper
than what they were claiming in their cost of production
figures to the government. Nothing could be more absurd
than Senator Nye's allegation, but he had the whole
press and media with him. And he fanned up a
real hue and cry, and it became a real cause
celebre in the nation. NARRATOR: By this time,
Pierre had stepped down as president of du Pont. He was succeeded by his
two younger brothers. Irenee du Pont
took over in 1919, and ran the company until 1926,
when Lammot du Pont became president. All three testified at
the Senate hearings, but it was Irenee who caused
the biggest stir, as he calmly puffed on his pipe and told the
committee that without du Pont, the allies might very
well have lost the war. By the end of its
two-year investigation, the committee had found
no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the du Ponts. But it didn't matter. The damage to their
reputation had been done. The du Pont family, which had
always shunned the spotlight, would become even more reclusive
after the Nye hearings. But much as the du Ponts tried
to maintain a low profile, their very success often
made them a prime target of criticism. And with the country in the
depths of the Great Depression, even President
Franklin Roosevelt couldn't resist a quick jab at
wealthy families like the du Ponts. RALPH MOYED: FDR called
them princes of privilege, and I think he had
pretty much had it. These very wealthy people
opposed the New Deal, fought it tooth and nail. FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT:
I do not believe a few powerful interests
should be permitted to make industrial cannon
fodder of the lives of half the population of
the United States. [applause] NARRATOR: Stung
by these attacks, many du Ponts joined
the Liberty League, an ultra conservative political
group whose primary goal was to get FDR out of
the White House. With all that
animosity in the air, it must have come as
some surprise in 1936, when the president's
son announced his engagement to a lovely young
heiress named Ethel du Pont. ANNOUNCER: A du Pont becomes
a Roosevelt in the highlight of the social season. NARRATOR: The bride and groom
were about the only people who smiled at the reception, as the
two sides spent the afternoon ever so politely
avoiding one another. IRENEE DU PONT, JR.: Inevitably,
my father had to shake hands with Franklin D
Roosevelt. And I'd never seen my father say something
that made me uneasy before, but he said, Mr. President,
I am your arch enemy. And he said, you can see I don't
have horns or a tail or hoofs, and I just wanted you to know
that today, I'm your friend. And the President
graciously laughed, and they said a few
nothings, and they moved on. NARRATOR: The truce, just like
the marriage, didn't last. Franklin and Ethel
divorced in 1949. But Roosevelt and the
du Ponts would put aside their differences when, once
again, the country went to war. 1942-- with Hitler on
the rise in Europe, the US government asked
the du Ponts for help building an atomic bomb. Not surprisingly, this led
to some deep soul searching in Wilmington. WILLIAM CARR: They really
were reluctant to get into it. They had been burned so badly
in the congressional hearings in the 1930s that they wanted to
stay as far away as they could from anything that
could be interpreted as war profiteering. NARRATOR: Eventually, du
Pont did build a plutonium production plant in
Hanford, Washington. But its fee for this
$350 million operation was exactly $1 after costs. The company also refused
all patent rights coming out of the program. The fact is du Pont had no
interest in making munitions anymore. By mid-century,
the three brothers had transformed du Pont into
a hugely successful chemical manufacturer, making better
things for better living through chemistry. Particularly during Lammot
du Pont's presidency, the company placed a great
deal of emphasis on research. A quiet unpretentious man
famous for riding his bike to work every day, Lammot
gambled $27 million on a project that finally
paid off with the mother lode of all du Pont inventions-- nylon. When the first nylon stockings
went on sale in 1940, there was a run on
US department stores. Cheaper and more durable
than silk stockings, 750,000 pairs of nylons were
sold on that first day alone. IRENEE DU PONT, JR.: It was the
biggest product du Pont ever launched. No question about it. It was certainly the most
successful and still is. NARRATOR: Other du
Pont discoveries included neoprene,
a synthetic rubber, and lucite acrylic resin. By the 1940s, du Pont was
not just the largest chemical company in the US. It was the largest in the world. Its very size made the du
Ponts conspicuous, something they had always tried to avoid. And sure enough,
they paid a price. In 1949, the US
Justice Department slapped them with a lawsuit,
charging that du Pont stock holdings in General Motors
and the US Rubber Company violated antitrust laws. After endless testimony,
millions of dollars in legal fees, and
13 years, the court ordered du Pont to divest
itself of all its GM holdings. GERARD COLBY: That was a
very bitter blow for them, but I think it played a role
in the willingness of some of the youngsters to take on
the kind of role of leadership that their elders had so
that by the time you reached the early 1970s, there
really isn't a new generation ready to step up and take on
the leadership of the company. [applause] NARRATOR: In 1952,
Pierre and Irenee hosted a party to celebrate the
150th anniversary of the start of the du Pont company. 630 employees and family members
gathered for a sit-down lunch. The family could take pride
in what it had accomplished in just 150 years. But this picnic would
mark the end of an era. Lammot du Pont, who
was too ill to attend, died of a heart attack in 1952. Two years later, Pierre died,
and Irenee died in 1963. By that time, there
was no longer a du Pont at the helm of the company. Family members were still
the major stockholders, but few wanted to devote
their lives to the company-- certainly not now, when
they could set their sights on even bigger goals. I'm sure that old Pierre
is smiling as he looks down from the heavens today to
hear his namesake say, I am a candidate for President of
the United States of America. [applause] NARRATOR: Though the du
Ponts' role in the company declined in the
1960s and '70s, they were still the most
prominent family in Delaware. RALPH MOYED: It's
a very small state, and the du Ponts live
very large in it. You can't walk two blocks
without running into something called du Pont, either a
person or an institution. NARRATOR: In 1971, Ralph
Nader and his Raiders decided to use Delaware as a
case study of what happens when one family completely
dominates a state. RALPH NADER: Well,
when we wrote our book, du Pont owned the two major
newspapers in Wilmington, controlled the two major banks,
decided what kind of property tax would be levied on their
spacious chateau country estates, and
controlled a good deal of the charitable contributions. That is too much power
for any corporation or any private entity
in our society, if we believe in democracy
and accountability. RALPH MOYED: You know, there's
some truth to what Nader says. They've taken care
of themselves. They're a major employer with a
strong influence in the state. But many people in the
state, [inaudible],, are very devoted to them
and will not entertain any criticism of them. And those-- those people
probably were the majority. NARRATOR: Part of that
devotion stems from gratitude, for the du Ponts have done a
lot for the state, building schools, roads, and hospitals. And many of their great estates
are now public institutions, like Longwood Gardens,
Winterthur Museum, and the Nemours Institute,
a Children's Hospital. The du Ponts can
afford to be generous, for they are one of the
wealthiest families in America. GERARD COLBY: 20 years
ago, we estimated they were at $10 billion. "Forbes" magazine
still uses that figure. There's no family that compares
with that in the United States. NARRATOR: So why is it we
know so little about them? It's because the du Ponts have
always gone out of their way to avoid attention. LOUISA COPELAND DUEMLING:
Oh, yes, shyness is the curse of the family. We're all afflicted with
it, or many, many of us are. There's certainly
a notion of shyness that runs in the family-- not secrecy, not paranoia,
but more of a shyness, more reserved type of nature. NARRATOR: Given the family's
pension for privacy, it came as quite a shock when
John Eleuthere du Pont was charged with the murder of
former Olympic wrestling champion, David Schultz. John du Pont, a
great-great-grandson of the founder of
the du Pont fortune was a sports enthusiast, who
built a $600,000 training center for wrestlers on his
800-acre Pennsylvania estate. The center attracted
world class wrestlers like Dave Schultz, who was
living in a house on the du Pont estate with his
wife and two children while training for
the 1996 Olympics. But for reasons that remain a
mystery, on January 26, 1996, witnesses say du Pont gunned
the wrestler down as he stood unarmed in his driveway. DuPont then fled the scene
and barricaded himself inside his mansion. What followed was
a tense standoff as SWAT teams moved in. Local authorities were
reluctant to use force against the 57-year-old
millionaire, who was known to be an expert marksman. Finally, after a 48-hour siege,
police arrested du Pont when he left his house unarmed
to repair the furnace, which police had purposely turned off. As he was taken
into custody, people were left to wonder what might
have caused him to commit such a terrible crime. By all accounts,
John du Pont, who is said to be worth
more than $40 million, had always been a loner. A brief marriage to Gale
Wenk, a physical therapist, lasted just eight months. She claims he was
frequently drunk and that he abused her, punching
and threatening to kill her. And in the weeks leading
up to the shooting, du Pont's mental state appeared
to have declined even further. He would see, you know,
bugs and things crawling that weren't there, and people
were trying to get him and-- HENRY DU PONT:
The time machines, the clocks that are on the
bicycles and exercise machines, he thought were taking
him back in time. NARRATOR: Some say
those around du Pont may have ignored signs he
needed psychiatric help because of his wealth and connections. I think a lot of us overlooked
the strange things that were happening, because we
looked at the great things he was doing for wrestling. As the wrestling world
mourns the loss of one of its top athletes, the motive
for the murder of Dave Schultz remains unclear. What is clear is that this
story has ended tragically for everyone involved. My family must now
turn its focus and energy to my children,
Alexander and Danielle, who had a very close
relationship with their father and who are struggling
to understand how and why this tragedy happened. NARRATOR: Prior to
this episode, it was unusual to see a
du Pont in the news. LAMMOT DU PONT:
Very rarely will you find a cousin or a relative
who seeks publicity, who seeks the spotlight, who wants to be
on television, who wants to be in the papers. NARRATOR: Pierre S. Du Pont IV,
who prefers to be called Pete, is one of the few exceptions. du Pont served two terms
as governor of Delaware before running for
president in 1988. Pete du Pont, running for
President in the election Tuesday. NARRATOR: A poor showing in
the New Hampshire primary knocked him out
of the race early. PIERRE DU PONT IV: Big
country, lots of competition, but you know, the
ideas caught on. What didn't catch on was enough
voters to make a difference. NARRATOR: But Pete
still doesn't rule out the possibility of a du
Pont in the White House. PIERRE DU PONT IV:
I'd love to try again, but that's a tough business. You need a much bigger base
than I've developed so far, but who knows? NARRATOR: The year 2000
will mark the du Ponts' 200th anniversary in America. In that time, eight generations
worked together as a family to turn a small
gunpowder company into one of the greatest
industrial empires of all time. RALPH NADER: They've kept
their identity longer probably than any other family
dynasty in America. WILLIAM CARR: They are a family
that have thrived in obscurity, and people really don't
think of them that much. Du Pont was a name on the label. As my father said once, we're
just French immigrants who achieved the American dream. We came speaking a
foreign language. We built a business in a new
country, and it succeeded. And that's the
promise of America. [music playing]
