Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush
It is the last Sunday of the month, meaning it’s time for the next president, making this week’s book Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham.
George H.W. Bush was born June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts to Prescott Bush Sr and Dorothy Walker Bush. He was the second son, his elder brother was Prescott Bush Jr, and so Bush was named for his mother’s father, George Herbert Walker. And because the elder Walker was called Pop, Bush was given the nickname Poppy, which stuck throughout his childhood and Barbara would refer to him as Poppy in letters throughout, so that’s why I picked this cocktail. I googled it and his favorite was a vodka martini. I already mixed a gin martini once and did not care for it, I can’t imagine vodka would have made it better, so I went with this alternative.
The clan in general, both the Walker’s and the Bush’s, were quite wealthy, and grew up with this belief that wealth and privilege came with an obligation to service. And it was SERVICE, not power, that drew him to the public sector later in life. We’ll come back to that.
He was raised in Greenwich, CT and where he went to the Greenwich Country Day School for primary school and then to Phillips Academy where he graduated high school in 1942. All through this the family traveled to Kennebunkport, ME and the Walker family plantation in South Carolina, so definitely a moneyed family. He was at Phillips Academy when Pearl Harbor happened and he enlisted in the US Navy right out of high school, where he became an aviator, the youngest in the US Navy…maybe in the military, he enlisted like on his 18th birthday and was immediately routed to pilot training. He served in the Pacific theater, flying combat missions as a torpedo bomber, and he was shot down over Chichi Jima on September 2, 1944.
This part of the book was quite detailed because it was a formative experience for Bush and something that absolutely stayed with him for this life, not just because he was shot down, but because he was the only crew member who lived to tell about it. He is in the clear, in case anyone was thinking political thoughts trying to besmirch his wartime record, he absolutely gave the order to bail out, it was heard on radio by other pilots in the area, but whether the other crew members did not hear it over adrenaline rush, or were unable to bail out, or maybe did bail out but experienced problems with the jump or possibly landed on Chichi Jima…we don’t know. Their bodies were never found. Bush felt guilt about that for the rest of his life, and he had none to feel because it truly was not his fault. When he got back to someplace where he could send letters, he sent letters to the families of his crew apologizing for the loss of their loved ones, and the sister of one of the men wrote back that he need not apologize, her brother always spoke highly of him, and she was sure it was not his fault.
Anyways, he drifted for a bit on his life raft, paddling with his arms away from the island because the Japanese were known to be…. not nice…to POW’s. Let me put it this way. Hitler stole some of his best ideas from the Japanese, and still didn’t come close to the Japanese in terms of imagination. Bush was eventually picked up by a US Submarine that was patrolling the area specifically to look for downed US fighters.
When he returned stateside on leave in like late December 1944, he married his high school sweetheart Barbara Pierce, who he had met at a Christmas dance in December 1941, right after Pearl Harbor. They were both still in high school but it was pretty much love at first sight for the both of them and they were quickly engaged, although it would be a long engagement as they did not marry until January 6, 1945, and they were together from then on, having six children together, although their second born, Pauline Robinson Bush, aka Robin, would die of leukemia when she was three years old, in 1953. This, as you can imagine, was devastating for the entire family, leukemia was known but virtually untreatable back then and it’s not much better now, but when Robin passed the family donated her body to science so that the doctors could study her and try and find better treatment. The body was returned to the family and buried in the Bush family plot in Greenwich, CT. She was later exhumed and reinterred at the George HW Bush library in Texas, so that when her parents eventually passed, they could all be buried together.
Ok. After he was discharged from active duty, Bush went to Yale where he majored in economics, and from there it was bye baby bird as both sides of the family would provide moral support, but no financial support. Both clans believed you needed to make it on your own, not coast on the family dime with an unlimited trust fund. Bush took a job offer with an oil company in Texas and the family moved there. They bounced around a bit, living in CA for the company, before Bush would branch out and form first the Bush-Overbey Oil Development Company, the Zapata Petroleum Corporation, then becoming president of the Zapata Offshore Company. And he was in the oil industry from after his graduation from Yale in 1948 until he entered politics in the early 1960’s, trying to run for US Senate from Texas in 1964. He lost that election and realized quickly that if he wanted to win in politics, he needed to go all in, which he had not done with the Senate race, as he continued to work his day job while also running for office.
So, to that end he sold his shares of Zapata Petroleum and ran full out for the House of Representative in 1966, winning his race and was seated with the 90th congress in 1967. Bush was so affable and likeable that he had requested to be assigned to Appropriations committee, and was instead given Ways and Means, which is historically seen as the most powerful committee in the house as Ways and Means. Appropriations determines what money is needed. Ways and Means is the oldest standing committee and actually derives itself directly from the US Constitute, specifically Article 1, section VII which declares “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.” Ways and Means is the power to tax, and Bush was so likeable that minority leader Gerald Ford put him on Ways and Means as a junior congress critter, making him the youngest member of congress to sit on that committee since 1904.
He served in the House of Representatives for two terms before attempting another stab at Senate in 1970, which he also lost. So now he’s in a pickle, he is 46 years old and has no job. Yes, they have money in savings from his sale of his Zapata shares, but with 5 kids, at least one of them in college, it was not enough to just retire on indefinitely. And besides which, Bush had ALWAYS had a job, always been moving. He absolutely could have returned to TX and undoubtedly picked up the oil industry again no problem. Instead, he waited for various strings to pull and received a call from President Nixon with a job offer to be a presidential aid, which Bush initially excepted, before talking Nixon into making him the US Ambassador to the United Nations in New York.
Bush was exceptional in this role BECAUSE he was so damn likeable. He was great at compromise and great at making friends. Meacham says Bush believed that the best way to make a friend is to be a friend, and Meacham credits that quote to someone specific, and I don’t remember who it was. But it’s a credo Bush embraced and because of that, he embraced everyone as a friend he hadn’t met yet.
He was ambassador to the UN for two years and then in 1972 Nixon asked him to step in as the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Bush did not care for this transition, but he did it because he had moved on from his days as a business owner and had solidly entered his public service life. He had been raised that if the president asks you to do something, you serve in that capacity with good cheer. And as chairman of the RNC, he defended Nixon on Watergate until it was no longer possible to do so, and then it became a matter of watching a dead man walking around as Nixon got more and more cornered on the issue.
When Ford stepped into the top spot, he briefly considered Bush for his VP position but ultimately chose Rockefeller because of rumors and innuendos that Bush had received campaign funding from Nixon in his 1970 bid for the Senate seat. He had not and while he was ultimately cleared of this allegation, by the time the dust settled, Rockefeller was VP and Bush was done being chairman of the RNC. Ford was a VERY smart president in that he recognized Bush’s affability could be well suited for foreign service work, and he placed Bush as the head of the US Liaison office in China, where he did meet Chairman Mao, making a good impression overall on the Chinese. While there, he and Barbara adopted the bicycle as their preferred mode of transportation and since this was how the Chinese primarily traveled, they loved him for it.
Bush was in China for a little over a year when he was pulled back to the US to become the director of the CIA, in which capacity he served until Carter was sworn in. He obliquely offered to continue in that capacity, but Carter declined. I gotta say…Meacham does not directly bash any one president in the book, he’s mainly respectful of all those who have served in this capacity. But Carter…. I’ll come back to Carter in a bit. Every time I hit a bit about him, he does not come off well and he slides lower in my rankings of good presidents…and good person.
Anyways, back to Bush. He steps down as director of the CIA when Carter steps up and then immediately start planning to run for president in 1980. So, it’s 1977, and he begins putting out feelers and networking, and gets damn close. He really did make Reagan sweat for that nomination. And Reagan in turn made him sweat for the VP position, Meacham explains how close it came to being Ford again before the call was made inviting Bush to join the ticket.
And he was an outstanding VP, never overstepped, when he saw something wrong or though Reagan was erring, he discussed it with Reagan. For his part, Reagan made this easy by instating a weekly lunch with his VP. When Reagan was shot, Bush was in TX…ironically placing a plaque for JFK at the hotel he’d stayed at the night before his assassination. Bush quickly flew back to DC and when he got there, took a car, even though a helicopter ride to the White House was offered. His logic was simple. Landing via helicopter at the White House is what the president does. He was not the president; it would not be proper.
On Iran-contra, the only thing Bush was aware of was the brokering of missiles for hostages. He does not appear to have known about the direct sale of any missiles, and definitely was not aware of the money being supplied to the Contra’s in Nicaragua.
And Bush easily won election in 1988, with endorsement from Reagan, and immediately set about running the country. Now, Bush is better known for his foreign statecraft than domestic policy, a fact that is widely known and even Bush acknowledges it multiple times in this book. Bush was interviewed extensively and gave the author free rein to read and use his diaries and notes. At one point Bush admits that American’s care less about foreign policy than they do the economy and will vote on the economy. This leads me to wonder if Bush actually wanted to be re-elected, because he knew this and commented on it as early as 1990, yet never really did much about the economy. He signed a law raising taxes, after his fateful campaign promise of Read My Lips, No New Taxes. He kind of marks that as his biggest political blunder, which is fair, because it definitely cost him come re-election time.
But while he was president, he oversaw some truly epic changes in world history. He got on quite well with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and when the Berlin wall fell on November 9, 1989, Bush’s response was measured and calm. Some politicos were calling for him to fly to Berlin and be part of the historic moment, but he declined. He didn’t want the Soviets to think America was dancing on their grave. Which was smart, because that could have led to some major bad feelings. Instead, what happened, is Gorbachev allowed various Soviet Satellite states to quietly withdraw from the USSR, effectively abandoning the Brezhnev Doctrine which called for central soviet intervention in any satellite state that threatened soviet dominance…I’m paraphrasing badly but you can google the Brezhnev doctrine for more details if you like. And when Gorbachev met with Bush after the wall fell in December 1989 Bush quietly boxed him into a conversational corner where Gorbachev allowed that a reunited Germany could join NATO.
And that subtle diplomacy through conversation was trademark Bush. The two men remained friendly throughout the remaining days of the Soviet Union, although it got a bit dicey when hardline communists tried a coup in August 1991. Again, politicos were pushing Bush to do something, ANYTHING, and Bush declined because this was an entirely internal soviet affair. This refusal surprised people because of Bush’s military success in Panama and Kuwait in the prior two years, but again…. Bush was a master at reading which way the winds were blowing, and correcting course as needed. He knew the situations were entirely different and handled each on its own merit.
In May 1989, drug kingpin Manual Noriega tried to overturn the results of the Panamanian elections, based entirely on his past relationship with the United States. The CIA had funneled money through Noriega, who was heavily involved in drug trafficking. He seemed to think that he could overthrow a democratically elected president in Panama BECAUSE he had ties to US intelligence agencies. Bush disabused him of this notion, but only started an active campaign when Panamanian forces under Noriega shot and killed a US servicemember, who was in Panama on military drills.
And for the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait from Iraq in August 1990. Bush did not just run over there and defend the oil. But he knew that having a sadistic megalomaniac controlling a significant portion of the worlds oil supply would be bad news globally. So, he approached the UN Security Council and got backing from …well almost all of them. I think there were like three countries that didn’t back this war. Significantly, the other oil rich middle eastern countries, namely Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, supported the military movement on this point. Bush initially imposed sanctions on Iraq and gave them until January 15, 1991, to withdraw to Iraq. He began positioning US troops for the war, and just to cover his own butt legally, he petitioned congress for approval, although his diary entries show he was willing to risk impeachment and proceed without congressional approval if required, so strongly did he believe in the right of what he was doing. And it was a damn effective military presence, the book says ground fighting lasted about 100 hours. That’s less than a week. And following this, Bush’s approval rating soared to 89%, which is the highest of any president since they started taking approval polls.
It was during the part on the Gulf War though, that I developed a genuine distaste for former president Carter, and Bush was not too impressed either. See, Bush’s Secretary of State Jim Baker was willing to go to Baghdad and do what diplomats do. The problem Bush saw with that was those negotiations with Saddam on this matter, legitimizes his claim to invading Kuwait. Carter wanted to be an emissary to Baghdad, which Bush was opposed to for the same reason. Additionally, he hated “freelance diplomacy” meaning back channels, not through official statesmanship. But Carter took this further, he wrote directly to members of the UN Security Council, urging them to vote against the resolution seeking international sanction for use of force. Meaning…he didn’t want sanctions against Iraq for the invasion of Kuwait. He didn’t want war. He wanted to go in and show himself to be the hero peacekeeper. That’s a bit backstabby. Generally speaking, in all the books I’ve read about the presidents, once they’re out, they may have opinions on what the current president is doing, but they’ll never act on those opinions, and rarely voice them out loud. Because they know what stress goes into this job. Yeah, fuck Carter.
All of that exposition was to say, that Panama and Iraq called for different measured responses to the attempted Coup in the Soviet Union. Panama may have never happened if Panamanian forces had not killed a US Service member. Gulf War 1 would definitely not have happened if Iraq had not invaded Kuwait. And everyone saying we have no business going into another country…well quit bitching about drilling for oil here in the US, and we wouldn’t HAVE to protect our interests overseas. We have lots of oil right here, but everyone gets their panties twisted about drilling locally. And Bush well remembered the gas rationing from the 1970’s. Hell…I daresay that’s WHY Carter butted it. That all happened on his watch and almost certainly played a part in his own one term presidency. I think he wanted another shot at proving his way was the best way, when he had no business doing so.
Soviet Union…was all internal. All Bush could do was pray for Gorbachev and offer support to Boris Yeltsin, who was backing Gorbachev all the way. And it worked. The coup failed; Bush was deeply relieved to receive a call from Gorbachev a few days later that the coup attempt had failed. And he received another call from Gorbachev on December 26, 1991, announcing that he had signed the paperwork for the dissolution of the Soviet Union and resigned as president. The cold war was officially over.
Bush did run in 1992, and was horrified that Clinton won, especially with news not just of Clinton’s infidelity, but Clinton was famously a draft dodger, which Bush just could not fathom, having enlisted the moment he was eligible to. But again, I’m not sure how serious he was about a second term. The book makes it clear that Bush was never really sure how serious he was about a second term.
He was immensely proud of his son George W. when he won the presidency in 2000, and never tried to direct or guide the presidency, acting as a sounding board and supportive father. Bush 43 asked his father and former president Clinton to travel to Thailand in the wake of the Tsunami there as sort of goodwill ambassadors, and again to the gulf coast following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Bush came to like Clinton quite a bit, although he never warmed to Hillary, and speculated that the Clinton’s relationship may have been a bit like Eleanor and FDR… A Marriage in name only. Bush was still alive when this book went to press in 2015, but died on November 30, 2018, when he was 95 years old. Barbara preceded him in death by a few months, she passed on April 17, 2018.
This book was excellent, well rounded, tells a complete story of a man who lived an astounding life. The author spoke with all of Bush’s successors, and all of them, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama, had nothing but good things to say about Bush 41. President Obama granted him the Presidential Medal of Freedom and his remarks about Bush 41 left me crying and put a different perspective on Obama for me. I’ve always been a bit…ambivalent…about our 44th president. But that section, the remarks from the successors, really drives home that the divide that is shown so freely on news channels, is very much for entertainment purposes only. Ultimately, they’re all co-workers. And they all understand the enormity of what goes into sitting in the Oval Office. And maybe that grants them grace for their predecessors. Except Carter. Fuck that guy.
