A POLITICIAN WHO PUTS PERSONAL TIES FIRST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580055-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 55
• Publication Date: August 12, 1988
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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A Politician Who Picts
Personal Ties First
Bush s Good Manners Prevail
By David Hoffman
Washington Post Staff Writer
When Vice President Bush
walked into the Oval Office for a
morning meeting with President
Reagan last May 11, he had fi-
nally won the Republican pres-
idential nomination, and the for-
mal endorsement he coveted
from Reagan was at hand.
Bush's staff and the White
House had spent weeks prepar-
ing for the endorsement. To take
advantage of the evening news,
GEORGE BUSH:
MAN AND
POLITICIAN
Reagan was to deliver his bless-
ing once in the morning before
television cameras and Repub-
lican congressional leaders in the
Cabinet Room. Then he was to
endorse Bush again at the par-
ty's black-tie fund-raiser late
that evening.
This was to be the sweet cli-
max of the spring primaries for
Bush, and a signal to the world
that Reagan, one of the great
campaigners of the age, was
staunchly in Bush's corner for
November. The Bush staff had
written a two-page statement for
the president and raised expec-
tations in the media for the big
moment.
But Reagan was distracted by
the upcoming Moscow summit
and the flap over whether he and
Nancy Reagan had used astrol-
ogy in making White House de-
cisions. According to well-in-
formed sources, the president
asked Bush a little plaintively,
"George, do we have to do this
twice?"
Bush said no, that wasn't nec-
essary. So the first endorse-
ment, the one in good time for
the evening news, was scrapped.
Then the president showed
Bush a few lines he had written
on a yellow legal pad for the
nighttime endorsement. It was
one paragraph long; after declar-
ing that Bush was "my candi-
date," he listed Bush's resume,
and promised to campaign "as
hard as I can." That was it.
Bush said it was just fine.
But it was far from the en-
dorsement he had hoped for, or
his staff had planned. Reagan's
choice of words was weak, and
the impact of delivering the en-
dorsement only at the evening
fund-raiser, surrounded by Re-
publican fat-cats in tuxedos,
squandered the potential impact
on national television. The care-
fully laid plans of the Bush camp
were in ruins, as the White
House had to acknowledge by
issuing a new, more enthusiastic
endorsement the next day.
But Bush had remained true to
his most fundamental traits: a finely
honed sense of deference to author-
ity, a lifetime aversion to bragga-
docio and an abiding desire to main-
tain smooth relations with the im-
portant people in his life, even if
this sometimes worked to his po-
litical disadvantage.
When he launched his campaign
last year, Bush did so on the
premise that the character of a can-
didate is central to voter concerns.
He said in his announcement
speech:
"If I have learned anything in a
lifetime of politics and government,
it is the truth of the famous phrase,
'History is biography,' that deci-
sions are made by people, and they
make them based on what they
know of the world and how they
understand it. This is true of every-
one, including presidents."
CONTINUED
The Washington Post
The New York Times
A_-_J1_
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Date
Previous articles in this series
have explored Bush's life before he
became vice president. This article
looks at his performance as vice
president for clues about how he
might act in the Oval Office. It is
based on his own comments as well
as interviews with peers and sub-
ordinates, close friends and cam-
paign advisers.
Many of these people noted how
Bush has built his career by forging
a succession of personal alliances.
They described a man who strives
to please others, whether distant
voters or his own immediate aides,
whether Reagan or other world
leaders. These traits have helped
earned Bush a loyal following and a
battalion of friends, but they have
also at times paralyzed his decision-
making, according to his associates;
he often is reluctant to turn people
down, to break out of the given
lines of authority, to face conflict
among competing advisers.
Unfailingly kind and graceful,
associates said, Bush worries about
hurt feelings, especially among
those closest to him, and tries to
smooth them over. Sometimes, ac-
cording to associates, Bush will
avoid dealing with sensitive prob-
lems personally and asks others to
-resolve them on his behalf.
One example cited by several
close to him involved Bush's reac-
tion to the 1984 reelection cam-
paign-a landslide triumph for Rea-
gan, but a personal setback for
Bush, even in victory. Bush's falter-
ing performance against his Dem-
ocratic rival, Rep. Geraldine A. Fer-
raro (D-N.Y.), and a series of awk-
ward public statements and ges-
tures that provoked ridicule in the
media, left him in the dumps, unable
to pick himself up and restart his
own quest for the presidency. He
told associates he was considering
retiring from public life when his
second term ended in 1989 rather
than run for president in 1988.
Panty 117
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Bush realized at the time that he
needed more discipline in his day-
to-day affairs, one participant said.
He had been reviewing all social
invitations, and letters from con-
gressmen, and felt he was getting
swamped in detail, but also was re-
luctant to let go of it. "Can we do it
a little more like how Reagan does
it?" Bush asked, the participant re-
called.
But Bush did not seize the initi-
ative. Instead, it was a pair of long-
time friends, James A. Baker III,
now Bush's campaign chairman, and
Nicholas F. Brady, nominated last
week to be Treasury secretary,
who started the rebuilding process
for him.
By one account from a well-
placed source, Brady, Baker and
Bush met quite soon after the 1984
election and discussed what steps
were needed to prepare for a Bush
run for the White House. The -first
order of business was to replace the
vice president's senior staff with
people more politically atuned to
the needs of a presidential candi-
date. Baker and Brady took respon-
sibility for recruiting them.
Baker recruited political opera-
tive Lee Atwater, deputy director
of the 1984 Reagan-Bush campaign,
to set up a new Bush political action
committee; Brady recruited a new,
chief of staff, Craig L. Fuller, who
had worked with Baker as Cabinet
secretary in Reagar's first-term
White House. Fuller insisted that
another longtime and increasingly
powerful Bush aide, Jennifer Fitz-
gerald, be moved to Bush's Senate
office. Daniel J. Murphy, the chief
of staff, said he had wanted to leave,
but it was Brady who first told him
about his replacement, three weeks
before his departure.
Bush approved all these moves
but did not initiate them. Murphy
said Bush did telephone public re-
lations executive Robert Keith Gray
"and said, 'Dan is leaving and I'd
appreciate it if you could talk to
him.' I was offered vice president of
the firm," Murphy said, "an offer I
couldn't refuse." The salary was
$200,000 a year.
(Gray remembered the episode
somewhat differently: "I was over
talking with Bush about something
else and he said Dan Murphy is
leaving and I said that I'd like to
talk to him ......
Many who have worked closely
with Bush predicted that if elected
president, he will engage the people
around him-from other world
leaders to his own aides-much
more intensely than Reagan ever
has. But the same people said that
to be an effective president, Bush
would need advisers who kept him
focused on major goals and mini-
mized distractions from the many
people who might have access to
him.
"If a governor called and said the
Forest Service is not putting out
fires, Bush would be on the phone
right away to the Forest Service,"
said an adviser who was worked
closely with Bush. Another recalled
how Bush was whipsawed by con-
flicting advice in New Hampshire on
the first day 'after his Iowa defeat,
with different friends and aides of-
fering advice on how to rebound,
and Bush struggling to please them
all.
Finally, two senior aides, Fuller
and strategist Robert Teeter, all
but cut off access to the "friends"
and Bush focused on the job at
'hand. His performance in the final
three days of the New Hampshire
primary campaign was his best ev-
er.
A graphic example of the way
personal contacts motivate Bush
came early last year when an "ur-
gent letter" arrived for Bush one
afternoon from Canandian. Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney, who was
then at a low point in public esteem,
in part because of what was seen as
Reagan administration foot-drag-
ging on acid rain pollution and trade
policy.
Mulroney appealed to Bush for
help. By day's end, Bush was on the
phone with Mulroney. The next day
Bush went to the Oval Office and
asked Reagan for permission to
make a special trip to Canada to
help the conservative Mulroney.
Placating Prime Minister
At the time, the White House
was considering a retreat from Rea-
gan's commitment to spend $2.5
billion on acid rain research in a
joint program with Canada. Accord-
ing to aides, Bush had his staff pull
together Reagan's original state-
ments endorsing the report of spe-
cial U.S. and Canadian envoys on
the issue. Bush complained that En-
ergy Secretary John S. Herrington
and Attorney General Edwin Meese
III were stalling. He made a four-
hour trip to Ottawa with then-
Treasury Secretary Baker at his
side. He praised Mulroney and told
a news conference he had "got an
earful" of complaints on acid rain
and trade issues from the prime
minister. Reagan subsequently
stuck by the plan for $2.5 billion in
acid rain research.
Such a response to a personal
appeal is common for Bush, accord-
ing to many of his associates. Ear-
lier this year, for example, Bush
invited Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), to
the vice president's office for
breakfast after Kemp had aban-
doned his race for the GOP pres-
idential nomination. Kemp forceful-
ly presented his belief that the Stra-
tegic Defense Initiative (SDI) was
making technological strides. Bush
had been skeptical about the feasi-
bility of Reagan's proposed missile
defense system and had openly op-
posed the idea of early deployment,
which Kemp had championed in the
primaries.
After Kemp departed, Bush
sought briefings on the subject to
see what Kemp was talking about.
Last week Bush shifted his position
on SDI, promising as president to
develop a viable strategic defense,
saying that the technology was no
longer a problem.
Another Bush trait cited by his
associates is his instinctive faith in
lines of authority. Rep. Jim Leach
(R-Iowa), a longtime Bush support-
er, observed that when Bush be-
came vice president, he adapted to
the "loyalty structure" that existed
around the office, which meant a
definition of the job that would not
CONTINUED
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upstage the president. Bush rarely
spoke out with others around him,
Leach noted, and confined his ad-
vice to the president to their week-
ly private luncheons.
Bush adapted to Reagan's style
and his positions. According to in-
timates, Bush thrived on the pomp
surrounding his office and on the
immense public approval that Rea-
gan and he enjoyed in the first term.
He told a campaign audience this
year that he also enjoyed the exten-
sive foreign travel that came with
the job. All went extremely well for
Bush until the '84 campaign, when
he suddenly became an object of
ridicule from some quarters. Garry
Trudeau's "Doonesbury" strip de-
picted a mythical Bush who had put
his manhood in a blind trust.
But ridicule did not alter Bush's
course. Acting out of his most basic
instincts, he advertised his loyalty
again and again. "I'm for Mr. Rea-
gan-blindly," Bush once said.
Bush's deference also was noted
inside the councils of government.
A Cabinet member said Bush did
not see it within his purview to con-
tradict others around the table at
meetings with Reagan. "It may be a
consequence of his respect for au-
thority. He bent over backwards to
never get in trouble with the sec-
retary of state," he said. "He would
have had any number of opportu-
nities to do so."
If Bush did seek to press his own
views, he went directly to Reagan.
Little is known of these conversa-
tions even now, though some Bush
initiatives have become public,
mostly instances where he tried to
modify what he considered exces-
sive proposals from others. For ex-
ample, he quietly blocked Attorney
General Meese from rolling back a
longstanding executive order on
affirmative action. According to one
informed source, Bush also tried in
vain to quash the idea of eliminating
all nuclear ballistic missiles, an idea
that gained currency in the White
House in mid-1986. The idea stuck
in Reagan's head and later surfaced
in the Reykjavik summit, to the sur-
prise and consternation of the allies
and many members of Congress.
The ultimate authority figure is
the president. Sources who have
been close to both men said Bush
has clearly looked to Reagan as a
father figure.
For example, the Iran-contra af-
fair became public in late November
1986, creating a crisis for the Rea-
gan administration and a political
crisis for Reagan and Bush. The
vice president spent several weeks
searching for a verbal formula that
would imply an acknowledgment of
error without attributing the error
to anyone in particular. He hit upon
the formulation "mistakes were
made," but before using those
words in a speech he characteris-
tically took them to his weekly
lunch with Reagan, seeking approv-
al.
Criticism Akin to Betrayal
"I don't know what happened
there, but he got the idea somehow
that Reagan wouldn't mind if he
said it," recalled a Bush political
adviser.
Just as he practices total loyalty,
so Bush expects it from his subor-
dinates. He has grown as angry as
his advisers have ever seen him
over newspaper stories quoting
anonymous Bush aides criticizing
their boss. Bush considers such crit-
icism betrayal, and on more than
one occasion has demanded that the
source be discovered and fired.
This is why "leaks' have become a
preoccupation among Bush aides
and campaign workers.
By the same token, Bush also
extends his loyalty to subordinates.
When questions were raised about
the role played by his national se-
curity adviser, Donald P. Gregg, in
the Iran-contra affair, Bush refused
to heed the advice of others that
Gregg be fired or moved to another
post.
When the president seemed hes-
itant in rewarding Bush for his loy-
alty earlier this year, some Bush
associates and friends said he had
misplaced his trust. Former con-
gressman Thomas W.L. (Lud)
Ashley (D-Ohio), a close friend of
Bush, says the vice president
"didn't learn as much from the
Nixon experience as he should
have. Loyalty can become counter.
productive.' But he added of Bush,
"Emotionally, he feels you can't be
too loyal."
A related concern, which some
have voiced privately in the Bush
organization, is whether Bush
would be willing to face up to the
errors of his subordinates if he
were in the Oval Office.
Are example of this inclination
that disturbed some of Bush's as-
sociates occurred shortly after the
C123 cargo plane carrying Eugene
Hasenfus was shot down over Nic-
aragua in October 1986 just before
the Iran-contra scandal broke. The
San Francisco Examiner reported
that a Cuban-American agent, Felix
Rodriguez, who was involved in the
secret airlift operation that carried
weapons to the Nicaraguan contras,
had been placed in Central America
by the office of the vice president,
specifically by Gregg. The next day,
the Los Angeles Times said that the
agent had told associates that he
reported to Bush on his activities.
Bush initially denied the reports.
"There is no one on the vice pres-
ident's staff who is directing or co-
ordinating an operation in Central
America," he said. "Allegations to
that effect are simply not true."
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74
Bush's denial was misleading, in
part because it ignored correct in-
formation that these reports con-
tained. The evidence developed
months later by the House and Sen-
ate Iran-contra investigating com-
mittees showed that Rodriguez
originally had been sent to El Sal-
vador to help the Salvadoran gov-
ernment fight insurgents with the
active encouragement of Bush's
office. Rodriguez soon became ac-
tively involved in the secret effort
to resupply the Nicaraguan contras,
which used the Salvadoran air base
where Rodriguez worked as its cen-
ter of operations.
Two months before Bush's denial
Oct. 11, Rodriguez had told Gregg
of his involvement in the secret re-
supply effort. Gregg says he never
told Bush about it, although a memo
for Bush written in May noted that
Rodriguez had come to brief Bush
on the contra resupply effort.
Some who have worked closely
with Bush say that from his expe-
rience as director of central intel-
ligence, he instinctively defends
those involved with intelligence and
covert action, and thus failed to see
the pitfalls of dealing with Iran. De-
spite Bush's service as chairman of
an administration antiterrorism
Panel, his only known objection was
over the role of Israel in the early
Iran arms sales transactions. By all
accounts Bush never foresaw that
the secret dealings with Iran could
kad to a political debacle.
Bush strikes many of his associ-
ates as a politician who is most ef-
fective when he picks one target
and heads for it instead of juggling
many goals simultaneously. This
was the key, aides said, to the ex-
tensive preparations of Bush for the
seven Republican primary debates.
Where were rehearsals, videotapes,
and long talks about strategy. Each
.tune, Bush planned one aggressive
thrust that would make one mem-
orable point, and then stuck with it.
Brady described the vice pres-
adent as "single-minded," noting
t'bat for the primaries Bush devoted
his time to almost nothing else, opt-
iAg out of much White House busi-
ness. "He has blocked out of his
mind for six months everything but
this campaign," Brady said.
He commented that Bush's meth-
od is 10 percent brains and 90 per-
cent hard work, and that, if elected,
Bush would be "an enormously hard
'worker and single-minded."
But others said Bush's motivation
often seems uneven. A longtime as-
sociate said that Bush had to be
pushed hard to give up his White
House schedule and go out to cam-
paign full-time. In this view, Bush
works hard when under extreme
pressure, as he was, for example,
after losing the Iowa precinct cau-
cuses last February. But if the cam-
paign is any guide, Bush often feels
free to coast when the pressure is
off.
In Baker's Treasury Department
anteroom hung a photo of Bush af-
ter an embarrassing sprawl at a
bowling alley. "To Jim Baker," reads
the inscription, "Watch and. Learn:
90 percent of life is just showing up.
George Bush." In earlier years Bush
often embraced this maxim, attri-
buted to Yogi Berra.
Issues and ideology have never
played a motivating role in Bush's
political career. "I am a practical
man," he said in launching his cam-
paign last year. "I like what's real.
I'm not much for the airy and ab-
stract; I like what works. I am not a
mystic, and I do not yearn to lead a
crusade."
Those who have worked with
Bush say this was a candid state-
ment of his philosophy, but they
worry about those occasions, par-
ticularly in domestic policy, when
Bush seems to lose interest. His ad-
visers have been particularly frus-
trated in trying to brief him on eco-
nomic policy.
Conciliation for Conflict
By contrast, Bush pays close at-
tention to subjects he cares about,
such as intelligence briefings, or po-
litical topics that arouse his strong-
ly competitive instincts. Rep. Leach
recalled hours of briefings for Bush
on agriculture issues before the
Iowa caucuses. With a team of ad-
visers, Bush tried to frame answers
to the questions he would get from
farmers. "There was far more prep-
aration for Iowa than anyone knew,"
Leach recalled. After all this work
Bush did master answers to com-
monly asked agricultural questions
that he used repeatedly in Iowa.
Bush looks to conciliation to re-
solve conflict. Faced with a difficult
subject such as the federal deficit,
or arms control verification, Bush
often says he would let the experts
"work it out.,,
"We're not out there at this junc-
ture in the campaign with a 20-
point program on the homeless or a
14-point program on long-term
health care," Bush told an Ohio re-
porter in May. "But you know what
I would do? Bring in new people. I'd
appoint the best people I could find
in areas where they know more
about it than I do. . . . "
But even the best people can dis-
agree. When he cannot find com-
promise, Bush sometimes appears
to stall or to equivocate.
For example, Bush was trapped
earlier this year between Reagan's
decision to veto the Grove City civil
rights bill and his own conviction
that it should be signed. Most of his
top advisers urged him to go public
with his own beliefs, but he told
them he just could not be disloyal to
Reagan.
Bush's Sense of Decorum
So Bush tried to have it both
ways in a speech to a black Repub-
lican audience. He said the legisla-
tion was "imperfect" and "should be
corrected." But he also stated the
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principle that the government
should "require" that organizations
getting federal money should "com-
ply with our civil rights laws." It
was a carefully hedged line that
won him applause, but did not really
explain what policy he favored.
Another aspect of how Bush's po-
litical personality is his extraordi-
nary sense of decorum. His Victo-
rian upbringing helped create a re-
served, polite, deferential person-
ality, even under stress. For exam-
ple, after his nationally televised ar-
gument over the Iran-contra affair
with CBS' Dan Rather last spring,
Bush's political troops were cheer-
ing. But privately he was a little re-
morseful because he had violated
his own sense of good behavior.
"Even when he throws a punch,
he's kind of sorry he did it," an aide
commented.
Similarly, after his hour-long in-
terview in June with ABC's Ted
Koppel when Bush accidentally
called Koppel "Dan" several times,
he was mortified, and apologized re-
peatedly and publicly the next day.
In both those television inter-
views Bush was asked substantive
questions about selling arms to
Iran, about his own role in key ad-
ministration policy decisions, about
his knowledge of drug-running by
Panamanian military strongman
Manuel Antonio Noriega, about the
allegations of wrongdoing by Attor-
ney General Meese. But, charac-
teristically, Bush reacted to the two
anchors as individuals, what was im-
portant to him, it seemed, was how
he had dealt with the people in.
volved, not the issues.
So it has been throughout his life.
Once during the Illinois primary
campaign, Alixe Glen, a press as-
sistant who has worked for Bush
through three campaigns, suffered
an eye injury and was forced to sit
in a darkened hotel room for sev-
eral days while Bush went out and
campaigned.
One evening, as the television
blared and the campaign passed her
by, the door opened and a visitor ar-
rived and quietly carried her dirty
room service trays out into the cor-
ridor. Then George Bush sat down
next to her and held her hand and
said a few encouraging words.
St?ff writer" Woodward and
staff researchers Michelle Hall and
William F. Powers contributed to
this report.
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