BUSH: FORMER COLLEAGUES SEE A MAN OF REFLEXIVE LOYALTY TO PARTY AND BOSS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580065-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 65
• Publication Date: July 21, 1988
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STnT
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/25 :CIA-RDP99-014488000401580065-0
Bush; Former Colleagues See a Man of Refle~ve Loyalty to Party and Boss
Richard Nixon was basking in the full Plush of his
landslide re-election victory when he turned his thoughts
toward refashioning the government.
"Boys run for office to be somebody. Men run for
office to do something," Nixon told a small group of
aides meeting with. him at Camp David on Nov. 14, 1972.
Notes by one of the aides, convicted Watergate
conspirator John Ehrlichman, quote Nixon as adding,
"Therefore, eliminate the politicians, except Bush. He'd
do anything for the cause."
Years later, Bush, having risen through a series of
mainly appointive .posts to the rank of vice president,
would defend his refusal as a presidential candidate to
reveal confidential details of his relationship with
President Reagan by saying, "In my family, loyalty is
not considered a character defect."
Loyalty, as manifested by dedication to a cause,
represents a central commitment of. Bush's politipl
career that helps explain why senior political figures
such as Nixon felt comfortable in promoting Bush to
posts that provided him with an impressive depth of
government experience and credibility as a presidential
candidate.
The same quality, however,. may also shed light on
why he has had trouble developing a compelling
rationale for a Bush presidency.
Mitch Daniels, a former political aide in the Reagan
White House, suggested that many voters have'an "illy
formed opinion" of Bush which stems from . art
impression that the vice president suffers from a "lack
of strength and purpose."
That problem has been exacerbated by Bush's '
difficulty in spelling out what Daniels described as "his
own priorities and his own plan for the country's future."
Daniels added, "I think he is having little trouble
shifting through the gears. It's not mere slavish loyalty
to the person who selected him, though. I think it goes
much more to his conception of where his duties have
lain in that job. I think.he believes it was his duty not
to talk outside the family."
While Bush's role in the R Administration has
been minute y examtn v now his Derformar,rn ;.,
earlier assignments has recetved less aft nr; n rules
that Included service as U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations from 1971 to 1973 chairman of the Re ublipn
National Committee from 1973 to 1974 chief of the U.S.
Iialson o ice tote eop e's Republic of China from 1974
to 1975 and director of the Central Intellt nce A envy
inn 1
C~T~VED
The Washington Post
The New York Times
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal _
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
Tt~ Chicago Trjpune
He has also held elective office as a Texas
congressman from 1966 to 1970 and as vice president
under Reagan.
Interviews with former associates and a review of the
public record from 1971 through 1976 offer a portrait of
a public servant who was skilled at adapting both to the
expectations of his superiors and tQ .the needs of
institutions whose interests he uias charged with
protecting.
Atone point, as RNC chief, Bush was obliged to make
a painful choice ,between competing loyalties.-.f1s tfie -
Watergate scandal enveloped the. Nixoq administration
beginning in the fall of 1973, Bush movet~"rehrctantiy at
first and decisively later on, to protect fhe t,;pp by
dissociating the RNC from the White House and the
constitutional crisis that forced Nixon's resignation an
Aug. 9, 1974.
Eddie Mahe, now a Republican political consultant
but then Bush's top executive officer at the RNC, ret.~lled
that Bush "agonized" over his dilemma, which he
ultimately resolved by writing a letter to Nixon, dated
Aug. 7, 1974, urging him to surrender the pros'
-"It was just excruciatingly difficult," Mahe said,
"Bush saw it as his No. 1 assignment to separate the
Republipn Party institutionally from Watergate. With-
out question, that was his most intense commitment. He
rnuld not ignore a deep and genuin
change had to take place, that there wasttanserious
erosion in the body politic, in democracy itself and the
government -and that Richard Nixon, for the good of
one and all, had to depart."
Initially, at least, Bush appears to have regarded
Watergate as a minor issue being exploited by East
Coast liberals to embarrass the Nixon Administration.
Ehrlichman's notes, on file at the National Archives in
a collection of Nixon presidential materials, indicate that
Bush, on the eve of the Senate Ervin Committee's
investigation, sought to reassure Nixon about the scope
of the affair.
The meeting occurred on March L0, 1973, one day
before Nixon's White House counsel, john Dean,
dramatically warned his boss of a Watergate coverup
conspiracy involving high administration aides that
could destroy the Nixon presidency.
Ehrlichman's handwritten record of the session
involving himself, Nixon and Bush indicates, however,
that Bush described Watergate as an inconsequential
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~~oc
isue nut likely to play a prominent rule in the 1973
~~~nKressiunal ele~tiuns. While Bennett and others insist that the Nixon
"view Y'urk and ~1~'ashinRton. D.C., ask the questions .ldministration was wholeheartedly behind Bush's
nut Kansas pity." Bu>h appears a, hair said, effort, he was apparently undercut by the fact that
according to the notes. "Never get a question on it." ~isun's national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, was
Later in the meeting, Nixon appears to have turned his known to be in Beijing at the time of the vote working
attention to a strategy that a year later would figure vut, the details of Nixon's historic trip to China in
prominently in a vote by the House Judiciary- Committee February 1972.
recommending his impeachment. The committee impli? "We had atwo-headed, two-faced effort under way at
sated Nixon in an attempt to cover up the Watergate the time," declared James Leonard, a disarmament
scandal which erupted after burglars were caught negotiator who served on Bush's team at the United
attempting to plant eavesdropping devices in the Nations. "[t was clear to me in retrospect that Bush was
Democratic National Committee headquarters on June ~ ' simply manipulated by Kissinger,"
17, 1972. "People like myself didn't feel we really knew Bush
According to the notes, Nixon pondered whether to through and through," said Leonard, a career diplomat
encourage aides to "let it all hang out" in testimony to and strong admirer of Yost. "I don't think I would ever
a federal grand jury or to deal with growing demands probably feel ...complete confidence that I could predict
for explanations of administration involvement in his actions or the principka that would guide his
Watergate by issuing a statement over John Dean's actions."
name. Leonard indicated that his feel'
The notes suggest that Nixon indicated a preference from evidence that gush ~ about Bush stem
for the latter option, which Watergate investigators later partici ~u ~ ~~~
paled, in ~ a post-1972 election purge of UN.
claimed was conceived as a ploy to withhold evidence. staffers thought to have beat disldyal to Nixon.
Ehrlichman's notes of the March ZO meeting offer no At a Camp David mating on Nov 2p with Nixon and
sign that Bush urged Nixon to make a full disclosure of Ehtlichman, Nixon is reflected by Ehrlichman's notes as
the administration's role in Watergate, although later he calling fora "shakeup of (the) UN. staff' in order to
did so publicly on several occasions. On the other hand, ensure that it would be "our staff iran now on."
the notes do not indicate that anything was- said during According to the notes, Bush at thlit- point ranted an
the meeting that should have alerted Bush to the individual whom he regarded as insufficier,tty loyal to
existence of a possible White House criminal conspiracy. the administration.
Bush had been summoned to take the party position At that meeting, Bush also evidently lobbied Nixon
from the United Nations, where he was sent following an for an appointment as deputy secretary of stela
unsuccessful race in 1970 for a Texas Senate seat. "Interested in foreign affairs - bve it," Bush said,
Bush replaced a veteran and colorless diplomat, a~~g to Ehrliclttrtan's notes. "Can tiptoe betwan
Charles Yost, who was a~ holdover from the Lyndon (~~6'a) and William Rogers" The refa+atoe was to
Johnson Administration and highly regarded by other ~ ~mg Power struggle at the tints betweat
professional diplontsts. Kissinger, at the White House; and Rogris?thm Ntxon's
"[t wasn't a particularly popular appointment in the + of states -
beginning because a lot of old U.N. hands thought we Bush's second choice of jobs in a second Nixon
were just getting a politician," recalled W. Tapley Administration was to hold the title of urtdersea~ary of
Bennett, who served at the time as deputy permanent the Treasury, a job Bush says in his autobiography that
U.S. representative. "But within a few months he had he had been encouraged to sale by age Shultz, t~
won chase folks over simply by the wa he the Treasury seQeetary.
shoulder to the wheel." Y Put his
His last choice would be the li'NC Post. Buslt told
Bush, due in part perhaps to his congressional Nixon. According to Ehrlichrrtan's record, Bush feared
experience and patrician background as a Yak graduate that the job would kill his chances for a ~ in
and son of a former U.S. senator, appears also to have T~ politics.
excelled in the UN.'s political give-and-take and in the However Nixon was insistent on
wooing of fellow dipkxrtab at social functions and other head of the RNC, saying at one Ping Bush at the
occasions involving face-to-faa encamters. decide. EhrGchman s 'ctrl Pint, "Will you let me
But Bush was unable to save the administration from ~, ~ 1 ngs reflex that Nixon made
the offer more attractive by promising gilt that he
a resounding defeat what the United Nations voted on would function as the White House's chief political
Oct. 25, 1971, to expel Taiwan and to seat the Beijing adviser and oottld virtually. count on an official Cabinet
government as China's sole legitimate representative In Portfolio as a reward after the 1874 elections,
so doing, the General Assembly rejected . a move, gY that time, Gerald Ford was president -and Bush
quarterbacked by Bush, to seat both Taiwan and Beijing was rewarded this time with his first choice among the
in what was reoogrtiied as a political accommodation to new assignments that were offered in
the erosion of Washington's long-term insistence that IuVC service. According to his autob~~h~ of his
Taiwan's Nationalists, not the mainland communists, ?~'aPhY. Bush
turned down ambassadorships to Great Britain and
were China's true representatives. France in order to serve as the administration's second
liaison representative in Beijing.
co,Nr~NuED
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p.3
According to China experts, Bush's tenure coincided
with an uneventful lull in the Sino-U.S. rapprochement,
and the future via president returned to the United
States at Ford's request to assume the leadership of an
embattled CIA. without leaving much of a mark on the
evolving relationship,
However, Bush's political skills proved invaluable at
the CIA, which was emerging from a series of
tempestuous congressional investigations when he took
. the agency's helm, aooording to several retired cares
CIA officials who served him in high-ranking posts,
Tit assessment is also. shared by William Miller,
then the staff director for the newly created Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence which was charged with
riding herd on the CIA,
"He clearly took over at a very difficult time," said
Miller, who served on the committer under a Democratic
majority "His main task was to work out the beginnings.
of the new relationship of the agency with ... the
~8~s, and i think he handled it quite well ... It was
~~" good appointment ea~sidering the circvm-
Mower, Bush quickly convinced the agency that it
rnuld count ~ his byalty -that he would safeguard
its ~~ts, honor its traditions and avoid demoralizing.
staff shakeups in order to give plum jobs to political
cronies.
E.H. Knoche, a career CIA operative whom Bush
named as his deputy director, recalled the day Bush was
sworn in at the at3~cY's auditorium by Ford.
"He told us that he wanted to do well -that he knew
how important it was," Knoche said, "He said he liked
the look of things, We had just gone through nearly two
Years when everything we had done waned to be under
attack, and then to get that kind of message from our
new boss. From that moment until the time he left, the
morale rnukin't have been higher,"
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