IN THE COMPANY OF FRIENDS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401570011-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 22, 2012
• Sequence Number: 11
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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George Bush and the CIA:
In the Company of Friends
Anthony L. Kimery
J.L ANan/Sygma
Throughout his career, Bush's relationship to the CIA has reflected his
hands-on approach and close association to the world of covert operations.
tant contribution was to national security policy, a role for
which he was uniquely qualified. Recipient of his own
special daily CIA/national security briefings, he was a
prominent, some say guiding, member of the National
Security Council (NSC) - home to most of the Iran-Contra
plotting and off-the-shelf secret operations. He also
chaired crucial sub-national security policy groups which
gave birth to Iran-Contra's more heinous rogueries.2 The
question raised by all this access and intimacy is not so
much how integral Bush was to formulating and carrying
out the national security policies that allowed for crimes
such as Iran-Contra. Rather, the question that needs to be
answered is why he is such an important player at all.
"I don't think there's
ever been a vice presi-
dent... as much involved
at the highest level in
our policy-making and
our decisions than
George," said President
Reagan in March 1985.1
At the 1988 Republican
national convention, in
response to the Demo-
crats' taunt, "Where
was George," during
Iran-Contra, Reagan
said, "George played a
major role in everything
we've accomplished
....George was there."
Bush's most impor-
Anthony L Kimery is a free-lance investigative journalist whose work
has appeared in various publications. He is presently working on a book
about George Bush and the CIA.
1. Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover, Whose Broad Stripes and Bright
Stars (New York: Warner Books, 1989), pp. 67,381.
2. Chair of the Task Force on Combatting Terrorism, which dealt
regularly with North and Casey, member of NSC; member of National
Security Planning Group; Chair of Special Situations Group, whose sub-
Crisis Pre-Planning Group conceived of the illegal quid pro quo with Hon-
duras. (NSC and White House documents declassified for North's trial.)
On the surface, Bush's
rise within policy and in-
telligence circles-
from a moderately suc-
cessful Texas business-
man to moderately
successful political play-
er, to director of the
CIA, to an unusually in-
volved vice president-
seems unlikely.
If, however, he had a
longer, more intimate re-
lationship with the CIA
than the public. record
indicates, much about
Bush's spectacular ca-
reer would be ex-
plained. While not
conclusive, there is a growing body of evidence that for
almost half a century, Bush has been a Company man. That
evidence is.worth examining.
The Early Years: Waltzing with Spooks
Bush's most important ties to the intelligence com-
munity were likely knotted at Yale, which he attended from
1945 to 1948. During these formative years for both Bush
and the Cold War, the CIA recruited vigorously and almost
exclusively at the elite Ivy.3 Yale was so intimately inter-
twined with the U.S. spy community that it "influenced the
CIA more than' any other institution," wrote historian
Robin W. Winks 4 All the recruits did not enter the Agency
itself. Many Yale graduates going to work for multinational
corporations were routinely recruited to provide intel-
ligence, particularly from behind the Iron Curtain.
The CIA's full-time salaried headhunter at Yale was
crew coach Allen "Skip" Waltz, a former naval intelligence
3. Robin W. Winks, Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War. 1961 (New York: William Morrow, 1987), Chapter 1.
4. Aid., p. 35.
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officer who had a good view of Bush.5 As a member of
Yale's Undergraduate Athletic Association and Under-
graduate Board of Deacons, Bush had to have worked
closely with Waltz on the university's athletic programs
from which the coach picked most of the men he steered
to the CIA. It is inconceivable Waltz didn't try to recruit
Bush, say former Agency officials recruited at Yale.6
But it wasn't just Bush's scholastic achievements that
made him desirable as a prospective spy. His father, Pres-
cott, Sr., probably also had a part in the CIA's interest in
young George.7 A managing partner of Brown Brothers
Harriman and major benefactor of Yale, Prescott had been
an Army Intelligence operative in World War I. He also
ardently supported Eisenhower's covert Cold War policies
and was a close friend of William Casey, an OSS veteran
who went on to head the CIA from 1981 until his death in
1985. Given these connections, it was not surprising that
the job awaiting his son upon graduation in 1948 was with
a CIA-linked company headed by a close friend who was
also on good terms with top people in the Agency.
Oiling the Company Machine
Bush started his career as a salesman for International
Derrick and Equipment Company (IDECO), a subsidiary
of Houston-based Dresser Industries. This global engi-
neering and construction conglomerate had routinely
served as a CIA cover. 8 Bush's job, peddling IDECO's
services, including behind the Iron Curtain, was a curious
Among the meticulous pages of
the address book the Count
carried until his alleged suicide,
is an entry for "George Bush."
responsibility, considering Bush's inexperience in either
the oil industry or international relations.
Dresser Industries, longtime Chairman of the Board
Henry Neil Mallon, the "surrogate uncle" and "father-con-
fessor" to Prescott's children, personally offered Bush the
IDECO job .9 Mallon was a friend to numerous ranking
Cold War era intelligence officials, including Allen Dul-
5. Ibid., pp. 51-54.
6. Consensus of several former senior CIA officials who are familiar with
the Agency's recruiting practices and procedures. Interviews in 1990-91.
7. Author's interviews with a number of former CIA officials and opera-
tives, 1990-91.
8. Author's interviews in 1990-91 with two individuals who were CIA
Operations Directorate field officers at the time, one of whom knew Bush
and claims to have worked for Dresser as his cover.
9. Donnie Radcliffe, Simply Barbara Burn: A Portrait ofAmerica's Candid
Foss Lady, (New York Werner Boole, 1989), pp. 103-4; and Nicholas King
George Bush: A Biography (New York: Dodd-Mead, 1980), p. 43.
Summer 1992
AseoCI5 ed Press
DeMohrenschildt with his wife holding photos of Kennedys.
He was linked to both CIA covert operations and to Bush.
les - an OSS veteran and groundfloor official of the CIA.
(Dulles headed the Agency from 1953 until 1961 when he
was sacked by President Kennedy in the wake of the Bay
of Pigs disaster.) Mallon steered prospective candidates
for spy work to Dulles and often provided cover employ-
ment to CIA -operatives.10 Prescott and Mallon were also
Yale classmates and initiates of Skull and Bones, the in-
famous secret Yale fraternity that was a fertile CIA recruit-
ing ground during the Cold War.11 George joined Skull and
Bones his junior year.
Another particularly important operative with whom
Mallon was well acquainted would also eventually work
with George Bush. George DeMohrenschildt, a Russian
Count whose family fled Russia after the Bolshevik revolu-
tion, had been part of a spy network Dulles ran inside
Hitler's intelligence organization.12
10. March 25,1953, letter from Prescott Bush to President Eisenhower's
national security adviser.
11. Howard Frazier, ed., UncloakingtheCL4 (NewYork: The Free Press,
1978), p. 148.
12. DeMohrenschildt, better known as Lee Harvey Oswald's best friend,
allegedly killed himself on March 29, 1977, after learning that the House
Select Committee on Assassinations had sent investigator Gaeton Fonzi to
talk to him. Fonzi wanted to interview the Count about omissions in his 1964
testimony to the Warren Commission. (DeMohrenschildt's Warren Com-
mission testimony. Vol.11, pp. 134-35,138, Commission Exhibits 1403,1667,
3100, 3116; and author's interview with former senior CIA Operations
Directorate officials, 1990-91.)
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Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, DeMohrenschildt
appears to have been submerged as a deep cover CIA
"asset," operating under the guise of a consulting petro-
leum geologist specializing in making deals between U.S.
oil companies and the East-bloc nations to which he was
remarkably well-connected.13 Mallon personally introduced
the Count to Bush at about the same time Mallon handed
Bush the highly sensitive responsibility of negotiating East-
bloc deals. The officials with whom Bush dealt had detailed
knowledge of Soviet-bloc oil and gas production and ex-
ploration and drilling capabilities, as well as strategic ex-
ploration and production plans outside the USSR. Bush
convivially wheeled and dealed with the communists' pe-
troleum experts without the slightest grimace by U.S. auth-
orities. In fact, when a Yugoslavian oil industry official
came to the U.S. in 1948 to talk to Dresser Industries, the
State Department barely flinched and he went strai ht to
neophyte salesman George Bush in Midland, Texas. 4
"It's inconceivable then that the
CIA didn't debrief Bush after
each and every meeting [he had
with the East's representatives]."
-Victor Marchetti, former CIA officer.
Driven by a Cold War policy of covertly thwarting expan-
sion of the Soviet petroleum industry wherever possible, the
CIA was desperate for accurate intelligence on the USSR's
oil and gas production activities. "It's inconceivable then that
the CIA didn't debrief Bush after each and everymeeting [he
had with the East's representatives]," explained Victor Mar-
chetti, a former ranking CIA officer and Soviet specialist
during the 1950s. "Businessmen with dealings like [Bush had]
were routinely debriefed," Marchetti said.'
For decades, the CIA relied heavily on debriefings of
U.S. businesspeople-some of whom were turned into
full-fledged agents-for valuable intelligence tidbits. That
Bush was one of those recruited to spy, is a possibility
Marchetti and other ex-CIA officials find consistent with
the ngrmal Company functioning. And it would certainly
go far in explaining Bush's relationship with the mysterious
Count DeMohrenschildt. A degreed petroleum geologist,
the Count could have explained precisely what information
13. Anthony Summers, Conspiracy (New York: McGraw Hill,1981), pp.
222-28, 24819; Robert Groden and Harrison Livingstone, High Treason,
TheAssassination of President Kennedy: What Realty Happened (New York:
Berkeley, 1990), pp. 299-305. Volumes I-IV; DeMohrenschildt testimony
before Warren Commission, op. cit.
14. Richard Ben Cramer, "How He Got Here," Esquire; June 1991, pp.
128-34; and King, op. cit., pp. 47-51.
15. Author's interview, 1991.
Bush needed to look for to help the CIA fill its intelligence
gaps. Later a CIA spy in Yugoslavia, DeMohrenschildt
may have been Bush's "handler"-his briefer and de-
briefer. "Bush had all the characteristics of being a spook,"
said a retired CIA operative who says he worked for
Dresser as a cover and who knew the future president.16
The possibility that deep cover operative DeMohren-
schildt's relationship to Bush was that of fellow intelligence
gatherer is further strengthened by DeMohrenschildt's
continuing association with Bush, and by the apparently
secret turn. in their relationship at about the time CIA
operations against Fidel Castro began.
Neatly typewritten among the meticulous pages of the
telephone and address book the Count carried with him
until his alleged suicide, is an entry for "George Bush."
It includes his nickname, "Poppy," and his home ad-
dress and telephone number in Midland, Texas, where
Bush and his family lived from 1953 until he moved the
offices of Zapata Off-Shore Oil Company to Houston in
1959. Curiously, the two of them continued to meet secretly
in Houston.17 DeMohrenschildt made no new entry.for
Bush's residence in Houston. There was only an "X"
marked through the old address.18 In his testimony to the
Warren Commission, DeMohrenschildt acknowledged
having made frequent trips to Houston beginning in the
late 1950s for which he gave only vague explanations. 19
Although there is no proof, it is possible that one reason
for his stealth was the continued meetings with Bush. By
the early 1960s, Bush was regularly servicing the CIA in
Latin America. "I know [Bush] was involved [with the CIA]
in the Caribbean," said an ex-CIA agent. 0
Zapata Zaps Mexico
It was around this time, in the late 1950s, that Bush
expanded his business dealings in Mexico. The counter-
revolutionary, anti-nationalization policies enforced by the
CIA in the incendiary Mexico-Caribbean-Central America
region certainly worked to Bush's financial advantage. Fol-
lowing Castro's successful revolution in 1959, his govern-
ment took over all oil and gas enterprises in Cuba and
nationalized the industry-a blow to U.S. oil companies
which had just begun to tap into Cuba's oil reservoirs 21
16. Author's interview, 1989.
17. Author's interviews with several former senior CIA Operations
Directorate officials, 1990-91.
18. DeMohrenschildt's address book.
19. Warren Commission testimony, op. cit.
20. Joseph McBride, "George Bush, CIA Operative," The Nation, July
16-23,1988, pp. 41-42.
21. DeMohrenschildt was verywell connected to oil executives linked to
the intelligence community, such as Jean de Menil, president of the Schlurn-
berger Company, through which ammunition was funneled to the anti-
Castro Cubans employed by the CIA. Jim Garrison, On The Trail of the
Assassins: My Investigation and Prosecution of the Murder of President Ken-
nedy (New York: Warner, 1990), pp. 45, 61, 209, 367.
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Fearing that the desire to control their own -industries
would spread to other Third World countries, the CIA
went to bat for big oil amalgamations which were worried
about the security of their investments in the region's
considerable oil and natural gas resources. The Agency
began assembling a paramilitary force to invade Cuba and
overthrow Castro. Again, there was a neat mesh between
CIA policy objectives and Bush business interests in the
region. In the summer of 1959, Bush was principal owner
of Zapata Off-Shore Oil Company, which he had spun off
from Zapata Petroleum -a company he helped found six
years earlier.
Veteran CIA operatives in the war against Castro say
Bush not only let the CIA use Zapata as a front for running
some of its operations (including the use of. several off-
shore drilling platforms), but assert that Bush personally
served as a conduit through which the Agency disbursed
money for contracted services.22
Lending themselves this way to the CIA was a classical
segue for many businesspeople in the 1950s and early 1960s
who had wet their feet spying for the CIA behind the Iron
Curtain. The Agency recruited scores of conservative
businesspeople to volunteer their companies as "fronts"
for hiding the impending invasion against Castro 23
A number of veteran Cold Warriors, none of whom
knows one another, are adamant in their respective claims
that Bush worked for the Agency during this period. They
tell similar disturbing stories about Bush having dirtied his
hands "doing the Company's bidding," as one put it. This
allegation is buttressed by the internal records of a secret
alumnus of former back alley operations who confirms that
contract mercenaries were indeed employed by Zapata.24
PEMEX: Oiling the CIA and Greasing Bush's Palm
The Agency-industry fear - that they might lose control
of oil reserves in their "backyard" -was well-founded. On
the heels of Castro's nationalization, Mexico, a country of
more strategic and economic importance to the U.S. than
Cuba, also moved to nationalize its oil industry. Concur-
rently, Mexico embarked on a massive economic expansion
program which relied heavily on wooing foreign credits.
One country which offered tantalizing loans and oil drilling
expertise was the Soviet Union. The CIA was concerned
22. Author's interviews with several former senior CIA Operations
Directorate officials, 1990-91.
23. Warren Hinkle and William Turner, The Fish is Red: The Story of
the Secret WarAgainat Castro (New York: Harper and Raw, 1981).
24. American Legion Generals Ward and Chennault China Post No. 1
internal papers and membership lists; and author's interviews with several
former senior CIA Operations Directorate officials, 1990-91.
25. "PEMEX Booming Bureau With Big Plans," Oil And Gas Journal,
March 21, 1960, pp. 91-2; "Pemex Plans Careful Drilling Program for
Northeast Mexico," Oil and Gas Journal, March 30,1960, pp. 134-35.
Burton's
PEMEX head Diaz Serrano, later convicted of fraud, was a
business associate of Bush and an ally of the CIA.
that the Soviets would establish a foothold in Mexico's oil
industry. The U.S. oilmen were worried that they would
lose their profitable domination of Mexico's oil industry
and, unable to stop the nationalization, they rushed in to
snare lucrative business arrangements with PEMEX, Mex-
ico's new state-owned oil monopoly.
While most bid overtly for contracts, some oilmen
worked closely with the large Mexico City CIA station.
One corporation which benefited from the considerable
leverage the CIA held over certain Mexican officials run-
ning PEMEX, was Bush's Zapata Off-Shore Oil Company.
By 1960, Agency assets had helped Bush erect the founda-
tion for a secret and illegal oil drilling partnership on
Mexican soil.26 In 1959, working through high-level offi-
cials of Dresser Industries, Bush teamed up with ranking
Mexican officials whose offices were cooperating closely
with.the CIA Chief of Station in Mexico City. The office of
Minister of Government Luis Echeverria Alvarez, which
oversaw Mexico's oil interests and supervised the Direc-
26. Meanwhile, Bush's friend, George DeMohrenschildt, also was in the
middle of the CIA's scheme to ensure that U.S. oil companies had the
advantage in Mexico and that U.S. dominance was not jeopardized by the
Soviets. DeMohrenschildt wined and dined PEMEx officials on behalf of
Texas Eastern Corporation, a subsidiary of the Houston-based Brown &
Root Company, a multinational engineering, construction, and oil con-
glomerate that had a lucrative, natural gas contract with Mexico. like
Dresser, Brown & Root had also long served as a cover for the CIA, and
was part of the powerful oil clique which would later throw money at the
political ambitions of Richard Nixon and George Bush. (Author's interviews
with several former CIA Operations Directorate officials, 1990-91; and
DeMohrenschildt's Warren Commission testimony, op. cit.)
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torate of Federal Security (his country's equivalent of the
CIA) was particularly helpful. In the summer of 1959,
circumventing Mexican laws requiring drilling contracts be
held by Mexican nationals, Bush and his Mexican front
men created Permargo Company.27
Although on paper the company appeared to be
Mexican-owned, Bush and his associates camouflaged
Zapata's 50 percent ownership of Permargo. The com-
pany, which pioneered in deploying mobile deep sea oil
drilling platforms, was virtually alone in the Caribbean Sea
and off the shores of South America.28
Bush engineered the deal without telling any Zapata
Off-Shore stockholders 29 He worked through Jorge Diaz
Serrano, a prominent citizen many Mexicans believed
would be their country's next president. Less known were
his close ties to the CIA's station in Mexico City.30 Diaz
Serrano went on to take control of Permargo when Bush
was elected to Congress in 1966. Ten years later Diaz
Serrano, too, appeared to give up his interest in Permargo
when he moved into a government job - head of PEMEX. In
fact, he maintained his financial interest in Permargo and
established a cozy and profitable relationship for PEMEX
with the CIA and U.S. oil companies. After his high-profile
incompetence and corruption were exposed, Diaz Serrano
was charged with overseeing the theft of billions of dollars
in oil and cash and was convicted in 1983 of defrauding the
Mexican government of $58 million. Sentenced to ten
years, he was released after five.31
At that point, U.S. relations with the increasingly anti-
U.S. Mexican government and, consequently, with PEMEX,
deteriorated rapidly, destroying the good relations Bush
had cultivated when he led the CIA in 1976. 32
Naming Names
Were it not for the inadvertent discovery of a now nearly
30-year-old document that names "George Bush" as a CIA
employee, these ex-spooks' stories would be nothing more
than just that - stories. But it is precisely because of these
27. Details on Mexico City CIA station: Philip Agee, Inside the Company:
CIA Diary (New York: Stonehill, 1975); on Bush's involvement in creating
Permargo: Jonathan Kwitny, "'Ilse Mexican Connection: A Look at an Old
George Bush Business Venture," Barron % September 19,1988, pp. 8-9, 28.
28. "Why Zapata Is Working in Foreign Waters," Oil and Gas Journal,
February 15,1960, pp. 66-7.
29. Kwitny, op. cit
30. Author's interviews with several former senior CIA Operations
Directorate officials, 1990-91.
31. Kwitny, op. cit, p. 28.
32. Bush had joined the CIA at about the same time as Diaz Serrano
took over PEMEx Before Bush left the Agency, assets working for Dresser
had undertaken clandestine talks with Mexican officials in an effort to
reinforce the good working relationship. (Private investigative report in
author's possession; Guillermo X. Garcia and D. Weyerman, "DPS Agent's
Killer Claims Entrapment," Arizona Daily Star, April 13,1984, pp. Al, A17;
Guillermo Garcia, "Ex-CIA Agent Isn't Called As Witness," Arizona Daily
Star, April 14,1984, pp. Al-2.)
tales that an official document indicating Bush worked for
the CIA cannot be ignored. The smoking paper was among
the nearly 100,000 pages of FBI documents on Kennedy's
assassination that the FBI released in 1977 and 1978 in
response to lawsuits under the Freedom of Information
Act. It sat undiscovered for almost a decade until author
Joseph McBride stumbled across it and reported its exist-
ence in the The Nation in July 1988.33
On November 29, 1963, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
wrote to the director of the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (whose staff traditionally in-
cluded CIA officers). The document summarized oral brief-
ings given on the day after Kennedy's murder to "Mr.
George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Cap-
tain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency
by Mr. W. T. Forsyth of the Bureau." It responded to State
Department concern that "some misguided anti-Castro
group might capitalize on the present situation and under-
take an unauthorized raid against Cuba, believing that the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy might herald a
change in U.S. policy," Hoover wrote.34 But it wasn't just
the State Department which was concerned. The CIA had
reason to be worried that rogue Cuban exile-supported
The document summarized oral
briefings given to "Mr. George
Bush of the Central Intelligence
Agency and Captain William
Edwards of the Defense
Intelligence Agency by Mr. W. T.
Forsyth of the Bureau."
operations might expose or impair its anti-Castro covert
actions, which continued despite the Bay of Pigs disaster.
With the election only three months away, the long-
standing Capitol Hill cloakroom rumor that Bush was a
CIA "asset" suddenly gained credibility when The Nation
story hit the streets. Evidence that the Republican can-
didate-whose relationship to the CIA's illegal arms
pipeline to the Contras as Vice President was already
controversial - had in fact been a CIA operative, should
have sparked a political firestorm. Oddly, the furor was
short-lived. Pressed by The Nation for a comment prior to
publication, Bush laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and
according to a White House insider, told his spokesperson
33. McBride, "Bush...CIA," op. cit.
34. Ibid.
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Stephen Hart to tell The Nation that it
"must be another George Bush."35
When asked whether the CIA could
check to see if, as Bush suggested, there
had been another George Bush roaming
the Langley corridors at the time,
spokesperson Bill Devine replied,
"Twenty-seven years ago? I doubt that
very much [that we can search back]. In
any event, we just have a standard policy
of not confirming that anyone is in-
volved with the CIA."36
When The Nation report failed to die
a quick, natural death, the CIA reversed
its standard policy a few days later and
announced -because "the record
should be clarified" - that it had iden-
tified the "George Bush" referred to in
Hoover's memo. Indeed, a George Wil-
liam Bush was employed by the CIA at
the time in question, and it was he to
whom Hoover had referred. CIA
President Gerald Ford at Bush's swearing-in as CIA director, January 1976.
spokesperson Sharron Basso added that
George William Bush left the Agency in 1964 and his
whereabouts were unknown. Another Agency official told
the New York Times. that "we put a lot of effort into [iden-
tifying the man Hoover named]."37
Apparently, they didn't try hard enough. George Wil-
liam Bush was found working for the Social Security Ad-
ministration and living in Alexandria, Virginia, only a short
distance from CIA headquarters. When read the memo, he
responded: "Is that the other George Bush?" It was a
logical assumption; George William Bush had heard that
another George Bush worked for the CIA at the same time
he had been "a lowly researcher and analyst." In a sworn
affidavit, George William acknowledged working for the
CIA at the time Kennedy was killed, but affirmed: "I am
not the Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agen-
cy referred to in the memorandum."38
So, according to George William Bush, there was anoth-
er George Bush working for the CIA when Kennedy was
killed. The CIA won't comment, and the White House
won't "give dignity to this matter with any additional com-
ments. President Bush settled this in 1988 with his denial."39
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. "Mistaken Identity Discerned in '63 Memo On Bush," New York
Times, July 21, 1988, p. A23.
38. Joseph McBride, "Where Was George? (cont.)," The Nation,
August 13-20,1988, pp. 117-18; records available at Assassination Archives
and Research Center, Washington, D.C.
39. Author's interviewwith White House spokesperson who declined to
be identified, 1991.
. That's pretty much the sort of imperious denial Bush
gave to the recurring and unanswered questions about his
role in the Iran-Contra mess. In that case, too, the apparent
Bush-CIA connections go back decades. There is evidence
that prior to Bush's appointment as DCI in 1976, he was
well-acquainted with legendary spook Theodore George
"Ted" Shackley who joined the Agency in 1951. When Bush
arrived on the scene at Langley, it was clear to longtime
Agency insiders that there was a bond between these two
men that went back many years 40
Between 1974 and 1976, a sensitive period in U.S.-
Chinese relations, Bush was Ambassador in Beijing and
Shackley was chief of the CIA's Far East Division. In 1976,
shortly after he became DCI, without seeking advice, Bush
promoted Shackley to 'Associate Deputy' Director of
Operations. In this position, he was second in command to
the DDO -the third most powerful position in the CIA
and one of the most pivotal in the entire government.
Aside from their Agency connection, already cemented
during Bush's previous tenure in Beijing, it is hard to
explain how the two men developed such a close bond.
For the previous 10 years, Shackley was Chief of Station
in Vientiane and Saigon overseeing dozens of covert opera-
tions related to the Vietnam War. Before that, from 1952-
59 and again during 1965-66, he worked in Germany.
40. Author's interview with former CIA Operations Directorate opera'
tive involved in the Bay of Pigs and subsequent anti-Castro operations, 1991.
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O . V
In 1962, before going into the jungles of Indochina, he
returned for a three-year stint stateside as Station Chief in
Miami - then the largest CIA station in the world and the
base of operations for the Agency's vast paramilitary
operations against Castro following the Bay of Pigs dis-
aster. "You've got ole George baby helping the Company's
operation against Castro and here's Shackley in charge of
the Miami station that's running that show. Now how do
you think they know each other my friend?" mused a
former CIA operative involved in the anti-Castro activities.
"Theirs was a damn close relationship - still is."41
Under Bush's tenure as DCI at the CIA, the two men
worked together. Shackley oversaw Central America
operations and established the infrastructure for the
Reagan White House's adventures a short time later.42 The
veteran agent was not only the catalyst for the notion of
selling arms to Iran to free the hostages, but he was also
one of the architects of "low-intensity conflict," the new
name for the CIA's covert strategy in Central America 43
Shackley was eventually forced out of the Agency in 1979
when an arms sales scandal involving him finally exploded.
His relationship with Bush continued, and shorn of official
CIA status, Shackley re-emerged in the early 1980s as an
integral player in Iran-Contra. Throughout the early stages
of those operations, Bush reportedly met with Shackley at
Shackley's office in downtown Arlington. 44
gate had already cracked open the CIA door too far for
some and exposed the relationship of the Watergate
burglars to the Agency's anti-Castro activities, including
several assassination attempts on Castro. Perhaps, how-
ever, some of Bush's supporters thought that someone who
had successfully concealed his own past might be the per-
fect person for the job.
The appointment of Bush as Director of Central Intel-
ligence also coincided with the Senate Intelligence Com-
mittee probe of Oswald's and Jack Ruby's connections to
Cuba, the CIA, and the mob. With his own ties to those
operations, Bush was now in charge of what the CIA would
and wouldn't divulge. As DCI, he frustrated committee
investigators' requests for specific information in the
Agency's files on Oswald and Ruby and downplayed
revelations about CIA involvement. Memoranda written
by Bush on the intelligence committee's investigation of
Oswald's and Ruby's links to the CIA and organized crime
show he was especially interested in the committee's prob-
ing not only of what the CIA knew about the events in
Dallas and didn't report to the Warren Commission, but to
what extent, if any, the Agency was complicit in Kennedy's
murder. 6 Clearly, as DCI, Bush knew the Agency had
hidden, and was still hiding, crucial information which
contradicted the Warren Commission's verdict. Yet, in the
wake of the furor over the movie JFK, Bush commented:
"I have seen no evidence that has given me any reason to
believe the Warren Commission was wrong."47
"Bush was worried about something during those inves-
tigations when he was DCI, all right. He was worried it was
going to be found out that he worked for the Company and
was tied right into all the messes the CIA was in during the
late 50s and early 60s," said "Chuck," an ex-CIA contractor
and Bay of Pigs veteran who claims to have personally dealt
with Bush with respect to the CIA's efforts to overthrow
Castro.48
Government employees are usually pensioned off after
20 years. Strong evidence points to a 45-year record of loyal
service by George Bush to the Central Intelligence Agency.
A rest is long overdue. ?
Skeletons in the Closet
Without question, President Gerald Ford's nomination
of Bush to head the CIA was a departure from precedent
which some members of the House and Senate intelligence
committees and their staffs greeted with suspicion. The
public objection was that Bush was a partisan politician
who would politicize the office. The objection whispered
behind closed doors, by those who had heard that Zapata
had been an Agency cover during the days of the CIA's
anti-Castro exploits, was that Bush was an agent with a past
to hide. A man with skeletons in his closet might be a
dangerous choice to1uard the nation's own collection of
loudly rattling bones. 5 The Church Committee and Water-
41. Author's interviews with former CIA Operations Directorate opera-
tive involved in the Bay of Pigs and subsequent anti-Castro operations, 1991.
42. Affidavit of the late Col. Edward P. Cutolo, Commanding Officer,
10th Special Forces Group, March 11, 1980. According to his affidavit, which
he gave to his close friends for safekeeping until his death, Col. Cutolo was
involved in an unauthorized arms pipeline constructed by the CIA that got
underway in Latin America when Bush was DCI.
43. Theodore G. Shackley, "The Uses of Paramilitary Covert Action in
the 1980s," paper delivered at Colloquium on Covert Action, December5-6,
1980, Washington, D.C.
44. Jim McGee and James Savage, "Bush Sent Doctor to North Net-
work," Miami Herald, March 15,1987, pp. Al, 14.
45. Author's interviews with ex-intelligence officials and congressional
staffers, 1990-91.
46. From CIA memos and documents released under FOIA. One aspect
of Bush's interest in Congress' probe of Ruby may have been the fact that
Bush was backed financially and politically in his 1970 Senate reelection
campaign by Murray W. "Dusty" Miller, then Secretary-Treasurer of the
Teamsters, according to an October 13, 1970, memo from Charles Colson
to H. It Haldeman which was among Nixon's secret files released in 1987.
Prior to that, Miller served Jimmy Hoffa in the South throughout the early
1960s as head of the Teamsters Southern Region Conference. Shortly before
President Kennedy was assassinated, Ruby placed calls to Miller (Warren
Commission testimony, David Scheim, Contract America (New York:
Zebra, 1988), pp. 1329 268; and Robert Blakey and Richard Billings, The Plot
To Kill the President (New York: Times Books, 1981), p. 305.
47. "Personalities," Washington Post, January 3,.1992, p. B3.
48. Author's interviews with former CIA Operations Directorate opera-
tive involved in the Bay of Pigs and subsequent anti-Castro operations, 1991-
Number 41
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/23: CIA-RDP99-01448R000401570011-0