41: A Portrait of My Father

by George W. Bush

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  ON NOVEMBER 2, 1975, Mother and Dad got up early and went for a bike ride through Beijing. They were enjoying a crisp fall morning when Dad spotted a messenger from his office pedaling toward them. He had a telegram from the White House marked: “George Bush. Eyes Only.” Dad was shocked by what he read. President Ford wanted him to leave China and return to the United States to serve as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  As my parents knew from their meager access to American news, the CIA was facing withering criticism from the public, the media, and Congress. In December 1974, the New York Times had published a front-page article revealing that the CIA, under multiple Presidents, had engaged in illegal activities, including monitoring domestic antiwar activists and other dissident groups. Congress formed the Church and Pike Committees to investigate. Angry legislators demanded transparency and a massive overhaul of the agency. As my father read the message to Mother, she broke down in tears. The President had just asked the man she loved to reenter the swamp.

  Mother wasn’t the only one who had misgivings about the offer. Dad was reluctant too. Democrats had made huge gains in the 1974 congressional elections that followed Watergate, and my father knew that dealing with the most liberal Congress in recent memory would be very unpleasant. He also wanted to keep the door open to pursue further political ambitions. He had been considered for VP in 1974, and Republicans in Texas were talking to him about running for Governor in 1978. Those plans would be threatened if he took the CIA job. As he put it in a letter to his brothers and sister, the CIA was a “graveyard for politics.”

  Yet again, Dad’s sense of duty prevailed. He had dealt with the CIA during his time at the UN and in China, and he knew the importance of their work. A few hours after he received the telegram, Dad cabled back to Washington to accept the job. As he explained to the President and Kissinger, “My Dad inculcated into his sons a set of values that have served me well in my own short public life. One of these values quite simply is that one should serve his country and his President. And so if this is what the President wants me to do the answer is a firm ‘YES.’ ”

  The CIA position required confirmation by the Senate. The nomination became controversial when some Senators loudly claimed that George Bush was too political for the job. Dad pointed out that he had held nonpolitical posts at the UN and in China, and he assured the Senators that partisanship would play no role in the assignment. Still, they demanded more. In a historically unusual letter, President Ford provided a written guarantee that he would not consider George Bush for Vice President when he ran for reelection in 1976. The President was willing to do what was necessary to get his nominee confirmed, and Dad’s commitment to serve his country was strong enough that he gave up his constitutional right to run for office. The Senate confirmed him by a vote of sixty-four to twenty-seven.

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  DIRECTOR BUSH BEGAN the new job by developing a strong and trusting relationship with his new colleagues. That task was especially important at the CIA, where agency morale was sagging because of the beating the CIA had been taking in Congress and the press. The agency’s image had been tarnished badly.

  From the beginning, Dad made it clear that he believed in the agency’s mission and would stand up for its people. In his appearances before Congress and the media, he stressed the importance of a robust intelligence capacity. While acknowledging past abuses, he explained the measures the agency had taken to correct them. Most important, he called the intelligence officers “patriots,” a term that few people were willing to use in public when the daily headlines blared about the CIA’s past transgressions.

  He showed his support for the agency in other ways. President Ford had offered him an office in the Old Executive Office Building, right next to the White House. Accepting the office would have signaled his importance in Washington, where proximity to the President is a proxy for power. He turned the President’s offer down. He felt that his office should be at agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia. There he took the employee elevator, not the one reserved for the Director. Around Christmas 1976, he arranged for the great jazz artist Lionel Hampton to perform a concert for the employees in “the Bubble,” the CIA’s large auditorium. (Unlike the Christmas party back in West Texas, Dad didn’t tend bar.)

  Director Bush traveled to CIA stations abroad to thank analysts and case officers. Some in the clandestine service had never met a CIA Director. He also made some difficult personnel decisions that were necessary to improve the agency—another reason why it was so important for him to develop trust early on. He gently eased out older agency leaders, which gave him a way to promote junior officers and address the recruitment problem. And he spoke out forcefully against leakers, including former CIA agent Philip Agee, who had just released a tell-all book. My father could forgive a lot of mistakes, but he believed that it was disgraceful for a man to violate his oath and reveal state secrets, especially when it could lead to the loss of innocent American life.

  It didn’t take long for word to get around Langley that George Bush cared deeply about the CIA’s mission and people. He found the work fascinating; his inquisitive nature was sated by the agency’s cadre of brilliant analysts. Remarkably, in just one year, he developed a strong bond with the people of the CIA—dedicated public servants who did not often receive the public appreciation that they deserved. One historian called him the most popular director since Allen Dulles in the 1950s.

  Dad’s affection for the CIA lasted long past his year at Langley. As President, he asked for in-person CIA briefings almost every day. When I was elected President, he advised me to do the same. I took his advice and found the briefings by the smart, capable CIA analysts one of the most interesting aspects of my job. Like Dad, I gained great respect for the fearless officers of the clandestine service.

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  TRUE TO HIS WORD, Dad stayed out of politics throughout his time at the CIA. President Ford’s poll numbers had suffered after his pardon of Nixon, and the economy was struggling. In November 1976, he lost a close election to Jimmy Carter. Dad had met Carter during the campaign when the Georgia Governor requested intelligence briefings so that he could be up to speed if he won the election. After Carter’s victory, Dad offered to stay on. He had been at the agency for only a year, and he felt that he could provide stability while the President filled the rest of his national security team.

  Jimmy Carter decided to let Dad go, a move that I thought was a mistake. When he became President twelve years later, Dad retained CIA Director William Webster, who had been appointed by Ronald Reagan. When I took office, I retained Director George Tenet, who had been appointed by Bill Clinton. I thought my decision would send a signal of continuity and nonpartisanship in an important national security post. I was disappointed that President Obama chose not to keep Michael Hayden, a lifelong public servant whom I had appointed to lead the CIA in 2007. Nobody knew the intelligence business better than Mike, a career professional in the field, and his knowledge would have been very valuable to the President.

  Ultimately, a Democratic President did recognize Dad’s contributions to the CIA. In 1998, Bill Clinton signed legislation sponsored by Congressman Rob Portman of Ohio that renamed the agency’s headquarters. When I made my first visit to Langley, Director George Tenet said, “Mr. President, welcome to the George Bush Center for Intelligence.”

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  IN THE SPACE of one decade, George Bush had served as Ambassador to the United Nations, Republican Party Chairman, Liaison Officer in China, and Director of the CIA. He had seen a President fall and a new world power begin to rise. He had dealt successfully with diplomats, communists, and spies. He had led organizations through crises and emerged with his reputation enhanced. Yet when George Bush boarded a commercial flight to Houston after Jimmy Carter’s inauguration, most observers believed his political career was over. According to conventional wisdom, none of the jobs he had held in the 1970s were viewed as a springboar
d to political success.

  Of course, George Bush never put too much stock in conventional wisdom. He believed that his diplomatic jobs had prepared him well for further public service. And he turned out to be right. Not only is my father the only President to have held all four of those jobs, he is the only President to have held any of those four jobs. In hindsight, the experience and judgment he gained along the way equipped him to become one of the best-prepared Presidents of the modern era.

  RUNNER-UP

  OVER HIS CAREER IN BUSINESS and government, George Bush had navigated his way through many unfamiliar situations. In the spring of 1977, shortly after he left the CIA at the end of the Ford administration, my parents encountered a new challenge: They were home alone.

  Mother and Dad had returned to Houston shortly after Jimmy Carter’s inauguration. They bought a house, their twenty-fifth different address in thirty-two years of marriage. All their children had grown and were living on their own. My parents used their newfound time to reconnect with their many Texas friends and dote on their first grandchild, George Prescott Bush, son of my brother Jeb and his wife, Columba. They enjoyed the respite from the political arena. Mother called it “a second honeymoon.” But Dad could not take it easy for long. He missed the action. And he believed he had more to contribute. As he wrote to his friend Gerry Bemiss, “I don’t want to slip into that 3 or 4 martini late late dinner rich social thing. There is still too much to learn.”

  My father wasn’t the only one in the family with a drive to contribute. In our old hometown of Midland, I was preparing to enter the political arena that he had just left—and that he was about to reenter, in a big way.

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  A DECADE ON a government salary, combined with the expenses of educating five children, had taken its toll on my parents’ finances. In 1977, my father’s uncle Herbie—a founding owner of the New York Mets who helped inspire my dream to own a baseball team—died at age seventy-two. His wife, Mary, decided to put Walker’s Point up for sale. The big house had been damaged by a storm the previous winter, and she didn’t want the expense of maintaining it. She had received a generous offer from a buyer outside the family. Fortunately, she gave my father the option to match the price. He had loved Walker’s Point his whole life, and he hated the thought of losing the family’s traditional gathering place—his “anchor to windward.” At the time, he didn’t have the cash to buy the property. He asked his aunt if she would give him a little more time to get the money together. She agreed, and he purchased the property in 1981.

  My father didn’t like the idea of cashing in on his government service, but he had always been interested in the business world. Joining a few corporate boards of directors gave him a way to stay engaged and make some money. He accepted seats on the boards of Eli Lilly, Texasgulf Oil, and First International Bancshares in Dallas. He also received an offer to get back into the oil business from H. Ross Perot, a Dallas businessman who had founded a successful technology company. Dad thanked Ross but declined the offer. He explained that he didn’t want to take on any long-term business commitments. That was not the last George Bush would hear from Ross Perot.

  While Dad enjoyed his corporate roles, politics and public service remained his passions. Some of his Texas friends urged him to run for Governor in 1978. But his interests were elsewhere. He had served in the Cabinets of two Presidents, and he knew how to handle the pressures of politics and policy. As much as Mother loved their quiet life together, she knew that their second honeymoon would be brief. Dad wanted to serve, and he wanted to serve on the big stage. Soon they began to travel the country, sounding out the prospects of a presidential campaign.

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  AFTER GRADUATING from Harvard Business School in 1975, I returned to Midland, Texas. Like my dad a generation earlier, I was attracted to Midland by the entrepreneurial climate and the excitement of an oil boom. My debut in the oil business came as a land man. My duties were to hustle around checking court records and trading minerals and royalties. Occasionally I took a small interest in a deal. I had some marginal success, and my cost of living was low.

  On July 6, 1977, my thirty-first birthday, Midland’s longtime Congressman, George Mahon, announced that he would retire after forty-four years in the U.S. House of Representatives. The prospect of running for Mr. Mahon’s seat intrigued me. I liked politics, and I’d gained valuable experience working on Dad’s campaigns in 1964 and 1970, as well as on Senate races in Florida (for Edward Gurney, who won) and Alabama (for Red Blount, who lost). I felt strongly about the issues. I believed that the country was headed in the wrong direction under Jimmy Carter, especially on energy regulation and tax policy. The political bug was biting hard.

  Dad was surprised when I told him that I was considering running for Congress. He suggested I visit his friend former Governor Allan Shivers to ask his advice on the race. Shivers was a political icon. For decades, he held the record for the longest continuous service as Governor of Texas (until my successor, Governor Rick Perry, surpassed him). When I told Governor Shivers that I was considering running in the Nineteenth Congressional District, he looked me straight in the eye and told me that I couldn’t win. The seat had been held by a conservative rural Democrat for the past forty-four years, and the district was drawn perfectly for a conservative rural Democratic state senator, Kent Hance.

  I thanked the Governor for seeing me and left somewhat perplexed. Had Dad known what Shivers would say? If so, why had he sent me? It was not Dad’s style to try to dictate the course of my life. On a decision of this magnitude, he wanted me to make up my own mind. In hindsight, I suspect that the Shivers referral was his way of warning me that the race would be difficult and that I should prepare for disappointment.

  I entered the race anyway. I was independent-minded enough—or, some might say, stubborn enough—to give it a shot. As expected, once I told him that I had decided to run, my father was behind me 100 percent.

  My congressional campaign was a small operation. Most of those involved were friends, family, or volunteers. My brother Neil was the campaign manager. My treasurer was Joe O’Neill, a childhood friend who had graduated from Notre Dame and the University of Michigan’s business school, served in the Army Special Forces, and returned to Midland to work in the oil business. One night in the summer of 1977, Joe and his wife, Jan, invited me to a barbecue in their backyard. They told me there was someone that they wanted me to meet: Jan’s good friend from Midland, Laura Welch.

  I was struck by Laura’s beauty. She had gorgeous blue eyes and a bright smile, which she flashed frequently in response to my jokes. As we chatted, we learned how much we had in common. She had grown up in Midland at the same time that I had, and we had overlapped for one year at San Jacinto Junior High. It turned out that we had even lived in the same apartment complex in Houston after college (she graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and then earned a master’s in library science from the University of Texas). She was smart and dignified and had a calm, natural manner. It wasn’t exactly the same as when George Bush met Barbara Pierce at that Christmas dance back in 1941. Nobody danced a waltz in Joe and Jan’s backyard; our second date was at a putt-putt golf course. Like my parents, however, we fell in love quickly. We were both over thirty and ready to settle down. We got married a few months later.

  Laura knew she was marrying into a political family. She was less interested in the politics and more interested in the family. As an only child, she was thrilled to gain three brothers-in-law and a sister-in-law. She quickly developed a comfortable relationship with my parents, who welcomed her as a daughter of their own. Among other things, Laura bonded with Mother over their responsibilities as spouses of candidates. Laura was supportive of my race, but she had no interest in a starring role. I liked that about her; I was not looking for the stereotypical “political wife.” She even vowed that she would never give a political speech. Fortunately, she broke that vow. She became a very effective advocate
in my 1978 congressional campaign—and in many other campaigns that followed.

  The front-runner in the 1978 Republican primary was Jim Reese, a former mayor of Odessa who had run a strong race against Mahon in 1976. Reese had lined up some impressive endorsements, including that of former California Governor Ronald Reagan. I had met the Governor at a rally in Jacksonville, Florida, during my time working on a Senate campaign. Reagan made a powerful impression. He was tall and handsome and carried himself like the Hollywood star that he once was. He gave a fantastic speech that electrified the crowd. I was not surprised that he had almost defeated President Gerald Ford in the 1976 primaries or that he was considered a strong candidate for the Republican nomination in 1980.

  Naturally I was disappointed that Governor Reagan had endorsed my opponent. When I mentioned the situation to Dad, he said immediately, “Reagan will call you if you win your primary.” Sure enough, when I upset Jim Reese for the Republican nomination, the phone rang the next day. “George, this is Ron Reagan,” he said. “Congratulations on proving me wrong. I just want to let you know that I’ll do anything I can to help you win the seat.” I thanked him for the call and hung up impressed by his generosity. I did not ask for his help. I naively thought that voters would appreciate that I was willing to run without inviting him or my dad to campaign in the district.

  I campaigned hard through the summer and fall of 1978. After the primary, Laura and I left our home in Midland and rented a house in Lubbock, the largest city in the congressional district. It was asking a lot of my new bride to make her leave her home so soon after we got married. But she embraced the challenge. While we had taken a short trip to Mexico after the wedding, she thought of the campaign as our real honeymoon. We spent long hours together on the road, driving across the sprawling district for campaign stops in small towns like Levelland, Plainview, and Brownfield. On the Fourth of July, we rode in a white pickup truck in a parade in the heavily Democratic northern part of the district. Nobody waved to us—at least not using all five fingers. It’s safe to say that Laura had not envisioned doing anything like this when she planned her career as a public school librarian. For me, she was going three-quarters of the way.