The 1980 race proved to be a transformative election. The country was suffering from crippling unemployment, inflation, and interest rates. The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan and Iranian radicals had seized dozens of hostages from the American embassy. Jimmy Carter had few answers beyond lamenting the national malaise. The American people were ready for a change, and Ronald Reagan provided it. With his sunny optimism and confidence in the country, he gave Americans hope for a better future.
On Election Day, Ronald Reagan took 44 states and 489 electoral votes, the most that any nonincumbent has ever received. Mother and Dad headed back to Washington, where George Bush would soon become the forty-third Vice President of the United States.
WITHIN A HEARTBEAT
IN JANUARY 1981, Laura and I flew to Washington for the Reagan-Bush inauguration. Dad had invited the full flock of children, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and, of course, his mother. The day before the ceremony, some of us attended a luncheon generously hosted by Ronald Reagan’s “Kitchen Cabinet”—longtime friends and confidants, like Holmes Tuttle and Justin Dart. There I met Tuttle’s and Dart’s sons, Robert Tuttle and Steve Dart, along with Tuttle’s grandnephew Jim Click. All three of those men remain good friends of mine, and Robert Tuttle later became my Ambassador to Great Britain.
Of course, the highlight of the lunch was greeting the President-elect. Ronald Reagan had an ease about him that made you feel comfortable. In some ways, he was like Dad: charming, friendly, and warm. Even in our brief meeting, I sensed that the new President and Vice President would enjoy a good working relationship.
The next morning we took our seats on the inaugural platform. For the first time, the inauguration was held on the West Front of the Capitol Building. The day was sunny and warm—the fifty-five-degree temperature far exceeded that of most Washington winter days—and the view over the National Mall was spectacular. I looked out with awe at the huge crowd stretching back toward the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and Arlington National Cemetery.
I had no idea that the 1981 inauguration would be the first of six that I attended. (The others came in 1985, 1989, 2001, 2005, and 2009.)
At the time, my overwhelming emotion was happiness for Dad. I watched with joy as Mother held the Bible while Dad took his oath of office from Justice Potter Stewart, their longtime friend and former neighbor on Palisade Lane in Northwest Washington, DC. When President Reagan began his inaugural address, I was inspired by his optimism and determination to move the country forward. As he said in his speech, “Americans have the capacity now, as we’ve had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.”
Following the ceremony, Dad and the new President attended a luncheon at the Capitol. President Reagan surprised the guests with a dramatic announcement: After 444 days in captivity, the American hostages in Iran had been released. I’ve always wondered whether the Iranians chose the timing because they feared Ronald Reagan or wanted to insult Jimmy Carter. Either way, the Reagan presidency was off to a great start. When the hostages touched down at Andrews Air Force Base a week later, Vice President Bush was there to welcome them home.
After watching the inaugural parade and attending the inaugural balls, my siblings and I spent the night at the Vice President’s Residence at the Naval Observatory. Situated on a grass lot spanning approximately seventy-two acres, the spacious house was perfect for Mother and Dad. It had plenty of spare bedrooms for family gatherings, and the grounds included a tennis court and a jogging track, which enabled my parents to exercise frequently. The house was open to our family for the next eight years. As Mother later pointed out, that was the longest period that she and Dad had stayed in any house during their married life.
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WHILE SERVING AS Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President, John Nance Garner (the first Texan to serve as VP) complained that his job was “not worth a warm bucket of spit” and “the worst damn fool mistake [he] ever made.” Fortunately, Vice President Bush had a more positive experience.
My father’s office was on the first floor of the West Wing, down the hall from the Oval Office and right next to the President’s Chief of Staff: James A. Baker. As President Reagan had wisely recognized, Baker was a perfect fit for the job. As a skillful lawyer, campaign veteran, and former official in Gerald Ford’s Commerce Department, he brought expertise on policy, politics, and personnel. Just as important, he had the even temperament and sound judgment to help guide the White House through any crisis. Of course, it was helpful for Dad to have his close friend as one of the President’s top advisers. And it said a lot about Ronald Reagan that he had enough confidence to hire his primary opponent’s campaign manager as his White House Chief of Staff.
Continuing a tradition started by Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, Vice President Bush and President Reagan had lunch together once a week in the private dining room next to the Oval Office. Their favorite menu item was Mexican food. The lunches provided an opportunity for Dad to give the President his candid advice on a wide range of subjects. Dad pledged to the President that their conversations would remain confidential. To this day, I have no idea what they discussed or whether they had any differences of opinion.
What I do know is that George Bush was loyal to Ronald Reagan and to his agenda. Dad recognized that it was the President who set policy for the administration; the Vice President’s job was to support the President’s decisions. In Dad’s view, the highest form of disloyalty was for a Vice President to leak disagreements or try to create separation from the President. He impressed upon his staff that the President should never have to worry about being undermined by his Vice President (or any member of his staff, for that matter). I am sure the President’s staff noticed and appreciated Dad’s approach to the job. Before long, he showed his loyalty in a way that no one could have anticipated.
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ON MARCH 30, 1981, George H.W. Bush flew from Washington to Fort Worth, where he attended a routine event at the Hotel Texas—a local landmark because President John F. Kennedy spent his final night there in 1963. Dad then drove to Carswell Air Force Base and boarded Air Force Two for a flight to Austin, where he had been invited to address a joint session of the state legislature.
Back in Washington, a deranged man named John Hinckley shot President Reagan as he was walking out the side door of the Washington Hilton. The shooting wounded Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, and D.C. police officer Thomas Delahanty. The President was rushed to George Washington University Hospital, where doctors discovered that he had suffered heavy internal bleeding because a bullet had lodged in his lung. They inserted a tube in his chest and wheeled him into the operating room to begin surgery. (From behind an oxygen mask, the President joked, “I hope you’re all Republicans.”)
Dad first heard about the shooting shortly after Air Force Two lifted off in Fort Worth. His lead Secret Service agent, Ed Pollard, initially informed him that the President had not been harmed. A few minutes later, the agent burst back into the cabin. The President had been shot. His condition was unknown, and Dad had to get back to Washington immediately. Around the same time, the secure phone on the plane rang. Secretary of State Alexander Haig was asking for the Vice President. Dad tried to talk to him, but all he could hear was static. The faulty communications added to the uncertainty about the President’s condition. Twenty years later, on September 11, 2001, I would experience similar frustrations with the communications equipment on Air Force One.
Dad took a moment to process what he had learned. He jotted his reactions on one of the flight cards aboard Air Force Two. (The card is now an artifact at the George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M.) He thought first about the President as his friend—“decent, warm, kind,” he wrote. Then he turned to his responsibilities. He scribbled a reminder to avoid panic. He wrote the word uncertainty, which he knew the country would be feeling. He knew how important it would be
to project stability and help calm the nerves of the rattled nation.
When Air Force Two landed at Andrews Air Force Base, the Secret Service wanted Dad to take a helicopter directly to the South Lawn—where the President lands in Marine One. Dad refused. He did not want to send the signal that the President had lost command. He instructed the chopper to take him to the familiar landing zone at the Naval Observatory, and he took a car from there to the White House.
“Only the President lands on the South Lawn,” he said.
By the time Dad arrived in the Situation Room, the President had come through the surgery and had a good prognosis for recovery. Dad went to the Press Briefing Room to make a concise, upbeat statement on the President’s condition—a stark contrast to the haphazard briefings that senior officials had delivered earlier in the day. The next day, Dad visited the President in the hospital and presided over a Cabinet meeting. Journalists noted that Vice President Bush sat in his usual position, rather than in President Reagan’s chair. I’m confident that my father never even considered taking the President’s seat. He understood that his job was to support the President, not supplant him. Within two weeks, the President was back at the White House. Within a month, he was addressing a joint session of Congress.
Crisis has a way of revealing character. The President—and the country—had just seen that Vice President George Bush was a man they could trust.
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AS THE PRESIDENT’S confidence in his VP grew, so did Dad’s role in the administration. President Reagan asked him to spearhead a number of important policy initiatives. He headed up the administration’s task force on federal deregulation. As a former businessman, he understood the burdens inflicted by red tape, and his group made recommendations to cut or revise hundreds of needless or wasteful regulations. Dad also led a task force aimed at reducing drug trafficking in South Florida, which was a major problem in the early 1980s. The administration pursued a strategy to interdict drug supplies coming from South America up the East Coast.
Another of Dad’s responsibilities was representing the President and the country abroad. In all, he visited more than sixty countries in eight years. Those diplomatic missions came naturally given his experience in China and at the United Nations. He built trust with leaders in crucial parts of the world like the Middle East and Asia. He developed a good relationship with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain. He traveled to Central America, where his presence helped demonstrate America’s commitment to democratic governments facing threats from communism. He went to Africa to help oversee the delivery of food and medicine to drought victims and refugees. And he spent time behind the Iron Curtain in Europe, where he met with key figures like Lech Wałesa, the leader of the Solidarity movement in Poland.
One of his most difficult trips was to Lebanon in 1983. Dad flew to Beirut three days after Hezbollah terrorists bombed the U.S. Marine barracks and killed 241 Americans. He did his best to console the families who had lost loved ones in the attack. As a safety precaution against further attacks by Hezbollah or other terrorists, President Reagan decided to pull American troops out of Lebanon. Unfortunately, al Qaeda interpreted America’s withdrawal as a sign of weakness. Osama bin Laden later cited the U.S. pullout from Lebanon as evidence that America was a “paper tiger” that “after a few blows ran in defeat.”
Dad comforted Americans after tragedy several more times. In 1985, Hezbollah terrorists hijacked TWA Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome. They diverted the plane to Lebanon, where they murdered an American Navy diver on board and held the other passengers—including several Americans—hostage. When the hostages were released, President Reagan dispatched Dad to meet them in Germany before they returned home. In 1986, after the space shuttle Challenger exploded, President Reagan sent Dad to Florida to console the family members of the astronauts on board. To this day, he stays in touch with June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Challenger commander Dick Scobee. Dad’s kindness, decency, and ability to connect with people made him an ideal choice.
In retrospect, Dad’s most important trips as Vice President were the ones he took to the Soviet Union. In the span of three years, three Soviet leaders died: Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko. President Reagan asked Dad to attend each of their funerals, leading Jim Baker to describe Dad’s vice presidential role as “You die, I fly.”
The trips gave Dad insight into the Soviet system. He was impressed by the power on display at the funerals: the precise military marches, the casket drawn by a Soviet tank. To most of the world, the Soviet Union looked like an unstoppable empire. But underneath the facade of strength, Dad sensed that the foundation of the Soviet Union was crumbling. The aging and dying leaders symbolized the declining appeal of the communist system. As he told his congregation at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church after his trip to Brezhnev’s funeral in 1982, “Something was missing. There was no mention of God. There was no hope, no joy, no life ever after…. So discouraging in a sense, so hopeless, so lonely in a way.”
My father’s most significant trip to Moscow came for Chernenko’s funeral in 1985. After the now-familiar solemn ceremony in Red Square, Dad met the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. It didn’t take him long to recognize that Gorbachev was different. A generation younger than his predecessors, Gorbachev had a warm, charismatic personality and spoke without notes. Instead of repeating the usual platitudes, he seemed genuinely interested in improving his country’s relationship with the United States.
George Bush has always been a good listener and a good reader of people. When he heard Gorbachev say that he wanted to “start anew,” he believed that there was a real opportunity for U.S.–Soviet relations to enter a new phase. Dad reported back that he felt the President could forge a unique working relationship with Gorbachev. Reagan and Gorbachev met later that year at a summit in Geneva. The following year, they held a historic summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Those meetings were the beginning of one of the most important diplomatic relationships of the twentieth century—one that both Ronald Reagan and Dad would nurture skillfully until the peaceful end of the Cold War.
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MY FATHER ENJOYED his time as Vice President. Unlike some of his vice presidential predecessors, Dad never felt excluded or, as they say in Washington, out of the loop. Dad admired the difficult decisions that President Reagan made. Over time, Dad and President Reagan developed more than just a solid working relationship; they became good friends.
One reason that my father and President Reagan got along so well was that they shared a sense of humor. In a memo to the President recapping a trip to Finland, Dad described a visit to a Finnish sauna. “I felt a little self-conscious at first sitting around stark naked with four Finnish guys I’d never laid eyes on before,” he wrote. “We all did the whole treatment including jumping in the ice cold ocean. We saw less of each other after the jumping in that ice cold water.” President Reagan loved to share stories and jokes in return. When Dad asked the President how his meeting had gone with Bishop Desmond Tutu, the President responded, “So-so.”
When White House doctors diagnosed President Reagan with intestinal polyps in 1985, he checked into Bethesda Naval Hospital for surgery. Before he went under, he delegated presidential power to the Vice President, becoming the first President to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. (I later did the same thing when I had minor procedures during my presidency.) Dad served as Acting President for almost eight hours. He was in Maine at the time and deliberately kept a low profile. He did play a game of tennis. According to one of his friends with him that day, he stumbled while trying to run down a lob shot, hit his head on the tennis court, and briefly blacked out. Fortunately, he regained his faculties quickly, and nobody had to notify Tip O’Neill, the Speaker of the House and the next in the line of presidential succession.
After the President returned to the White House residence, Dad went to visit and wish him a speedy recovery. He found President Reagan lying on a
couch in a red robe with a flower in his mouth, as if he had been prepared for a funeral. As Dad tried to process the scene, the President jumped up off the couch, and they both roared with laughter.
Mother enjoyed the vice presidential years too. She used her platform as Second Lady to promote important causes, especially literacy and volunteerism. Unfortunately, she did not have as close a relationship with Nancy Reagan as Dad did with the President. Mrs. Reagan was cordial, but she did not go out of her way to make Mother feel welcome. I was surprised when Mother told me shortly after Dad was elected President that in her eight years as the wife of the Vice President she had never toured the White House residence. When I became President, Laura and I made it a point to invite Dick Cheney, Lynne Cheney, and their family to the residence and to include them in White House events.
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THROUGH ALL THE travel and politics of the vice presidential years, family remained central to my father’s life. He visited Walker’s Point for family gatherings every summer. He loved to entertain there. When the National Governors Association held its 1983 meeting in Portland, Maine, Dad invited all the Governors and their families to a clambake. For one night at least, there was no partisanship on display. The guests included members of both parties, including two Governors that George Bush would see a lot of in the future: Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton.
As Bill Clinton tells the story, he and Hillary brought their three-year-old daughter, Chelsea, to the gathering. As they waited in the receiving line, they schooled her on how to greet the Vice President. When the big moment arrived, she blurted out, “Where’s the bathroom?” To Governor Clinton’s astonishment, the Vice President left the receiving line, walked Chelsea to the house, and introduced her to his mother, who showed her to the bathroom. The gesture of kindness made an impression for years to come.
41: A Portrait of My Father Page 13