by Kitty Kelley
He received a “My dear Pres” letter on June 22, 1954, from his friend Samuel Bemiss:
[F]or heaven’s sake soft pedal the Republican Party’s accomplishments with the assistance of the NAACP . . . The Supreme Court is still a New Deal court and to us represents a philosophy, which we regard with profound misgivings . . . History seems to indicate that decent and dignified segregation is a natural condition which has prevailed among peoples and animals since the Garden of Eden.
The worst thing in the world, Bemiss warned Bush, would be “a return of a New Deal government dominated by the Roosevelts and their standard of morality.”
In the end, Prescott did not get all that he sought in the civil rights plank, because Eisenhower drew his feather sword and deferred to the GOP’s southern delegates. But by then Connecticut’s senior senator had laid down an admirable marker of principle and tolerance that would severely challenge his political son, George Herbert Walker Bush, in the years to come.
CHAPTER TEN
Prescott cared greatly about his public image. When he edited his oral history for Columbia University, he changed one of his quotes from “and by God” to “and by gosh,” because he did not want to be perceived as someone who invoked the name of God outside of prayer. His concern for appearances also prompted him to issue a press release when, after winning his Senate seat, he resigned his corporate directorships: “Though reluctant to give up these associations of many years’ standing, I am anxious to free myself entirely of obligations, which I cannot fulfill. I also want no possible conflict of interest with my duties as a United States Senator.”
As obsessed as he was with his own image, Prescott was obtuse about what constituted proper behavior for other politicians. He certainly did not understand the ramifications of slush funds when it came to keeping the public’s trust. The unreported money collected by politicians became an issue in 1952 when Richard Nixon’s secret fund of eighteen thousand dollars was exposed. Although the fund was technically legal at the time, the Democrats jumped on the issue and made it look unethical. The public outcry threatened Nixon’s place on the GOP ticket, especially when Eisenhower did not fly to his defense. The Republican National Committee purchased a half hour of television time for seventy-five thousand dollars so that Nixon could refute the charges.
“My fellow Americans,” he began, “I come before you tonight as a candidate for the Vice Presidency and as a man whose honesty and integrity has been questioned.” He then described the purpose of the fund and how it worked. He said the money was used solely for campaign expenses. In laying out his meager financial status, Nixon said that his wife could not afford a mink coat, only “a respectable Republican cloth coat.” He denied accepting gifts of any kind, except for a black-and-white puppy from a campaign supporter in Texas. His daughter Tricia had named the puppy Checkers, and Nixon said he would not send it back. He praised Eisenhower and vowed to work hard for the Republican ticket. He asked viewers to support him by sending telegrams to the Republican National Committee. The RNC was soon flooded with over 1 million calls and wires.
Prescott Bush was one of the first to telegram his support:
No fair-minded person who heard Senator Nixon bare his heart and soul to the American people Tuesday night could fail to hold him in high respect.
I have felt all along that the charges against Dick Nixon were a dirty smear attempt to hurt him and the Republican ticket. I doubt that either party can ever hope to put up a better citizen for high public office than Senator Nixon.
I believe the efforts to smear Dick Nixon will boomerang in his favor. Nixon is absolutely honest, fearless, and courageous. I’m proud of him.
Prescott, who believed in keeping certain matters secret, told reporters that he saw “no particular advantage” in forcing congressmen and high government officials to list all their sources of income. “The country has gotten along for 150 years without forcing men in public office to expose their private financial lives,” he said.
This view, which ran contrary to the Corrupt Practices Act, brought him troublesome publicity in 1955 when he, too, established a slush fund—more than twice the size of Nixon’s.
Newspaper reports of the time indicate that Prescott was facing political opposition. The right wing resented his vote to censure Joe McCarthy. He had not been invited to the huge McCarthy rally that one thousand people attended in Connecticut in 1955, and his absence was noted, prompting speculation that conservative Republicans might try to challenge him in the 1956 election. Determined to hold on to his Senate seat, Prescott established his fund to hire the number-one public-relations specialist in the state and to launch a series of semimonthly television talk shows in which he, Prescott, would be the star.
Prescott’s fund, which violated Connecticut’s election laws, was not reported to the secretary of the Senate or to the Republican State Central Committee. Six Wall Street bankers, including two of his brothers-in-law, bankrolled it. Each man made a personal contribution and agreed to approach others to do the same. Confidential letters were sent out over the signature of John B. Gates of Greenwich, who was listed as treasurer of the appeal. Below Gates’s signature were the names of George H. “Herbie” Walker Jr., also of Greenwich; James W. Walker; Lindsay Bradford; Gerrold Bryce; Thomas McCance (Brown Brothers Harriman); and Roland Harriman (Brown Brothers Harriman).
The story of “Bush’s slush fund” first surfaced in Connecticut in the Bridgeport Herald but became national news when the syndicated columnist Drew Pearson picked it up—Prescott’s second run-in with Pearson.
Despite his animosity toward the columnist, Prescott took Pearson’s call in 1955. The call was about the slush fund. Prescott explained that the money came from contributors who supported his political point of view. “I have never had a single one of them ask me for special favors,” he said. “They are the kind of people who are willing to contribute to get the kind of government in Washington they believe in.”
After writing that Prescott had committed a “criminal offense” by not reporting his fund, the columnist quoted him as saying that his friends gave him money because they agreed with his stable fiscal policy. Pearson examined Prescott’s voting record and determined that the senator’s votes concurred with the views of his big contributors on many more than financial matters. The conclusion was that Prescott was just another sleazy politician in debt to special interests.
The Waterbury Republican editorialized in his favor:
In the case of a man of Sen. Bush’s high-mindedness and integrity it is natural to believe that the “private” fund is the frank and harmless arrangement that he represents it to be. But the abuses to which such funds could lend themselves are glaring. If there are public men who can be bought, here plainly is a formula for making the purchase.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorialized against him and the “bland self-justification” Prescott used to defend his slush fund. “Funds like this are usually secret, or at least poorly publicized, until some enterprising newsman digs them out. Thus they violate the spirit of corrupt practices legislation which is meant to expose political contributions to public view.” The newspaper upbraided men like Nixon and Prescott Bush for “selling a piece of their position, standing and influence as members of the United States Senate—and doing so even if none of the contributors to the fund receives a direct and personal favor in exchange.”
The unethical charge stung, because Prescott considered himself more honorable than most. Besides, he protested lamely, other senators had set up similar funds. He concluded that Drew Pearson had singled him out because he, Prescott, was above reproach. “I think Pearson deliberately picks out people—and I hope this doesn’t sound immodest—but I think from time to time he does pick out people where he thinks they’re immune, where their reputation is so good that it’ll be news to attack him.”
Prescott continued his rant against Pearson years later in his oral history:
He twisted the t
hing around that it was a slush fund, you see, that people were going to buy favor with Senator Bush by making these personal contributions for his use . . . Just like the Nixon fund, where they crucified Nixon. I never personally felt there was anything wrong with the Nixon fund. It was a thoroughly clean proposition, done by people who believed in him at that time and wanted to promote his candidacy for the Vice-Presidency . . . They believed him to be a useful man and a helpful man . . . so they were willing to make these contributions for his campaign.
Luckily for Prescott, Pearson’s column was only carried in two Connecticut newspapers, so there was no fertile ground for a scandal. Prescott simply contacted both newspapers and refuted the charges, and the story soon died. He continued using his slush fund to finance his public-relations man, Charles Keats. One of the publicist’s assignments was to draft an endorsement letter for Prescott from President Eisenhower; the letter was to be released to Connecticut’s media during the summer congressional recess, when Prescott would be traveling around the state to shore up reelection support.
In later years Bush biographers would write about the close personal friendship between Senator Bush and President Eisenhower, an impression conveyed by the Bush family and bolstered by a June 20, 1957, front-page photograph in The New York Times of the two men playing golf. The day before that game with Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, Prescott bragged about being Ike’s favorite golf partner and estimated he played with the President at least a dozen times at Burning Tree in Ike’s first term. Records in the Eisenhower Library indicate the two men played golf seven times in eight years. Those occasional games, plumped by the burnished recollections Dotty Bush gave to writers (and members of the Bush family), created a vivid picture of fraternity. Dotty genuinely believed that her husband was nothing short of essential to Eisenhower’s personal and political success. In fact, she promulgated the myth that Prescott had convinced Ike to run for President in 1952 when, in fact, he had simply been one of many peripheral supplicants.
Research into the Eisenhower archives in Abilene, Kansas, indicates that the relationship between Prescott Bush and Dwight Eisenhower was, if not one-sided, certainly lopsided, with Prescott the ardent pursuer and Ike the gracious recipient. The letters and memos show that Prescott was like an adoring fan at the stage door waiting for Ike, ever the star, to sign an autograph. Prescott’s various invitations—for the President to be his guest at the Alfalfa Club’s annual dinner, to visit him in Gettysburg—were graciously acknowledged but always politely declined. “The documents do indicate that the relationship probably meant more to Senator Bush than to President Eisenhower,” said Sydney Soderberg, a historian at Kansas Wesleyan University.
Having once fallen out of the chorus line over the Bricker Amendment, Prescott did not want to get out of step again with the administration. He suffered no ramification over his political difference, other than his own psychic discomfort. As soon as he found out Eisenhower opposed the amendment, he changed his position to be in accord. Prescott, who owned a big black standard poodle, could easily have posed with his dog in front of the White House and been asked the question “Which one is the President’s poodle?”
Prescott went out of his way to befriend Sherman Adams, the former governor of New Hampshire, who was Eisenhower’s chief of staff. Adams quickly became his conduit to the President.
When Prescott requested a letter of endorsement from Eisenhower in August 1955, he sent Adams a draft that was so self-serving even Prescott seemed embarrassed:
Dear Sherm,
This is purely a suggestion which I did not write and which makes me blush. Anything along this line would be wonderful to have.
Pres Bush
The last paragraph of the five-paragraph letter was effusive in the extreme:
Wherever you go, I want you to give the people of Connecticut my best wishes. From personal observation, I can assure them that you are my idea of what a United States Senator should be and that they are fortunate in having you represent them.
Adams sent Prescott’s grandiloquent draft to Bryce Harlow, a White House speechwriter, who toned it down considerably for the President’s signature. The final endorsement commended Prescott for his “effective and loyal support in the United States Senate” and “with my warmest appreciation” congratulated him on a job well done.
Prescott released the letter to Connecticut’s newspapers, which published it as front-page news: “President Praises Bush for His Loyalty, Support” (Greenwich Time); “Pres. Gives Support to Sen. Bush, Calls him ‘Loyal friend, Advocate’” (Hartford Courant). But the continuing publicity that Charles Keats had envisioned from Ike’s endorsement was soon drowned in the waves of Hurricane Connie and, five days later, Hurricane Diane.
“Those two hurricanes hit Connecticut in August 1955 and knocked the state into total disaster,” recalled Herman Wolf, a former aide to Governor Abe Ribicoff. “While the entire Atlantic coast from North Carolina through Massachusetts was affected, Connecticut suffered the most. We lost seventy-seven lives, and the flooding destroyed homes, farms, businesses, roads, shores, and utilities, causing over $350 million in property damage.
“We were still reeling from the first hurricane when we got hit by the second. The governor was at a governors’ conference in West Virginia and couldn’t get back that day so the lieutenant governor and a couple of the governor’s top aides moved into the state armory in Hartford to try to cope with the catastrophe.
“We worked around the clock, taking calls and making calls. About two in the morning, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and looked up and up and up. There was Prescott Bush, all six feet four inches of him, standing there. In a very quiet voice, he said, ‘Herman, what can I do to help?’
“I didn’t have time to converse, even with a United States senator. So I just shouted, ‘Get us some helicopters so we can survey the damage at dawn.’ That’s all he had to hear. He turned around and left. I don’t know where he went. I don’t know who he called, but at dawn there were two helicopters from the federal government ready to fly us around the state.
“For my money—and I’m a Democrat who worked for Abe Ribicoff—Prescott Bush was a fine gentleman. In fact, he was the best of the Bushes. After him, the blood thinned as it went down the line. His son George Herbert Walker Bush wasn’t much to look up to, and then, God help us, we got George’s son George Walker Bush, and the less said there, the better.”
Prescott threw himself into the flood-recovery crisis for Connecticut, touring the state to talk to the victims and survey the damage. He introduced legislation for federal flood insurance so that property owners and small-business men would be protected from financial ruin. He also submitted additional bills to increase Federal Housing Authority mortgage insurance for repair or replacement of damaged homes; to provide for rent-free accommodations for certain needy disaster victims; to provide temporary housing for disaster relief; to authorize construction of flood-control reservoirs; and to increase emergency-relief highway funds.
For all this he drew approving editorials from various newspapers. The Hartford Courant pronounced him a man far different from (and better than) the one elected four years earlier:
When Senator Bush first appeared on the scene he was dismissed as an agreeable outsider who, after a prosperous career in business, wished to dabble in politics. Since he has been in the Senate he has grown visibly on the job, until he has taken on a stature that already ranks him high in the world’s most powerful legislative chamber.
Just when Prescott thought he might have seen the last of Drew Pearson, the muckraking columnist targeted him again. This time the issue was the Harris-Fulbright Bill to deregulate the gas industry. Pearson predicted that Prescott Bush would vote in favor of the bill in order to enrich his son George.
George, like all Texas oilmen, supported the scheme. When oil lobbyists started pressuring him to secure his father’s vote, he called Prescott to discuss the legislati
on. George claimed that deregulation would encourage more independent producers to explore for natural gas, which would increase the supply and thus ultimately lower prices. Prescott, who maintained that prices would skyrocket with deregulation, was unimpressed by his son’s argument. He told George that the majority of people in his state lived in large urban centers and could not afford to pay the high prices that would result from deregulation.
Senator Paul Douglas, the liberal Democrat from Illinois, charged that the bill was nothing less than a conspiracy by big oil and gas companies to reap obscene profits at the expense of the nation’s urban masses, many of whom were absolutely dependent on natural gas for heating and cooking. Prescott agreed.
When George couldn’t convince his father, he sought out his friend Paxton Howard to make the case. Howard, an attorney for Shell Oil Company in Midland, Texas, and an unregistered lobbyist, agreed to visit Hobe Sound during Prescott’s vacation and talk to him.
Howard was later subpoenaed to testify before the Senate special committee investigating lobbying efforts in support of Harris-Fulbright. Under oath, he admitted he had received a five-thousand-dollar bonus from Shell for trying to get Prescott and two other senators to change their votes.
“Senator Bush’s son, George, lives in Midland, and he is a friend of mine,” Howard testified. “George was very much for the gas bill—George wanted his father to get the facts on this bill—George was particularly anxious that I contact the Senator and lay the case before him. So I told him that I would be happy to do it if he would just arrange for the time. So he did, and I talked to the Senator about an hour.”
“Was it not just the reverse,” one senator asked, “that George was not so interested in trying to have his father influenced as you were?”