by Kitty Kelley
In a Christmas Day editorial, The New York Times called it “Mr. Bush’s Unpardonable Act”: “Mr. Bush remains implicated in Iran-contra, and in that sense he has shamelessly pardoned himself . . . [He] is beyond the reach of American voters. But he is not beyond the reach of responsible opinion or of history.”
Lawrence Walsh nearly flew off his hinges. He announced on television that the President had concealed his diary for five years. “In light of his own misconduct we are gravely concerned by his decision to pardon others.” He added, “I think it’s the last card in the cover-up. He’s played the final card . . . He has shown an arrogant disdain for the rule of law.”
The independent counsel took several months to wrap up his report before issuing his findings to the public. In the end he elected not to prosecute the President, although it cost Bush $461,346 to defend himself. Walsh never concealed his disdain for the unindicted commander in chief. “I think President Bush will always have to answer for his pardons,” Walsh said. “There was no public purpose served by that.”
In the final days of the Bush administration, C. Boyden Gray tried to erase the contents of the White House computers and destroy all National Security Council information, as well as details of the Iran-contra pardons and all evidence of the administration’s illegal search of Clinton’s passport files during the campaign. But U.S. District Judge Charles R. Richey upheld the law that stipulates presidential records are public property. He ruled Gray’s actions unlawful, issued a court order to prevent the threatened destruction, and ordered that the records be turned over to the National Archives. In a late-night meeting, the archivist of the United States, Don W. Wilson, gave Bush exclusive legal control of the computerized records, and then left town to go to work for the George Bush Presidential Library.
As her husband struggled through his final days in the White House, the First Lady was in full bustling mode—making lists and packing boxes to return to Houston. Realizing she would have little need for her ball gowns, Barbara put them on sale. She priced and tagged each one, hung them on a rolling rack, and posted a message to the household staff to come and shop. Many were thrilled to purchase some of the First Lady’s hand-me-downs. Others were slightly put off that she would sell clothes that had been given to her or purchased at deep designer discounts. One of the butlers bought a gown for his mother, only to be told several days later that he had to return it. Barbara realized that she had not meant to sell that particular gown, and she wanted it back.
“My mother-in-law has always been cheap cheap cheap,” said Sharon Bush. “Embarrassingly cheap.”
While the First Lady was turning a tidy little profit upstairs in the White House, her husband was in the Oval Office exacting a little payback of his own. At that point his presidential report card showed he had traveled to 29 foreign countries; hosted 29 state dinners; held 141 press conferences; appointed two Supreme Court justices; vetoed 44 bills; signed 1,239 bills; granted 77 pardons; dispatched two brothers, one sister, and five children on eighteen diplomatic missions; and launched two military operations. On December 4, 1992, he launched his third military operation by sending twenty-five thousand troops into Somalia to help a UN peacekeeping mission.
“This was a very strange thing for a President to be doing in the closing weeks of his administration,” said Dick Morris. “Hillary felt and I agreed that this was kind of a trap that Bush had laid for Clinton. She called it ‘Bush’s parting gift to us.’ Clinton withdrew most of the troops Bush sent by June 1993, but in October 1993 more than eighteen soldiers were killed and seventy-eight wounded in a firefight with guerrillas in Mogadishu. The bodies of dead U.S. soldiers were dragged through the streets . . . There was a huge uproar in the U.S., and Clinton had to send in additional troops . . . I think Bush figured Clinton to be an ingenue in foreign policy, which he was, and Bush, the pro, knew he would look good sending troops to Somalia. I think he probably took very seriously the famine going on, but I also think he figured, ‘Hey, bozo. This one’s for you.’”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The family’s restoration began as soon as the crown slipped. When George Herbert Walker Bush was forced into retirement, the heir apparent stepped forward to pick up the standard. He had amassed his fortune in business and was eager to pursue public office. His news pumped hope into the old regents, still smarting from the shame of losing the White House. With a new lease on life, the elder Bushes looked forward to rejuvenating the family name through the son whose political gifts had marked him as the anointed one within the family. The news that he would run for governor took the sting out of their crushing defeat.
Three weeks after Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1992, George and Barbara Bush flew to Miami so the former President could play golf with their son Jeb, Arnold Palmer, and Joe DiMaggio at the Deering Bay Yacht and Country Club. Jeb and his partner, Armando Codina, had developed Deering Bay, which had taken a destructive hit when Hurricane Andrew roared through Florida. The celebrity golf game was organized to demonstrate that the course was in excellent playing condition, which, the Bushes hoped, would attract investors for their son. That was the sole purpose of the outing, until a reporter asked Barbara Bush about her plans for retirement. So excited about the family’s political future, she burbled the news.
“We’re going to play golf, write books, see grandchildren,” she said. “But if by chance the most qualified man ran for governor of Florida, I’m coming down to campaign.”
Jeb Bush laughed. “Leave it to Mom,” he said. “I’m happy to hear about it, but I probably would have preferred [to hear about] it in private. I have every intention to run, it’s just that there’s a process you have to go through.”
Within minutes the wire services transmitted the news that the second son of the former President was going to seek the statehouse in Florida. No one was more interested in that news than the first son in Texas, who had not been apprised of his brother’s plans.
The family was accustomed to communicating through the media. When young George announced his interest in running for governor of Texas in 1989, the First Lady summoned reporters to the White House and dispensed her motherly advice. She indicated it would be unseemly for the President’s son to run for such a conspicuous public office. “I’m rather hoping he won’t,” she said, “because everything that happens bad with the administration is going to be young George’s fault.” She also said that she thought he had an obligation to the seventy investors who had paid $86 million for the Texas Rangers, and she said he should sit on his political ambitions and stick to running the baseball team.
Feeling mommy-whipped, George responded testily through reporters. “For 42 years she has given me her opinion,” he said. “I have listened to it—sometimes. I still love my mother, and I appreciate her advice, but that’s all it is—advice.” He made her wait four months before he announced his decision in The Houston Chronicle not to run.
Three years later he toyed with the idea of running for the Senate seat vacated by Lloyd Bentsen, when President Clinton appointed him Treasury Secretary. “I saw young George in Dallas and asked if he was thinking about being a senator or something,” said Kent Hance, who had beaten Bush in his first political campaign. “George said, ‘I hate Washington.’ He told me, ‘I like Texas. I might think about governor or something, but I hate Washington.’”
A few weeks later he told The Houston Chronicle: “Laura and I seriously considered the Senate race and decided it is best for our family to stay in Texas. Besides, I love my life in baseball.” That life consisted in attending games, autographing baseballs for fans, and hanging out with baseball players. Being a public pal of the Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan was a celebrity-contact high for W., who venerated major-league baseball players. He even printed up baseball cards with his picture, which psychiatrist Justin M. Frank interpreted as “a pathetic effort to erase the fact that he could never be the baseball star his father was.” George attended every home game i
n the old Stadium in Arlington, a Dallas suburb, sitting in his front-row seat in section 109, row 1, behind the dugout. With his cowboy boots perched on the rail, he chewed tobacco and passed out autographed baseball cards of himself to fans. “I want the folks to see me, sitting in the same kind of seat they sit in, eating the same popcorn, peeing in the same urinal,” he said.
As the public face of the Texas Rangers’ management, George was expected to draw people to the ballpark. “Being the president’s son puts you in the limelight,” he said. “While in the limelight, you might as well sell tickets.”
His fraternity brother Roland Betts, an investor in the Texas Rangers, had told him he needed to do something to step out of his father’s shadow. “Baseball was it,” said Betts. “He became our local celebrity. He knew every usher. He signed autographs. He talked to fans. His presence meant everything. His eyes were on politics the whole time, but even when he was speaking at Republican functions, he was always talking about the Rangers.”
Within a year George felt he had earned his spurs as the team’s managing partner by pushing a proposal through the legislature for a new baseball stadium in Arlington. The mayor of the little town was dazzled to be negotiating with the President’s son and turned himself inside out to make the stadium a reality. The $190 million package, to be financed mostly by taxpayers, included 270 acres of private land, only 17 of which were needed to build the stadium; the rest was for development. Determined to make money on a bigger and better baseball team as well as land speculation, the owners convinced the city that the new stadium would spur construction of hotels, shops, and office buildings by attracting millions of visitors. Their fanciful plans included an amphitheater, sailboats skimming across a man-made lake, and gondolas to carry fans to the ballpark. To sell the plan to the working class of Arlington, George mounted the pulpit of the Mount Olive Baptist Church one Sunday and declared, “A vote for the tax would be a vote for contracts for African American businesses.”
The plan passed, the stadium was built, and the book value of the team soared from $86 million to $138 million. The team became valuable—George made a profit of $15 million when the team was sold in 1998—but the commercial development of Arlington never materialized. A decade later the man-made lake was still a muddy hole and the gondolas nothing more than slick sales talk. The landgrab had been all too real for some families, costing them their homes and their farms. The Rangers’ management had made them an offer for their property; if they said no, their land was condemned and seized under a legal provision known as eminent domain, which gives the government the power to take private property belonging to its citizens.
“Anybody who was in their way, they just ran them over,” said Bucky Fanning, whose ten-acre horse farm became a parking lot for the new ballpark. “I used to be a Rangers fan, but then they stole my property.” Ten years after she was driven off her property, Maree Fanning, Bucky’s mother, could barely control her anger toward George W. Bush. “If I saw him today, I’d say, ‘Bite my ass.’” Her son, Bucky, said, “I don’t think he ever cared [about how the land condemnation displaced families and ruined their livelihoods]. All Bush cared about was the money.”
Families like the Fannings sued, charging “a group of wealthy and influential people threatened and traded their way into an unprecedented takeover of government power and private property in an awesome display of greed and avarice.” The court case lasted seven years, until 1998, when the new owner, Tom Hicks, agreed to pay $11 million in damages, which the families complained was far less than the land was worth. Throughout the proceedings, George publicly claimed he had never heard of the planned land seizures, but Tom Bernstein’s deposition—he was one of the partners in the team—proved that George had been fully informed of the strategy from the beginning. Despite the controversy, he pointed with pride to the new stadium. “When all those people in Austin say, ‘He ain’t never done anything,’ well, this is it.”
George felt the ballpark at Arlington had given him an accomplishment—something beyond being the namesake son of the President—and he intended to use it to launch himself politically. His brother’s announcement to run for governor of Florida had galvanized him into action a little sooner than he had planned, but such was the rivalry between the two that George was not about to be one-upped by his younger brother.
For years George had used Jeb as nothing more than a punching bag. Seven years younger, Jeb was easy to bully. “Then Jebbie grew up to be six foot four and that got complicated,” said his cousin John Ellis. “As a kid, George viewed him as a completely unnecessary addition to the family . . . Jebbie was just a pain in the ass. I think that carried on for a long time.”
Despite the close and cohesive picture the Bushes presented to the outside world, the family was a complex stew of affiliations and emotions that coalesced best during a political campaign for the elder Bush, when all worked to benefit from the reflected glory of winning. The boys, who idolized their father, grew up in the shadow of his success and competed among themselves to create similar successes of their own. Not so with their sister, Doro, the only girl and the youngest sibling. Little was expected of her, except to get married, which she did—twice. In the Bush dynasty, women have never been expected to succeed in business or politics. Their role is to be useful and supportive adjuncts to their men.
Within a large family, birth order matters, and the firstborn usually gets the lion’s share of parents’ time and attention, inevitably becoming the most successful of the siblings. For seven years George W. Bush was the only son, and he assumed all the prerogatives of the eldest child. After his sister Robin’s death, he became the family clown, a role he used to cheer up his parents. He commanded the spotlight by making everyone laugh. He became closest to his youngest siblings, who did not threaten his dominance. Over the years, his strongest fraternal bond was with his brother Marvin and his sister, Doro, neither of whom was interested in politics or competed with W. in any way.
After the debacle of Silverado, Neil, the dyslexic middle child, was forced to abandon his dreams of public office. He left Colorado and limped back to Texas with his wife and three children to become a ward of the family. His father never stopped blaming himself for Neil’s predicament and tried to compensate by helping him get established in business. The President made room for his son in his Houston office, which exposed Neil to a procession of international visitors—heads of state, prime ministers, emirs, and emperors—who came to pay their respects to George. When they did, they also met his son. “It was great for Neil,” said his former wife, Sharon. “Just great.”
The S&L scandal continued to dog Neil, however, and other scandals followed. After a twenty-three-year marriage he fell in love with a married woman, Maria Andrews, who worked as a volunteer in his mother’s office. Neil sued Sharon for divorce, and during the proceedings sordid details of his personal life were made public, including disclosures of an STD he had contracted and his use of prostitutes. It prompted one Texas writer to describe Neil as “the pisswit son of the former president.”
Elsie Walker, another cousin, came to know the entire Bush clan well during the family summers in Kennebunkport. Of all the brothers, George was the one with whom she developed her closest bond. She recalled one day when they were all children and were roughhousing. She accidentally broke the Bushes’ chandelier. Jeb, the family tattletale, ran to tell his mother, and within minutes Barbara broomed into the room.
“What the hell is going on?” she yelled. “Jebbie tells me that you’ve . . .”
She saw the chandelier dangling from the ceiling.
Elsie was so terrified of Barbara that she burst into tears.
George stepped forward. “I broke it,” he said, staring at his mother defiantly.
The punishment that Barbara meted out to George he later passed on to Jeb, and that was the pattern of their childhood. The two brothers never became good friends growing up. As adults competing for their father�
��s attention and approval, they became even more distant, especially when Jeb emerged as the more successful. He graduated from the University of Texas in three years with a Phi Beta Kappa key just like his father. George W. graduated from Yale at the bottom of his class with nothing more than a keg key.
George had his father’s name and his mother’s temperament. Taller and better-looking, Jeb got his father’s temperament, which made him his mother’s favorite. “I must say young George is very much of a different generation,” Barbara said in 1994. “With my other governor son, Jeb, you still see the old gentle Bush demeanor. But this George, he’s something else entirely.” Like his father, Jeb married early, settled down, and began a family while George was still carousing around the oil patch. Jeb carved a political life for himself in Florida, becoming chairman of the Miami–Dade County GOP and state secretary of commerce, whereas George remained in Texas, where the Bush name paved his way. Jeb, known as the most serious in the family, became a sobersided policy wonk; George, a drunken wiseacre. Jeb was the smartest brother; George was the brother with the smartest mouth. Smooth and extremely articulate, Jeb became his parents’ pride and joy, while George was their deepest embarrassment. Immune to shame, George operated on the premise that if you can’t get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. He reveled in his bad-boy status, even introduced himself to Queen Elizabeth at a White House state dinner as “the family’s black sheep.” By then the differences between the two brothers had become marked: Jeb was the more impressive; George the more amusing.
During the 1994 campaign—when both George and Jeb were running for governor of their states—the brothers seemed to switch personas. Jeb emerged as a hard-edged firebrand, and George came across as a soft generalist who talked about Texas as “a beacon state” and “a place for dreamers.” Jeb traveled around Florida in a mobile home/bus named “Dynasty.” He told Tom Fiedler of The Miami Herald: “I want to be able to look my father in the eye and say, ‘I continued the legacy.’” He frightened minority voters in Florida’s inner cities by threatening to “blow up” needless state agencies and kill “30-year-old pilot programs that don’t work.” During a televised debate he was asked what he would do specifically for black people. Jeb’s response: “Probably nothing.”