by Peter Baker
Matt Bai, Mark Bowden, Steve Coll, Elizabeth Drew, Jane Mayer, Jeff Shesol, Ron Suskind, Leon Wieseltier, and Bob Woodward all offered support and advice. Glenn Frankel and Betsyellen Yeager, and Bill and Ellen Morris graciously opened their homes to me during reporting trips to Texas. Peter Feaver, Meghan O’Sullivan, and William Inboden all brought me to their respective campuses and shared thoughts from their own time in the White House. Peter Wehner went out of his way to open doors. Mark Updegrove, a student of the presidency in general and the Bush family in particular, was a constant source of encouragement and insight.
Thanks too to Mark Knoller of CBS News, an unparalleled archivist of the modern White House and an uncommonly generous colleague, for opening his records. Other colleagues who shared recollections, thoughts, and notes from the Bush-Cheney years included Dan Balz, David Jackson, Richard Keil, Jay Newton-Small, David Sanger, Richard Stevenson, and Philip Taubman. And special appreciation to Gwen Ifill, Chris Guarino, Alla Lora, and the rest of the fine team at Washington Week.
It has been humbling to work alongside some of the exceptional reporters at the White House. John Harris first taught me how to cover a president, and after a dozen years of doing it I still aspire to the high standard he set. Other partners over the years at the Post and Times included Dan Eggen, Michael Fletcher, Jim Rutenberg, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Jim VandeHei, and Jeff Zeleny. It’s daunting to go up against friends-turned-competitors like Mike Allen, Chris Cillizza, Juliet Eilperin, Anne Kornblut, Jonathan Martin, Peter Wallsten, and Scott Wilson, among many, many others. I’m grateful to my neighbors and friends in the bureau who have been so supportive, including John Broder, Adam Liptak, Rachel Swarns, Sabrina Tavernise, and Jonathan Weisman. Alas, the bureau is not the same since the irreplaceable Adam Nagourney decamped for the west.
John Smith has been the best of friends for longer than either of us would care to admit—and has been there for me throughout. I never had a brother but if I did, I would want it to be John. Special thanks to the members of our neighborhood village, Martina Vandenberg and Max, Marshall, and Alan Cooperman, who through years of book work have taken us in once a week for food and friendship. We could not be luckier to share an alley with them. Other friends who have my admiration and appreciation include Gary Bass and Katy Glenn; Marc, Anna, Maria, and Ray Bonaquist; Natasha and Christian Caryl; Max and Julie Chandrasekaran; Jon Cohen; Karen DeYoung; Mark Franchetti; Somerset, Heather, and Elliott Grant; Michael Grunwald and Cristina Dominguez; Spencer Hsu and Lori Aratani; Indira Lakshmanan and Rohan, Devan, and Dermot Tatlow; Andrew Light; Carlos Lozada and Kathleen McBride; Valerie Mann and Tim Webster; Ellen Nakashima and Alan Sipress; Natalie Nougayrede; Paul Quinn-Judge; Nicole Rabner and Larry Kanarek; Heidi Crebo-Rediker and Charlotte and Doug Rediker; Marilou and Bruce Sanford; Melissa Schwartz and Ben, Emily, and David Muenzer; Sonya Schwartz and Sammy, Harry, and Don Fishman; and Caitlin Shear.
My family deserves singular gratitude because this is the third time they have endured this process and yet for some reason they never give up on me. My love goes to my parents, Ted and Martha Baker, and Linda and Keith Sinrod, for all their support and inspiration over the years, and to my sister, Karin Baker, and her partner, Kait Nolan. Thanks to Steve and Lynn Glasser for welcoming me into their family and for providing a New England escape to get some work done. Thanks too to Laura, Jeffrey, and Jennifer Glasser, Emily Allen, Kasia Nowak, Matthieu Fulchiron, Will and Ben Allen-Glasser. Also to Dan and Sylvia Baker and to Inge Gross and all of their amazing children and grandchildren. We miss Mal Gross terribly. Rosamaria Brizuela has become part of our family and we could not get by without her.
And of course, I could never fully express just how much I owe to Susan and Theo, the loves of my life, who were endlessly understanding through a seemingly endless process. Any author would be lucky to have such a beautiful and brilliant wife but to have one who also happens to be the finest editor of her generation is a gift beyond description. Susan not only provided moral support, she offered crisp and incisive thoughts about how to take a first draft and make it a final draft. Theo, for his part, brightens both of our lives in more ways than we can count. He too read some of the early draft and offered indisputable advice: “Make it compelling.” I hope to live up to his expectations.
NOTES
This account emerges from nearly a decade of reporting on President Bush and Vice President Cheney, first for the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the New York Times Magazine and then exclusively for this book. While some of the material appeared in different form in those publications, it is primarily based on nearly 400 original interviews with about 275 sources, including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Stephen Hadley, and Joshua Bolten, plus thousands of pages of notes, memos, transcripts, and other internal documents never before released. It involved trips to Dallas, Midland, Austin, Houston, Casper, Cheyenne, New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Durham. Many people sat patiently for hours to describe the events recorded here, some graciously agreeing to be interviewed on multiple occasions. Although some asked to remain unidentified, the vast majority agreed to be cited on the record, making this the most documented history of the Bush-Cheney White House to date.
No book on such a vast subject can be completely original. This one builds on an extraordinary body of work by colleagues at the Post and the Times and at other news organizations as well as an array of fine books by other authors, especially those of Bob Woodward, Robert Draper, Bill Sammon, Barton Gellman, Stephen Hayes, Karen DeYoung, Bradley Graham, David Sanger, Elisabeth Bumiller, and Jane Mayer. It benefits greatly from the memoirs of participants in these events, particularly those of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld. Also particularly useful were the repositories of papers at the National Security Archive at George Washington University and oral histories at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia as well as the thousands of documents that Rumsfeld posted online with the publication of his memoir.
In seeking to make this a work of history, I have tried to confirm details and recollections with multiple sources. In general, direct quotations come from transcripts, news accounts, books, contemporaneous notes, or the recollection of at least one person in the room at the time and usually more than one, although of course memories are never as precise as we might wish. No reconstruction of events can be perfect, but I have labored to be as accurate as possible. Although Bush chose not to be interviewed, and his office initially sent an e-mail to former aides explaining that he did not think a New York Times reporter could write an objective history of his administration, over time he did not block his many friends and former advisers from talking, and I’m grateful to him for that. His staff in Dallas was always gracious and polite. I also want to thank Cheney and everyone else who did cooperate. Responsibility for this book lies entirely with me, and there will no doubt be elements they do not like, but their cooperation went a long way toward making this the most complete history it can be.
The following people were interviewed in person, by telephone, or via e-mail: John Abizaid, Spencer Abraham, Elliott Abrams, Geoffrey Adams, Ken Adelman, Michael Allen, William Allman, Dick Armey, Richard Armitage, Steve Atkiss, David Axelrod, Michael Barone, Dan Bartlett, John Bellinger, Brad Berenson, Lea Berman, Wayne Berman, Stephen Biddle, Stephen Biegun, Charlie Black, Robert Blackwill, Brad Blakeman, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, Steven Blum, Joshua Bolten, Stuart Bowen, Nicholas Brady, Rachel Brand, Jerry Bremer, John Bridgeland, Chris Brose, William Burck, Nicholas Burns, Bill Burton, Kirbyjon Caldwell, Nick Calio, Will Cappelletti, George Casey, Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, Mike Chertoff, Rocco Chierichella, Pratik Chougule, Eliot Cohen, Cesar Conda, Jim Connaughton, Mark Corallo, J. D. Crouch, Robert Dallek, John Danforth, Michele Davis, Tom Davis, Jack Dennis, Larry Di Rita, James Dobbins, Eric Draper, Ken Duberstein, Trent Duffy, Debra Dunn, Charles Dunne, Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, John Ellis, Donald Ensenat, Sara Taylor Fagen, Tom Fake, Tony Fauci, Pet
er Feaver, Howard Fineman, Ari Fleischer, Richard Fontaine, Lea Anne Foster, Tony Fratto, Brad Freeman, David Frum, John Lewis Gaddis, Dick Gephardt, Michael Gerson, Robert Gibbs, Ed Gillespie, James Glassman, Juleanna Glover, Tim Goeglein, David Gordon, Lindsey Graham, Boyden Gray, Michael Green, Stanley Greenberg, Judd Gregg, and Allen Guelzo.
Also: Stephen Hadley, John Hannah, Dennis Hastert, Michael Hayden, Israel Hernandez, Christopher Hill, Fiona Hill, David Hobbs, Stuart Holliday, Brian Hook, Al Hubbard, Glenn Hubbard, Karen Hughes, Kay Bailey Hutchison, William Inboden, Valerie Jarrett, Gordon Johndroe, Clay Johnson, Frederick Jones, Vernon Jordan, Robert Joseph, Joel Kaplan, Leon Kass, Ron Kaufman, David Kay, David Keene, Richard Keil, Kevin Kellems, Bill Keller, William Kelley, David Hume Kennerly, Zalmay Khalilzad, George Klein, Anne Womack Kolton, David Kramer, Charles Krauthammer, Sandy Kress, Mark Langdale, Randall Larsen, Matt Latimer, Ed Lazear, Leonard Leo, Richard Lessner, Yuval Levin, Adam Levine, Joseph Lieberman, Trent Lott, Douglas Lute, William Luti, Michael Luttig, Kanan Makiya, Mary Matalin, Anita McBride, Scott McClellan, John McConnell, Mike McConnell, Sean McCormack, Mike McCurry, Walter McDougall, Michael McFaul, Dean McGrath, Brett McGurk, Mark McKinnon, John McLaughlin, Mick McMurry, Paul McNulty, Ken Mehlman, Doug Melton, Joe Meyer, Franklin Miller, Richard Moe, Geoff Morrell, Jack Morrison, Mike Mullen, Richard Myers, John Negroponte, Ben Nelson, Pamela Hudson Nelson, Ronald Neumann, Grover Norquist, Ziad Ojakli, Sean O’Keefe, Marvin Olansky, Douglas Ollivant, Joe O’Neill, Paul O’Neill, Paul Orzulak, Meghan O’Sullivan, Scott Palmer, Leon Panetta, and Neil Patel.
Also: Richard Perle, David Petraeus, Rob Portman, Daniel Price, Blain Rethmeier, Condoleezza Rice, Bob Riley, Timothy Roemer, Ed Rogers, Donald Rumsfeld, Rob Saliterman, David Sanger, Kori Schake, Matt Schlapp, Steve Schmidt, Peter Schoomaker, Brent Scowcroft, Matthew Scully, Bernie Seebaum, Dan Senor, Stephen Sestanovich, Cindy Sheehan, Kristen Silverberg, Alan Simpson, Richard W. Stevenson, Ryan Streeter, Lawrence Summers, Philip Taubman, Bill Thomson, Michael Toner, Frances Fragos Townsend, Tevi Troy, Eric Ueland, John Ullyot, Keith Urbahn, Stewart Verdery, Michael Vickers, Kenneth Wainstein, Nicolle Wallace, John Weaver, Peter Wehner, Christine Todd Whitman, Pete Williams, Damon Wilson, Jay Winik, Candida Wolff, Paul Wolfowitz, Joe Wood, Steve Yates, Charlie Younger, Juan Carlos Zarate, and Philip Zelikow.
PROLOGUE: “BREAKING CHINA”
1 “Do you think he did it?”: The account of the pardon deliberations, where not otherwise sourced, is based on author interviews with several administration officials and others who were involved but asked not to be named. See also an early account of the pardon fight, Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weiskopf, “Inside Bush and Cheney’s Final Days,” Time, July 24, 2009. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1912414,00.html.
2 with those of eight other people: Scooter Libby testified that he learned that Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, worked for the CIA during a telephone conversation with Tim Russert on July 10, 2003, and that he had forgotten that the vice president had previously mentioned it to him, as recorded by notes. Russert testified that he did not know she worked for the CIA and therefore could not have told Libby that. Libby has argued that this was at worst a matter of two people remembering the same conversation differently, hardly a criminal offense. Prosecutors maintained that regardless of whether Libby misremembered one conversation, it was implausible that he actually thought he had learned about Valerie Wilson from Russert because he had talked about her with so many other people before then. Investigators discovered that before his conversation with Russert, Libby had conversations with at least eight other people in which he either was told that Joseph Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA or demonstrated his own knowledge of that: Vice President Cheney; Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state; Robert Grenier, a CIA official; Craig Schmall, Libby’s CIA briefer; Cathie Martin, the vice president’s spokeswoman; Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary; Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter; and David Addington, the vice president’s counsel.
3 “They weren’t personally close”: Ari Fleischer, author interview.
4 “It was professional”: Dick Cheney, author interview.
5 “You know, I would, I would”: George W. Bush, interview for Fox News documentary Dick Cheney: No Retreat, aired October 2007,
6 Karl Rove came to call: Barton Gellman, The Angler, p. 160. Gellman reported that Rove denied coining the term but that three White House colleagues confirmed that he did.
7 “If you spent any time”: Matthew Dowd, author interview.
8 “He was a black box”: Peter Wehner, author interview.
9 “Dick here sent over a gift”: Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts, The Reliable Source, Washington Post, January 28, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/27/AR2008012702668.html.
10 “Hi, Dick. Have you blown away”: David Hume Kennerly, author interview.
11 “I’ll really miss being president”: Conan O’Brien, Late Night, NBC, December 17, 2008.
12 “doesn’t regret any of the decisions”: Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, ABC, May 2009.
13 “Accepting Dick’s offer”: George W. Bush, Decision Points, 86–87.
14 “Am I the evil genius”: Dick Cheney, interview with USA Today and Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2004. See Maura Reynolds, “Cheney’s Lack of Flair Is Just the Ticket for Many in GOP,” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 2004, http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jan/19/nation/na-cheney19.
15 Harry Truman as vice president: Franklin D. Roosevelt Day by Day, Pare Lorentz Center, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/daybyday/. A review of FDR’s calendars turns up Truman only twice, March 8 and March 19, both for meetings with congressional leaders. Randy Sowell, an archivist at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, notes that there may have been other meetings not recorded and also points out that FDR was traveling much of those final months.
16 “Let me see,” he said: Carl M. Cannon, “The Point Man,” National Journal, October 21, 2001. http://www3.nationaljournal.com/members/news/2002/10/1011nj1.htm [website is no longer active]. Cannon retold the story in his book with his father, Lou Cannon, comparing and contrasting Bush with Reagan, Reagan’s Disciple, 244.
17 “Are you going to take care”: George W. Bush, Decision Points, 251.
18 “He never did anything in his time”: Alan Simpson, author interview.
19 “This whole notion that the vice”: Richard Myers, author interview.
20 “Perhaps my clout was diminished”: Dick Cheney, interview, Fox News Sunday, September 5, 2011.
21 “On top of that, Mr. Vice President”: Ed Gillespie, author interview.
22 Cheney instructed an aide: Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, 97.
23 “I didn’t change”: Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal, August 30, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904199404576536882769562442.html.
24 “He went from the wise man”: Adam Levine, author interview.
25 “We had broken a lot of china”: Rice interview.
26 “Does anyone here agree”: Several participants, author interviews. See also Dick Cheney, In My Time, 462–67.
27 “Whatever you do”: Joshua Bolten and another participant, author interviews. See also Dick Cheney, In My Time, 517.
28 “You are leaving a good man”: Dick Cheney, In My Time, 407–10.
29 “The comment stung”: George W. Bush, Decision Points, 104–5.
30 “Scooter was somebody”: Dick Cheney, author interview.
CHAPTER 1: “ONE OF YOU COULD BE PRESIDENT”
1 “Roman candle of the family”: Cramer, What It Takes, 16–18.
2 “He’s not necessarily what”: Dennis Hastert, author interview.
3 “not a sport for the impatient”: Lynne Cheney, speech to the Republican National Convention, August 3, 2000, http://partners.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/080300lynne-txt.html.
4 “he talks too much”:
Kenneth Adelman, author interview.
5 “asking for grief I didn’t need”: Graham, By His Own Rules, 169.
6 “He and Bush hit it off”: Wayne Berman, author interview.
7 “Bush in those days”: Ibid.
8 “George is the family clown”: Wead, All the Presidents’ Children, 4–5.
9 “Do you have any in yours?”: Koch, My Father, My President, 364.
10 “It is always better to lowball”: Ronald Neumann, author interview.
11 “His cadence would change”: Kuo, Tempting Faith, 117.
12 Bush’s favorite book: Dana Milbank, “For Bush, War Defines Presidency,” Washington Post, March 9, 2003.
13 “His first thought”: Marquis James, The Raven, as quoted by Milbank.
14 “a never-complain, never-explain”: Purdum, Time of Our Choosing, 43.
15 “I suppose it gives him”: Liz Cheney, author interview.
16 “looked like something a sailor”: Trent Lott, author interview.
17 “I think years ago, the rooms”: Pete Williams, author interview.
18 cousin of President Franklin Pierce’s: For a detailed and penetrating analysis of the Bush family tree, and family psychology, see Weisberg, Bush Tragedy.
19 “There is a similarity”: Dean McGrath, author interview.
20 “little Mayberry type of town”: Joe O’Neill, author interview.
21 something out of Happy Days: Joe Meyer, author interview.
22 produced nearly 20 percent: Diana Davids Hinton, history professor, University of Texas of the Permian Basin, e-mail exchange with author.
23 Casper had doubled in size: U.S. Census data compiled by the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division, http://eadiv.state.wy.us/demog_data/cntycity_hist.htm.
24 Midland had quadrupled: John Leffler, “Midland, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hdm03.