All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings

by George H. W. Bush

  I have prepared twelve recommendations that you might want to include in a “letter of instruction” to the new Director of Intelligence. These recommendations do not require legislation. The list is not intended to be all-inclusive. . . .

  A personal note: I am told that the Senate is going to act on my nomination soon after it comes back. Barbara and I plan to go to the Bahamas for one week commencing January 7th. Before that and after I will be in my EOB13 office. I hope you and I will have a chance to visit in person before any final decisions are made. Hopefully, this could be done immediately upon my confirmation.

  GENERAL OBSERVATIONS:

  A. I hope whatever is done will not be too defensive. In my view the general theme should be:

  Intelligence is vital to our country. We are making proposals to strengthen it and improve it. The President will see that abuses are eliminated and he will guarantee that we will maintain and strengthen our vital foreign intelligence capability.

  B. I think you should move immediately to take certain steps that do not require legislation. This can best be done by a letter to the new Director along the lines of your previous letter to Bill Colby. It can be done at the same time as you propose legislative changes, but in any event it should be done shortly after I take office.

  C. My specific twelve points follow.

  Point 1.

  The DCI will have access to all intelligence information. None shall be withheld from him, and when he asks for any information from any department it will be granted to him. The Director will take the appropriate steps to guarantee that information provided him is kept secret. . . .

  Point 2.

  The Director will have direct access to the President. The President instructs the Director to give him objective and independent intelligence without regard to any foreign policy considerations. The President expects the Director to work closely with the NSC, but the President wants it understood that the Director will have direct access to the President when he feels such access is necessary. . . .

  Point 3.

  The Director will be given Cabinet rank, but he will not attend Cabinet meetings unless they relate to foreign affairs.14 . . .

  Point 4.

  The President reiterates his support for the Director as his top intelligence officer and instructs him to meet from time to time with the Secretaries of State and Defense as well as the head of the NSC in order to insure the President of maximum cooperation between the producers and the users of intelligence.15

  Point 5.

  The President plans to appoint an additional Deputy for CIA. He instructs the Director to have one Deputy concern himself with managing the agency under the direction of the Director. The other Deputy would concern himself primarily with coordination of the Intelligence Community for the Director. . . .

  Point 6.

  The President instructs the Director to renew his efforts in the resource field for the entire community. The President will look to the Director for maximum effort to eliminate waste and unnecessary duplication regarding resources of both money and manpower. The Department of Defense is instructed to provide the Director with maximum cooperation in this regard. . . .

  Point 7.

  The Director will not have as priority the tactical intelligence field. Tactical intelligence has been and should continue to be the priority concern of defense intelligence. The Director shall be alert to eliminate wasteful duplication in the entire Intelligence Community, however. . . .

  Point 8.

  The Director should give immediate attention to housing his Intelligence Community Staff in a location separate from CIA Headquarters at Langley . . .

  Point 9.

  The Director is instructed to give maximum attention to cooperating with Congress. Where there undoubtedly will be some matters of difference between the Executive and the Legislative Branches and the Director is expected to follow Presidential directives to the letter when disputes arise, the Director is instructed to work closely with the appropriate authorities in Congress on matters relating to national intelligence.

  Point 10.

  The Director is instructed to make a thorough review of all CIA instructions that have been issued over the years regarding guidelines for proper conduct of intelligence matters. He should take any additional reform steps that he deems necessary. Many reforms have already been implemented by Director Colby, but the President wants direct assurance from the new Director that he has done everything in his power to guard against the abuses that have damaged the Intelligence Community. . . .

  Point 11.

  The Director, working closely with the NSC, is instructed to take the initiative in finding more satisfactory “cover” arrangements for CIA personnel operating abroad. Appropriate departments of government are instructed to give full cooperation to the Director. . . .

  Point 12.

  Covert Action. The President instructs the Director that no covert action be initiated without signed formal approval of the 40 Committee16 and direct Presidential instruction. . . .

  [For the most part, except for giving me cabinet status, President Ford agreed with these suggestions and they were enacted.]

  March 6, 1976

  Dear Henrietta,18

  . . . Bar and I were homesick for USLO when we got your letter. I’m a little jealous—Mr. Guo driving for Thayer,17 Mr. Wong sitting there waiting for someone new when we consider him a part of our family, and Mrs. Tang as well.

  My life is hectic and full, but when things get really rushed or when I get really tired, I get enormous restful pleasure from thinking of our happy days in Peking.

  I have been disturbed over the furor of the Nixon visit, mainly because I don’t think the Chinese intended anything bad by it. It played so badly over here in the papers that I’m afraid they will think we don’t value our relationship with them.19

  . . . Bar shed a tear over your description of the ministers. We miss them too. I don’t know how you could convey that to them, but please do it.

  C. Fred has stopped fighting; at least he no longer gets into losing situations by challenging every big dog in sight. All in all, he is a happy guy. He’s forgetting his Chinese pretty fast and taken up Spanish again, so he can get along well with Paula.20 He’s still a bit of a “sellout” whenever a brother or sister returns home. He deserts his place at the bottom of our bed and promptly moves in with whomever descends upon our house. It’s not your basic infidelity, but it does show a lack of concern for his mother who gets highly upset over this.

  Now, Henrietta, when you come to Washington, remember a big steak awaits you at the Bushes along with a cozy evening so that we can hear all about China—firsthand. Indeed, if you need a sack, there are plenty at our house. . . .

  Warm regards,

  Sincerely,

  George Bush

  (Note: For the purposes of writing this book, the CIA graciously let us go through my DCI files that are still classified. Most of the documents we requested were declassified, but portions of some documents had to be redacted in order to protect what we call in the intelligence business “sources and methods.” In the interest of authenticity, those sections that were blacked out are reflected in the relevant documents.)

  MEMORANDUM FOR:

  THE RECORD

  SUBJECT:

  Meeting with the President, Thursday, 11 March 1976 8:15 to 8:50 a.m.

  I talked to him about my European trip and told him that I would like to report to him when I get back on the state of play with our foreign intelligence services. I was somewhat worried about cooperation, not by the services, but by people abroad generally, and by the effect that the hearings21 may have had on our relationships, and though, officially, things were in good shape, there were some indications that some of those who have cooperated with us have been genuinely concerned. . . .

  China: We talked about the need to get the information from Nixon. The matter was still rather dicey and tense. I showed him the cable x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The President read the entire cable. I gave it to him to show that China was indeed trying to send a signal to us that they wanted good relations, etc. Following the meeting I had a discussion with Scowcroft . . . on Freedom of Information problems that relate to the release of the President’s written report from Nixon. The report of the conversations can be classified, but there is some question as to Nixon’s observations being classified. To all concerned I keep insisting that we get access to the information. The problem apparently is that Nixon will only talk to either Scowcroft, Kissinger, or me. . . .

  I mentioned possible coups in Thailand, Argentina and Peru. . . .

  The President asked how I liked my job. I told him that I liked it very much, was getting good support, and that I felt the whole matter “would work.” I told him that this might come as a surprise to him and that though I was obviously interested in the elections, that I found I was picking up the paper and looking at items of much more direct concern and only glancing at the political content of the paper. I’m not sure he believed this, but it is certainly true.

  I told him these meetings were very, very important to the entire Intelligence Community. The President is relaxed and is always most gracious with his time, and interested.

  George Bush

  Director

  March 12, 1976

  MEMORANDUM FOR ALL CIA EMPLOYEES

  As Director of Central Intelligence I am determined that the Central Intelligence Agency conduct its activities in strict adherence to its legislative charter, to applicable laws, Executive Orders, and appropriate National Security Council Directives. Only by such adherence both to the spirit and letter of the law can the Agency continue to serve the People of the United States by properly carrying out its mission to contribute to the national security.

  A CIA regulation requires that any employee who has knowledge of past, current, or proposed CIA activities that might be construed to be illegal, improper, questionable, or outside CIA’s legislative charter, inform the Director or Inspector General immediately.

  I expect each employee to comply with the regulation. You may report any information relating to these matters directly to me or to the Inspector General at any time.

  George Bush

  I want to share with you excerpts from a speech I wrote (the occasion was the Commemoration of the Revolutionary Battle of Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina) in which I said plainly how I felt about the Agency:

  March 14, 1976

  Intelligence is a demanding craft. I have not been in this business for very long, but already I can tell you a few things I have learned. One is that the quality of the people I have met—at the Central Intelligence Agency and in the other parts of the Intelligence community—gives me great confidence. I am impressed with the competence and dedication of the people in our intelligence community. They are professionals in the finest sense of the word. I might add that the spread of academic skills is remarkable. The CIA alone has enough PhDs to stock a university faculty with everything from historians and economists to mathematicians and aeronautical engineers.

  Another thing you should know: I am convinced that the CIA and the intelligence community are under control and doing their jobs. The agency indeed made some mistakes in the past. I am not here to defend them. But I am here to tell you that the agency itself rooted out those errors and put an end to them well before they were publicly revealed.

  . . . Let me tell you another thing I have learned about the CIA. Its employees have very deeply ingrained pride and loyalty. They also have an extraordinary sense of duty. It is my belief that the guidelines laid down by the President will be followed to the letter. I have made a personal commitment to see that this is so.

  . . . There is no substitute for honesty. There is no substitute for conscience. There is no substitute for common sense.

  It is not fashionable in these days of tearing down our institutions to say, “trust me.” Yet Americans have to have faith and trust in some degree or none of our governmental systems will work. I do believe that oversight of the intelligence community is necessary, and I strongly support the new measures set out by the President. I welcome the responsible exercise of oversight by the congress as well.

  But it still comes down to a basic fact. You cannot conduct an intelligence agency out in the open. There must be secrecy. Much of what we do can and should be shared with the public and all branches of the government.

  In this job I will cooperate as fully as possible with the congress, but there are certain pieces of information that must not be divulged—and they won’t be. I don’t think that the American people really want reckless disclosure. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that secrets are respected in many areas of our lives. Americans expect confidentiality at the ballot box. They expect it with their doctors and lawyers and clergymen. We have laws to protect certain business secrets and even to protect Department of Agriculture crop estimates. I am sure that no one in this audience thinks it is in our national interest to make public the war plans of the Department of Defense, or the in-chambers conversations of our Supreme Court.

  I am confident that the vast majority of the American people support the need for protecting real intelligence secrets. I am completely committed to working for such protection. And I do not intend to use the over-worked words “secrecy” and “national security” to hide abuses or cover up mistakes. . . .

  There is great misunderstanding about our work. As a result of the past year’s revelations, both true and false, our intelligence failures—and there have been some—have been widely publicized. But the nature of our work is such that we can seldom talk of our many successes without revealing our “sources and methods.” We do battle with kidnappers abroad; we struggle against a network of narcotics peddlers who try to spread their poisons in our country; we get information on the plans of other countries to inflate artificially the prices or control the supplies of vital raw materials; we resist the evils of communist intelligence services abroad. Every one of those things could affect you personally as well as our greater national interests. And it is the real mission of intelligence to see that our policy makers have solid information so they can move to frustrate the plans of those who would harm us.

  . . . Our intelligence people have suffered a vicious battering. Their families have been under great pressure. Many of the charges have not been true. . . . I wish you could all have the chance to feel the spirit and pride I feel in the intelligence community. There is a dedication that is fully compatible with the spirit of Guilford Courthouse.

  . . . In closing let me tell you about an incident that occurred shortly before I became the Director of Central Intelligence. A correspondent I know made the remark on a talk show that anyone dumb enough to take this job was too dumb to do it. He got a good laugh out of it among his fellow panelists—but to me it was a little sick. It displayed an appalling insensitivity to our legitimate national security needs.

  We at the CIA are trying to conduct foreign intelligence, not to weaken our country, but to strengthen it. It’s those who would disclose the names of our agents abroad; it’s those who believe they can recklessly reveal classified documents; it’s those who would dismantle the CIA, that in reality are damaging our country.

  I wish you could talk to some of our employees whose heads are high after a couple of years of enormous attack. They are as vigorously opposed to the mistakes of the past as our strongest critics, but they have retained a perspective, they know the need for strong intelligence, and they are prepared to withstand the attacks, if that is necessary, to work for a cause they believe in.

  I wish you could have met the son of Richard Welch, our station chief in Greece who was gunned down following disclosure of his name by people bent on destroying CIA. This young man knew well that his father had died for a cause in which he deeply believed.

  If you could do these things, you would understand much about the fiber of our country in 1976
and you would understand much about the fiber of the patriots at Guilford Courthouse 195 years ago.

  They are one. They are the same.

  Despite the seriousness of my new job, I tried hard not to lose sight of what was important in life. This was for an article in Texas Monthly about hamburgers.

  March 29, 1976

  Mr. William Broyles, Editor

  Texas Monthly

  Austin, Texas 78767

  Dear Bill,

  Now about the hamburger!

  We serve a pretty mean hamburger every Sunday at our house. I do the cooking, but when the going gets tough, I can press some of our kids into service if they’re home.

  Ingredients—just hamburger, a good grade beef. I base this on the theory, “let the meat do the talking.”

  Bread—I’m sorry but I go for the basic hamburger roll, toasted on the grill, but not too much.

  I prefer a glass of ale with my hamburger. I’ve been going with the basic green can of Ballantine but I’m open for further suggestions.

  Side dish—our lunches are usually very informal, paper plate style, but there is room for a frito or the potato chip.

  We make our own burgers, and darn it I haven’t been to Texas enough lately to check the burger out. It’s not that I don’t love burgers, but when I get to Texas I like a plate of barbecue at Otto’s in Houston, postponing my love for the burger “til I get back to our house. . . .

  Sincerely,

  George Bush

  Director

  March 30, 1976

  Mr. Robert W. Blake

  Lubbock, Texas 79408

  Dear Bob,

  Great hearing from you on March 25th. I was delighted to get the word on George.22 He’s a hardworking guy with a lot of ambition and a fair degree of restlessness. Barbara and I just can’t tell you how grateful we are for the interest you have taken in this kid. It means an awful lot. He respects you and respects your advice.