I want to do something useful . . . I’d welcome some suggestions about the future. I want to help others in some way. I need to make some money, not a ton.
I don’t want to be frantic about influencing history’s judgment of what I tried to do . . .
In mid-April, Mom and Dad accepted an invitation from the emir of Kuwait to return to that liberated country for a series of events commemorating the allied victory in the Persian Gulf War. Accompanying my parents on this trip was a group of family and friends. I would love to have been part of that group, but Bobby and I were expecting our first baby the next month.
Neil remembers the journey this way:
The Kuwaiti government sent a specially refurbished plane to Houston to bring the delegation to Kuwait. After the plane took off from Houston, everything in the ascent was normal, we reached cruising altitude, and everyone settled in for a long journey. Not too far out of Houston, perhaps over Mississippi, we noticed a flurry of activity, men moving hastily down the aisles towards the cockpit. It turns out that the metal stripping that covers the wings of the big plane was beginning to peel off—one strip at a time. At one point, we could actually see through the wing all the way to the ground. This would have been frightening, except that the pilot announced that even if the entire stripping came off both wings, the plane is aerodynamically designed in such a way that it would still fly. To be extra cautious, however, it was decided that the plane would turn around and return to Houston. The delegation, minus a few weaker souls, departed the next day on yet another airplane that was sent by the emir.
Once we arrived in Kuwait, there was quite a reception at the airport followed by a motorcade to the government guest palace. It was striking that the music in the limo was blaring loud Arabic music with a hypnotic cadence. What was memorable was that every once in a while the words “George Bush” would pop up. It was explained that after the liberation many people in Kuwait named their newborn babies George Bush. The songs were made to express their appreciation for Dad’s critical role in liberating Kuwait.
It was a festive trip, marked by a state dinner, a visit to the Kuwaiti parliament, a tour of the war-damaged city, and a visit to a military base. Everywhere the traveling party went, they saw enthusiastic crowds.
During the trip, Dad recalled, “The most moving thing happened to me. The Kuwaitis presented me with a beautiful old door to a house. Around the side of it, they had engraved the names of all the U.S. military who had lost their lives in the war. There was also a plaque that read, ‘An old Kuwaiti proverb says, “When a man gives you the key to his home it means that you are the best and most valuable friend to him; and when a man gives you the door it means that you are one of his family.”’”
After they returned home, however, the intelligence services learned that terrorists had attempted to assassinate Dad during this visit. In fact, Kuwaiti authorities had detained seventeen suspects, some of whom reportedly confessed that the Iraqi intelligence service was their sponsor. The authorites also found a belt loaded with explosives, the kind a suicide bomber would use, and recovered a Toyota Landcruiser containing between eighty and ninety kilograms of plastic explosives connected to a detonator. Lud Ashley, who was on the trip, put it this way: “People were caught with all kinds of explosives that were destined to blow the living bejesus out of our entire troop.”
This highly disturbing discovery set in motion a chain of events involving the CIA, the FBI, and the Department of Justice that pieced together the evidence and linked the assassination attempt to Saddam Hussein’s government. When conclusive proof was in hand, the Clinton administration launched a cruise missile attack against the Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad on June 26 to retaliate. The following day, Madeleine Albright, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, addressed an emergency session of the Security Council and provided evidence to the international community.
As time went on, Dad traveled and gave more speeches, and some of his 1993 commitments took him to such varied places as Taiwan, England, Puerto Rico, Morocco, Hong Kong, and Sweden. One speaking engagement shortly after leaving the White House took him to the Princess Hotel in Acapulco, Mexico. Our family friend the Reverend Billy Graham was speaking at the same event, and a prominent Mexican businessman invited Mom and Dad, along with Billy and Ruth Graham, to have lunch and spend part of the day on his boat.
Rev. Graham had to leave early for an appointment, and since the boat was only a few hundred yards from shore, he borrowed a blue swimsuit from Dad and swam to shore, planning to walk back to a friend’s apartment where the Grahams were staying.
“When I got to the beach, I found out I was on Mexican Navy property and was promptly arrested,” Rev. Graham recalled. “While I was waiting for the officer in charge to decide what he was going to do about me, I sat down on a bench that had apparently just been painted—and when I stood up, the suit was green!”
The Grahams sent Dad’s swimsuit to the cleaners, but they couldn’t get the green stripes out, so the Grahams gave it away. A few days later, they saw a man walking in town wearing the green-striped suit. That incident became a running joke between my parents and the Grahams, who have laughed about it for years.
Heartbreak hit Dad and our friend Don Rhodes when Dad’s dog Ranger died shortly after my parents returned to Houston. Ranger was originally Marvin’s dog, but Dad loved him so much that he came to live with Mom and Dad—and Don was just as fond of the dog. Ranger was one of Millie’s puppies, the only male, and that spring they discovered he was riddled with cancer. He had to be put to sleep on April 6. “Ranger had no enemies,” Dad lamented to Mom at lunch that day, as they discussed how much pain he was in and whether he should be put down. Ranger’s quality of life “just wasn’t worth a darn,” Dad said.
Anyone who had seen Dad with Ranger knew how much that loss hurt him, yet it fell to an old friend, Ambassador Fred Zeder, to put a smile on Dad’s face when he wrote expressing his condolences that Ranger had gone “paws up.”
Eventually, Ranger’s ashes were buried on Walker’s Point along with all our family dogs.
In May of that year, my third child, Robert Daniel Koch, was born, weighing in at over ten pounds. He was Bobby’s first child, and he is named after his father and Bobby’s brother Danny. Needless to say, his dad was overjoyed, as was I.
Almost since birth, Robert has always loved ice cream. Years later, his cousins and he were eating so many Klondike Bars in Kennebunkport that my mother decreed the ice cream off-limits. Shortly afterward, Mom caught Robert violating this rule, hiding on one side of the house with chocolate all over his mouth and fingers. That’s when Mom actually bought a lock for the freezer door.
During Dad’s presidency, he would often listen to music to help him relax during his neck therapy with the military nurses assigned to the White House. As time went by, the British singer Roger Whittaker became a favorite of Dad and the nurses—so much so, in fact, that they decided to start a Roger Whittaker fan club right there in the White House. Their motto was “More Roger in Our Lives.”
Everyone naturally assumed Dad would appoint himself the president of this new club, but he balked. “I’m tired of being president,” he joked. So instead he became the recording secretary of the club and an Air Force nurse, Kim Siniscalchi, became the club president. One had to be “accepted” into the club, and together, Kim and Dad reviewed applications for membership. The club included Dr. Burt Lee (aka the Burtser), and nurses Mary Jackson, Ellen Tolton, Paula Trivette, Debbie Beatty, and Art Wallace.
During his last days in the White House, Dad decided to invite the entire fan club to Maine that summer. What the nurses didn’t know was that Dad had made T-shirts and called Roger Whittaker and his wife, Natalie—whom Dad had never met before and cold-called—to invite them up for the visit as well.
“We kept it a total secret,” Dad said. “I called Roger up and said, ‘You’ll never believe this, but we’ve got a bunch of nurses here w
ho are absolutely nuts about you and would you be able to come to Maine as a surprise?’ The Whittakers accepted the invitation and arrived early on the day of the nurses’ visit. When the nurses got to the gate at Walker’s Point, however, one of the agents, seeing the Roger Whittaker T-shirts, said, ‘Oh, Mr. Whittaker is already here.’ So the surprise was blown, but we really had fun.”
As you might suspect, Dad developed a very special bond with the nurses. Ellen Tolten told me, “Still to this day, I get tears in my eyes. He would think we were just as important as any dignitary, any leader in the free world. He would introduce us, ‘Do you know my nurse Ellen?’ He treated us like we were royalty. That was absolutely wonderful, and it was something he did after the fact.”
In addition to the Roger Whittaker visit, Dad was also looking forward to spending more time in Kennebunkport in general. Throughout his presidency, he always looked forward to the day when he would be able to more fully enjoy the ocean air surrounded by family and friends. A storm that ravaged Walker’s Point a year before he left the presidency almost ruined this simple dream.
In late October and early November of 1991, a devastating two-day nor’easter—known as the “perfect storm”—had battered the Maine coast and slammed Walker’s Point. The storm flooded the Big House and caused a lot of damage to the property. The house was left standing, but barely. Mom and Dad thought about tearing it down and rebuilding it farther back from the waterline but then decided against it. They liked being near the ocean.
“We just restructured it,” Dad said. “The house was strong and there was no damage to the foundation or the rest of the house. We did have to beef up the steel beams under the living room. It was devastating. I don’t think there was a stick of furniture left. The walls were knocked down. The worst part was losing the pictures and memorabilia. You can replace furniture.”
The destruction on Walker’s Point was heartbreaking for Dad, but he and Mom rebuilt it almost exactly as it had been, and these days you can’t even tell what happened.
And now, Dad was finally having time to pursue his passion for fishing. “Throughout the years he was president, he’d come to Kennebunkport,” said Dad’s local fishing buddy Bill Busch, “but when he went fishing, it was a race. He had too much going on, too many people around.”
The summer of 1993, everything changed. Life for Dad was still moving at a frantic pace, but it was more manageable. His schedule was much more flexible, which meant he was really able to fish.
Bill Busch had been introduced to Dad by a talented boat mechanic in Kennebunkport, Paul B. Lariviere (aka Wazoo), who years before had heard Dad was not having much luck out on the water. Bill, who loves fishing so much that he has a tattoo on his arm that reads “Eat-Sleep-Fish,” soon became a regular on Dad’s fishing trips.
In his second-floor office in Maine, Dad has situated his desk and computer so he can check e-mail and type letters with a clear view of the bay—that way, he can keep an eye on the seagulls, swirls, blitzes, and other dead giveaways that fish are present. Occasionally, the little bay astride Walker’s Point will fill with millions of tiny bait fish seeking refuge from the open sea, and, depending on what part of the season it is, sea bass and bluefish will come within feet of the shore thrashing about as they feed.
The combination of fishing and boating, however, is even more pleasing to Dad, because it marries two of his passions.
“I think that’s his ultimate freedom,” Bill said. “Being out there, driving the boat, just going wherever he wants to go—and going fast. If we catch a lot of fish, great. If we don’t, we still have a great time. And if one of his kids or grandkids is along for the trip, he gets a whole new vigor. You can see the father and grandfather in him come out.”
Of course, inherent in almost every undertaking with Dad is the ribbing, the joking. Out on the water, for example, Dad will frequently tell you, “I’m just the captain. I can only take you where the fish are. If you don’t catch any, don’t blame the captain.”
Beyond the cool waters of Maine and the tropical waters of the Texas Gulf Coast, Dad’s fishing exploits have taken him all the way to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina for sea-run brown trout, off the North Carolina Coast for false albacore, to Panama for the rooster fish and the large jax, the River Test in southern England for brown trout, and to Canada and Iceland for Atlantic salmon.
Dad has also fished from the Tree River in Canada’s Northwest Territories, known for its large Arctic char. In fact, his visits to that remote corner of the world prompted an enterprising reporter named Arthur Milnes, who was working at the Deh Cho Drum in Fort Simpson (population 1,273) at the time, to fax Dad in 1997 requesting a “guest column” from Dad on the subject of fishing. Forget the politics, said Art, and much to his surprise, Dad accepted the offer to have his own byline. Here’s an excerpt from the article my father penned:
This year the weather was perfect. We fished in T-shirts, needing a sweater or jacket only in the early morning or late afternoon. The weather up there is variable and it can get wet and very cold even in August; but not this year.
There were a lot of char in those fast-running waters, a lot of big, strong fish. My 13-year-old grandson, Jeb, from Miami, Fla., got a 25- to 30-pound fish on his Magog Smelt fly—a brown, wet fly that was very productive over the course of our whole trip.
He fought the fish for 45 minutes, following our guide Andy’s instruction to perfection. The big red, finally tiring, came into the shallow waters just above some rapids, and then with one ultimate surge of energy he flipped over the edge of the pool into the white-water rapids, broke the 20-pound test tippet, and swam to freedom.
My grandson, not an experienced fly fisherman, had fought the fish to perfection. He did nothing wrong. All the fishing experts who were watching told him so, but those big fish are strong and tough and they never give up.
I had 43 fish on my fly rod, only to bring two into the shore. Don’t laugh. I was proud to have kept the fly in the water, kept on casting, having the thrill of having that many fish, even for a moment, on my No. 9 rod . . .
I am a very happy and a very lucky man now. Because of time spent fishing and the chance that fishing gives me to relax and think freely, now more than ever I see clearly just how blessed I really am. I served my country. I have a close family and a wonderful wife to whom I have been married for 52 and a half years, and yes, I went to the Tree River and caught char.
Tight lines to all you fishermen!
(Submitted by this most enthusiastic amateur to whom Canada has given such joy.)
News of Dad’s brief foray into journalism was wired across Canada and the United States, and earned Art Milnes a modicum of celebrity that he, in turn, credits with changing his career.
One final fishing anecdote. On three occasions, I have been very fortunate to accompany Dad as a guest of Gustavo and Patty Cisneros on a fishing trip to two very special, and very different, parts of Venezuela. In fact, it was Gustavo who taught me to fly-fish.
The first is Manaka, located near the junction of the Ventuari and Orinoco rivers in the heart of the Amazon jungle. There we fished for the powerful peacock bass—or, as it’s known in Spanish, the pavón. During our first trip to Manaka in 2001, I remember casting a line that became caught in a branch over the water, the lure dangling a few feet above the surface, blowing in the breeze. In an instant, an alligator with its jaws wide open surged straight up out of the water and snapped up my lure!
During that same trip, Dad caught close to thirty-five peacock bass in two and a half days of fishing, but he also caught the desire to come back and catch a real trophy fish. And he did catch a trophy fish. Gustavo remembers the moment: “The president holding on to the rod as it was bending all the way, his face in disbelief. He walked all over the boat as the captain tried to keep it in a steady position, fighting against the current of the river and, on top of that, the pouring rain. President Bush fought the fish for at least ten minutes and finally lande
d it. It was a 16-pounder, the biggest peacock bass he had ever caught!”
By ten-thirty we had caught so many fish that Dad told the guides that it was time to “tell the divers to take a break and stop putting the fish on our hooks!” That’s when Dad got the idea to break the camp record. Gustavo continues:
At the time, the record of the camp for the most fish caught in a day was 80. When we took a break for lunch we had already caught 86 fish. Suddenly the president said, “Hey guys, do you think we can get up to 100 fish?”
By five-thirty in the afternoon we had caught 97 fish and the deadline was six o’clock. Finally we reached the 100 fish milestone. I thought our day of fishing was over, but as we were getting ready to head back home, the president threw out his line one more time and, of course, got another peacock bass. “Now this team is called ‘the 101 Team’” he declared.
From there, we flew ninety miles off the northern coast of Venezuela to an island chain known as Los Roques to chase “The Ghost of the Flats”—or bonefish. During this trip, the president proceeded to catch forty-four fish in two and a half days. It was the largest number of bonefish ever caught by the forty-first president of the United States of America.
Fishing and public speaking aside, the summer of 1993 was a busy one for Dad. He and Mom had several visitors, including former South African president F. W. de Klerk, whom Dad respected enormously for his handling of the complex and emotionally charged transition to Nelson Mandela’s leadership. That summer, Dad also started working on a book with General Scowcroft about the end of the Cold War and the other serious foreign policy challenges of his administration. Helping the twosome was a small team of trusted advisers known as the book group, including Arnie Kantor, Condi Rice (who was then provost at Stanford), Ginny Mulberger, and Florence Gantt.
My Father, My President Page 47