The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bush’s life told in eight simple vignettes,
1. Poppy’s glove
George Bush played baseball at Yale, as his father had, and he became captain of the university’s team in 1948. Poppy, as he was known in his years as a student, was a popular player, and he was known for his sense of humor.
When he was president, he kept his first baseman’s glove in a drawer of his desk in the Oval Office. He oiled it regularly and often used it to concentrate, putting it on to sock his hand in while he was thinking.
The sport brought Bush great pleasure. He and his wife, Barbara, often invited Houston Astros players for lunch in Texas, and he once brought President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to a Baltimore Orioles game. Even after vascular disease began to limit Bush’s movements, sports and the outdoors were still important to him. He still spent summers in Maine and enjoyed time on his speedboat, the Fidelity.
2. Skull and Bones
Bush was a member of Skull and Bones, a secretive undergraduate society at Yale. Several of his family members have also been “Bonesmen,” including his father, brother, uncles, great-uncle and a cousin, and his son George W. Bush. This Skull and Bones mascot is from the society’s 1879 photo album, the year after William Howard Taft was selected for membership.
For Bush, the elite network was like an extended family. Bonesmen helped him get his first job in the oil industry, and several invested in his oil ventures. Others offered financial support for his election campaigns, and some served under him as advisers, speechwriters, ambassa- dors and cabinet members.
But being a member of an elite and secretive society also presented a challenge for Bush, who struggled to shake off an image of being out of touch with ordinary Americans. In the 1992 pres- idential campaign, candi- date Patrick J. Buchanan crit- icized Bush for having run a Skull and Bones presidency. Rumors about the society’s rituals, and theories about its influence on the U.S. government, deeply frustrated Bush and his family.
3. Viva Zapata!
After graduating from Yale in 1948, Bush moved to West Texas to work at an oil-equip- ment company run by a close friend of his father’s and financed by his father’s employer, the investment firm Brown Brothers.
A few years later, he and three partners founded Zapata Oil, a contract drilling company in Midland, Texas. They named it after “Viva Zapata!,” a Marlon Brando movie about Mexican rebel Emiliano Zapata, who fought to protect lands owned by peasants.
In the late 1950s, the com- pany began operations in the Gulf of Mexico and the Persian Gulf. Although the company faltered at the time, it highlighted the potential of offshore drilling. Bush and his partners split up Zapata, and he took the helm of the Zapata Off-Shore Co.
During his travels for that company, Bush made important political connections: He befriended King Hussein of Jordan and built Kuwait’s first offshore oil well.
4. Director of intelligence
In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford asked Bush to serve as director of the CIA.
Bush viewed the position as a detour, one that would prevent him from being named vice president and would keep him away from the Oval
Office. But moved by a sense of duty, he accepted.
Bush became director in
1976, not long after the Watergate scandal and the end of the Vietnam War. Stories of domestic spying on antiwar protesters and of plots to assassinate international leaders dominated the headlines, and the public was skeptical of intelligence services. In 12 months as director of the agency, Bush appeared
51 times on Capitol Hill to defend the CIA’s activities.
Despite early criticism that he was too partisan for the CIA, Bush became known at the agency, and by many in Washington, as one of its best directors. In 1999, the agency renamed its head- quarters the George Bush Center for Intelligence. Bush is credited with balancing Congress’s requests for more oversight with the CIA’s abil- ity to conduct intelligence and to protect its agents.
5. Running against Reagan, then with him
Bush faced long odds as he entered the 1980 Republican primary. He had served in government for more than a decade but was still unknown to most Americans, having been elected only twice, representing the 7th District of Texas in the House of Rep- resentatives.
The clear party favorite was Reagan. The former Hollywood actor and governor of California charmed voters with his grandfatherly style and an ability to speak clearly on issues. Campaign consultants told Bush he would have a chance of winning only if Reagan faltered. In the Iowa caucuses, Bush got the lift he needed, beating Reagan by roughly 2,000 votes, what he called his “Big Mo.”
By the middle of the year, Reagan had the support of enough delegates for the Republican nomination, but Bush had enough support to persuade Reagan to take him on as a running mate. They beat Jimmy Carter and Walter F. Mondale in a landslide, with 489 electoral votes to 49.
Four years later, they beat Mondale and Geraldine A. Ferraro by an even larger margin, setting up Bush for his own successful presidential run.
6. Loyalty to his vice president
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Quayle became known for his public gaffes. At a spelling bee in Trenton in 1992, he encouraged a 12-year-old to add an “e” to the end of “potato.” Although many thought these sorts of missteps were a liability for the Bush administration, Bush kept his No. 2 on the ticket in 1992.
7. The Saudi link
Bush’s ties to the Saudi royal family, and to Saudi Arabia more generally, were so strong that he was once known in the Middle East as the “Saudi vice president.” His friendship with King Fahd is credited with mak- ing Saudi Arabia a strong ally, especially through the Persian Gulf War. A 14-karat gold model of the Masmak Fort in Riyadh was a gift to Bush from King Fahd in 1992.
Even after Bush left the White House, his family maintained close ties with members of the Saudi royal family. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambas- sador to the United States, and his wife said the Bushes were “almost family.” Bar- bara Bush said she felt the same way, and she affectionately called the prince Bandar Bush.
Friendships between the two families have extended beyond the diplomatic and the social. King Fahd contributed $1 million to Barbara Bush’s campaign against illiteracy in 1989; Prince Bandar gave $1 million to the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in 1997; and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal gave $500,000 to Phillips Academy in 2002 to fund a scholarship in Bush’s name.
8. Summers in Maine
Bush moved his family roughly three dozen times, and he traveled the world for business and politics, but he has spent nearly every summer at his family’s retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine. There, family members said he could truly relax and be himself. For all of Bush’s attempts to portray himself as a lover of Texas barbecue and pork rinds, and despite its being a symbol of his affluent New England upbringing, he never let go of his Kennebunkport home.
While it has provided a place for family, leisure and sport, Bush has also used it for business and political work. As a young Texas oil executive, he and his uncle wooed investors there with a dip in the Atlantic, a warm towel and a martini. When Bush was president, Kennebunkport became the summer office of the White House, a spot where his grandchildren bumped into diplomats, Cabinet members and heads of state. In August 1990, after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the president held meetings with his national security adviser there, and began early talks on building a coalition with Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister and its ambassador to the United States.