HOUSTON’S PRESIDENT
New book by George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff is full of anecdotes that show his love for the city he called home
The changes were abrupt. There was no household staff. No coffee waiting in the morning. No meals on the table. No schedule. No nuclear treaties to negotiate. No crises to solve. No cabinet meetings.
The morning after President George H. W. Bush and First Lady Barbara
Bush left Washington on Jan. 20, 1993, was a rough beginning. In “The Man I Knew,” I write about the 25 years that followed, during which I served as the former president’s chief of staff. In this excerpt, I want to tell you about the Bushes’ love affair with Houston. Hidden in some of these stories is how President Bush taught all of us some valuable life lessons: how to accept defeat with grace, how to lead even when you are out of power, how to live life with joy and purpose.
Mrs. Bush loved telling about how, one day early on, she was attempting to make a vegetarian smoothie for then 9-year-old granddaughter Lauren, when the top came off the blender and suddenly carrots and tomatoes were dripping from the kitchen ceiling.
Somehow that very same day, she managed to knock over a large jar of spaghetti sauce that President Bush had bought on his first of many visits to Sam’s Club.
They ordered pizza.
About Sam’s Club: They became frequent visitors to the store, and despite the fact that it was just the two of them, they bought everything in bulk. (There still might be Cheetos left over from those early visits.) I once went with Mrs. Bush, and as she pushed her flatbed cart around the store, I could tell people were amazed to see her there. I was an eyewitness on that visit to a response she developed for people who asked if she was Barbara Bush: “No, I am much younger and prettier.”
President Bush wrote this in a note to columnist Philip Terzian with “The Providence Journal” dated Feb. 4, 1993:
“I can’t say (the election) didn’t hurt, but now it’s different. Barbara is way out ahead of me. She is writing away and even though she dropped a $3.00 jar of sauce and splattered it all across our tiny kitchenette she is proving once again to be a fine cook. It’s far better than microwaving it. I am the dish man. I rinse the plates and put them in the washer. Almost simultaneously I load our coffee machine, and then we walk the dogs. And along the way we count our blessings.” — GB
President Bush went to work every day in his new office in Houston, mainly to answer the mail that was coming in at the rate of 700 letters a day. He started planning his presidential library, to be built on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station. He and his former national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, started working on their joint book project about foreign policy, “A World Transformed.” (President Bush’s draft of Chapter 1 was 500 pages. General Scowcroft’s version was longer. They
hired someone to help.)
President and Mrs. Bush were building a house on an empty lot they had owned for many years. For now, they were staying in the house of a friend, just down the street. The neighbors were supportive and excited to welcome the Bushes home, except for one small problem: tourists. When a busload of them got out and tried to take photos of Mrs. Bush walking their dog Millie early one morning, everyone had had enough. Without a lot of coaxing, the Texas Legislature passed a new law that said in part: cities can “regulate and restrict access to streets, avenues, alleys, and boulevards in the municipality on which the dwelling of a former president of the United States is located.” In other words, they put up a gate.
Disaster and aid
Hurricane Harvey inundated Houston in August 2017, with a record-setting 40 inches of rain falling in 48 hours. Flood waters poured into every part of Houston, including downtown; and if your home did not flood, it’s likely something leaked — such as the Bushes’ roof.
By this time President Bush was 93 years old and very frail. He had been on the brink of dying numerous times in the preceding few years but always managed to come back. He just wasn’t ready to go yet.
We were in Maine when Harvey hit, but our hearts were in Houston. It was right before Labor Day weekend and President Bush gave me that look that I knew meant he had an idea. “We have to go to work, Jean.”
The first call, of course, was to the other Texas president, George W. Bush. He was all in. It was decided everyone needed to be “all in,” so calls went out to Presidents Obama, Clinton and Carter to join them. The answer was an immediate and resounding yes.
In the middle of all this, the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation was getting ready to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its opening. The idea was to put up a tent and have a good old-fashioned Texas barbecue with President Bush’s friend Larry Gatlin providing some music.
With so much heartbreak in Texas, President Bush decided it was not the time to celebrate something that had happened 20 years ago. But rather than cancel the event, scheduled for Oct. 21, he thought maybe we could turn it into a Harvey fundraiser.
I called President George W. Bush’s chief of staff, Freddy Ford, and he said of course the 43rd president would join his parents for this event.
I then sent a casual email to the chiefs of staff to the other three presidents, more as an FYI.
President Obama’s chief of staff called and said, “He’s coming.”
Then President Clinton’s chief of staff called and said, “He’s supposed to be in Europe but he’ll come home early.”
Then President Carter’s chief of staff called and said, “Well, if everybody else is coming of course he’s coming!”
Then out of the blue, Lady Gaga called and said she was coming. No, she is not a former president, but we didn’t say no.
So on stage were five former presidents, Lady Gaga, Alabama, the Gatlin brothers, Lyle Lovett, Sam Moore, Lee Greenwood, Yolanda Adams and so many others.
And it all just sort of happened.
An unexpected friendship
In March 2012, when President Bush read in the paper that President Obama was coming to Houston for an election-year fundraiser, he felt he should invite him for a visit at the house or office.
In my email exchange with Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, she said the president would love to see President Bush, but as we started comparing schedules, it was complicated. By the time the president landed, President and Mrs. Bush would be on their way to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo where their great friend Reba McEntire was to perform that night. It looked like a visit would not work out after all.
Then Valerie emails back: “POTUS is thinking he might want to go the rodeo with 41.”
In my slight panic I emailed my sisters: “Huh? Are you kidding me? I didn’t INVITE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE RODEO.”
I told Valerie my concerns, both politically and logistically. Taking a sitting president to the Houston Rodeo with 70,000 screaming fans in the Houston Texans’ football stadium would be a security nightmare. She got it immediately. But her boss did not. He would like to go.
So with a deep breath, I told President Bush the next day that somehow I had managed to do it again: Kind of, sort of, somehow I had invited the president of the United States to the rodeo on his behalf.
And once again, President Bush was thrilled. “This will be great fun,” he declared. “Barack will love the rodeo.”
When I reminded him it was an election year and he was already openly supporting Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, he hesitated for a moment, then had what he thought was the perfect solution.
“Let’s see if Mitt can come to the rodeo next week. Problem solved.”
Thankfully, none of this came to pass. The White House advance team, with great encouragement from the Secret Service, shut it down.
But President Bush was to get a second chance to be hospitable.
In April 2016, President Obama was coming to Houston to do a large fundraiser for the Democratic party, and President Bush announced he was going to meet him at the airport upon arrival. When I expressed surprise, President Bush was insistent. He finally admitted that he was annoyed at some of the press President Obama had been receiving of late — press that he felt the president did not deserve or need. (Sadly, I don’t remember what the bad press was.) He felt showing up at the airport would be a good way to show his support. Besides, he argued, Air Force One was landing at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Shouldn’t he go to welcome him to his airport?
So waiting at the bottom of the stairs in his wheelchair and wearing a pair of his now-signature very colorful striped socks was the 41st president, to welcome the 44th president to Houston. The White House advance team had a hard time getting the president and first lady in the motorcade and off to their event. They were enjoying their reunion.
The long journey home
Sometime around Labor Day, Evan Sisley, President Bush’s aide suggested to me that he and I needed to have a conversation with President Bush about where he wanted to die. Once again, he had defied all odds and not died during the summer. But along with the doctors in Maine and Houston, Evan feared he might not survive the four-hour flight back to Texas. President Bush loved the coast of Maine and Walker’s Point — it is where he had gone his entire life to recharge his batteries and refresh his soul. We guessed it might be where he might want to die.
When we sat down with him, we tip-toed around the question. We offered to stay with him in Maine as long as he wished.
“Are you asking me where I want to die?” President Bush finally asked us, even then doing what he always did so well: cutting to the chase.
“Yes,” we told him.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
“Let’s go to Houston.”
Becker was President George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff from March 1994 until his death on Nov. 30, 2018. This essay is an excerpt from her new book, “The Man I Knew: The Amazing Story of George H. W. Bush’s Post-Presidency.”