American Experience (1988–…): Season 20, Episode 13 - George H.W. Bush: Part I - full transcript

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September 2, 1944 was what
Navy pilots called CAVU...

Ceiling and visibility
unlimited.



It would be Ensign George
H.W. Bush's 50th mission

in his three-man Avenger bomber.

He was commissioned
in 1943 at age 19,

the youngest pilot
in the U.S. Navy.

Bush had seen action in June
over the Mariana Islands

in one of the biggest air
battles of the Pacific War.

The target September 2
was a Japanese radio tower

on the tiny island
of Chichi Jima.

Bush dove into black puffs
of antiaircraft fire.

Suddenly, "I felt the plane
jolt," he remembered,

"and the smoke started
pouring in."

He finished his bombing run,

banked out to sea
so the crew could get out,

and bailed out himself.



Looked up and the parachute
had been ripped up,

and landed in the water.

Swam over, got into
my little life raft.

The submarineUSS Finback,

on patrol for downed pilots,
rescued him.

I remember seeing
that submarine surface.

And I remember pulling
alongside,

and I remember a bunch
of bearded guys standing there.

For the next month, George Bush
joined the Finback's crew.

Aboard, he agonized about the
fate of his gunner Ted White

and radioman John Delaney.

One went down with the plane.

The other's chute never opened.

"It still plagues me

if I gave those guys
enough time to get out,"

the former Flyboy said
with quiet emotion

almost 60 years later.

"I think about those guys
all the time."

He was an emotive,
an emotional leader,

much more emotional
than people thought.

He cried quite readily.

One thing that made George Bush
a less appealing candidate

was that he refused
to show his emotions.

But he had been taught
not to show his emotions.

That's not what a man did,

a man of his generation
and of his upbringing.

And so the public saw
a slightly awkward man

who didn't seem quite ready to
share his true self with them.

When you got to know him,

the human side,
the emotional side was there.

It came out.

"I'll never forget the beauty
of the Pacific,"

Bush would say of the watches
he stood at night.

He had time to think about

"how much family meant to me."

George Herbert Walker Bush grew
up in Greenwich, Connecticut,

in a family that came from Ohio

and became one of New England's
prominent families.

His grandfather, Samuel Bush,

made his fortune in railroads
in Columbus.

His father, Prescott,
went to Yale

and remained in the East.

Prescott Bush was a partner
in Brown Brothers Harriman,

the most prestigious
investment bank on Wall Street

at a time when the influence

of the WASP establishment
in America,

the white Anglo Saxon
Protestants, was near its peak.

Averell Harriman,

Prescott's colleague and one
of the firm's founding partners,

was an aide to president
Franklin Roosevelt

in World War II.

He then became U.S. ambassador
in Moscow.

His partner Robert Lovett was
assistant secretary of war.

After the war they were among
a group known as the "Wise Men"

who helped President Truman
fashion the policy

of containing the Soviet Union.

Prescott Bush was very much
at home with the Wise Men,

the essentially bipartisan,

consensus-seeking,
post-World War II statesmen.

If you think of people
like Robert Lovett,

they didn't run for office;

they exercised enormous power

and influence
from appointed positions.

Even when Bush was a schoolboy
in the 1930s,

a time when America
was isolationist,

these men,
these Wall Street financiers,

were acutely conscious

that America had to stay
involved in the world,

partly for financial reasons.

I mean, Brown Brothers Harriman
did business

in France, in Germany,
and in England.

But also because of this
American tradition

of spreading democracy and
standing up for democracy

and standing up for, as they saw
it, for right against wrong.

George Bush was raised
in this milieu...

People of wealth

who devoted themselves
to government service.

His father, who later
became a senator,

was the moderator of
the Greenwich town meeting

when George was a boy.

He was George's model
for public service.

What Prescott Bush wanted
his children to understand was

that there was a world beyond
the boundaries of Greenwich,

and that they were expected
to give something back

to that world,
whether it be through business,

whether it be
through public service,

or whether it be
through military service.

Young George also bore the
strong influence of his mother,

Dorothy Walker Bush.

It was my grandmother
who taught my dad

the basic lessons in life
that he still adheres to.

My dad was playing soccer
in elementary school,

and, um, he came in and
he was thrilled with himself

because he'd scored three goals,

and he said, "Mom,
I've scored three goals."

And she said,
"Well, that's nice, George,

but how did the team do?"

He always heard
her voice in his head

saying, "Don't brag
about yourself."

And that's hard to do
when you're running

for president
of the United States.

The Finback, Bush would write,

"moved like a porpoise,

"water lapping over its bow,

"the sea changing colors,
first jet black,

then sparkling white."

"It reminded me of home

and our family vacations
in Maine."

Bush was the fourth generation
of his mother's family

to summer at Walker's Point
in Kennebunkport.

It would become
his spiritual home.

George bore the name
of his grandfather,

George Herbert Walker,

for whom the Walker's Cup,

an international golf trophy,
was named.

His competitive spirit came
from the Walkers.

My grandmother was
a champion tennis player.

She would play tennis until her
feet were blistered and raw.

She loved competition.

She was a great golfer.

She was a great baseball player.

One time she hit a home run,
rounded the bases,

and then went on to the hospital

to give birth to my father's
oldest brother,

Prescott.

George Bush was captain of
his baseball team at Andover,

a prestigious prep school
in Massachusetts.

In fielding drills,

he would charge the plate
from first base,

"right down the baseline,
streaking in,"

a biographer would write,

"laughing with the pure joy
of contest.

"That's why he was
the one for captain.

"It was the glint of Walker
steel his teammates saw.

They wanted their team
to be like that."

At Andover, Bush listened
to radio broadcasts

on the history
of aviation in America.

Wings Over America.

Welcome to Yale Unit Base Number
One, ladies and gentlemen.

A group of aristocratic
Yale students,

including Robert Lovett,
his father's business partner,

had turned their college
aero club

into the First Yale Unit.

The "Millionaire's Unit,"
as the press dubbed it,

became the nucleus
of the Navy Air Corps

and an inspiration for George
to become a naval aviator.

Our standard long-range
bombardment airplane

is known in the Air Corps

as the B-17,

the Boeing Flying Fortress.

"Today our world is presented

"with the clearest issue
between right and wrong

which has ever been
presented to it,"

Andover's commencement speaker
warned on June 14, 1940,

shortly after Hitler
launched his blitzkrieg.

The speaker was
Henry L. Stimson,

a Republican,
a Wall Street lawyer,

the very embodiment
of the East Coast establishment.

A few days later,
President Franklin Roosevelt,

a Democrat,
named him secretary of war.

When Bush was an impressionable
a 16-year-old schoolboy,

he heard Henry Stimson
give a speech

about the coming threat

from Nazism, from fascism.

That it was the duty
of the country

to stand up to fascism.

This is 1940,
this is early in the game.

A lot of Americans
are still isolationists.

But Stimson is telling
these schoolboys,

"Look, it's up to you,

"to you young leaders,
future leaders of America,

to stand up to evil
and fight back."

These were words the 16-year-old
schoolboy never forgot.

Stimson, whom Bush regarded
as "a towering world figure,"

returned to Andover
two years later

and urged the graduating class
to go to college

before joining the service.

Bush rejected both Stimson's
advice and his father's.

Later that day, he enlisted
in the U.S. Navy.

It was June 12, 1942,

his 18th birthday.

His father took him
to Penn Station,

and George said his father
put his arms around him

and had tears in his eyes
when he said good-bye.

That was, Bush recalled,

the first time
he saw his father cry.

From aboard the Finback,
Bush wrote his girl back home,

"I hope my own children
never have to fight a war.

"Friends disappearing,

"lives being extinguished...

It's just not right."

Barbara Pierce
grew up in Rye, New York.

Her father, who was a director
of McCall's Publishing Company,

commuted to New York on the same
train as Prescott Bush.

When Barbara was 16,
she met George, age 17,

at a Christmas dance
in Greenwich.

Well, he was the handsomest
living human I ever saw,

and maybe the nicest,
most relaxed.

They played a waltz and he said,
"I can't waltz."

So we sat down and talked,
and that was sort of it.

But I fell in love at first
sight, practically.

George's mother invited Barbara
to Kennebunkport

when he was on leave
in August 1943.

His whole family was up here.

And we were never left alone.

Had four uncles
and four young brides,

and a grandmother
and grandfather

and his mother and father.

So we had
to walk around outside.

And we sort of got engaged
secretly.

We were way too young
to be engaged.

Barbara waited for two years

while George flew
58 combat missions,

logged 1,228 hours
of flying time,

and made 126 carrier landings.

On January 6, 1945,
Barbara Pierce married,

she would come to say,
"the first man I ever kissed."

After the war,

Bush followed his father
and his brother, Prescott,

and entered Yale.

Two and one-half years later,

he had a degree in economics,
Phi Beta Kappa,

and a son.

George W. was born
in New Haven in 1946.

Like his father, Bush was
tapped for Skull and Bones,

Yale's most elite
secret society.

Henry Stimson, now retired
as secretary of war,

presided over his initiation.

Despite his admiration for
his father and for Stimson,

Bush did not follow them
into the world of finance.

All three of his brothers did.

He told me, "I want to work

"with something I can touch.

"I don't want to work
on Wall Street with money,

"and I don't want to go
into a sort of family business.

I really want to work
with something I can touch."

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One of his very first job
interviews,

maybe his first,

was at Procter & Gamble.

He had an interview.

And he got rejected,
got turned down for the job.

And I asked him one day, I said,

"Have you ever thought
about that much?

How your life might have been
totally different?"

He said that, "I'd probably been
a lousy soap salesman."

Actually he said,
"It had helped me, because

"I thought, you know, I'm going
to show these people

"that I do have the right stuff.

I'm going to go out and make it
somewhere else."

Lured by the romance
of a postwar oil boom,

the Bushes headed to West Texas.

He wants an adventure.

He wants a challenge,
and there was

nothing more challenging
than wildcatting oil.

This is the greatest adventure

that you can have
on the continent,

on the United States continent
after World War II.

It's the closest thing

to uncharted territory
as you can have.

George Bush started
in the oil business

in Odessa in 1948...

painting spare pumps
for $375 a month.

He was on a management track,

but within two years,
with two children to support,

he struck out on his own
as a wildcatter.

George got investments

from his Uncle Herbie,
his father,

and people like Eugene Meyer
of The Washington Post.

It was not only a way
to make a fortune,

it was a way for him
to stake out on his own.

Bush's company,
Zapata Petroleum,

hit it big in 1954.

Five years later, George
and Barbara moved to Houston,

the headquarters
of Zapata Offshore.

George was prospering
as its president,

but there was a void
in their lives.

They hoped that Barbara,
who was pregnant, could fill it.

Their second child, Robin,

had been born in 1949.

She was diagnosed with leukemia
when she was three.

Their doctor advised them
to let her die at home.

Instead, they took her
to New York's

Sloan Kettering Hospital.

Yale classmate Lud Ashley
visited daily.

George was running the household

back in Texas,
flying up weekends...

Flying from Texas
when it used to take

eight or nine hours
to fly to New York.

Barb was there all the time.

Almost 24 hours a day.

And, uh, in all my years,

I've never seen such a strength
of character as she showed

during that desperately
difficult time.

My Dad told me that

he had trouble
looking into her eyes

and comforting her

and doing the things
he wanted to do.

My mom was the one

who was able to hold her hand
and love her

and comfort her.

But then later on,

when my mom fell apart
after Robin died,

it was my dad who looked in
her eyes and held her hand

and gave her the strength
to go on.

Robin died on October 12, 1953,

two months before her
fourth birthday.

I believe that
the death of Robin

sobered George Bush

and turned him
into an adult that could be

an empathetic politician,

that could be an individual

who could strike out
on civil rights,

that could be an individual
who could strike out

on disabilities for Americans.

I really think that it was...
that it was that important.

In the late 1950s,

after the birth of Jeb in 1953,

Neil in 1955 and Marvin in '56,

Bush wrote a letter
to his mother.

"There is about
our house a need.

"We need some starched,
crisp frocks

"to go with all our torn-kneed
blue jeans and helmets.

"We need some soft blonde hair
to offset those crew cuts.

"We need a dollhouse to stand
firm against our forts

"and rackets and thousand
baseball cards.

We need someone to cry
when I get mad, not argue."

"We need a little one

"who can kiss without leaving
egg or jam or gum.

We need a girl."

I read that letter

in my mom's book,

and actually listened
to it on tape.

I was driving home on I-95,

the traffic was going crazy,

and I started crying
uncontrollably.

I couldn't... I had to stop

on the middle
of this interstate.

I called my mother up
to tell her

how much I loved her
and how much I loved my dad.

And she, of course,
her immediate response was,

"You didn't read the book.

You had to wait for the tape
to come out."

She gave me grief for that.

It was pretty typical of my dad
to write those kind of letters.

I just learned this story
a few years ago,

on my birthday, when my mom
wished me a happy birthday

and she told me that she
remembered the day I was born,

that Dad came to the nursery

and pressed his face
against the glass and sobbed.

The success of Zapata Petroleum,
Bush recalled,

"gave me the financial base
to risk going into public life."

George's father, Prescott Bush,

was a Republican senator
from Connecticut.

"I knew what motivated him,"
George would write.

"He'd made his mark
in the business world.

Now he felt he had a debt
to pay."

Noblesse oblige has
become a pejorative,

but it wasn't always
a pejorative.

The notion
of an American meritocracy,

which is what the Wise Men
represent,

that's the old Eastern
establishment.

It isn't simply
the nexus of power.

It's the obligation to use
that power in a responsible way,

not for one's own benefit,

but for what you sincerely
believe to be the benefit

of your fellow countrymen.

Prescott Bush represented
that establishment.

His son had one foot
in that establishment.

During his ten years
in the Senate,

Prescott Bush was a moderate
or Eisenhower Republican.

He was pragmatic
and nonideological,

believed in balanced budgets
and was pro-business.

He was also pro-civil rights
and a social liberal.

Prescott had joined the Senate
when he was 57.

His wife said
if he had run earlier,

he would have been president.

His son would not make
that mistake.

George decided to enter politics
when he was 38.

He faced an obstacle
his father never had.

The Republican Party in Texas
hardly existed.

You could probably have held

the... a precinct meeting
in a phone booth then.

That's how many Republicans
were around.

JAMES A. BAKER, III:
My first wife was from Ohio.

And that's a big
Republican state.

And when we moved back here
from Austin after law school,

she conducted the precinct
convention in my living room,

and one guy showed up.

I served him drinks.

I mean, that's how limited
the Republican participation was

in Texas back in those days.

Houston's few Republicans,
Bush among them,

were members of
the Establishment...

Country club Republicans.

Their party was about to change.

The radical anti-Communist
John Birch Society

tried to take it over.

Birchers thought President
Eisenhower was a Communist.

He had appointed a chief justice
who turned out to be a liberal.

The country club Republicans,
the Establishment,

what I call the big-government
Republicans even in those days,

uh, they would be uncomfortable
with true believers.

People who really had deeply
held philosophical,

ideological beliefs
makes, you know,

establishment Republicans, uh,

uncomfortable, quite frankly.

In 1962, George was asked
to run for chairman

of the Harris County Republican
Party to keep the Birchers out.

It was his first
political campaign.

"I'm not voting for 'nother
country club asshole,"

one of the right-wingers said.

"You kin jus' fergit it."

George stepped right
into the middle of it.

And you know, I have loved
George Bush for 40 years,

but he does have one failing.

He does not recognize an enemy.

My dad at that time was
president of McCall Corporation,

and they printed
and published Red Book,

Blue Book and McCall's.

And they sent up...

One meeting we went to,
the lights went out,

someone was speaking,
and papers were all passed down.

When the lights went on,
it said,

"Mrs. Bush's father is
a Communist.

He prints the Red Book."

Crazy.

They said things like,
"George is a Rockefeller plant,"

or, you know,
"He grew up in the East.

"He's not one of us.

He's liberal."

After he won his race,

Bush wanted to give some
Birchers positions in the party.

"George, you don't know these
people," a colleague warned.

"They mean to kill you."

George Bush's instinct

politically is to bring people
together, to be a, uh, a uniter.

And so he didn't come in
in a confrontational style,

slam the door on...
and throw all the Birchers out.

His idea was,
let's get the Birchers

and have some common
meeting ground with them,

because if we want
to beat Democrats,

we need those people.

What do you say, guys?

Bush saw another opportunity
to expand the party

after groundbreaking legislation
on civil rights was introduced

in June 1963
by President John F. Kennedy.

Next week I shall ask
the Congress

of the United States to act,

to make a commitment it has not
fully made in this century

to the proposition

that race has no place
in American life or law.

Civil rights was about
to tear the country,

and the Democratic Party, apart.

Many Democrats in the South
were committed to segregation.

As they saw their party
support integration,

they began to seek refuge
in the Republican Party.

Poor white workers in Texas

and elsewhere felt
there was a threat,

of all these hordes of blacks

becoming unleashed

and competing with them
for status and jobs.

And so you have
the mass turnover

to the Republican Party in
the South, state after state.

Among the disgruntled Democrats
in Houston were dockworkers

who felt their jobs
would be threatened

by African American workers.

They sought out the new
Republican chairman,

George Bush.

They were segregationists.

They were trying to maintain
conservative control

over Harris County.

And I didn't like them
being Republicans,

because I thought it gave
our party a bad name.

George didn't see
a thing wrong with it.

He was eager to expand
the Republican Party,

and he felt the only way
to expand it was

to attract Democrats.

Bush thought

they were crazy.

But he thought that politically

he had to accommodate
himself to them.

I didn't think they were crazy.

I thought they were
very dangerous.

They wanted to convince
the world

that the Republican Party
was now going to be

a segregationist extension
of the old Democrats.

The Democrats called me up

and congratulated me
on getting those bastards

out of their party.

Throughout his political career,

George Bush often seemed
to lack a sense of principle.

As a candidate,

he had often sacrificed
principle

for political gain.

If he did something unsavory

to advance his career
and his party,

the result would be momentous.

The people Bush accommodated
in 1963

would support Senator Barry
Goldwater for president in 1964

and thereafter Ronald Reagan.

And they become the nucleus

of the new Republican Party,

not only in Texas,
but across the country.

And this was the beginning
of the conservative movement,

and to this day it serves as the
base of the Republican Party.

You could say that George
Herbert Walker Bush was in

on the creation,

with this
development-organization

of Harris County Republicans,

because that's where it began.

Think of, think
of what that started.

The party that
George Bush created

in Houston in 1963 grew

into the party he would lead,
and struggle with,

as president.

Those who do not care
for our cause

we don't expect to enter
our ranks in any case.

And...

The champion of Americans

who had flocked to the Sun Belt
in the 1950s,

Senator Barry Goldwater
of Arizona

led a sagebrush insurgency
in 1964

against the Eastern
establishment.

He ran against big government,

the New Deal, labor unions,

and liberal
or "Rockefeller" Republicans.

Everything Prescott Bush
represented,

Goldwater saw as a threat
to individual freedom.

I would remind you

that extremism

in the defense of liberty
is no vice.

Prescott Bush tried to keep
Goldwater off the ticket.

Where the father saw danger,
the son saw opportunity.

George Bush ran for U.S. Senate,
embraced Goldwater

and begged his father
to keep quiet.

After winning the first
Republican primary

in Texas history,

Bush tried to unseat

liberal Democratic senator
Ralph Yarborough.

It was a bold move for someone

who had only been
a county party chairman.

Ralph Yarborough is the darling
of the AFL-CIO bosses

and the committee
on political education.

I'd like my children
to be able to pray in school

if they want to.

And I'd like that right to be
a part of our Constitution.

While Young George,
the oldest Bush boy,

is already a college freshman.

He spent his entire summer

working at Bush headquarters,
assembling campaign materials,

answering phones
and sweeping up, too.

We think George Bush is
quite a man.

A real American.

A real Republican.

A responsible conservative.

Bush ran to the right.

He denounced the United Nations

and pledged to vote
against Kennedy on civil rights.

Like Barry Goldwater,

he argued federal enforcement
of civil rights

was a violation
of states' rights.

George Bush was anxious to, uh,
to launch his political career.

And there was a fervor
in the Republican Party

for conservative principles
in those days,

and that was not his ideology,
but he felt, you know,

in order to get elected,
you know, I will go along,

I won't try to convert people
to my belief,

I will flow with them.

On November 22, 1963,
a Houston Chronicle poll

showed Goldwater leading
President Kennedy in Texas

by 50,000 votes.

Kennedy came to Dallas
to gain support

and to heal a rift

between the state's liberal
and conservative Democrats.

Kennedy's assassination that day

reshaped
the political landscape.

After the assassination,
it was awfully uphill.

Not that anybody gave up,
I must say, starting with him.

It was a real,
real vigorous contest

because he inspired
so many new people

to come to the Republican side.

Although Bush got
200,000 more votes

in the state
than Barry Goldwater,

more than any Republican
ever had,

Texans voted the ticket led
by their native son...

The new president,
Lyndon Johnson.

Bush was trounced.

He was also haunted by some

of the far right positions
he had taken,

especially his pledge

to vote against
the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

And George wrote me a letter

saying that he was so troubled
about this vote,

because he didn't want
his children or anyone

to consider that...

he was voting
against integration.

Two years later,
George Bush ran for Congress

from a Houston district more
moderate than Texas as a whole.

He was elected handily,

the first Republican congressman
from Houston

since Reconstruction.

One issue he faced
was about to explode.

It was the heyday
of the civil rights movement.

African Americans demanded
equal treatment under law.

I'm asking Congress
to bar discrimination in housing

and to secure
other very basic rights

for every citizen.

I am doing this for one reason...
Because it is right...

And I am doing it in the name
of millions of Americans,

both white and Negro,

who object to treating
their fellow citizens

one way on the battlefield

and another way in the country

that they are fighting
to defend.

In 1967, President
Johnson proposed

to ban racial discrimination
in housing.

His fair housing bill

came to the floor for a vote
on April 10.

Once again, the race issue
would force George Bush

to take a stand.

You got to wrestle
with your conscience

and you got to listen to people.

It doesn't come so easy to me

that this is right,
that's wrong.

It's never that simple.

The tough votes are the ones
that you just agonize over

and then you do
what you think is right.

Bush did not vote
as a Goldwater Republican.

He supported Lyndon Johnson.

Many in his district
were outraged.

Dad got a lot of death threats.

People called up on the phone.

Velma Johnson,
an African-American staff member

in my dad's office,
picked up the phone,

and the person
on the other end was...

rambling and screaming
ugly, nasty things.

Tears were streaming
down her face.

My dad grabbed the phone
from her and said,

"I don't know who this is.

"This is George Bush.

"Don't you ever call here again

and treat anyone on my staff
like that again."

He was threatened and denounced

and vilified for having betrayed

his political constituents.

And there was one woman

who had been a big supporter
of George's,

and she wrote him a letter
and said

that she felt
that she'd been violated,

and that he would never be
welcome in her house again.

Mainline Republicans
in those days

were against open housing,

and they were
absolutely convinced

that they were against him,

would never vote for him,
would vote for recall.

I offered to talk to some

of his main money backers,

because a lot of them were
furious at him, and he said,

"No, no, just get them together
and I'll talk to them."

Bush prepared to meet
not just his funders

but his rank-and-file
supporters.

He said that he was going

to face a angry crowd

and that he was being fitted
for iron underpants

for whatever they might decide
to do

when they had him
on the griddle.

On April 17, 1968,

Congressman Bush addressed
a hostile audience of 400

at Houston's
Memorial High School.

There were boos, hisses.

It was ugly.

There was sheet lightning
in that auditorium that night.

They were out
to get George Bush.

They were unhappy
with George Bush.

It was not a pretty scene.

I thought my heart

would just really stop.

I-I was so afraid
of what might happen.

People said
he ought to be killed.

Once all the hubbub died down,
he defended

his vote
on that piece of legislation.

"Your representative owes you
not only his industry,

but his judgment,"
Bush told his audience,

quoting 18th century philosopher
Edmund Burke,

"and he betrays
instead of serving you

if he sacrifices his judgment
to your opinion."

"I voted from conviction,"
he explained,

"not out of intimidation or fear

"but because of a feeling
deep in my heart

that this was the right thing
for me to do."

Earlier that year,

Bush had visited U.S. troops
fighting in Vietnam.

When he went to Vietnam in 1968,

he came back with a very strong
sense of outrage

that although blacks
were so prominent

in the American military

and so prominent among those
who were giving their lives,

that they were treated

so poorly in this country.

Now, Bush asked his audience,
"How would you feel

"about a black American veteran
of Vietnam returning home

"only to be denied the freedom

that we as white Americans
enjoyed?"

"Somehow it seems fundamental

"that a man should not have
a door slammed in his face

because he is a Negro or speaks
with a Latin American accent."

And I'll tell you, by the time
that speech was over,

the atmosphere
in that auditorium

had changed considerably.

It had transformed.

It was one of the few times
I ever saw

a few words

completely transform
an audience.

It's probably one of the most...

dramatic incidents

in all of George's public life,

including when he was president.

"Tonight I got on this plane,"
Bush wrote a friend,

"and this older lady
came up to me.

"She said, 'I'm a conservative
Democrat from the district,

"but I'm proud

"and will always vote
for you now, '

"and suddenly somehow I felt
that maybe it would all be okay,

"and I started to cry,

with the poor lady
embarrassed to death."

More than 20 years later,
Bush would write,

"I can truthfully say

"that nothing I've experienced
in public life, before or since,

"has measured up
to the feeling I had

when I went home that night."

Once in office, George Bush
tended to follow his conscience.

That vote in 1968 put
his political future at risk.

He survived.

He would not always be
that lucky.

Bush was portrayed
in some aspects of the media

as an up-and-coming
romantic hero...

the future... romantic future...
Of the Republican Party.

Young, good-looking guy,
full of energy,

with a devoted wife
and children.

It was a good package.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon
asked Bush

to run for Senate...
Again against Ralph Yarborough...

Promising him a job if he lost.

Bush's House seat was secure.

He was a member of the powerful
Ways and Means Committee,

and he was torn.

He had often reached
across the aisle to vote

for legislation important to his
fellow Texan President Johnson.

Now he consulted LBJ.

"Son," Johnson said,

"I've served in the House
and in the Senate, too,

"and the difference
between being a member

"of the Senate
and a member of the House

"is the difference between
chicken salad and chicken shit.

Do I make my point?"

Why don't we get started?

My dad chose the chicken salad.

Today I am announcing
my candidacy

for the United States Senate.

It hasn't been an easy decision.

I have been very happy
in the House of Representatives.

I have been
particularly happy...

There were high hopes
for him in that race.

It was one of the premier races
of that year,

and a lot of people thought,

well, this is... Bush is going
to win this Senate race,

and, you know,
there's probably a good chance

that'll be the stepping stone

for him ultimately going
to run for president.

Bush asked
his friend James Baker,

a prominent Houston lawyer
with deep Texas roots,

to run his campaign.

I lost a wife to cancer when
she was only 38 years of age,

and George Bush
was my tennis doubles partner,

and he came to me and he said,

"Bake," he said, "you need to
take your mind off your grief.

How about helping me run
for the Senate?"

And I said, "Well, George,

"that's great
except for two things.

Number one, I don't know
anything about politics."

I had never been...
Done anything in politics.

"And number two,
I'm a Democrat."

He said,
"We'll take care of that,"

and we did
and I changed parties.

Bush had confidence

that he could beat
Ralph Yarborough this time.

Texas was growing
more conservative.

Then, Lloyd Bentsen,

a businessman
more conservative than Bush,

challenged Yarborough in
the Democratic primary and won.

The Nixon White House moved
into action.

We love you, Mr. President!

We have to think in terms
of what is best for America

and it's because I believe

that George Bush
will do better for Texas

and better for America,

that I'm for George Bush
for the United States Senate.

Despite the endorsement,

White House staff considered
Bush too tame a candidate.

They considered Bush loyal,

uh, a source of money,
but basically weak.

He didn't have the drive
to play the game

the way they wanted it played.

He was too much the gentleman,
the aristocratic gentleman.

And that's
what Prescott Bush was.

Many of Yarborough's
liberal Democratic supporters

considered Bush
a more attractive candidate

than Bentsen.

But the polarizing presence
of Richard Nixon

convinced them
to vote against Bush.

Early on, the networks called it
for Lloyd Bentsen.

Uh, and I was up in the suite
with him there,

and he just kind of sunk deeper
and deeper into the couch there.

And finally, uh, somebody said,

"Well, you... it's time to go
downstairs and concede."

And he felt pretty low.

And nobody likes to lose,

but certainly
he ran a good, tough race.

I feel kind of like Custer,
you know,

there were too many Indians,
well, uh,

there are too many Democrats

in some of these counties,
I guess.

But the other thing is that...

I have a horrible problem
between now

and kind of figuring this out,

because I can't think
of anybody else to blame.

Thank you very much.

Uh, he was brought up
not to show

uh, great disappointment
in defeat

or great glee in victory.

But, uh,
he doesn't like to lose.

He does not like to lose.

I think in defeat
you grope for things

that, uh, are happy,
and it's hard.

But I think, uh,
I would be less than frank

if I said I felt good

or could see anything,
from a personal standpoint,

to be excited about
at this point.

We're hurt and we're...
we're, uh,

we lost when we wanted to win.

With two unsuccessful
Senate campaigns,

Bush's political future
was in doubt.

He would try
to advance his career

in the tradition
of the Wise Men,

by serving presidents
in administrative posts,

jobs to which
he was well suited,

but which, to many,
seemed a dead end.

When Nixon offered Bush
an insignificant job

as assistant to the president,
Bush made his case for more.

He said, "What this
administration needs

"is someone who could strongly
represent the administration

"not only in the United Nations
but in New York,

"and who would have clout in
the social society of New York.

And I'm your man."

The relief, for me,
is really great

just to know that my family
is so happy

after a kind of a tough defeat
in November,

but now, you know,
new life and new vigor

has kind of sprung back
into our veins.

I, George Bush...

do solemnly swear...

do solemnly swear...

I wondered how on earth

he could be appointed
to the United Nations

with as little foreign policy
experience or knowledge

that he had at that time.

And I asked him about that.

I said, "What the hell do you
know about foreign policy?"

And he just gave me
this big smile

and he said,
"You ask me in a month."

At the time a lot of people,
myself included,

thought, well,
this is the end of the road.

How y'all doin'?

What does it mean

to be ambassador
of the United Nations?

That is certainly not a way
to get any vote in Texas.

Bush plunged with relish
into the organization

that he had denounced
in his '64 campaign.

He knew little
about foreign policy,

a lot about dealing with people.

From the time Bush became the
U.S. permanent representative

to the United Nations,

he began to collect
foreign friends.

Leaders, soon-to-be leaders,

deputies, ambassadors,
foreign ministers.

He was very good
at empathizing with them.

In fact, at the United Nations,

he developed friendships
with people

who didn't like US policy.

He started a practice
of walking down the halls

and dropping in
on his fellow ambassadors,

just to say, "How are you?

"How are things in your country?

"What do you think
of the United States?

"What do you think of the UN?

What are the problems
of the world as you see them?"

And he developed that
into a fine art.

He's a master
of the personal touch.

He's an incredible
thank-you note writer.

He would meet somebody
somewhere,

and the next day they'd have
a little note in the mail,

"Thank you, Joe.
I enjoyed meeting you."

And you'd say, "Hey,
here's somebody who took time

to write me a thank-you note."

Who does that anymore?

Five men wearing white gloves
and carrying cameras

were caught earlier today
in the headquarters

of the Democratic National
Committee in Washington.

They apparently were unarmed

and nobody knows yet
why they were there.

The film in the camera
hadn't even been exposed.

In November 1972,

just shy of two years
on the job,

Bush was summoned to Camp David.

It was five months
after news reports of a break-in

at the Democratic Party
election headquarters

at the Watergate Hotel.

"George,"
Bush recalled Nixon saying,

"the place I really need you

"is over at the National
Committee running things.

"This is an important time for
the Republican Party, George.

"We have a chance
to build a new coalition

in the next four years, and
you're the one who can do it."

I sent him off saying,

"Under no circumstances

"be Republican National
Chairman... Committee Chairman.

"It's just a no-end job.

"You'll be gone all the time.

Please don't do that."

So he went,
and because he believes

you never say no to a president,

when President Nixon asked him
to do that, he said yes.

So what I want to do
is try to build the party

in a constructive,

positive image.

The president is setting

a good program for this.

Our challenge is to implement it

and to have room for diversity

but to have room for growth.

And I've gotta go.

I said, "You've
got this all wrong."

I said, "I don't know
what's happened to you,

"but, uh, you don't go
from being, uh...

"the president's man
at the United Nations

"to being chairman
of a political party.

You're coming down the ladder."

And I said, "That's
the wrong direction."

Nixon knew that it was
about to hit the fan,

and George Bush
could be counted on

for absolute loyalty
in front of a camera.

Nixon knew instinctively
that as Watergate unfolded,

as the disaster began to build,

Bush could be counted on
to stick by Nixon

right through
until the bitter end.

The committee
will come to order.

Less than a month
after Bush took the job,

the Senate established
a committee

to hold hearings
on the break-in.

Begins hearings into the
extent to which illegal,

improper or unethical activities

were involved in the 1972
presidential election campaign.

As the scandal unfolded,

Bush traveled to 33 states
and made 190 appearances

defending the president
and the Republican Party.

As you look across the country,

the Watergate has not obscured

the positive record
of this administration.

When he goes out in front
of a television camera

for Richard Nixon,

George Bush has the perfect
public face.

The other part about Bush that
the Nixon White House liked

was his combative nature
with the press.

And the press was just beginning
to feel its oats in 1973.

Bush was not going
to let them get away,

in his mind, with this type
of picking on the president.

The president has said

that he is not involved
in Watergate,

that he didn't know about it,

that he is not involved
in the cover-up.

And I accept that,

and I don't think it helps
the stability

of the forward progress
of this country

to, uh, speculate hypothetically

when the man has made
that statement.

Nixon lied to George.

And George couldn't believe

someone would look you
in the eye and say,

"I had nothing to do with this.

I have not lied."

I can remember
many of our friends

and politicos
that were around then

saying, "That's the end
of Bush's career.

"That's the end of George Bush.

His time's over."

And certainly the media
had written him off.

I think of all the things
that George Bush did

prior to being asked

to run for vice president
with Ronald Reagan,

being chairman of the Republican
National Committee

during Watergate
was the most valuable,

because during that miserable
time for grassroots Republicans,

there was George Bush
keeping up the faith

and trying to keep
people's spirits up.

Tell me what the president knew

and when he first knew it.

At a meeting on September 15...

Testimony from Nixon staffers
on June 3, 1973,

marked the beginning
of revelations

that would bring
the president down.

Didn't want them to occur
before the election...

"I've never seen
such an unhappy man

as George was
during this period,"

a White House insider recalled.

"Because now all of us
had come to the conclusion

that we'd all been lied to
for many, many months."

Bush fumed in his diary,
"This era of tawdry,

"shabby lack of morality
has got to end.

"I am sick at heart.

"Sick about
the president's betrayal

"and sick about the fact
that the major Nixon enemies

"can now gloat
because they have proved

he is what they said he is."

Bush was caught up in it.

Bush was embarrassed by it,

and the thing he told me
embarrassed him most of all

was he had given assurances
to fund-raisers

that Nixon was not involved.

Nixon let him down.

On August 6, 1974,
Bush attended a cabinet meeting.

Nixon's agenda
was to talk about the economy.

Ford turned to the president
and said,

"We have other issues
that we have to discuss.

We have to discuss
the fate of this presidency."

George Bush interrupted Nixon

and told him that Watergate
was sapping public confidence

in the party and the country.

The next day
he advised Nixon to resign.

"Dear Mr. President," he wrote,

"I expect in your lonely
embattled position

"this would seem to you
as an act of disloyalty

from one you have supported
and helped in so many ways."

George Bush had accepted
the party chairman's job

out of loyalty to Nixon.

That loyalty,
Nixon found to his dismay,

had its limits.

In August 1974,

Bush retreated to Kennebunkport.

Here he feels at peace.

It's roots of his family.

His mother was born here.

He'll tell you it's CAVU.

Now, I never can remember
what that means,

but it's Ceiling Unlimited...

Ceiling And Visibility
Unlimited.

And that's what he feels
about Kennebunkport, Maine.

He's at peace here.

President Gerald Ford,
Nixon's successor,

was about
to choose his vice president.

Bush was the first choice
of party leaders.

At Walker's Point,
he anxiously awaited the news.

Barbara Bush called up,
says, "Come on over.

"Got to do some...
do something with George.

He's getting a little finicky
over here."

So I go over,

and there he is underneath
the toilet, fixing toilets.

And I said, "Is this the way

a potential vice president's
going to act?"

And he said, "Get in here
and help me fix these toilets."

Ford called him to say

he had selected former governor
of New York Nelson Rockefeller.

"Yesterday was a real downer,"
Bush wrote Lud Ashley.

"I guess I had let my hopes
zoom unrealistically,

"but today,
perspective is coming back,

and I realize I was lucky
to be in the game at all."

It's his way of relaxing.

And, uh, it's nonstop.

It's just from one event
to the other.

I often say that

in his crankcase,
there's no reverse,

and there's no neutral.

There's just drive.

And that's all there is
in his crankcase, you know?

He's just always on the go.

Ford offered Bush
another ambassadorship.

He could have chosen England
or France, but he chose China.

A friend recalled,
"He wanted to get

as far away from the stench
of Watergate as possible."

After little more than a year,
another odor wafted his way.

Congress was investigating
CIA abuses.

We must insist

that these agencies operate
strictly within the law...

The Bushes were bicycling
in Beijing when a cable arrived

from Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger.

Would Bush take over the CIA?

It just was a huge shock,
and George

got the message.

Then he called George W.
And said to him,

"George, please call
your brothers and sister,

"and see how they'd feel
about my coming home

and heading the CIA."

And George called back
in about an hour and said,

"They say, come home."

And I've always thought
George never called them,

but my...

He just decided arbitrarily
that we should come home.

And I thought then that
this was the end of politics,

that this would be just the end
of our political life.

"Here are my heartfelt views,"
Bush cabled Kissinger.

"I do not have politics out
of my system entirely,

and I see this as the total end
of any political future."

But "If this is what
the president wants me to do,

the answer is a firm 'Yes.'"

To keep the CIA apolitical,

Bush would have to renounce
his spot on the 1976 ticket.

Some of my friends
have asked me,

"Why do you accept this job

"with all the controversy
swirling around the CIA

and with its obvious barriers
to political future?"

My answer is simple.

First, the work
is desperately important

to the survival of this country

and to the survival

of freedom around the world.

And second,

old-fashioned
as it may seem to some,

it is my duty
to serve my country.

And I didn't seek this job,
but I want to do it,

and I'll do my very best.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Bush found CIA staffers
demoralized.

"We did have the feeling
we were terribly alone,

and there was no one out there
defending us," one remembered.

"George became a champion."

Bush saw his job
as boosting morale

at CIA headquarters

and reassuring Congress

that the rogue elephant
was under control.

I can say, sir, that we would
not disseminate that kind

of intelligence
on American citizens

to the Cabinet committee,
but we...

He made 51 appearances
on Capitol Hill

in less than a year.

To the Justice Department.

After six months on the job,

he wrote President Ford,

"Morale at the CIA is improving.

"Our recruitment is up.

"Our people are willing
to serve abroad

and to take the risks involved."

When Jimmy Carter was elected
president in 1976,

Bush offered to remain
at the CIA

to burnish the agency's
reputation as bipartisan.

There is increasing speculation

that CIA Director George Bush
may be asked to stay at his post

during the new administration,

but as he arrived today,
he and Carter aides all refused

comment on that.

I'm going to use the same
ground rules that we had before,

which is, we're here to...

to have a... a professional
intelligence briefing.

Bush became the first
CIA director

to be dismissed
by an incoming president.

Here was Bush, having made

this concession in order
to reaffirm the CIA post

as being non-political,

only in the end

to see himself forced out

because of the advent
of a new administration.

Well, Bush was determined
to fight back,

and fight back
into the political arena.

Demoralized,
George Bush returned

to private life in Houston.

"He felt like a race horse
under wraps,"

a biographer would write.

Bush described
his withdrawal symptoms

to a friend.

"I just get bored silly about
whose daughter is a Pi Phi,

or even about who's banging
old Joe's wife."

"I think I want to at least
be in a position to run in 1980,

but it seems so presumptuous
and egotistical."

George did his best
to drown out his mother's voice.

For two years,
he served on corporate boards

and built his war chest
for a presidential campaign.

"He is finally getting better
about blowing his own horn,"

Barbara wrote a friend,

"the thing we were taught
as children never to do."

On May 1, 1979,

George H.W. Bush
returned to Washington.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am a candidate for president
of the United States.

Before responding to questions,

I would like to introduce
you to my family.

My mother,

Mrs. Prescott Bush,
who some of you may remember.

My wife, Barbara,
most of you know.

Our oldest son George

and his wife Laura,
from west Texas.

Jeb and his wife Columba
from Houston, Texas.

Bush distanced himself

from the Republican
front-runner, Ronald Reagan,

the conservative governor
of California,

by invoking language used
by President Eisenhower.

There is in our affairs at home
a middle way between

the untrammeled freedom
of the individual

and the demands for the welfare

of the whole nation.

In one year,

Bush traveled 329 days,

calling in all his chits

from the years at the Republican
National Committee.

In a surprise victory,

he defeated Reagan
in the Iowa caucus.

I'm going to the other side.

Iowa has set something
in motion.

The forward momentum
is clearly established,

and I am absolutely convinced
I will be your next president.

Thank you very much.
Thank you.

In the important
New Hampshire primary,

Reagan challenged Bush

to a one-on-one debate

and agreed to pay the cost
of the event.

At the last minute,
in a clever ploy,

Reagan wanted
to change the rules

to include the other candidates.

Bush and the moderator stuck
to the original agreement.

Mr. Green...

Can you turn that microphone
off, please?

I am paying for this microphone,
Mr. Green.

That night, George Bush learned

how formidable a candidate
Ronald Reagan could be.

George Bush is like a boy

who is dropped off
at the wrong birthday party.

He's just so awkward
and doesn't know what to do,

and he looks
a little bit miffed.

I have been invited here

as a guest
of the Nashua newspaper.

I will play by their rules.

I am their guest, and I
am very glad to be here.

Thank you very much.

Bush lost New Hampshire,

but continued
to challenge Reagan,

ridiculing his so-called
"supply side" tax policy...

The notion
that taxes could be cut

without reducing spending.

This theory that Governor Reagan
is talking about,

what I call a voodoo
economic policy...

Reagan appealed
to staunch anti-Communists

and social conservatives,

two of the groups Bush
had welcomed

into the Republican Party
in Harris County

almost 20 years before.

As a moderate, George Bush
was chasing the caboose

of the party
he had helped to create.

By May, campaign manager
James Baker urged him

to pull out.

Reagan had collected
sufficient number of delegates

to be nominated, and my advice

to, uh, to George at the time

was that we ought
to fold up our tent,

and not go out to California

and try and contest Reagan
in his home state,

because if we did that,

there'd be no chance whatsoever

that he would be put
on the ticket.

I have asked,

and I am recommending
to this convention,

that tomorrow,
when the session reconvenes,

that George Bush be nominated...

In many ways, George Bush was

what Ronald Reagan
pretended to be.

As an actor,

Ronald Reagan
played the war hero.

Bush was a war hero...

A decorated naval aviator.

Ronald Reagan
played the athlete.

Bush was the captain
of his Yale baseball team

and played twice in the college
championship game.

Both preached family values.

Only Bush could point
to a happy family.

Reagan turned to Bush
as a way to unify

the conservative
and moderate wings of the party.

He was also the only other
candidate to win any primaries.

Reagan took him in spite
of his doubts.

He had seen Bush at his worst.

He had seen Bush, in effect,
uh, wilt under pressure

at the famous Nashua debate, and
he didn't like what he'd seen.

More than that, Bush had come up
with some very...

powerful phrases,
including "voodoo economics,"

that in effect trivialized
Reagan's beliefs.

Reagan disliked him

for using the term
"voodoo economics."

He disliked him for what
Reagan thought he was a wimp.

Nancy detested him bitterly.

Reagan did not turn to Bush

happily, and when I said
to Bush was there anything

Reagan asked of you

in order to, uh, nominate you
as vice president,

he simply said
he wanted him to accept

his position on abortion,
"Which I did."

Despite their political
differences,

Bush pledged his loyalty.

I will never forget

the very first
staff meeting we had

before they were even sworn in.

Ambassador Bush had really kind
of laid down the rules to us.

And he said, you know,
"I don't want to ever

"pick up the paper
and see any suggestion

"that anybody
on my vice-president's staff

has been anything
but loyal to Ronald Reagan."

Bush's experience
in foreign affairs

was especially useful to Reagan.

His connections
with Deng Xiaoping helped ease

tensions over arms sales
to Taiwan.

His message in El Salvador

was stop the right-wing
death squads

or Congress will cut off aid
to fight Communist insurgents.

To Communist Poland, he brought
a message of freedom.

Poland should be strong

and prosperous and independent

and play its proper role

as a great nation
in the heart of Europe.

When three Soviet presidents
died in less than three years,

Bush was the first to greet

the new leader
after the funeral.

He would explain
America's policies

and report directly to Reagan.

Bush's deep interest in foreign
policy served him well

until a report broke
that the Reagan administration

was secretly selling arms
to Iran

in exchange for help releasing
hostages held in Beirut,

a violation of its own policies.

I was aware
of our Iran initiative

and I support the president's
decision.

More serious was the charge

that the administration
illegally used profits

from the arms sales to fund
the anti-Communist Contras,

who were trying to topple

the Marxist government
in Nicaragua.

It became known
as the Iran Contra affair.

And I was not aware of,

and I oppose any diversion
of funds,

any ransom payments,

or any circumvention
of the will of the Congress

or the law of the United States
of America.

What Reagan may have told
his vice president

during their Thursday lunches

or what advice Bush may have
given his president

was something both considered
confidential.

Is there some committee
that decides...

Afterward, you can see, "Hey, we
shouldn't have done that."

As the scandal unfolded,

the former director
of Central Intelligence

came under suspicion that he was
involved in more than he let on.

But there's no question about
trying to jump away from it.

I support the president.

Mr. President, what did
you know about money

going to the Contras?

All I know is this is just going
to taste wonderful

and I'm looking forward
to tomorrow.

Mr. President, hasn't this
damaged your presidency?

Bush's role as Reagan's

loyal vice president was taking
a toll on his public image.

This was nothing new.

Cartoonist Garry Trudeau had
caricatured Bush's loyalty

as "putting his manhood
in a blind trust."

As Bush planned his run
for the presidency,

conservative columnist
George Will

called him a "lap dog"
for trying to prove

he was Reagan's heir.

I am here today
to announce my candidacy

for president
of the United States.

The week he announced
in October 1987,

Newsweek called him a "wimp."

That's an awful word to use.

We used it on the cover
of Newsweek,

I think, to our regret.

It was too harsh a word.

But there was a perception
that he was

somehow not a stand-up guy.

He was under Reagan's shadow,

and he needed to win over

the true right and evangelicals.

And to do that, he seemed to be

trimming a little bit
on abortion.

Seemed to possibly be going

against his own conscience
in order to win votes.

Mr. Bush, over here!

Mr. Vice President,
how do you feel you did?

Bush lost to Senator Bob Dole

in the Iowa caucus
in February 1988.

His own polls said
he was perceived as a follower,

not a leader...

A man who would not be tough
enough for the Oval Office.

He was trailing Dole

in the critical primary
in New Hampshire.

A loss could mean the end
of his presidential hopes.

Yet he remained hesitant

to say anything
bad about his opponents.

I'm not taking shots
at the other candidates.

I'm not trying to get myself
up a notch on the ladder

by shoving somebody else
down on the ladder,

whether it's a candidate

or the president
of the United States

or anybody else.

I just don't believe

that's the way
one ought to campaign.

I've never done that.

And so I feel comfortable
saying what I am for.

Well, he'd been the chairman

of the Republican
National Committee.

He didn't speak ill
of other Republicans.

He believed that he had

to talk about his record,
his experience,

his ability to be president.

And let people
make their mind up.

He was less inclined

to talk about his challengers
at all, really.

"You've got to go negative,"

Bush's young campaign manager
Lee Atwater told him.

"You've just gotta."

Atwater, a new breed
of political consultant,

had no qualms going
for an opponent's jugular.

He set out to toughen

Bush's gentlemanly
campaign style.

Atwater was able

to articulate
a side of George Bush

that needed to be articulated
if he was to win.

And that was
the harsh side of Bush.

Bush doesn't naturally gravitate

to bare-knuckle politics.

He needs to be taken there.

Atwater did that.

Atwater's team had put
together a campaign spot

attacking Senator Dole.

Bush rejected it.

I told the then vice president
that, uh,

sometimes you have
to leave the high road.

He sort of...

oomphed and, you know, said,

"All right,
let me look at it again."

Bob Dole straddled

until the polls told him
it was popular...

He said, "All right, I don't
like it, but okay.

But it better all be true."

That's why he's becoming known
as Senator Straddle.

George Bush,
presidential leadership.

Thank you all very much.

All right, good
luck to you then.

Thanks, well...

we'll know soon.

The new strategy worked.

Bush won in New Hampshire.

And now...

on to the South,

where we're gonna rise again.

And went on to secure
the Republican nomination.

In May, he trailed Massachusetts
Governor Michael Dukakis,

the Democratic nominee,
by 10 points.

Blue-collar Democrats who had
flocked to Ronald Reagan

were supporting
Governor Dukakis.

The Bush campaign
needed to woo them back.

It was encouraged
by a focus group

that showed Dukakis
had a weak spot.

He was perceived as a liberal.

Lee Atwater knew that

that sort of East Coast, elite,

liberal ideology and persona

was going to be
problematic for Dukakis,

so showing that is part
of how campaigns work.

This is what campaigns do.

Bashing Dukakis would become
the focus of Bush's campaign.

Governor Dukakis,

his foreign policy views,

born in Harvard Yard's boutique,

would cut the muscle
of our defense

and I will never do that.

I don't think

by nature he likes
to go negative.

Uh, he... that's
not the way he was,

not the way he was brought up.

The governor calls himself,
and this is a quote

from Michael Dukakis,

"a card-carrying member
of the ACLU,"

American Civil Liberties Union.

I haven't joined the ACLU,

nor do I have any plans
to join the ACLU.

So you get down
to differences...

He may not have liked it,

but it isn't as if you were
trying to make him

take a drink of castor oil
or something like that.

He knew exactly what had to be
done in the long run.

Prescott Bush's son

is not comfortable
with the culture

of handlers and spin doctors

and pollsters and focus groups,

and determining
what your convictions are

by, um, by asking
a group of strangers

in a supermarket
in Secaucus, New Jersey.

On the other hand, he'll do it

if that's what it takes to win
the presidency.

Thank you.

I accept your nomination

for president.

I'll try to be fair
to the other side.

I'll try to hold
my charisma in check and, uh...

Where is it written

that we must act
if we do not care?

As if we're not moved?

Well, I am moved.

I want a kinder
and gentler nation.

That phrase, Bush thought,
would appeal

to moderates turned off
by Reagan's harsh edges.

Another line, inspired
by a Clint Eastwood movie,

would counter the wimp factor

and project
an image of strength.

My opponent won't rule out
raising taxes,

but I will, and the Congress
will push me

to raise taxes, and I'll
say, "No."

And they'll push,
and I'll say, "No."

And they'll push again,
and I'll say to them,

"Read my lips, no new taxes."

It appealed to his sense
of good fun.

And he did it with gusto,

and of course it knocked
the ball out of the park.

Bush! Bush! Bush!

Bush! Bush! Bush! Bush!

Bush! Bush! Bush!

I thought

it was ill-advised.

And I argued against
keeping it in.

The "no new taxes" part

was going to be very difficult
to live with.

It was the single best speech

of Bush's career.

It was Bush at his most
animated.

It was Bush at his most
telegenic.

Bush! Bush! Bush! Bush!

The camera does not

love George Bush.

He never did any better
than this speech,

even as president.

Bush had cut Dukakis's
lead in half.

After Labor Day,

the attack on Dukakis
intensified.

Dukakis not only opposes
the death penalty,

he allowed first-degree
murderers

to have weekend passes
from prison.

One was Willie Horton,

who murdered a boy in a robbery
stabbing him 19 times.

Despite a life sentence,

Horton received ten weekend
passes from prison.

The official Republican campaign

did not resort
to those scare ads.

But there was another committee,

that used the menacing
black face

of Willie Horton.

But it would be very hard
for you and me

to really disassociate
those two.

There was an independent cam...

independent group

that ran an ad with Willie
Horton's picture,

which we finally got them
to stop running.

Baker writes a letter

asking them to cease and desist

from the use
of the racial attacks,

scare attacks about Horton.

The damage has
already been done.

The offending ad played
for 28 days

before it was yanked.

Then campaign manager Baker
launched an authorized one.

"His revolving door prison
policy gave weekend furloughs

"to first-degree murderers
not eligible for parole.

"While out, many committed
other crimes,

"like kidnapping and rape.

"Now Michael Dukakis says
he wants to do for America

"what he's done
for Massachusetts.

America can't afford that risk."

That was not going negative.

Governor Dukakis supported
a prison furlough bill

as governor of Massachusetts.

And all we did was point out
that he had done that.

Yes, it was a terrible
human tragedy.

And I accepted responsibility
for it.

And changed the program.

One of the ironies
of George Bush's life is

that a fundamentally decent man
presided over a moment

when politics got meaner
and rougher.

'88 was the year of the handler,

of, of bringing in political
consultants

who played very hard
and very tough.

Now, they'd always been around
in politics.

They weren't invented in 1988.

But 1988 was kind of a rough,
trivial campaign.

Lee Atwater and these
henchmen for Bush

looking for the so-called
wedge issues,

not really staying
on the high road

and talking about the great
issues of the day,

but rather sniping
at, at their opponent

to find some weakness in him.

And Bush put up with that.

Did you see in the paper
that Willie Horton said

if he could vote he
would vote for you?

He can't vote, Sam.

I think it was one
of the dirtiest campaigns

in American history.

The whole concept of smearing
the term liberalism.

The whole concept of doing that,

making that into a dirty word,
you know, the L word.

He made his compromise,

just like he made his compromise
with Reagan,

saying yes,
he'd be against all abortions.

George is pragmatic.

You have to win

in order to put your principles
into effect.

Without winning,
you can't achieve anything.

These are the accommodations

that George had to make
for politics.

Look at those numbers, folks.

In November 1988,

George Herbert Walker Bush
soundly defeated Michael Dukakis

to become the first
sitting vice president

since Martin Van Buren in 1836
to be elected president.

Ronald Reagan,

who had doubts about Bush
eight years earlier,

came to feel he was the most
qualified president-elect

in American history.

They became good friends.

When Bush went
to the Oval Office

for the first time as president,

he found a note from Reagan.

"God bless you and Barbara,"
it read.

"I'll miss our Thursday lunches.

You'll have moments when you
want to use this stationery."

Bush placed the note
in his desk.

On his desk he placed a picture
of Robin.

They would remain there
for his entire term in office.

The first photo was
with his mother.

His competitive spirit
had come from her.

And his sense of modesty.

She had taught him never to call
attention to himself.

Yet for eight years he had seen
Reagan inspire Americans

with a sense of drama
and celebratory spectacle.

Reagan's conservative revolution

had swept Bush
onto the national stage.

George H.W. Bush was
Ronald Reagan's heir.

He spent the entire eight years
as vice president,

traveling the length and breadth
of this country,

saying, "Trust me.

"I am a conservative.

"And if I'm ever elected
president of the United States,

I will govern
as a conservative."

We didn't expect him
to be another Ronald Reagan,

but we did expect that he would
keep his clear promises

and that he would govern as
a right-of-center president.

Bush may have been
Ronald Reagan's heir;

he was also Prescott Bush's son.

There you have the conundrum
of the Bush presidency.

He was looking over one shoulder

and seeing where the Republican
Party was going.

And over the other shoulder,

he saw his own lineage,
his own tradition.

He saw his father,
Prescott Bush.

He saw Dwight Eisenhower.

And he saw Richard Nixon
and Gerald Ford,

who in retrospect are seen
as moderate conservatives.

I, George Herbert Walker Bush...

Now, with the chance
to be his own man,

George Bush began to distance
himself from Ronald Reagan.

First thing that he does is,

through his transition team,

which was run by, in part
by his son, George W.,

was went in and booted all
of the Reagan appointees

and told them,
with a great deal of harshness,

that they were to be out of town
before sundown.

It was an ideological
housecleaning,

and Reagan appointees
are shown the door

in a harsh transition

that makes it look like
a Democrat is coming in.

Wasting little time,

Bush tackled some of the
problems he inherited.

On the domestic front,

he decided to clean up
a messy banking problem

that both Reagan and Congress
had all but ignored.

In 1986,

when the real estate
market collapsed,

hundreds of savings and loan
banks had gone bust.

The cost of bailing out
depositors

was pushing $50 billion

and was projected to triple.

Bush knew it would be expensive

and politically thankless.

You do it,

not to advance your interests.

You do it because it's in the
interest of millions of people

who will never vote for you

and will certainly never give
you any credit for doing it.

That's responsibility.

That's accountability.

That's the old establishment way

of discharging the privileges

of leadership.

He's separating himself
from Reagan.

One of the things

that haunted Bush
all the way through

was his being compared
to Reagan.

And immediately,

from his acceptance speech,

"a gentler and kinder country."

He's separating himself
from Reagan.

And this was some of the residue
of the Reagan administration.

Major residue
of the Reagan administration.

Bush shifted course
in foreign policy as well.

He agreed not to support
the military overthrow

of the Marxist Nicaraguan
government,

if that government agreed
to free elections.

President Bush began to act
quite differently

from candidate Bush.

One of his first initiatives was

to push for elections
in Nicaragua

and take Nicaragua off the front
burner of U.S. foreign policy.

He didn't want to continue
the divisive American debate.

Bush also confronted the
question of how to deal

with a rapidly changing
Soviet Union.

Is conversion of military
production a realistic idea?

Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev had pledged

at the United Nations to
renounce the use of force

and withdraw one-half million
troops from Eastern Europe.

We are ready to draw
and make public

our internal conversion plan.

Many Russian experts felt
the Cold War was over.

Even the "Wise Men"

who 45 years earlier had
devised the policy

of containing the Soviet Union.

President Bush came into office

realizing that a lot had been
done under President Reagan,

but there was
still a Soviet Union.

It hadn't gone away.

It still had all
of its missiles.

It still had its troops.

And so it wasn't entirely clear

what was going to happen.

Mr. Gorbachev was a very
charismatic figure,

but it wasn't clear at the time

whether or not he had the whole

Soviet governmental
structure with him.

And so there was the degree
of caution

and a degree of:
Let's study this.

Ultimately,

our objective...

Four months into his term,

Bush responded to Gorbachev.

Containment worked,

and now it is time
to move beyond containment

to a new policy for the 1990s,

one that recognizes
the full scope of change

taking place around the world

and in the Soviet Union itself.

The response, many felt,
was too timid.

A New York Times editorial said

if an alien spacecraft landed
and looked for Earth's leader,

it would be taken
to Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev was encouraging
reforms, definitely.

And he believed and said

that if we wanted change
in our country,

if we wanted to abandon the old
system in our country,

how could we prohibit

or inhibit change
in our neighbors?

Bush did not meet the Soviet
leader for almost a year.

He did respond to the changes
Gorbachev had encouraged

in Eastern Europe.

In Poland, the anti-government
Solidarity movement

routed the Communists
in free elections,

the first break
in the Iron Curtain

in more than 40 years.

The challenge for Bush

when he arrived in Warsaw
in July 1989

was not to provoke a backlash

by Poland's Communist leader
General Jaruzelski

or Kremlin hardliners.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman,

for your hospitable
and gracious words of welcome.

We extend the heartfelt best
wishes of the American people,

and here in the heart of Europe,

the American people
have a fervent wish,

that Europe be whole and free.

Bush spent time with Poland's
reform leader Lech Walesa.

He spent more time
with Jaruzelski.

The president, I think,
really understood

that a lot of the folks
that were there

doing the Russians' bidding
were still Poles first

and cared about their country.

And he tried to create
a structure

in which the strong hand,

the supported
by the Soviet Union,

became a part of the solution

rather than opposition
to the solution.

He was determined that
no one was going to feel

that they had been defeated.

He was very aware, I think,
of the Versailles syndrome

that Germany had felt defeated
after World War I,

humiliated after World War I,

and that had brought
to power Adolf Hitler.

He saw what was going on
in Eastern Europe

as a very delicate process

that involved holding the hands

of both the reformers

and the old-style Communists.

It was an art form that George
Bush was very good at.

He understood that most people
generally have good intentions.

You just have
to find a way to, uh,

get them to work together
in order to bring them forward.

Bush encouraged the reforms
Gorbachev had allowed.

His active role came

after the reform movement
spread to East Germany.

In August,
East Germans sought asylum

at the West German missions
in Prague and in East Berlin.

Then Hungary opened its borders
to Austria,

and East German tourists
fled into Austria.

As protests for reform
grew in East Germany,

the British and the French
grew more worried

about a reunified Germany.

In the first half
of the 20th century,

they suffered from German
aggression in two world wars.

In the second half,
with Germany divided,

Europe had been at peace.

The possibility
of a reunited Germany

did not worry George Bush.

Do you think a reunified Germany
would be a stabilizing force

in Europe
or a destabilizing force?

Well, I think there is,
in some quarters,

a feeling, well, a reunified
Germany would be...

would be detrimental
to the peace of Europe,

of Western Europe, some way,

and I don't accept that at all,
simply don't.

Yeah, Frank.

"They can't turn back the
clock," Bush told the press.

"The change is too inexorable."

One writer called this a "verbal
volley heard around the world."

His pronouncements
before the wall came down

were probably among
the most unstaffed comments

by any president
of the United States.

I-I can tell you
that was wonderful

to have the president
come out and say,

"Germany ought to unify,
and unify as quickly as it can,

on terms that are acceptable
to Germans."

Because we didn't have
any debates

inside the administration about
whether Germany ought to unify.

The president had already said
it was going to unify.

Our job then
was just to make it happen.

He was out in front
of all of us.

Germany loomed large

in the history of postwar Europe

and arguably of the whole
U.S.-Soviet competition.

The Soviets felt
that their share of Germany

was a prize that they had won
for beating Hitler.

They also saw their slice of
Germany as their front line,

as a defense
against future attacks.

Bush saw...

that with care,

he could get the Soviets
to give up

what had been their great prize.

This is where Bush
actually got ahead

of most of the foreign policy
analysts

and most of the leaders
in the Free World.

The Soviets had built the wall
dividing Berlin in 1961

to keep the East Germans
from fleeing.

Now, in early November 1989,

Gorbachev prodded
East Germany's leader

to open its borders
to "avoid an explosion."

Within days, the Berlin Wall,

the very symbol of the Cold War,
was breached.

Well, I don't think
any single event

is the end of what you might
call the Iron Curtain,

but clearly this is a long way
from the...

from the harsh days of the...

of the harshest
Iron Curtain days.

A long way from that.

You know, in what you just said,

that this is a sort
of great victory,

but you don't seem elated,

and I'm wondering if
you're thinking...

I am elated.

I'm not an emotional
kind of guy.

You know, he famously said that
his mother told him as a boy

not to indulge in braggadocio.

And, um...

if there was ever a time when
any other American president

would have been tempted
to indulge in braggadocio

it was 1989-1990,
the end of the Cold War,

the great victory of the West
over the Marxist experiment,

over the "evil empire."

The wall had inspired
some of the Cold War's

most memorable
presidential rhetoric.

Therefore,

as a free man,

I take pride in the words,

Ich bin ein Berliner.

Mr. Gorbachev,

tear down this wall.

Any other president

would have gotten in a plane
and flown to Berlin

and beat his breast

and engaged in "I told you so"
triumphalism.

And Bush not only
didn't need to do that,

he had the strength of character
to resist everyone around him

who told him
that that's what he should do

as president
of the United States

and leader of the Free World.

I was one of those who thought
he should go to Berlin,

he should be at the wall...
For Kennedy,

for Reagan, for all of those

who had wanted the wall to come
down, he should go there.

He wanted to have the end
of the division of Germany

be a German moment.

It was a moment for Germany
to come to terms

with, uh, its division.

And it was a moment
for Germany to celebrate

that that division had ended.

Bush's self-restraint was more
than modesty and courtesy.

He had geopolitics in mind.

He remembered when Hungarians
had revolted

against their Soviet-backed
regime in 1956

and the CIA led Hungarians
to believe

the U.S. would rush
to their support.

He did not want East Germans
to expect the U.S. Army

to rescue them if the Soviets
ordered a crackdown.

More important, Bush wanted
to work with Gorbachev

to end the Cold War.

He worried that grandstanding
in Berlin

could provoke a coup in Moscow.

He actually said to Gorbachev
on the phone

that "I will not be dancing
on the wall."

That is, I think, something
that Gorbachev appreciated,

because he didn't want,
you know, additional problems

for himself within the country,
uh, from the hard-liners,

from the conservatives
within the party,

uh, if anything happened

that could have been conceived
as humiliating to Gorbachev.

It is impossible to exaggerate

the importance
of that cool-headedness

and delicate approach

at a time
of international change,

revolutionary change
in international politics.

At home, Bush's restraint was
met with criticism and ridicule.

I urge President Bush

to express the sense of elation
that all Americans feel

as the East German people cross
and erase barriers

that have imprisoned them
for decades.

Even as the walls of the modern
Jericho come tumbling down,

we have a president who,
at least for now,

is inadequate to the moment.

The wall coming down.

Me, enthusiastic but prudent.

Out in front of the situation,
not too far.

Playing it just right.

East and West Germans
voted to unify,

and Bush wanted
the unified Germany

in the Western camp, in NATO.

Gorbachev was clearly
not predisposed

to have a unified Germany
be in NATO.

How could that be good
from the Soviet point of view?

The divided Germany had,
after all,

been the epicenter
of that ideological conflict,

and the Soviet Union had most
of its Warsaw Pact forces

and clearly its most elite
forces in East Germany.

So how was this going to work?

Bush and Gorbachev tackled this
issue at a summit in Washington

in June 1990.

I said, we want Germany
to be neutral.

That was our initial position
that we proposed.

This was the subject
of very passionate debate.

President Bush said,
"Why are you afraid of Germany?"

I said, "Well, my impression is
that you are afraid of Germany,

"because you are afraid

"to set Germany free from NATO.

"We are not afraid of Germany
out of NATO.

Why should we be afraid?"

President Bush said, "And of
course the Helsinki Accords,"

which we had all signed in 1975,

"allow that any state in Europe
can choose its alliances.

"So once there's
a unified Germany,

it can choose its alliances."

And Gorbachev said,
"That's right."

Yes. I said, "Well, if you
insist, then it is not up to us

"to decide which alliance
Germany would join,

"so let the Germans decide
whether they would want to be

"a part of the Warsaw Treaty
or a part of NATO

or to be a neutral country."

And his associates at the table

started talking
among themselves, Russians,

and they called a halt
to the meeting,

and they went off in the corner
and had a debate.

Uh, and it was really,
really something.

And they tried to get Gorbachev

to back away
from that statement,

that the German...
it was up to the Germans.

And we actually called
the Russians that night

and said, "Now,
when President Bush says this

"in his press conference
statement,

"is President Gorbachev
going to say yes,

or is he going
to contradict him?"

And we waited long hours.

I remember going home and
waiting well into the night.

And finally the call came.

Yes, in fact,

President Gorbachev
was-was going to be fine.

He wouldn't contradict it.

And then we all held our breath
through the press conference.

Germany's external
alliances, I believe,

as do Chancellor Kohl

and the members of the alliance,

that the united Germany should
be a full member of NATO.

President Gorbachev, frankly,
does not hold that view.

But we are in full agreement

that the matter of
alliance membership

is, uh, in accordance with
the Helsinki Final Act,

a matter for the
Germans to decide.

Bush said to Gorbachev,

I do understand why you have
doubts about Germany.

I do understand.

I do know the history between
the Soviet Union and Germany.

But I believe that Germany
has paid its dues,

that Germany has paid its debts,

and that it is now
a responsible nation

that will behave responsibly
on the international scene.

And I think that that argument

did have some force
with Gorbachev.

That was one of
the seminal moments

in unifying Germany.

And President George H.W. Bush

was the only person that I think
who could have pulled it off,

just because of his personal
qualities

and the way
that he thought about diplomacy.

We exercise over here.

Barbara swims a mile a day.

Bush considered
a united Germany in NATO

one of the crowning achievements
of his presidency.

Thank you.
See you later.

One historian called it
"one of the greatest moments

in the history
of American statecraft"

after Jefferson's
Louisiana Purchase

and the diplomacy
of the so-called Wise Men

who, at the start
of the Cold War,

planned the policy of containing
the Soviet Union.

18 months into his term,

George Bush faced
the first international crisis

of the post-Cold War world.

On August 1, 1990, Iraq's
President Saddam Hussein

invaded neighboring Kuwait
in a dispute over oil fields.

Bush would now have to decide

how to deal with a man
he saw in terms of Hitler.

How he would meet that challenge

would test all his skills
as president.

His actions would propel him
to the heights of popularity.

That would make his rejection
by the American people

less than two years later

all the more bewildering
and painful.

Find out more
about the presidents

at American Experience online,

where you can watch
complete programs,

explore connections
between past presidents

and the current election.

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