This is a reflection on the life of George H.W. Bush based on John Meacham’s biography of George Herbert Walker Bush *Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush.” George H. W. Bush (Bush 41) was an impressive character. While his legacy and one-term presidency is overshadowed by Reagan and George W., I enjoyed learning more about him. While his political accomplishments may be more modest than those of other presidents, and he’s certainly less of a household name, he led a full life. He’s someone that others would strive to be like regardless of his political accomplishments. I’ll share a few themes of his life that I found interesting.
Privilege and Noblesse Oblige
Bush’s life is inseparable from his upbringing. He was born into the Bush / Walker dynasty. His father Prescott was a Connecticut senator. His grandfather Samuel Prescott was a successful industrialist. Naturally, he had the upbringing of an aristocrat. From his family compound at Kennebunkport, he went to Andover Academy, a fancy boarding school where Secretary of War Henry Stimson gave his graduating class’ commencement speech. He went to Yale, where he did the stereotypical WASP-y things. While he may have been “born with a silver spoon in his mouth,” he was no brat.
Strongly associated with his privilege was a commitment to public service. Bush joined the Navy out of high school and served honorably. A modern reader might question why an anointed son of the ruling class would risk his life overseas, but this was fairly common at the time (see JFK and family). I recall talking with a WWII vet who was upset about the young-uns. He told the story of a talk he gave to an elementary school. The kids were in disbelief that he wanted to be in the war. One third-grader asked “why did you want to enlist? Weren’t you scared?” The vet told me he yelled at the kid: “We all wanted to. What are you, a pansy?” A little harsh for a third-grader, but also well put. People of all walks of life wanted to fight. Bush flew bomber missions in the Pacific. He was eventually shot down, lost his entire crew, and was nearly captured by the Japanese as a current brought his raft towards Chichijima before he was miraculously rescued by an American submarine. He was a war hero with an impressive story. Bush’s WWII heroics did not feature that large in his political career because he had more to offer than his military record and because it wasn’t that exceptional. One particularly amusing anecdote comes out of the 1988 Republican primary. Bob Dole mocked Bush’s military record as cushy pilot stuff, where as Dole had nearly died as an infantryman in Italy. Contrast this scene (one war hero belittling another war hero’s heroism) to the presidential campaigns of today.
Bush is more self-made than he had to be. Bush was expected to make it on his own once he graduated college. He moved to Texas and while family connections certainly greased his path to success, he could’ve made it easier on himself. He had offers from Brown Brothers Harriman and G.H. Walker & Company, both family connections, but refused in an effort to carve out his own path:
I am not sure I want to capitalize completely on the benefits I received at birth — that is on the benefits of my social position. Doing well merely because I have had the opportunity to attend the same debut parties as some of my customers does not appeal to me. 77, 88
He and Barbara slummed it for a time living a real working class lifestyle. In Odessa, they shared a bathroom with two prostitutes (mother and daughter) whose “callers often locked the Bushes out of the bathroom.” 84 Sharing a shabby bathroom with prostitutes is a far cry from Kennebunkport.
Despite brief forays into life as a commoner, he would struggle throughout his career with connecting with the broader public. He was a member of the New England elite in his core and he was effete at times. In his Congressional run, his campaign manager James Leonard reflected:
Bush… may have been “the worst candidate I’d ever had… He’d go over to these yokels and call Yarborough a ‘profligate spender’ — and nobody knew what the hell ‘profligate’ meant. It sounded like some kind of sexual thing. So I said, ‘George, don’t use that word again.” 117-118
He embarrassed himself in his 1992 re-election campaign. He couldn’t speak sympathetically about the impacts of the down economy on the common folk, while Bill Clinton crushed the softball question. He was an empathetic and caring man, but perhaps he had spent too much time in Washington to remember what makes the other half tick.
Character
One of the most remarkable features of Bush’s life was his tremendous character. He generally operated without scandal. The one instance of dishonesty I found was his denial of involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, where concern over political damnation led him to distance himself from the controversy. He generally honored his word. He earned the trust of everyone he worked with.
His devotion to his family reflects best upon his character. Accusations of marital infidelity bothered him, but they didn’t stick because he was faithful to his wife and actually liked her! He supported her when she was depressed, and when their four-year-old daughter died of Leukemia. He was devoted to his children and made time for them. They turned out pretty well, at least politically: two governors and one president. He was devoted to his parents, too. I was touched by the warmth of his correspondence with both his parents and his children. Gracefully handling the obligations of family is an underrated quality these days, and Bush did it better than most.
Bush’s focus on character was clear during the Watergate scandal. He noted Nixon was “amoral” and wrote him a letter suggesting his resignation. After his resignation speech, Bush wondered to himself: “What kind of a man is this really? Caring for no one and yet doing so much.” 176 Bush couldn’t understand how public service could come with such poor character. How was Nixon able to be a good President if he didn’t care about anyone? 176 He seemed to assume that high character and political leadership were inextricably bound, when in fact they may be inversely related.
Bush resented the pressures politics exerted on his character. The famous “read my lips: no new taxes” line, which coincidentally was all I knew of Bush prior to this book, was not something he had even wanted to say! Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s famous speech writer, forced it on him. And the base loved the Reagan grandstanding. Bush, who was much more of a pragmatist focused on compromise, hated this rhetoric but couldn’t deny that it mobilized his base. Bush found it similarly hard to “go negative” as he would do in his 1988 campaign. Dukakis was an easy target. There was the Willie Horton ordeal, where Bush’s campaign tied Dukakis to a felon who was released from prison and committed a string of crimes while he was out. Bush regretted this racist tactic, but he acceded to it because he wanted to win. His competitiveness and desire to win were in tension with his commitment to a bourgeois propriety. Still, Bush was not a saint, or without a sense of humor: one diary entry reveals some malice: “Dukakis looked like a little midget nerd” as he came out of a coal mine. 328
Throughout his career, Bush was accused of being soft and lacking the will to hold power on the national stage. He was a reasonable moderate at a time when the Republican party was idealistic and extremist venerating the likes of Goldwater and Reagan. This moderation made him an effective leader of a Democrat-controlled House and Senate, but it also opened him up to attacks from Newt Gingrich’s right wing. When you’re a moderate, you’re attacked from both sides. I think modern politicians have learned this lesson and perhaps dismissed bipartisanship as naiveté.
One final point demonstrating his character is how many people liked him. Other heads of state were regular visitors at his home in Kennebunkport. He held the highest office in a way that avoided making enemies, which takes a grace that few people possess.
Diplomacy
Bush’s political career began launched with foreign policy. He was the ambassador to China and later the director of the CIA in the wake of the Church committee. He was interested in foreign affairs and seemed to view diplomacy as the best part of being president. Indeed, one of the problems of his presidency was a lack of interest in domestic affairs. He shined in the Gorbachev diplomacy and mobilizing UN partners during the Gulf War, but could not connect with his base. It seems like he would have done better as a secretary of state. He leveraged his personal tact and relationships with foreign leaders to bring about effective policy. This quality reminded me of Harry Truman, who felt that if he could just talk to someone face to face, he could something happen.
His diplomatic nature made him a good second fiddle to Reagan. He was able to avoid the limelight, which helped Reagan trust him and, in turn, empower him. He could negotiate across the aisle too. He was a statesman in the old—fashioned since. Not a browbeating executive action type, but a servant of the nation who looked out for the public interest and tried to compromise, notwithstanding the career consequences. Needles to say, he would not be elected president. He might look like his son Jeb did during the 2016 Republican primary: lacking a certain showmanship that Americans now demand of political representatives and reality tv stars alike.
The Nastiness of Politics
While I’m only two presidents, or 12 years into my journey, it is obvious to me how much of a toll the press takes on politicians. Truman couldn’t stand the abuse levied on his daughter and Bush had as much trouble, although he didn’t freak out like Truman. He would experience the pain of the press once more during Bush 43’s presidency. I’m sure there is some well-developed political science theory on the following phenomenon I’ve observed, but I’ll call it political hell. There are three entities that collaborate to create political hell:
- The Opportunists
- The Press
- The Public
First, there are the opportunists who seek power and exploit opportunities for personal political gain irrespective of the national well-being. The smoke-filled rooms, the backstabbing, the leaking to the press, and the political machinations. Second, there is the press, which thrives off of dysfunction and gossip. Finally, there is the lovely cornerstone of democracy: the fickle American public. The opportunists use the press to gain access to the American public. They leak something destructive, or blow something minor out of proportions. The press turns this into headlines. This all goes to undermine the incumbents by whittling away their power and ability to act. In Bush’s life, this could best be seen with the Newt Gingrich faction that wreaked havoc on budget reconciliation. How many headlines included the “read my lips” line? This all went to alienate the president from the public, who is happy to be angry at whoever is in charge. On the right, the public missed Reaganite grandeur and on the left… they hated the right. The Washington Post says democracy dies in darkness. Well the public can also be blinded by the light. I think this is an unavoidable bug (feature?) of the system. The press shouldn’t make political determinations about what to report, so they will naturally eat up the opportunist narratives along with whatever else qualifies as news. The opportunists want power, which is the only way to do anything; while the opportunists could try to weigh national interests against their personal ambitions, if they did that they would never be in charge. The only part of this dynamic that seems to have any hope is the public. Could we be more balanced in our judgment? Less swayed by the media? Less prone to gossip and scandal? Yea… there’s no hope there either.
On Foreign Military Intervention
The most significant chapter of Bush 41’s presidency was probably the Gulf War, where the U.S. and coalition forces expelled Saddam’s Army from Kuwait in a remarkable 100 hours. We did this with around 100 casualties and it looked like a smashing success. This war was not popular in the beginning. Indeed, Bush was committed to executing the military operation even with the fear of impeachment. He eventually persuaded other countries and Congress to support the effort, and the American public came around after its success: his approval rate reached 87%. All’s well that ends well, I suppose. Bush grappled with expected American losses perhaps exceeding 10,000!
As I was reading this, I couldn’t understand how Americans came to support the wars in the middle east. I’m not referring to the ruling class that starts the wars, but the classes that fight the wars, or whose family members die or lose limbs in the wars. Why would they care about what’s happening in some far off land when they’ve never been more than 100 miles from their hometown? It seems like its largely about perceived threat. The general public is unlikely to be moved by international relations theories and geopolitical strategy, even if it’s plausibly in their interest. For their support, there must be some tangible connection between the conflict and the American way of life. In Korea, it was the fear of a red wave. In Kuwait, Bush equated Saddam to Hitler. In Afghanistan, it was the post-9/11 fear of islamic terrorism. In Iraq, it was plausibly the fear of WMDs. It will be interesting to see how long the bad aftertaste of Iraq and Afghanistan poisons the public against foreign intervention. Or when a sufficiently credible threat moves the public to fight.
Fun Anecdotes
A doctor on Bush 41s great grandfather, who was a sickly child: “You had better knock him in the head, for even if he lives he will never amount to anything.” 5
Bush’s maternal grandfather tried to declare his father, D.D. legally incompetent because he was giving away excessive amounts of money. “D.D. was so enraged at the litigation that he announced that he had drawn an imaginary line across the property at Walker’s Point to divide his sphere from that of his sons’. ‘If you cross that line,’ D.D. Walker declared, ‘I’ll shoot you both — and not to kill, but in the knees. I’ll wound you for life.” 18
Bush’s grandfather was an early practitioner of gluten free. “Even breakfast could be perilous. ‘This bread is too glutinous,’ Walked announced one morning at the table, pushing his toast aside. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Bertie,’ said Mrs. Walker. ‘I’m sorry it’s so glutinous.’ The family came to the table next morning with trepidation. Would there be another toast crisis? Chewing, Walker paused, then announced: ‘Now this is more like it.” (It was the same loaf) 26
See page 44 for Bush’s octogenarian reflection on youthful lust…
Prescott Bush stood up to McCarthy, well done.
When Robin had Leukemia, people kept their children away cause they feared it was contagious. 98
After Robin died, someone said “at least it wasn’t your firstborn and a boy at that.” God bless what a thing to say.
On how Barbara got over her grief “Barbara overhead Georgie declining to play with another child because his mother needed him too much. ‘That started my cure,’ said Barbara. ‘I realized I was too much of a burden for a little seven-year-old boy to carry.” 101
Bush’s son “Neil and his wife had been scheduled to dine with John Hinckley’s brother the night after the assassination attempt.” 280 A gift to conspiracy theorists.
“Asked in retirement whether he thought Reagan received too much credit for ending the Cold War, Bush replied: “I don’t think too much at all, but I think to say that he singlehandedly ended the Cold War, that hurts a little bit because I think we had something to do with it. There was a speech once where Margaret Thatcher got up and said, ‘Let me be clear on one thing. Ronald Reagan and I ended the Cold War.’ And here was Lech Walesa there, and Vaclav Havel, and people that had made significant contributions to ending the Cold War, and that was embarassing. Helmut Kohl sent me a note saying, “This woman is crazy.” 496
581, Bush describes Clinton’s charisma and babbling about everything. “In grade school they had a place on our report cards ‘Claims no more than his fair share of time and attention in the class room.’ Bill would have gotten a bad mark there.” “He knows every subject. You mention Ngeria and he’ll say ‘Now let me tell you about what’s happening in the northern part of the country.’ I don’t know how much of it’s bullshit and how much of it’s real, factual.”
An unfortunate letter from W. “Dear Dad… At around 9:30 A.M., I gave the order to SecDef to execute the war plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom. In spite of the fact that I had decided a few months ago to use force, if need be, to liberate Iraq and rid the country of WMD, the decision was an emotional one… I know I have taken the right action and do pray few will lose life. Iraq will be free, the world will be safer… I know what you went through. Love, George” 573