AN "UNREAL" DAY ATB, 193.
FORD MADE TIME TO SEE BUSH Ibid.
TO HIS DIARY, BUSH DOWNPLAYED GHWB diary, August 7, 1974, Personal Notes-Oct. 73Aug. 74 (3), Republican National Committee, Personal Papers, GHWB Collection, GBPL.
WHEN FORD AND BUSH SPOKE ATB, 19394.
"I TALKED ABOUT THE WHITE HOUSE STAFF" Ibid.
"I THEN WENT ON TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL" Ibid., 19394.
BUSH THOUGHT FORD NEEDED Ibid.
"PUT AN IMPRINT" Ibid., 194.
HE SAID HE WOULD RESIGN AS SOON Ibid.
THE WORK FOR 1976 Ibid.
"HE INDICATED THAT" Ibid.
THE BUSHES WERE IN THE EAST ROOM Ibid. For the complicated politics of AugustSeptember 1974-and beyond, see Barry Werth, 31 Days: Gerald Ford, the Nixon Pardon, and a Government in Crisis (New York, 2006), an engaging account.
NIXON'S FAREWELL "Remarks on Departure from the White House," August 9, 1974, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1973, 63033.
"WHAT KIND OF A MAN" GHWB, August 9, 1974, Personal Notes: Oct. 73Aug. 74 (3), Republican National Committee, Personal Papers, GHWB Collection, GBPL.
BUSH GOT A CALL FROM BILL TIMMONS ATB, 195.
THE TWO MEN MET FOR THIRTY-ONE MINUTES IN THE OVAL OFFICE "Daily Diary of President Gerald R. Ford," August 11, 1974, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
SITTING ACROSS FROM EACH OTHER Photograph of President Ford and GHWB, August 11, 1974, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
BUSH ALLIES WERE RUNNING LSY, 16970.
BUSH WALKED THROUGH HIS ReSUMe GHWB, August 12, 1974, Personal Notes-Oct. 73Aug. 74 (3), Republican National Committee, Personal Papers, GHWB Collection, GBPL.
"WORRIED ABOUT [THE] DIVISIONS" Ibid.
"I KEPT COMING DOWN ON THE MIDDLE GROUND" Ibid.
"MR. PRESIDENT, IT'S A FUNNY POSITION" Ibid.
"GEORGE, I DON'T HAVE ANY DOUBT" Ibid.
BRYCE HARLOW HAD BEEN TASKED Ford, Time to Heal, 14243.
BUSH, HARLOW WROTE, WAS "STRONGEST" Ibid.
FOR FORD, THE CHOICE CAME DOWN TO Author interview with Dick Cheney.
CITING UNNAMED SOURCES, NEWSWEEK REPORTED Werth, 31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today, 114. See also NYT, August 19, 1974. "Townhouse" was typical of the Nixon era. (NYT, June 11, 1992.) See also "Gleason Interview Notes," box 131/3, James Baker III Papers, Princeton.
Working out of a townhouse in Washington, Republican operatives under the direction of Bob Haldeman reportedly distributed $3 million to various candidates in the 1970 cycle. As reconstructed by reporters and by Watergate special prosecutors, the operation was designed to fund the campaigns of Nixon favorites and, in the words of one of the political aides involved, "to set up possible blackmail for these candidates later on." (NYT, June 11, 1992. See also "Interviews of Jack A. Gleason," July 16, 1973, Files of Charles Ruff, Special Prosecutor's Office, U.S. Department of Justice, National Archives.)
It was ingenious in its way: By delivering $6,000 in cash to various campaigns, the Townhouse operatives hoped the money would give the Nixon team, in the words of special prosecutor Leon Jaworski, "leverage over these candidates by placing cash in their hands which they might not report." (Leon Jaworski to Charles Ruff, March 19, 1974, Files of Special Prosecutor's Office, U.S. Department of Justice, National Archives.) Jaworski wrote that Bush had received about $112,000 from Townhouse; Bush believed the number to be $106,000, and denied ever receiving the $6,000. The Watergate special prosecutor chose not to pursue Bush or his old 1970 campaign apparatus. "Bush is neither a target of our investigation nor a potential witness," Jaworski wrote. (Ibid.; see also NYT, June 11, 1992.)
In ensuing years Bush would maintain that his campaign had done nothing wrong. Though the issue was raised from time to time, it did not attract significant attention, perhaps because of the complicated details and an apparent lack of compelling documentation one way or another. Bush, like other Republicans of the time, including Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, was too close to the Nixon operation and may have failed to obey the letter of the reporting laws as they were written in pre-Watergate 1970. One unmistakable sign of Bush's discomfort with the whole topic: When he was at the RNC, he wondered aloud whether Townhouse records in the possession of the committee should be burned, which strongly suggests that he wanted the whole subject to go away-forever. ("Gleason Interview Notes," box 131/3, James A. Baker III Papers, Princeton; NYT, June 11, 1992; WP, August 9, 1988; LSY, 17071.)
THE WATERGATE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR WOULD ULTIMATELY CLEAR BUSH LSY, 171. See also Leon Jaworski to Charles Ruff, March 19, 1974, Files of Special Prosecutor's Office, U.S. Department of Justice, National Archives.
"COULD BE AN EMBARRASSMENT" Memorandum of General Joulwan to General Haig, August 18, 1974, "Telephone Conversation with George Bush, August 18, 1974, Sunday, 11:40 a.m.," Papers of Alexander Haig, Library of Congress. Who leaked the Bush allegations in August 1974, when it could do maximum damage to his vice presidential prospects? As reconstructed by the writer Barry Werth in his study of the month after Ford took office, 31 Days, Rumsfeld was a prominent suspect. James Cannon, a journalist who had become a Rockefeller adviser, thought the hit on Bush had to have come from Rumsfeld. "No doubt about it," Cannon later told Werth. "I'd bet money on it." Rumsfeld dismissed the speculation as "utter nonsense." (Author interview with Donald Rumsfeld.) Bush himself thought it might be Melvin Laird, who was in favor of Rockefeller. (Werth, 31 Days, 116.) THE WAITING ENDED Werth, 31 Days, 139.
"YESTERDAY WAS" ATB, 195.
BUSH WENT TO WASHINGTON Ibid., 196. See also LF, 12930.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" ATB, 196.
BUSH'S FIRST SUGGESTION GHWB, August 22, 1974, Personal Notes-Oct. 73Aug. 74 (3), Republican National Committee, Personal Papers, GHWB Collection, GBPL.
BUT FORD APPEARED UNINTERESTED Ibid.
TWO DIPLOMATIC POSTS Ibid.
TALKED ABOUT BUSH'S BECOMING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF Ibid.
FORD SAID THAT HE WAS DETERMINED Ibid. "Initially, when I became President, I did not want to have a powerful chief of staff," Ford wrote in his memoirs. "Wilson had had his Colonel House, Eisenhower his Sherman Adams, Nixon his Haldeman, and I was aware of the trouble those top assistants had caused my predecessors. I was determined to be my own chief of staff and Al Haig [a Nixon holdover] was agreeable to this change. I would have five or six senior assistants with different areas of responsibility...and they would be able to see me at regular intervals during the day." Ford called it his "spokes of the wheel approach." Ford added: "But as I was to discover soon enough, it simply didn't work. Because power in Washington is measured by how much access a person has to the President, almost everyone wanted more access than I had access to give." (Ford, Time to Heal, 147.) THE AMBASSADORSHIP TO FRANCE GHWB, August 22, 1974, Personal Notes: Oct. 73Aug. 74 (3), Republican National Committee, Personal Papers, GHWB Collection, GBPL.
"I TOLD [FORD]" ATB, 196.
FORD HAD TALKED TO KISSINGER GHWB, August 26, 1974, Personal Notes: Oct. 73Aug. 74 (3), Republican National Committee, Personal Papers, GHWB Collection, GBPL.
"THE ONE THAT IS THE BEST FOR YOU" Ibid.
BUSH AGREED, BUT NOT WITHOUT RAISING Ibid.
COME IN AS FORD'S WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF Ibid.
"HE SEEMED TO THINK" Ibid.
IN MEMORY...BUSH CAST THE CHOICE LF, 130.
"BACK THEN WE" Ibid.
"WE NOW AGREED" Ibid. Despite Bush's pairing of the roads to China and to Texas, the 1948 call had been much more of a shared project between Bush and Barbara than the China appointment was. In his 1987 campaign autobiography, Bush misremembered Barbara's role. In his recollection the two of them had discussed China before the meeting with Ford on August 22, 1974. (Ibid.)
Barbara's diary at the time and her subsequent memoir, however, show that she heard about the Beijing possibility only after it had been raised at the White House. "We were vacationing in Maine at the time, and when George returned, he told me he hoped I would understand, but he had turned down all the stylish embassies (including London and Paris) and asked for the post in the People's Republic of China-if I agreed," Barbara wrote in 1994. "To say that I was speechless is an understatement." (BB, 107.) Barbara quickly grew enthusiastic, not least because the assignment would mean that the two would spend more time together than they had since, perhaps, New Haven. "The more George talked, the more excited I got," Barbara recalled. "I missed being with George...and the thought of having him to myself sounded like the answer to my prayers." (BB, 108.)
AFTER WATERGATE LSY, 17273.
BROADEN HIS FOREIGN POLICY EXPERIENCE Ibid., 173.
A BRIEF EXPERIMENT Ford, Time to Heal, 147.
FORD APPOINTED DON RUMSFELD Ibid., 18587. Ford appointed Haig as supreme commander of NATO and persuaded Rumsfeld to take the chief of staff post. (Ibid.) "THERE'LL BE SOME SUBSTANTIVE WORK" LF, 138.
"WHAT THE HELL" LSY, 173. Bush spoke with Ford briefly by phone before leaving for China in the middle of October. "I know you're busy," Bush said. "I just wanted to say goodbye." Ford replied, "We couldn't have found anyone more qualified."
"If there is anything I can do to help you politically as '76 approaches, just let me know."
"Thanks," Ford said. "I may try to visit you there by then." ("Memorandum of Conversation," Tuesday, October 15, 1974, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.)
SIXTEEN: Am I Running Away from Something?
PEOPLE STARE AT YOU ATB, 201.
BUSH RECEIVED A MESSAGE Ibid., 199200.
"THE INCIDENT ITSELF" Ibid., 200.
"IN GOING TO CHINA" Ibid.
GLOBAL BALANCE-OF-POWER ISSUES Engel, ed., China Diary of George H. W. Bush, 44850.
IN THE CONTEXT OF THE TIME Ibid.
"CHINA KEEPS WANTING US" ATB, 230.
ONE LESSON OF HIS CHINA EXPERIENCE Engel, ed., China Diary of George H. W. Bush, 397463. My account of Bush's time in China owes much to China Diary editor Jeffrey Engel's analysis of this period of Bush's life.
ON THE BUSHES' FIRST NIGHT LF, 138; ATB, 203.
HE GOT UP TO TURN OFF ATB, 201.
"END FIRST NIGHT" Ibid.
"WAS SOME LEADER" LF, 132.
"I'VE BEEN HERE TEN YEARS" Ibid., 136.
CHINESE DIPLOMATS COULD Ibid.
THERE WERE, HE SAID, THREE WAYS Ibid.
"I HAVEN'T GOTTEN A PHONE CALL" ATB, 203.
WRITING JIM BAKER GHWB to JAB III, November 17, 1974, box 12/13, James A. Baker III Papers, Princeton.
"MAYBE I'M BETTER OFF" Ibid.
HE CHANGED MISSION POLICY ATB, 204. See also LF, 142; and Engel, ed., China Diary of George H. W. Bush, 12.
"IT DOESN'T MATTER" LF, 142.
THE BUSHES THEN STRUCK OUT ATB, 204.
HOSTED THE BUSHES AT A BANQUET Ibid., 2056.
ESCHEWED THE CHIEF OF MISSION'S CHAUFFEURED CAR Ibid., 214. See also LF, 139.
HE WOULD PUT ON A PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY HAT ATB, 214.