George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography

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attacking the civil rights bill. But the alliance between Yarborough and big labor was one of his


favorite themes. The standard pitch went something like this, as before the Austin businessmen.Yarborough, he would start off saying "more nearly represents the state of Michigan than he does (^)
Texas." This, as we will see, was partly an attempted, lame rebuttal of Yarborough's charge that
Bush was a northeastern carpetbagger. Bush would then continue: "One of the main reasons
Yarborough represents Texas so badly is that he's spending most of his time representing labor
interests in Detroit. His voting record makes men like Walter Reuther and James Hoffa very happy.This man has voted for every special interest bill, for every big spending measure that's come to his (^)
attention."
During this period Camco, an oilfield equipment company of which Bush was a director, was
embroiled in some bitter labor disputes. The regional office of the National Labor Relations Boardsought a federal injunction against Camco in order to force the firm to re-hire four union organizers (^)
who had been illegally fired. Officials of the Machinists' Union, which was trying to organize
Camco, also accused Bush of being complicit in what they said was Camco's illegal failure to carry
out a 1962 NLRB order directing Camco to re-hire eleven workers fired because they had attended
a union meeting. Bush answered that he was not going to be intimidated by labor. "As everybodyknows, the union bosses are all-out for Sen. Ralph Yarborough, " countered Bush, and he had been (^)
too busy with Zapata to pay attention to Camco anyway. [fn 20] According to Roy Evans, the
Secretary-Treasurer of the Texas AFL-CIO, Bush was "a member of the dinosaur wing of the
Republican Party." Evans called Bush "the Houston throwback," and maintained that Bush had "lost
touch with anyone in Texas except the radicals of the right."
Back in February, Yarborough had remarked in his typical populist vein that his legislative
approach was to "put the jam on the lower shelf so the little man can get his hand in." This
scandalized Bush, who countered on February 27 that "it's a cynical attitude and one that tends to
set the so-called little man apart from the rest of his countrymen." For Bush, the jam would alwaysremain under lock and key, except for the chosen few of Wall Street. A few days later, on March 5, (^)
Bush elaborated that he was "opposed to special interest legislation because it tends to hyphenate
Americans. I don't think we can afford to have veteran-Americans, Negro-Americans, Latin-
Americans and labor-Americans these days." Here is Bush as political philosopher, maintaining that
the power of the authoritarian state must confront its citizens in a wholly atomized form, notorganized into interest groups capable of defending themselves.
Bush was especially irate about Yarborough's Cold War GI Bill, which he branded the senator's "pet
project." "Fortunately," said Bush, "he has been unable to cram his Cold War GI Bill down
Congress' throat. It's bad legislation and special interest legislation which will erode our Americanway of life. I have four sons, and I'd sure hate to think that any of them would measure their
devotion and service to their country by what special benefits Uncle Sam could give them." Neil
Bush would certainly never do that! Anyway, the Cold War GI Bill was nothing but a "cynical
effort to get votes," Bush concluded.
There was a soft spot in Bush's heart for at least a few special interests, however. He was a devoted
supporter of the "time-proven" 27.5% oil depletion allowance, a tax writeoff which allowed the
seven sisters oil cartel to escape a significant portion of what they otherwise would have paid in
taxes. Public pressure to reduce this allowance was increasing, and the oil cartel was preparing to
concede a minor adjustment in the hopes that this would neutralize attempts to get the depletionallowance abolished entirely. Bush also called for what he described as a "meaningful oil import (^)
program, one which would restrict imports at a level that will not be harmful to our domestic oil
industry." "I know what it is to earn a paycheck in the oil business," he boasted. Bush also told
Texas farmers that he wanted to limit the imports of foreign beef so as to protect their domestic
markets.

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