George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography --- by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
Chapter -XI- United Nations Ambassador, Kissinger Clone
At this point in his career, George Bush entered into a phase of close association with both RichardNixon and Henry Kissinger. As we will see, Bush was a member of the Nixon cabinet from the
spring of 1971 until the day that Nixon resigned. We will see Bush on a number of important
occasions literally acting as Nixon's speaking tube, especially in international crisis situations.
During these years, Nixon was Bush's patron, providing him with appointments and urging him to
look forwothers in his quest for Nixon's favor. Then there was Kissinger, far and away the most powerfulard to bigger things in the future. On certain occasions, however, Bush was upstaged by
figure in the Washington regime of those days, who became Bush's boss when the latter became the
US Ambassador to the United Nations in New York City. Later, on the campaign trail in 1980,
Bush would offer to make Kissinger Secretary of State in his administration.
Bush was now listing a net worth of over $1.3 million [fn 1], but the fact is that he was now
unemployed, but anxious to assume the next official post, to take the next step of what in the career
of a Roman Senator was called the cursus honorum, the patrician career, for this is what he felt the
world owed him.
Nixon had promised Bush an attractive and prestigious political plum in the Executive branch, and
it was now time for Nixon to deliver. Bush's problem was that in late 1970 Nixon was more
interested in what another Texan could contribute to his Administration. That other Texan was John
Connally, who had played the role of Bush's nemesis in the elections just concluded by virtue of the
encouragement and decisive support which Connawas now fascinated by the prospect of including the right-wing Democrat Connally in his cabinet inlly had given to the Bentsen candidacy. Nixon (^)
order to provide himself with a patina of bi-partisanship, while emphasizing the dissension among
the Democrats, strengthening Tricky Dick's chances of successfully executing his Southern Strategy
a second time during the 1972 elections.
The word among Nixon's inner circle of this period was "The Boss is in love," and the object of his
affections was Big Jawn. Nixon claimed that he was not happy with the stature of his current
cabinet, telling his domestic policy advisor John Ehrlichmann in the fall of 1970 that "Every cabinet
should have at least one potential President in it. Mine doesn't." Nixon had tried to recruit leading
Democrats before, asking Senator Henry Jackson to be Secretary of Defense and offering the postof United Nations Ambassador to Hubert Humphrey.
Within hours after the polls had closed in the Texas senate race, Bush was received a call from
Charles Bartlett, a Washington columnist who was part of the Prescott Bush network. Bartlett
tipped Bush to the fact that Treasury Secretary David Kennedy was leaving, and urged him to makea grab for the job. Bush called Nixon and put in his request. After that, he waited by the telephone.
But it soon became clear that Tricky Dick was about to recruit John Connally and with him,
perhaps, the important Texas electoral votes in 1972. Secretary of the Treasury! One of the three or
four top posts in the cabinet! And that before Bush had been given anything for all of his useless
slogging through tone can almost hear Bush's whining complaint. he 1970 campaign! But the job was about to go to Connally. Over two decades,
This move was not totally unprepared. During the fall of 1970, when Connally was campaigning for
Bentsen against Bush, Connally had been invited to participate in the Ash Commission, a study
group on government re-organization chaired by Roy Ash. "This White House access was