George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography --- by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
Chapter -XIII- Bush Attempts The Vice Presidency, 1974
Those who betray their benefactors are seldom highly regarded. In Dante's Divine Comedy, traitors
to benefactors and to the established authorities are consigned to the ninth circle of the Inferno,
where their souls are suspended, like insects in amber, in the frozen River Cocytus. This is theGiudecca, where the three arch-traitors Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius are chewed for all
eternity in the three mouths of Lucifer. The crimes of Nixon were monstrous, especially in Vietnam
and in the India-Pakistan war, but in these Bush had been an enthusiastic participant. Now Bush's
dagger, among others, had now found its target; Nixon was gone. In the depths of his Inferno, Dante
relates the story of Fthe soul of the offender plunges at once into hell, leaving the body to live out its physical existencerate Alberigo to illustrate the belief that in cases of the most heinous treachery,
under the control of a demon. Perhaps the story of old Frate Alberigo will illuminate us as we
follow the further career of George Bush.
As Nixon left the White House for his home in San Clemente, California, in the early afternoon ofAugust 9, 1974, Chairman George was already plotting how to scale still further up the dizzy
heights of state. Ford was now president, and the vice-presidency was vacant. According to the
XXV Amendment, it was now up to Ford to designate a vice president who would then require a
majority vote of both houses of Congress to be confirmed. Seeing a golden opportunity to seize an
office that he had long regarded as the final stepping stone to his ultimate goal of the White House,Bush immediately mobilized his extensive Brown Brothers, Harriman/Skull and Bones network,
including as many Zionist lobby auxiliaries as he could muster. George had learned in 1968 that an
organized effort commensurate with his own boundless lust for power would be required to
succeed. One of the first steps was to set up a boiler shop operation in a suite of rooms at the Statler
Hilton Hotel in Washington. Here Richard L. Herman, the Nebraska GOP national committeemanand two assistants began churning out a cascade of calls to Republicans and others around the
country, urging, threatening, cajoling, calling in chits, promising future favors if Chairman George
were to become Vice President George. [fn 1] Since Bush controlled the RNC apparatus, this large
machinery could also be thrown into the fray.
There were other, formidable candidates, but none was so aggressive as Chairman George. Nelson
Rockefeller, who had resigned as Governor of New York some months before to devote more time
to his own consuming ambition and to his Commission on Critical Choices, was in many ways the
front runner. Nelson's vast notoriety, his imposing cursus honorum, his own powerful Wall Street
network, his financial and banking faction-- all of these would count heavily in his favor. ButNelson, having been the incarnation of the Eastern Liberal Establishment internationalists against (^)
whom Goldwater had campaigned so hard in 1964, also had a very high negative. People hated
Nelson. His support was considerable, but he had more active opposition than any other candidate.
This meant that Ford had to hesitate in choosing Nelson because of what the blowback might mean
for a probable Ford candidacy in 1976.
The conservative Republicans all regarded Goldwater as their sentimental favorite, but they also
knew that Ford would be reluctant to select him because of a different set of implications for 1976.
Beyond Rockefeller and Goldwater, each a leader of a wing of the party, the names multiplied:
Senator Howard Baker, Elliot Richardson, Governor William Scranton, Melvin Laird, Senator BillBrock, Governor Dan Evans, Donald Rumsfeld, and many others. Bush knew that if he could get
Goldwater to show him some support, the Goldwater conservatives could be motivated to make
their influence felt for Bush, and this might conceivably put him over the top, despite Rockefeller's
strength in the financial and intelligence communities. Part of the battle would be to convince Ford
that Bush would be a bigger asset for 1976.