- Washington Post, August 16, 1974.
- Gerald R. Ford Library, Robert T. Hartman Files, Box 21.
- Gerald R. Ford Library, Robert T. Hartmann Files, Box 19.
- Philip Buchen Files, Box 63.
- Robert T. Hartman Files, Box 21.
- Robert T. Hartmann Files, Boxes 19 and 20.
- Robert T. Hartmann Files, Box 21.
- Robert T. Hartmann Files, Box 20.
- Walter Pincus and Bob Woodward, "Presidential Posts and Dashed Hopes," Washington Post,
August 9, 1988.
Return to the Table of Contents
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography --- by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
Chapter -XIV- Bush in Beijing
Whatever benign star it is that tends George Bush's destiny, lights his ambition, it was early ontrapped in the flawed orbit of Richard Nixon. Bush's meteoric ascent, in a decade's time, from
county GOP chairman to national chairman, including his prestigious ambassadorship to the United
Nations, was due largely to the strong tug of Nixonian gravity. Likewise, his blunted hopes and
dimmed future, like the Comet Kohoutek, result from the too-close approach to a fatal sun. [fn 1]
Several minutes before Ford appeared for the first time before the television cameras with Nelson
Rockefeller, his vice president designate, he had placed a call to Bush to inform him that he had not
been chosen, and to reassure him that he would be offered an important post as a consolation. Two
days later, Bush met Ford at the White House. Bush claims that Ford told him that he could choose
between a future as US envoy to the Court of St. James in London, or prethe Palais de l'Elysee in Paris. Bush would have us believe that he then told Ford that he wantedsenting his credentials to
neither London nor Paris, but Beijing. Bush's accounts then portray Ford, never the quickest, as
tamping his pipe, scratching his head, and asking, "Why Beijing?" Here Bush is lying once again.
Ford was certainly no genius, but no one was better situated than he to know that it would have
been utter folly to propose Bush for an ambassadorship that had to be approved by the Senate.
Why Beijing? The first consideration, and it was an imperative one, was that under no
circumstances could Bush face Senate confirmation hearings for any executive branch appointment
for at least one to two years. There would have been questions about the Townhouse slush fund,
about his intervention on Caacutely embarrassing themes. All of the reasons which had led Ford to exclude Bush as vicermine Bellino, perhaps about Leon and Russell, and about many other
president, for which he would have needed the approval of both Houses of Congress, were valid in
ruling out any nomination that had to get past the senate. After Watergate, Bush's name was just too
smelly to send up to the Hill for any reason, despite all the power of the usual Brown Brother,
Harriman/Skull and Bones network mobilization. It would take time to cauterize certain lesions and