decisions concerning the intelligence community. I need-- and the nation needs-- his leadership at
CIA as we rebuild and strengthen the foreign intelligence community in a manner which earns theconfidence of the American people.
Ambassador Bush and I agree that the Nation's immediate foreign intelligence needs must take
precedence over other considerations and there should be continuity in his CIA leadership.
Therefore, if Ambassador Busnot consider him as my Vice Presidential running mate in 1976. h is confirmed by the Senate as Director of Central Intelligence, I will
He and I have discussed this in detail. In fact, he urged that I make this decision. This says
something about the man and about his desire to do this job for the nation. [...]
On December 19, this letter was received by Stennis, who announced its contents to his committee.
This committe promptly approved the Bush appointment by a vote of 12 to 4, with Gary Hart,
Leahy, Culver, and McIntyre voting against him. Bush's name could now be sent to the floor, where
a recrudescence of anti-Bush sentiment was not likely, but could not be ruled out.
Bush, true to form, sent a hand-written note to Kendall and O'Donnell on December 18. "You guys
were great to me in all this whirlwind," wrote Bush. "Thank you for your help--and for your
understanding. I have never been in one quite like this before and it helped to have a couple of guys
who seemed to care and want to help. Thanks, men--Thank Max, [Friedersdorf] too -George" [fn
19]
But underneath his usual network-tending habits, Bush was now engulfed by a profound rage. He
had fought to get elected to the Senate twice, in 1964 and 1970, and failed both times. He had tried
for the vice presidency in 1968, in 1972, had been passed over by Nixon in late 1973 when Ford
was chosen, in 1974, asenatorial patrician, and that was indeed Bush's concept of his own "birthright." nd was now out of the running in 1976. This was simply intolerable for a
Bush gave the lie to Aristotle's theory of the humors: neither blood nor phlegm nor black nor even
the yellow bile of rage moved him, but hyperthyroid transports of a manic rage that went beyond
the merely bilious. George Bush had already had enough of tChurch Committee, enough of the Pike Committee. Years later, on the campaign trail in 1988, hehe Stennis Committee, enough of the
vomited out his rage against his tormentors of 1975. Bush said that he had gone to the CIA "at a
very difficult time. I went in there when it had been demoralized by the attacks of a bunch of little
untutored squirts from Capitol Hill, going out there, looking at these confidential documents
without one simple iota of concern for the legitimate national security interests of this country. AndI stood up for the CIA then, and I stand up for it now. And defend it. So let the liberals wring their
hands and consider it a liability. I consider it a strength."
But in 1975 there was no doubt that George Bush was in a towering rage. As Christmas approached,
no visions of sugarplums danced in Bush's head. He dreamed of a single triumphant stroke thatwould send Church and all the rest of his tormentors reeling in dismay, and give the new CIA
Director a dignified and perhaps triumphant inauguration.
Then, two days before Christmas, the CIA chief in Athens, Richard Welch was gunned down in
front of his home by masked assassins as he returned home with his wife from a Christmas party. Agroup calling itself the "November 19 Organization" later claimed credit for the killing.
Certain networks immediately began to use the Welch assassination as a bludgeon against the
Church and Pike committees. An example came from columnist Charles Bartlett writing in the old
Washington Star: "The assassination of the CIA Station Chief, Richard Welch, in Athens is a direct