the organization among men who had demonstrated their competence through long careers in
intelligence work. He leaned over backward to protect the objectivity and independence of theAgency's estimates and to avoid slanting the results to fit some preconceived notion of what the (^)
President wanted to hear.
On the other hand, his close relationship to Ford [Bush was a regular tennis doubles partner with
Ford] and the trust that the President obviously had in him gave Bush an access to the White Houseand an influence in the wider Washington bureaucracy that Colby had never enjoyed. Not only did
morale improve as a result, but through Bush the Agency's views carried new weight and influence
in the top reaches of the Ford Administration. In effect, I found on my return that the working
environment at the Agency was far better than I had imagined it to be from my exposed position
abroad and I determined to stay on for aappointed deputy director, asked me to serve as a special assistant, and gave me as first assignment period before retiring. Bush and "Hank" Knoche, the newly
the task of reviewing the entire structure of the intelligence community to determine the adequacy
of the arrangements for providing strategic warning against an attack on the United States and for
handling major international crises. [fn 30]
This all sounds like a Bush campaign brochure, but it is typical of the intelligence community
forces loyal to Bush; as for Cord Meyer, it may be that he developed the design for the Special
Situation Group which Bush chaired from March, 1981 to January, 1989, through which Bush ran
Iran-Contra and all of the other significant covert operations and coups of the entire Reagan era.
And what did other CIA officers, such as intelligence analysts, think of Bush? A common
impression is that he was a superficial lightweight with no serious interest in intelligence. Deputy
Director for Science and technology Carl Duckett, who was ousted by Bush after three months,
commented that he "never saw George Bush feel he had to understand the depth of something....[he]
is not a man tremendously dedicated to a cause or ideas. He's not fervent. He goes with the flow,looking for how it will play politically." According to Maurice Ernst, the head of the CIA's office of (^)
economic research from 1970 to 1980, "George Bush doesn't like to get into the middle of an
intellectual debate...he liked to delegate it. I never really had a serious discussion with him on
economics." Another former CIA aide to Bush who wanted to remain anonymous observed that "it
was an approach remarkably similar to what a youngedone." Hans Heymann was Bush's National Intelligence Officer for Economics, and he remembersr, more active Ronald Reagan might have (^)
having been impressed by Bush's Phi Beta Kappa Yale degree in economics. As Heymann later
recalled Bush's response, "He looked at me in horror and said, 'I don't remember a thing. It was so
long ago, so I'm going to have to rely on you.'" [fn 31]
Other CIA employees remember Bush as a manager who would not grapple with concepts, but who
rather saw himself as a problem solver and consensus builder who would try to resolve difficulties
by getting people into a room to find a compromise basis of agreement. In reality, much of this was
also a calculated pose. No one has ever accused Bush of profundity on any subject, except perhaps
race hatred, but his disengaged stance appears as an elaborate deception to conceal his real viewsfrom the official chain of command.
In the meantime, the scuttlebut around Langley and the Pentagon was, according to a high CIA
official, that "the CIA and DOD will love George Bush and Don Rumsfeld more than they hated or
feared Bill Colby and Jim Schlesinger because neither will make any real waves." One writersummed up Bush's superficial public profile during this period as "not altogether incompetent." [fn (^)
32]
During the first few weeks of Bush's tenure, the Ford administration was gripped by a "first strike"
pyschosis. This had nothing to do with the Soviet Union, but was rather Ford's desire to pre-empt