By September, Bush could boast in public that he had won the immediate engagement: hisadversaries in the Congressional investigating committees were defeated. "The CIA," Bush (^)
announced, "has weathered the storm." "The mood in Congress has changed," he crowed. "No one
is campaigning against strong intelligence. The adversary thing, how we can ferret out corruption,
has given way to the more serious question how we can have better intelligence."
As Bush never tired of repeating, that meant more covert operations. In the middle of October, Bush
spoke once again on this matter to the Texas Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association: "We would
be stupid to give up covert operations and we are not going to do it as long as I have anything to say
about it." Bush claimed that covert operations consumed only 2% of the entire CIA budget but that
such operations were necessary because "not everybody irules." s going to play by Marquis of Queensbury
Such was the public profile of Bush's CIA tenure up until about the time of the November, 1976
elections. If this had been the whole story, then we might accept the usual talk about Bush's period
of uneventful rebuilding and morale boosting while he was at Langley. We might share theconclusions of one author that "Bush was picked because he could be trusted to provide no
surprises. Amiable and well-liked by old CIA hands, he sincerely believed in the agency and its
mission. Bush soothed Congress, tried to restore confidence and morale and Langley, and avoided
delving too deeply into the agency's darker recesses." [fn 36] Or, we might acceptthe following
edifying summary: '[Bush] had a fundamental loyalty to the agency and its people even though hewas an outsider. He was a man with a strong sense of obligation downward. Under him the people (^)
of the CIA soon realized that they were not going to be served up piecemeal. He probably did more
for agency morale and standing in Congress than any DCI since Allen Dulles. Unlike Colby, who
was loyal to the ideal of the CIA rather than to the people, Bush was committed to both. He was a
genuine conservative in his politics and his approach, conveying no touch of originality, and wasnot a man to take initiatives. People knew exactly where they stood with him. He was a classic
custodian, and it was this quality that Ford had recognized in him. For Bush being DCI was 'the best
job in Washington.'" [fn 37] The spirit of the red Studebaker school of idolatry, we see, had
followed Bush to Langley and thence into many standard histories of the CIA.
Reality looked different. The administration Bush served had Ford as its titular head, but most of
the real power, especially in foreign affairs, was in the hands of Kissinger. Bush was more than
willing to play along with the Kissinger agenda.
The first priority was to put an end to such episodes as contempt citations for Henry Kissinger.Thanks to the presence of Don Gregg as CIA station chief in Seoul, South Korea, that was easy to (^)
arrange. This was the same Don Gregg of the CIA who would later serve as Bush's national security
advisor during the second vice presidential term, and who would manage decisive parts of the Iran-
contra operations from Bush's own office. Gregg knew of an agent of the Korean CIA, Tongsun
Park, who had for a number of years been making large payments to members of Congreall to Democratic members of the House of Representatives, in order to secure their suppportss, above for
legislation that was of interest to Park Chung Hee, the South Korean leader. It was therefore a
simple matter to blow the lid off this story, causing a wave of hysteria among the literally hundreds
of members of Congress who had attended parties organized by Tongsun Park, who had become the
Perle Mesta of the 1970's when it came to entertaining Congrehad a stable of call girls available, and could provide other services. The US Ambassador to thessional bigwigs. Tongsun Park also
Republic of Korea during this period was Richard Sneider.
The Koreagate headlines began to appear a few days after Bush had taken over at Langley. In
February there was a story by Maxine Cheshire of the Washington Post reporting that the
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(Frankie)
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