Chapter -XVI- Campaign 1980
Le mercennarie et ausiliarie sono inutili e pericolose; e, se uno tiene lo stato suo fondato in sulle
arme mercennarie, non sara' mai fermo ne' sicuro.
--Machiavelli, Il Principe
As we follow George Bush along the George Washington Parkway as he drives away from his
Langley office in January, 1977, we enter an especially shadowy and inscrutable interlude in his
career. During their superficial and dilatory 1988 inquiry into Bush's career, Bob Woodward and
Walter Pincus did establish one typical phenomenon of Bushis emergence as a presidential candidate: Bush kept key parts of his activity a secret from his ownh's activity between January, 1977 and (^)
aides and office staff, even going so far as to manufacture alibis which would appear to have been
inventions. Woodward and Pincus described a "mystery about Bush and the agency" which arose
during the course of their interviews about the post-1977 period. "According to those involved in
Bush's first political action committee, there were several occasions in 1978-79, wliving in Houston and travelling the country in his first run for the presidency, that he set asidehen Bush was
periods of up to 24 hours and told aides he had to fly to Washington for a secret meeting of former
CIA Directors. Bush told his aides that he could not divulge his whereabouts, and that he would not
be reachable."
The mystery described by Woodward and Pincus arose when other interviews cast grave doubt on
the veracity of this cover story; "...according to former directors and other senior CIA officials,
there were no meetings of former directors during that period, and Bush had no assignments of any
kind from the CIA." Stansfield Turner commented that he "never knew former directors had
meetings and there were none when I was there." Stephen Hart of Bush's staff told Woodward andPincus that the keepers of Bush's schedule could "recall no CIA activity of any kind," but explained (^)
the absences as "personal time in Washington" for "tennis, visits with friends, and dinners." [fn 1]
Such enigmas are typical of the 1977-1979 interlude in Bush's career.
Shortly after leaving Langley, Bush asserted his birthright as an international financier in the wayhe had indicated to his close friend Leo Cherne, that is to say by becoming a member of the board (^)
of directors of a large bank. On February 22, 1977 Robert H. Stewart III, the chairman of the
holding company for First International Bankshares of Dallas, announced that Bush would become
the chairman of the executive committee of First International Bank in Houston and would
simultaneously become a director of First International Bankshares Ltd. of London, abank owned by First International Bankshares, Inc. Bush also became a director of First merchant
International Bankshares Inc., which was the holding company for the entire international group.
Thus, less than two years before Margaret Thatcher came to power, Bush acquired the status of
investment banker in the City of London, the home of the Eurodollar market and the home of
British imperial financial circles in which such figures as Lord Victor Rothschild, Tiny Rowthe Sultan of Brunei, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, and the Emir of Kuwait were at home. An annualland, (^)
fee of $75,000 as a "consultant" also sweetened this pot. During the 1988 campaign, Bush gave the
implacable stonewall to any questions about the services he performed for the First International
Bankshares group or about any other aspects of his business activities during the pre-1980 interlude.
Interfirst was then the largest bank in Texas and was reportedly running speculation all over SouthAmerica, China, and Europe.
Later, after the Reagan-Bush orgy of speculation and usury had ruined the Texas economy, the
Texas commercial banks began to collapse into bankruptcy. First International of Dallas (or
"Interfirst") merged with RepublicBank during 1987 to form First RepublicBank, which became the