told reporters that support for Bush's Gulf policy was "at the teetering point-- the people are really
becoming skeptical." His Louisiana counterpart, James J. Brady, noted that Bush " has not giventhem answers to their questions." "Jobs are not the reason we are there," he added. [fn 67]
In the House of Representatives, a group of 45 House Democrats went to federal court in a vain
attempt to stop Bush from initating hostilities, and Rep. Gonzalez of Texas, the honorable
maverick, offered a bill of impeachment against Bush.
On November 16, Bush left on a multi-country blitz of Europe and the Middle East which was
intended to shore up the anti-Iraq coalition until the buildup could be completed and the war
unleashed. In Prague, Bush was lionized by large crowds; President Havel gave Bush a testimonial
of support about the lessons of Munich 1938 athrough the war. It was unfortunate that freedom from communist tyranny for snd appeasement that Bush would wave around allome politicians
seemed to mean the freedom to lick Bush's boots. In Speyer, Germany, Bush had another apoplectic
moment when Catholic Bishop Anton Schlembach wished Bush success "but without war and
bloodshed." Bush sat red-faced like a roasted cherub. Germans were not happy about Bush's
extortion of their country when they needed money to rebuild the newly freed federal states in theeast; Germany was now reunified. Bush had a strained meeting with Kohl, and, at the CSCE finale (^)
in Paris, a cordial one with Mitterrand, with whom his rapport was excellent. Here our hero pressed
Gorbachov for a Soviet imprimatur on his war resolution, but Gorbachov was still stalling.
On Thanksgiving Day, Bush and Bar were with the troops in Saudi Arabia. Many soldiers toldreporters that they were not happy to be there, and were not in favor of war. One trooper asked (^)
Bush, "Why not make a deal with Saddam Hussein, Mr. President?" while Bush gagged on his
chicken a la king Meal Ready to Eat (MRE). Flying westward the next day, Bush stopped in
Geneva for a meeting with Hafez Assad of Syria, a true villain and butcher who had, during the
month of October, taken advantage of his deal with Bush to finish off Gen. Aoun's independentLebanese state. Bush's meeting with Assad lasted for three hours. Assad had provided 7,500 Syrian (^)
troops for the coalition attack force in Saudi Arabia, which he promised to increase to 20,000. "Mr.
Assad is lined up with us with a committment to force," said Bush. "They are on the front line, or
will be, standing up to this aggression."
Manic hysteria at the top of a bureaucratic apparatus will swiftly infect the lower echelons as well,
and this was illustrated by the mishaps of Bush's travelling entourage, which clashed with Swiss
security officers while entering and leaving Geneva Airport. A new factor exacerbating Bush's
mental instability during this trip was the imminent fall of his Anglo-Saxon Svengali, Margaret
Thatcher, who was about to be dumped as prime minister, primarily because she had becomepersona non grata among the leaders of western Europe in an era in which Britain's future survival (^)
depended on parasitizing the wealth of the continent. The Swiss have some of the most level-headed
and expert airport protocol personnel in the world, but Bush's retinue was determined to run amok.
Bush and Fitzwater wanted the press corp free to run around the airport to get the most dramatic
shots and sound bites of Bush's epic entry into one of the centers of world diplomacy. When Bushlanded, the "photo dogs" wanted to gather under the wing of Bush's plane, but the Swiss moved
them out of the area. At the departure, the press corps went bonkers, and many of them had to be
physically restrained by the Swiss officers when they attempted to break through a crowd-control
line. Fitzwater complained that State Department protocol chief Joseph V. Reed (the scion of the
Jupiter Island magnate) had had a machine gun shoved into his stomach, and that Sununu ha"verbally abused" during the altercation. But Fitzwater was an accomplished prevaricator: "I mustd been
say I have never seen that kind of brutal and vicious treatment by a security force in the last 10
years. It's strange. It's supposedly a peace-loving nation but they gave us the most vicious treatment
I've ever seen." Thierry Magnin described the actions of some US reporters as "deplorable" and
"inadmissable." Magnin said there had been "a row and heated words, but this was to enforce