At this point the hecklers came to life with loud chants of "BusGulf crisis, Bush had been confronted by hostile demonstrators. We know from his 1965 deh lies." Since the beginning of thebate
with Ronnie Dugger how much he was upset by such "extremists." The chants kept going as the
infuriated Bush struggled to be heard.
The power to create also rests on other freedoms, especially the freedom -- and I think about thatright now -- to speak one's mind. I had this written into the speech, and I didn't even know if these (^)
guys were going to be here.
The demonstrators kept up the chorus of "Bush lies." Bush's temperature was rising from semi-
ballistic to ballistic. He told the students to
...fight back against the boring politics of division and derision. Let's trust our friends and
colleagues to respond to reason....And I remind myself a lot of this: We must conquer the
temptation to assign bad motives to people who disagree with us. [fn 29]
After this speech, Bush flew to Andrews Air Force base and thence by helicopter to Camp David.
During this period, Bush's White House chief of staff, John Sununu, had become the target of public
criticism because of his frequent use of military aircraft for weekend vacations and skiing trips. Boy
Gray had come forward as the enforcer of White House travel regulations against Sununu, whose
motto was reportedly "fly free or die." There were also moves afoot to re-open the 1980 Osurprise investigation, always a point of immense vulnerability for Bush. He had been forced toctober
deny once again on May 3 that he had engaged in secret dealings with the Khomeini regime to
delay the release of the US hostages in Teheran.
Slightly after 3:30 PM, Bush gathered his retinue of Secret Service agents and announced that itwas time to go jogging. After about 30 minutes, he began complaining of fatigue and shortness of (^)
breath. He then proceeded to the Camp David infirmary, where Michael Nash, one of his resident
team of doctors, determined that Bush was experiencing atrial fibrillation, an irregularity of the
heartbeat. Nash recommended that Bush go to Bethesda Medical Center for treatment. Bush arrived
at Bethesda at 6 PM.
The news that Bush had entered the hospital at Bethesda was flashed by wire services around the
planet. Bush was exhibiting a fast, irregular heart rhythm. The heart was working less efficiently,
producing a tendency for shortness of breath, light- headedness, and even fainting. Sometimes atrial
fibrillation is associated with a heart attack, or with damage to a heart valve. The first step in Bush'streatment was the attempt to slow the heart rate and to restore the normal rhythm. After an hour of
tests, doctors gave Bush digoxin, a drug used to restore the usual heart rhythm. When the digoxin
proved unable to do the job alone, Bush's physicians began to administer another heart medication,
procainamide. Though doctors claimed that Bush showed "some indications of a positive response"
to this therapy, Bush's heart irregularity was resistant to the medicines and persisted throughSunday, May 5. Doctors also began to administer an anticoagultant drug, Coumadin, in addition to (^)
aspirin. Bush was thus being kept going with four different medications.
At this point, Bush's medical team was forced to contemplate resorting to electrocardioversion, a
procedure in which an electric shock is administered to the heart, momentarily stopping the heartand resetting its rhythm. This prospect was enough to create a crisis of the entire regime, since
electrocardioversion would have required Bush to undergo general anesthesia, which in turn would
have mandated the transfer of presidential powers to Vice President Dan Quayle. Back in 1985, we
have seen that Bush was the beneficiary of such a transfer when Reagan underwent surgery for
colon cancer. The transfer would have been accomplished under Section III of the Twenty-Fifth