floated into the desired drilling position before the legs were extended, and the main body
was then pushed up above the waves by electric motors. The SCORPION was delivered
early in 1956, and was commissioned at Galveston in March, 1956, and was put to work
at exploratory drilling in the Gulf of Mexico during the rest of the year.
During 1956, the Zapata Petroleum officers included J. Hugh Liedtke as president,
George H.W. Bush as vice president, and William Brumley of Midland, Texas as
treasurer. The board of directors lined up as follows:
George H.W. Bush, Midland, Texas;
J.G.S. Gammell, Edinburgh. Scotland, Manager of British Assets Trust, Limited;
J. Hugh Liedtke, Midland, Texas;
William C. Liedtke, independent oil operator, Midland, Texas;
Arthur E. Palmer, Jr., New York, NY, a partner in Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam, and
Roberts;
G.H. Walker Jr. (Uncle Herbie), managing partner of G.H. Walker and Co., New York,
NY;
Howard J. Whitehill, independent oil producer of Tulsa, Oklahoma;
Eugene F. Williams, Jr., secretary of the St. Louis Union Trust Company of St. Louis,
Missouri;
D.D. Bovaird, president of the Bovaird Supply Co. of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and chairman of
the board of the Oklahoma City branch of the Tenth Federal District of the Federal
Reserve Board; and
George L. Coleman, investments, Miami, Oklahoma.
An interim director that year had been Richard E. Fleming of Robert Fleming and Co.,
London, England. Counsel were listed as Baker, Botts, Andrews & Shepherd of Houston,
Texas; auditors were Arthur Andersen in Houston, and transfer agents were J.P. Morgan
& Co., Inc., of New York City and the First National Bank and Trust Company of Tulsa.
[fn 15]
George Bush personally was much more involved with the financial managment of the
company than with its actual oil-field operations. His main activity was not finding oil or
drilling wells but, as he himself put it, "stretching paper" -- rolling over debt and making
new financial arrangements with the creditors. [fn 16]