engaged in his business career would be coherent with that well-established
pattern.
A body of leads has been assembled which suggests that George Bush may have
been associated with the CIA at some time before the autumn of 1963. According
to Joseph McBride of The Nation, "a source with close connections to the
intelligence community confirms that Bush started working for the agency in
1960 or 1961, using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities." 1 By the
time of the Kennedy assassination, we have an official FBI document which
refers to "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency," and despite
official disclaimers there is every reason to think that this is indeed the man in the
White House today. The mystery of George Bush as a possible covert operator
hinges on four points, each one of which represents one of the great political and
espionage scandals of postwar American history. These four cardinal points are:
- The abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, launched on April 16-
17, 1961, prepared with the assistance of the CIA's "Miami Station" (also
known under the code name JM/WAVE). After the failure of the
amphibious landings of Brigade 2506, Miami station, under the leadership
of Theodore Shackley, became the focus for Operation Mongoose, a series
of covert operations directed against Castro, Cuba, and possibly other
targets. - The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on
November 22, 1963, and the coverup of those responsible for this crime. - The Watergate scandal, beginning with an April, 1971 visit to
Miami, Florida by E. Howard Hunt on the tenth anniversary of the Bay of
Pigs invasion to recruit operatives for the White House Special
Investigations Unit (the "Plumbers" and later Watergate burglars) from
among Cuban-American Bay of Pigs veterans. - The Iran-contra affair, which became a public scandal during
October-November 1986, several of whose central figures, such as Felix
Rodriguez, were also veterans of the Bay of Pigs.
George Bush's role in both Watergate and the October surprise/Iran-contra
complex will be treated in detail at later points in this book. Right now it is
important to see that thirty years of covert operations, in many respects, form a
single continuous whole. This is especially true in regard to the dramatis
personae. Georgie Anne Geyer points to the obvious in a recent book: "...an entire
new Cuban cadre now emerged from the Bay of Pigs. The names Howard Hunt,
Bernard Barker, Rolando Martinez, Felix Rodriguez and Eugenio Martinez
would, in the next quarter century, pop up, often decisively, over and over again
in the most dangerous American foreign policy crises. There were Cubans flying
missions for the CIA in the Congo and even for the Portuguese in Africa; Cubans