withdraw from the Viet Nam struggle. This is the kind of retreatism we have grown
accustomed to among our supposed world leaders and it is just what the Kremlin
ordered.'"
Nor did Bush's obsession with Panama and the Panama Canal begin with Noriega. In his
campaign literature Bush printed his basic position that the "Panama canal...is ours by
right of treaty and historical circumstance. The Canal is critical to our domestic security
and US sovereignty over the Canal must be maintained." What is meant by the right of
historical circumstance? "I am opposed to further negotiation in Panama," Bush stated
repeatedly in his campaign speeches and releases.
If Bush saw a Saddam Hussein, a dark-skinned, Moslem non-aligned third world
nationalist in the world of 1964, then that foreign leader was President Sukarno of
Indonesia. Sukarno, along with Nehru, Nasser, Nkruma, Tito, and Bourguiba was one of
the central figures of the non- aligned movement of the developing nations that had
emerged from the Bandung Conference of 29 Afro-Asian states in 1955. During 1964
Sukarno was attempting to prevent the creation of Malaysia out of the British
Confederation of Malaya. Part of Sukarno's blocking manuever was the deployment of
pro-Indonesian guerillas into the Malaccan peninsula above Singapore, and into certain
areas of northern Borneo, including Sarawak and Sabah. From there, these guerillas were
causing problems for Bush's business partner in the oil trade, the Sultan of Brunei. Bush
targetted Indonesia and Sukarno personally for a series of violent and abusive attacks.
In April, Sukarno told the US Ambassador Howard P. Jones that "there is one country
threatening to stop its foreign aid to Indonesia. That country thinks it can scare Indonesia.
I say go to hell with your aid." Bush, from Big Spring, commented in an April 23
statement: "It's easy for President Sukarno of Indonesia to tell us to 'got to hell' with our
foreign aid-- now that he has already received $894 million worth." Bush explained that
he had been in Borneo during 1963, during the time that the Malysian Federation was
coming into existence "in favor of the Free World." "That," said Bush, "was the mistake
the Malaysian Federation made; coming into the world of nations in favor of America
and the free world. The very next day Sukarno, whom we've tried to buy with $894
million in aid, turned on Malaysia and announced he would destroy the new Federation."
Bush's release notes that "Bush, who was President of Zapata Off-Shore, said one of the
firm's drilling rigs was at that time, and is today, working off the coast of Borneo." Was
this a conflict of interest?
With accents that provide an eerie presentiment of the 1990-1991 Gulf crisis, Bush went
on: "Today the borders of the Malaysian Federation are lined with Indonesian troops,
bearing Russian-made arms, purchased with American dollars. The Indonesians are still
poised to crush Malaysia. And what have we done? We gently slapped Sukarno on the
wrist, then loaned him another $20 million, which he used to buy a couple of jet aircraft,
one of which he uses to fly his foul assignations around the far east. What we should have
done, and still should do, is tell Sukarno: 'You violate the sanctity of the Malysian border
and you have to deal with the force of the entire free world!'"