for every special interest bill, for every big spending measure that's come to his
attention."
During this period Camco, an oilfield equipment company of which Bush was a director,
was embroiled in some bitter labor disputes. The regional office of the National Labor
Relations Board sought a federal injunction against Camco in order to force the firm to
re-hire four union organizers who had been illegally fired. Officials of the Machinists'
Union, which was trying to organize Camco, also accused Bush of being complicit in
what they said was Camco's illegal failure to carry out a 1962 NLRB order directing
Camco to re-hire eleven workers fired because they had attended a union meeting. Bush
answered that he was not going to be intimidated by labor. "As everybody knows, the
union bosses are all-out for Sen. Ralph Yarborough, " countered Bush, and he had been
too busy with Zapata to pay attention to Camco anyway. [fn 20] According to Roy Evans,
the Secretary-Treasurer of the Texas AFL-CIO, Bush was "a member of the dinosaur
wing of the Republican Party." Evans called Bush "the Houston throwback," and
maintained that Bush had "lost touch with anyone in Texas except the radicals of the
right."
Back in February, Yarborough had remarked in his typical populist vein that his
legislative approach was to "put the jam on the lower shelf so the little man can get his
hand in." This scandalized Bush, who countered on February 27 that "it's a cynical
attitude and one that tends to set the so-called little man apart from the rest of his
countrymen." For Bush, the jam would always remain under lock and key, except for the
chosen few of Wall Street. A few days later, on March 5, Bush elaborated that he was
"opposed to special interest legislation because it tends to hyphenate Americans. I don't
think we can afford to have veteran-Americans, Negro-Americans, Latin-Americans and
labor-Americans these days." Here is Bush as political philosopher, maintaining that the
power of the authoritarian state must confront its citizens in a wholly atomized form, not
organized into interest groups capable of defending themselves.
Bush was especially irate about Yarborough's Cold War GI Bill, which he branded the
senator's "pet project." "Fortunately," said Bush, "he has been unable to cram his Cold
War GI Bill down Congress' throat. It's bad legislation and special interest legislation
which will erode our American way of life. I have four sons, and I'd sure hate to think
that any of them would measure their devotion and service to their country by what
special benefits Uncle Sam could give them." Neil Bush would certainly never do that!
Anyway, the Cold War GI Bill was nothing but a "cynical effort to get votes," Bush
concluded.
There was a soft spot in Bush's heart for at least a few special interests, however. He was
a devoted supporter of the "time-proven" 27.5% oil depletion allowance, a tax writeoff
which allowed the seven sisters oil cartel to escape a significant portion of what they
otherwise would have paid in taxes. Public pressure to reduce this allowance was
increasing, and the oil cartel was preparing to concede a minor adjustment in the hopes
that this would neutralize attempts to get the depletion allowance abolished entirely. Bush
also called for what he described as a "meaningful oil import program, one which would