George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography

(Ann) #1

On the UN: The United Nations "as presently constituted is gravely deficient and has
been a failure in preserving peace. The United States has taken the responsibility for the
freedom of the western world. This responsibility we must not relinquish to the General
Assembly. All nations should pay their dues or lose their vote."


Foreign Aid, Bush's campaign brochure recommends, "should be reduced drastically
except in those areas where technological and military assistance is necessary to the
defense of the free world and is economically advantageous to the United States. We
should use our foreign aid to strengthen our friends and extend freedom, not to placate
our enemies."


The Nuclear test Ban treaty, although negotiated by Averell Harriman himself, was
rejected by Bush. According to campaign handouts, the treaty "as ratified by the Senate,
will not work. I would be for a treaty with adequate, foolproof safeguards." Bush added
that he was taking this position "although anyone opposed [to the treaty] is accused of
war- mongering. I'm the father of five children and just as concened as anyone else about
the cleanliness of the air and the sanctity of the home, but this is a half-way measure and
doesn't do the job."


As the Republican senatorial primary approached, Bush declared that he was confident
that he could win an absolute majority and avoid a runoff. On April 30, he predicted that
Hill Rise would win the Kentucky Derby without a runoff, and that he would also carry
the day on the first round. There was no runoff in the Kentucky Derby, but Bush fell
short of his goal. Bush did come in first with about 44% of the vote or 62,579 votes,
while Jack Cox was second with 44,079, with Morris third and Davis fourth. The total
number of votes cast was 142,961, so a second round was required.


Cox, who had attracted 710,000 votes in his 1962 race against Connally for the
governorship, was at this point far better known around the state than Bush. Cox had the
backing of Gen. Edwin Walker, who had made a bid for the Democratic gubernatorial
nomination in 1962 himself and gotten some 138,000 votes. Cox also had the backing of
H.L. Hunt.


Morris had carried Dallas County, and he urged his supporters to vote against Bush.
Morris told the Dallas Morning New of May 5 that Bush was "too liberal" and that Bush's
strength in the primary was due to "liberal" Republican support.


Between early May and the runoff election of June 6, Cox mounted a vigorous campaign
of denunciation and exposure of Bush as a creature of the Eastern Liberal Establishment,
Wall Street banking interests, and of Golwater's principal antagonist for the GOP
Presidential nomination, the hated Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York. According to a
story filed by Stuart Long of the Long News Service in Austin on May 25 and preserved
among the Yarborough papers in the Barker Texas History Center in Austin, Cox's
supporters circulated letters pointing to Prescott Bush's role as a partner in Brown
Brothers Harriman as the basis for the charge that George Bush was the tool of "Liberal
Eastern Kingmakers." According to Long, the letters also include references to the New

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