Chapter –XII

Chairman George in Watergate

In November, 1972, Bush's "most influential patron," Richard Nixon [fn 1], won re-
election to the White House for a second term in a landslide victory over the McGovern-
Shriver Democratic ticket. Nixon's election victory had proceeded in spite of the arrest of
five White House-linked burglars in the offices of the Democratic National Committee at
the Watergate building in Washington early on June 17 of the same year. This was the
beginning of the infamous Watergate scandal, which would overshadow and ultimately
terminate Nixon's second term in 1974. After the election, Bush received a telephone call
informing him that Nixon wanted to talk to him at the Camp David retreat in the Catoctin
Mountains of Maryland. Bush had been looking to Washington for the inevitable
personnel changes that would be made in preparation for Nixon's second term. Bush tells
us that he was aware of Nixon's plan to reorganize his cabinet around the idea of a "super
cabinet" of top-level, inner cabinet ministers or "super secretaries" who would work
closely with the White House while relegating the day-to-day functioning of their
executive departments to sub-cabinet deputies. One of the big winners under this plan
was scheduled to be George Shultz, the former Labor Secretary who was now, after the
departure of Connally, supposed to become Super Secretary of the Treasury. Shultz was a
Bechtel executive who went on to be Reagan's second Secretary of State after Al Haig.
Bush and Shultz were future members of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco and of the
Bohemian Grove summer gathering. Shultz was a Princeton graduate who was reputed to
have a tiger, the school's symbol, tatooed on his rump. Bush says he received a call from
Nixon's top domestic aide, John Ehrlichman (along with Haldemann a partner in the
"Chinese wall" around Nixon maintained by the White House palace guard). Ehrlichman
told Bush that George Shultz wanted to see him before he went on to meet with Nixon at
Camp David. As it turned out, Shultz wanted to offer Bush the post of undersecretary of
the Treasury, which would amount to de facto administrative control over the department
while Shultz concentrated on his projected super secretary policy functions. Bush says he
thanked Shultz for his "flattering" offer, took it under consideration, and then pressed on
to Camp David. [fn 2] At Camp David, Bush says that Nixon talked to him in the
following terms: "George, I know that Shultz has talked to you about the Treasury job,
and if that's what you'd like, that's fine with me. However, the job I really want you to do,
the place I really need you, is over at the National Committee running things. This is an
important time for the Republican Party, George. We have a chance to build a new
coalition in the next four years, and you're the one who can do it." [ fn 3] But this was not
the job that George really wanted. He wanted to be promoted, but he wanted to continue
in the personal retinue of Henry Kissinger. "At first Bush tried to persuade the President