During his political career, George Bush has claimed many different `` home '' states,
including Texas, Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut. It has not been expedient for
him to claim Florida, though that state has a vital link to his role in the world, as we shall
see. And George Bush's home base in Florida, throughout his adult life, has been Jupiter
Island.
The unique, bizarre setup on Jupiter Island began in 1931, following the merger of W.A.
Harriman & Co. with the British-American firm Brown Brothers.
The reader will recall Mr. Samuel Pryor, the Merchant of Death. '' A partner with the Harrimans, Prescott Bush, George Walker and Nazi boss Fritz Thyssen in banking and shipping enterprises, Sam Pryor remained executive committee chairman of Remington Arms. In this period, the Nazi private armies (S.A. and S.S.) were supplied with American arms--most likely by Pryor and his company--as they moved to overthrow the German republic. Such gunrunning as an instrument of national policy would later become notorious in the Iran-Contra '' affair.
Samuel Pryor's daughter Permelia married Yale graduate Joseph V. Reed on the last day
of 1927. Reed immediately went to work for Prescott Bush and George Walker as an
apprentice at W.A. Harriman & Co.
During World War II, Joseph V. Reed had served in the `` special services '' section of the
U.S. Army Signal Corps. A specialist in security, codes and espionage, Reed later wrote a
book entitled Fun with Cryptograms.
Now, Sam Pryor had had property around Hobe Sound, Florida, for some time. In 1931,
Joseph and Permelia Pryor Reed bought the entirety of Jupiter Island.
This is a typically beautiful Atlantic coast Barrier Island, a half-mile wide and nine miles
long. The middle of Jupiter Island lies just off Hobe Sound. The south bridge connects
the island with the town of Jupiter, to the north of Palm Beach. It is about 90 minutes by
auto from Miami--today, a few minutes by helicopter.
Early in 1991, a newspaper reporter asked a friend of the Bush family about security
arrangements on Jupiter Island. He responded, `` If you called up the White House,
would they tell you how many security people they had? It's not that Jupiter Island is the
White House, although he [George Bush] does come down frequently. ''
But for several decades before Bush was President, Jupiter Island had an ordinance
requiring the registration and fingerprinting of all housekeepers, gardeners and other non-
residents working on the island. The Jupiter Island police department says that there are
sensors in the two main roads that can track every automobile on the island. If a car stops
in the street, the police will be there within one or two minutes. Surveillance is a duty of
all employees of the town of Jupiter Island. News reporters are to be prevented from
visiting the island.