Toward the ``National Security State''
Prescott Bush was a most elusive, secretive Senator. By diligent research, his views on
some issues may be traced: He was opposed to the development of public power projects
like the Tennessee Valley Authority; he opposed the constitutional amendment
introduced by Ohio Senator John W. Bricker, which would have required congressional
approval of international agreements by the executive branch.
But Prescott Bush was essentially a covert operative in Washington.
On June 10, 1954, Bush received a letter from Connecticut resident H. Smith Richardson,
owner of Vick Chemical Company (cough drops, Vapo-Rub):
`` ... At some time before Fall, Senator, I want to get your advice and counsel on a
[new] subject--namely what should be done with the income from a foundation
which my brother and I set up, and which will begin its operation in 1956.... ''This letter presages the establishment of the H. Smith Richardson Foundation, a Bush
family-dictated private slush fund that was to be utilized by the Central Intelligence
Agency, and by Vice President Bush, for the conduct of his Iran-Contra adventures.
The Bush family knew Richardson and his wife through their mutual friendship with
Sears Roebuck's chairman, Gen. Robert E. Wood. General Wood had been president of
the America First organization, which had lobbied against war with Hitler Germany. H.
Smith Richardson had contributed the start-up money for America First and had spoken
out against the U.S. `` joining the Communists '' by fighting Hitler. Richardson's wife was
a proud relative of Nancy Langehorne from Virginia, who married Lord Astor and
backed the Nazis from their Cliveden Estate.
General Wood's daughter Mary had married the son of Standard Oil president William
Stamps Farish. The Bushes had stuck with the Farishes through their disastrous exposure
during World War II (see Chapter 3). Young George Bush and his bride Barbara were
especially close to Mary Farish, and to her son W.S. Farish III, who would be the great
confidante of George's presidency.
Eugene Stetson, Jr., Richardson’s son-in-law, organized the H. Smith Richardson
Foundation. Stetson (Skull and Bones, 1934) had worked for Prescott Bush as assistant
manager of the New York branch of Brown Brothers Harriman.
In the late 1950s, the H. Smith Richardson Foundation took part in the psychological warfare '' of the CIA. This was not a foreign, but a domestic, covert operation, carried out mainly against unwitting U.S. citizens. CIA Director Allen Dulles and his British allies organized MK-Ultra, '' the testing of psychotropic drugs including LSD on a very large
scale, allegedly to evaluate `` chemical warfare '' possibilities. In this period, the
Richardson Foundation helped finance experiments at Bridgewater Hospital in