Yarborough'fanatically committed to wage war in the Gulf to restore the degenerate, slaveholding Emir ofs counterattack on this issue is of great relevance to understanding why Bush was so
Kuwait. Yarborough pointed out that Bush's company, Zapata Offshore, was drilling for oil in
Kuwait, the Persian Gulf, Borneo, and Trinidad. "Every producing oil well drilled in foreign
countries by American companies means more cheap foreign oil in American ports, fewer acres of
Texas land undestated. "this issue is clear-cut in this campaign - a Democratic senator who is fighting for the life ofr oil and gas lease, less income to Texas farmers and ranchers..," Yarborough (^)
the free enterprise system as exemplified by the independent oil and gas producers in Texas, and a
Republican candidate who is the contractual driller for the international oil cartel." In those days the
oil cartel did not deal mildly with those who attacked it in public. One thinks again of the Italian
oilman Enrico Mattei. For Bush, these cartel interests would always be sacrosanct. On April 1, Bushtalked of the geopolitics of oil: "I was in London at the time of the Suez crisis and I quickly saw
how the rest of the free world can become completely dependent on American oil. When the Canal
was shut down, free nations all over the world immediately started crying for Texas oil."
Later in the campaign, Yarborough viview of the oil derricks, Yarborough tsited the town of Gladewater in East Texas. There, standing inalked about Bush's ownership of Pennzoil stock, and about
Pennzoil's quota of 1,690 barrels per day of imported oil, charging that Bush was undermining the
Texas producers by importing cheap foreign oil.
Then, according to a newspaper account, "the senator spiced his charge with a reference to the'Sheik of Kuwait and his four wives and 100 concubines' who, he said, are living in luxury off t (^) he
oil from Bush- drilled wells in the Persian Gulf and sold at cut-rate prices in the United States. He
said that imported oil sells for $1.25 a barrel while Texas oil, selling at $3, pays school, city,
county, and federal taxes and keeps payrolls going. Yarborough began his day of campaigning at a
breakfast with supporters in Longview. Later, in Gladewater, he said he had seen a "Bush forSenator" bumper sticker on a car in Longview. 'Isn't that a come-down for an East Texan to be a (^)
strap-hanger for a carpetbagger from Connecticut who is drilling oil for the Sheik of Kuwait to help
keep that harem going?'" [fn 21]
Yarborough cproducing interests. He spoke of Bush's "S.A. corporations drilling in the Persian Gulf in Asia." Hehallenged Bush repeatedly to release more details about his overseas drilling and (^)
charged that Bush had "gone to Latin America to incorporate two of his companies to drill in the
Far East, instead of incorporating them in the United States." That in turn, thought Yarborough,
"raises questions of tax avoidance." "Tell them, George," he jeered, "what your 'S.A.' companies,
financed with American dollars, American capital, American resources, are doing about Americanincome taxes." Bush protested that "every single tax dollar due by any company that I own an
interest in has been paid." [fn 22]
The status of the Rural Electrification Administration was also a campaign issue. Goldwater had
said in Denver, Colorado on MElectrification Administration." Wishing to appear as an orthodox Gay 3, 1963 that the time had come "to dissolve the Ruraloldwater clone in every respect, (^)
Bush had failed to distance himself from this demand. The REA was justly popular for its efforts to
bring electric power to impoverished sectors of the countryside. Yarborough noted first of all that
Bush "wouldn't know a cotton boll from a corn shuck," but he insisted on levelling "so un-Texan a
blow at the farmers and ranchers of Texas. To sell the REA's in Texas to the private powermonopoly would be carrying out the demands of the big Eastern power structure and the wishes of (^)
the New York investment bankers who handle the private power monopoly financing. My opponent
is in line to inherit his share of that New York investment banking structure," Yarborough told a
gathering of Texas REA officials.