- Washington Post, April 23, 1972.
- House of Representatives, Joint Hearing, pp. 7-8.
- Ibid, p. 15.
- Green, pp. 118, 125.
Return to the Table of Contents
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography --- by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
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 retreatin 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 atiger, 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 undeadministrative control over the department while Shultz concentrated on his projected superrsecretary of the Treasury, which would amount to de facto
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 todo, 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 to give him, instead, the number-two job atthe State Department, as deputy to Secretary Henry Kissinger. Foreign affairs was his top priority,
he said. Nixon was cool to this idea, and Bush capitulated." [fn 4] According to Bush's own
account, he asked Nixon for some time to ponder the offer of the RNC chairmanship. Among those
who Bush said he consulted on whether or not to accept was Rogers C.B. Morton, the former
Congressman whom Nixon had made Secretary of Commerce. Morton suggested that if Bush