pro-democracy demonstrators in 1991.
These speculations created both channels of communication, and the style of accomodation, with
the communist dictatorship, that have continued in the family down to President Bush.
With the bank launched, Bert Walker found New York the ideal place to satisfy his passion for
sports, games and gambling. Walker was elected president of the U.S. Golf Association in 1920. Hnegotiated new international rules for the game with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. e
Andrews, Scotland. After these talks he contributed the three-foot-high silver Walker Cup, for
which British and American teams have since competed every two years.
Bert's son-in-law Prescott Bush was later secretary of the U.S. Golf Association, duripolitical and economic crises of the early 1930s. Prescott became USGA President in 1935, wng the gravehile (^)
he was otherwise embroiled in the family firm's work with Nazi Germany.
When George was one year old, in 1925, Bert Walker and Averell Harriman headed a syndicate
which rebuilt Madison Square Garden as the modern Palace of Sport. Walker was at the center ofNew York's gambling scene in its heyday, in that Prohibition era of colorful and bloody gangsters. (^)
The Garden bloomed with million-dollar prize fights; bookies and their clients pooled more
millions, trying to match the pace of the speculation-crazed stock and bond men. This was the era of
"organized" crime--the national gambling and bootleg syndicate structured on the New York
corporate model.
By 1930, when George was a boy of six, Grandpa Walker was New York State Racing
Commissioner. The vivid colors and sounds of the racing scene must have impressed little George
as much as his grandfather. Bert Walker bred race horses at his own stable, the Log Cabin Stud. He
was president of the Belmont Park race track. Bert also personally managed most aspects ofAverell's racing interests-- down to picking the colors and fabrics for the Harriman racing
gear.@s1@s9
From 1926, George's father Prescott Bush showed a fierce loyalty to the Harrimans and a dogged
determination to advance himself; he gradually came to run the day-to-day operations of W.A.Harriman & Co. After the firm's 1931 merger with the British-American banking house Brown (^)
Brothers, Prescott Bush became managing partner of the resulting company: Brown Brothers
Harriman. This was ultimately the largest and politically the most important private banking house
in America.
Financial collapse, world depression and social upheaval followed the fevered speculation of the
1920s. The 1929-31 crash of securities values wiped out the small fortune Prescott Bush had gained
since 1926. But because of his devotion to the Harrimans, they "did a very generous thing," as Bush
later put it. They staked him to what he had lost and put him back on his feet.
Prescott Bush described his own role, from 1931 through the 1940s, in a confidential interview: I
emphasize ... that the Harrimans showed great courage and loyalty and confidence in us, because
three or four of us were really running the business, the day to day business. Averell was all over
the place in those days ... and Roland was involved in a lot of directorships, and he didn't get down
into the "lift- up-and-bear-down" activity of the bank, you swere really running the business, the day to day business, all the administrative decisions and theee-- the day- to-day decisions ... we (^)
executive decisions. We were the ones that did it. We were the managing partners, let's
say.@s2@s0 But of the "three or four" partners in charge, Prescott was effectively at the head of the
firm, because he had taken over management of the gigantic personal investment funds of Averell
and E. Roland "Bunny" Harriman.