to cool off certain investigative tracks. Certain scandals had to be fixed. Perhaps in a year or two
things might cool down, and the climate of opinion alter. But while the psychology of Wdominated the legislative branch, a high-profile job for Bush was out of the question. atergate
As Bush himself slyly notes: "The United States didn't maintain formal diplomatic relations with
the People's Republic at the time, so my appointment wouldn't need Senate confirmation." An
asterisk sends us to the additional fact that "because I'd been ambassador to the United Nations Icarried the title 'ambassador' to China." The person that would have to be convinced, Bush correctly (^)
noted, was Henry Kissinger, who monopolized all decisions on his prized China card. [fn 2] But
George was right about the confirmation. Official diplomatic relations between the US and
mainland China came only with the Carter China card of 1979. In 1974, what Bush was asking for
was the US Laison Office (USLO), which did not have the official status of an embassy. The chiefof that office was the president's personal representative in China, but it was a post that did not
require senate confirmation.
Bush's notorious crony Robert Mosbacher, certainly well versed enough to qualify as a conoisseur
of sleaze, was uncharacteristically close to the heart of the matter when he opined that in lateAugust, 1974, Bush "wanted to get as far away from the stench [of Watergate] as possible." [fn 3] (^)
Like Don Gregg in 1989, Bush wanted to get out of town and let things blow over for a while. His
own story that Beijing would be a "challenge, a journey into the unknown" is pure tripe. More
imaginative, but equally mendacious is the late Dean Burch's explanation that Bush had "a Marco
Polo complex, thinking he could pentrate the mystery of the place." The truth is that withWashington teeming with Congressional committees, special prosecutors, grand juries, all in a furor (^)
of ostracism, Bush wanted to get as far away as he could, and Beijing was ideal.
Other attractions inherent in the Beijing posting are suggested by the fact that Bush's predecessor in
Beijing was David K.E. Bruce, who had opened the liason office in March, 1973. Bructhe chief of the London bureau of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, whiche had been
meant that he had been the boss of all European OSS operations, including Allen Dulles in
Switzerland and all the rest. The presence in Beijing of Bruce, a true eminence grise of Anglo-
American intelligence, points up the importance of the post, especially in the covert and intelligence
domain.
Otherwise, as Bush has already mentioned, serving in Beijing meant further close subordination to
Henry Kissinger. Kissinger told Bush before he left that policy would be implemented directly by
Kissinger himself, in contact with the Chinese liaison in Washington and the Chinese representative
at the United Nations. In practice, Bush would be ordered about by such Kissinger clones asRichard Solomon of the NSC, Assistant Secretary of State Philip Habib, and Winston Lord, director (^)
of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and the scion of an old Skull and Bones family. But
then again, Bush was a leading Kissinger clone in his own right.
Finally, anyone who has observed Bush's stubborn, obsXiao-ping, Li Peng, and Yang Shankun during the aftermath of the Tien An Men massacre of June,essive, morally insane support for Deng (^)
1989 is driven towards the conclusion that Bush gravitated towards China because of an elective
affinity, because of a profound attraction for the methods and outlook of Chinese leaders like Mao
Tse-tung, Chou En-lai, and Deng, for whom Bush has manifested a steadfast and unshakeable
devotion in the face of heinous crimes and significant political pressure to repudiate them. Bushwanted to go to China because he found Chinese communists genuinely congenial.
When Bush was about to leave for China, his crony Dean Burch (no longer troubled, as we see, by
Bush's dermal diarrhea) arranged for a fifteen minute sendoff meeting with Ford, but this was
reduced to 10 minutes by NSC director Scowcroft, at that time the most important Kissinger clone