President Nixon] postmaster generalships--the most political and least sensitive job in government,"
he said. "Now they have given this former party chairman the most sensitive and least politicalagency." Church wanted me to stress how Bush "might compromise the independence of the CIA--
the agency could be politicized."
Some days later Church appeared on the CBS program Face the Nation, he was asked by George
Herman if his opposition to Bush would mean that anyone with political experience would be apriori unacceptable for such a post? Church replied: "I think that whoever is chosen should be one (^)
who has demonstrated a capacity for indpendence, who has shown that he can stand up to the many
pressures." Church hinted that Bush had never stood up for principle at the cost of political office.
Moreover, "a man whose background is as partisan as a past chairman of the Republican party does
serious damage to the agency and its intended purposes." [fn 4]
The Brown Brothers, Harriman/Skull and Bones crowd counterattacked in favor of Bush,
mobilizing some significant resources. One was none other than Leon Jaworski, the former
Watergate special prosecutor. Jaworski's mission for the Bush network appears to have been to get
the Townhouse and related Nixon slushfund issues off the table of the public debate andconfirmation hearings. Jaworski, speaking at a convention of former FBI Special Agents meeting in (^)
Houston, defended Bush against charges that he had accepted illegal or improper payments from
Nixon and CREEP operatives. "This was investigated by me when I served as Watergate special
prosecutor. I found no involvement of George Bush and gave him full clearance. I hope that in the
interest of fairness, the matter will not be bandied about unless something new has appeared on thehorizon." Jaworski, who by then was back in Houston working for his law firm of Fulbright and
Jaworski, sent a copy of the Houston Post article reporting this statement to Ford's White House
counselor Philip Buchen. [fn 5]
Saul Kohler of the Newhouse News Service offered the Ford White House an all-purpose refutationof the arguments advanced by the opponents of Bush during November and into December. "And
now," wrote Kohler, "President Ford is catching all sorts of heat from a lot of people for appointing
Bush to the non-political sensitive CIA because he once served as Chairman of the Republican
national Committee." How unfair, thought Kohler, "for of all the appointments Ford made last
weekend, the nomination of Busa man with less guile than George Bush." Bush had been great at the RNC- "he managed to keep theh was the best." For one thing, "you'd have to go a long way to find (^)
RNC away from the expletive deleted of that dark chapter in American political history." "Not only
did he keep the party apparatus clean, he kept his own image clean..." And then: "Was Cordell Hull
less distinguished a Secretary of State because he had headed the Democratic National
Committee?," and so forth. Kohler quoted a White House official commenting on the Bushnomination: "The gag line around here ever since The Boss announced George for the CIA is that (^)
spying is going to be a bore from now on because George is such a clean guy." [fn 6]
In the meantime, Bush got ready for his second meeting with Mao and prepared the documentation
for his conflict of interest and background cSenate Armed Services Committee, which would hold the hearings on his nomination, Bush statedhecks. In a letter to John C. Stennis, the chairman of the
that his only organizational affiliations were as a trustee of Philips Academy in Andover,
Massachusetts, and as a member of the Board of the Episcopal Church Foundation in New York
City. In this letter, Bush refers to the "Bush Children Trust" he had created for his five children, and
"funded by a diversified portfolio" which might put him into conflicts of interest. He told Stennisthat if confirmed, he would resign as trustee of the Bush Children Fund and direct the other trustees (^)
to stop disclosing to him any details of the operations of the Bush Children Trust. Otherwise Bush
said that he was not serving as officer, director, or partner of any corporation, although he had a
lump-sum retirement benefit from Zapata Corporation in the amount of $40,000. According to his
own account, he owned a home in Washington DC, his summer house at Kennebunkport, a small