biggest commercial bank in Texas. Bankruptcy overtook the new colossus just a few months later,
but federal regulators delayed their inevitable intervention until after the Texas primary in thespring of 1988 in order to avoid a potentially acute embarrassment for Bush. Once Bush had the (^)
nomination locked up, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation awarded the assets of First
RepublicBank to the North Carolina National Bank in exchange for no payment whatsoever on the
part of NCNC, which is reputedly a darling of the intelligence community.
During the heady days of Bush's directorship at Interfirst, the bank retained a law firm in which one
Lawrence Gibbs was a partner. Two partners of Gibbs "joined three representatives of the energy
department of Interfirst Bank on a trip to Peking, where they conducted a week-long seminar on
financing the production of natural resources for the Oil and Gas Ministry of the People's Republic
of China." [fn 2] Tsetting up a lucrative oil concession for J. Hugh Lietdkte of Pennzoil, Bush's old bunsiness partner.his visit was made in the context of trips to China by Bush for the purpose of (^)
Gibbs, a clear Bush asset, was made Commissioner of Internal Revenue on August 4, 1986. Here he
engineered the sweeheart deal for NCNB by decreeing $1.6 billion in tax breaks for this bank. This
is typical of the massive favors and graft for pro-Bush financier interests at the expense of the
taxpayer which are the hallmark of the Bush machine. Gibbs also approved IRS participation in theOctober 6, 1986 federal-state police raid against premises and persons associated with the political
movement of Lyndon H. LaRouche in Leesburg, Virginia. This raid was a leading part of the Bush
machine's long term effort to eliminate centers of political opposition to Bush's 1988 presidential
bid. And LaRouche had been a key adversary of Bush dating back to the 1979-80 New Hampshire
primary campaign, as we will shortly document.
Bush also joined the board of Purolator Oil Company in Rahway, New Jersey where his crony,
Wall Street raider Nicholas Brady (later Bush's Secretary of the Treasury) was the chairman. Bush
also joined the board of Eli Lilly & Co., a very large and very sinister pharmaceutical company. The
third board Bush joined was that of Texas Gulf Inc. Bush's total 1977 racompanies with which he was involved was $112,000, according to Bush's 1977 tax return. keoff from the four
During this time, Bush became a director of Baylor Medical College, a trustee of Trinity Medical
College in San Antonio, and a trustee of Philips Academy in Andover. He was also listed as an
adjunct professor at Rice University.
Bush also found time line his pockets in a series of high-yield deals that begin to give us some
flavor of what would later be described as the "financial excesses of the 1980's" in which Bush's
circle was to play a decisive role.
A typical Bush venture of this period was Ponderosa Forest Apartments, a highly remunerative
speculative play in real estate. Ponderosa bought up a 180-unit apartment complex near Houston
that was in financial trouble, gentrified the interiors, and hiked the rents. Horace T. Ardinger, a
Dallas real estate man who was among Bush's partners in this deal described the transaction as "a
good tax gimmick...and a typical Texas joint venture offering." According to Bush's tax returnsfrom 1977 through 1985, the Ponderosa partnership accrued to Bush a paper loss of $225,160 w (^) hich
allowed him to avoid payment of some $100,000 in federal taxes alone, plus a direct profit of over
$14,000 and a capital gain of $217,278. This type of windfall represents precisely the form of real
estate swindle that contributed to the Texas real estate and banking crisis of the mid-1980's. The
deal illustrates one of the important ways in which the federal tax base has been eroded through reestate scams. We also see why it is no surprise that the one fiscal innovation which has earned al
Bush's sustained attention is the idea of a reduction in the capital gains tax to allow those who
engage in swindles like these to pay an even smaller federal tax bite. It is also typical of the Bush
style that Fred M. Zeder, the promoter of the Ponderosa deal, was made US Ambassador to the
Marshall Island in the South Pacific by the Bush Administration after he had contributed over