savoir-faire. Nancy liked Baker far more than she ever did Bush, and this was a key advantage for
Bush-Baker during the factional struggles of the Reagan years.
Baker & Botts maintains an "anti-nepotism" policy, so James III became a boss of Houston's
Andrews, Kurth, Campbell, & Jones law firm, a satellite of Baker & Botts. Baker's relation to Bush
extends across both law firms: in 1977, Baker & Botts partner Blaine Kerr became president of
Pennzoil, and in 1979, BaBaker & Botts have always represented Zapata, and are often listed as counsel for Schlumberger,ker & Botts partner B. J. Mackin became chairman of Zapata Corporation.
the oil services firm. James Baker and his Andrews, Kurth partners were the Houston attorneys for
First International Bank of Houston when George Bush was chairman of the bank's executive
committee.
During the 1980 campaign, Baker became the chairman of the Reagan-Bush campaign committee,
while fellow Texan Bob Strauss was chairman of the Carter-Mondale campaign. But Baker and
Strauss were at the very same time business partners in Herman Brothers, one of America's largest
beer distributors. Bush Democrat Strauss later went to Moscow as Bush's ambassador to the USSR
and later, to Russia.
In 1990, the New York Times offered a comparison of Bush and Baker, and sought to convey the
impression that Baker was the far more devious of the duo:
When you sit across from the President, it is like holding an X-ray plate up to the light. You can see
if he feels defensive or annoyed or amused. He is often distracted, toying with something on hidesk. His thoughts start and stop and start again, as though he had call-waiting in his brain. There iss (^)
a spontaneity and warmth about him.
When you sit across from Baker, it is like looking at a length of black silk. There is a stillness, as
Baker holds you locked in his gaze and Southern comfort voice, occasionally flashing a ratherwintry smile...He has a compelling presence, but he is such a fox that you feel the impulse to check (^)
your wallet when you leave his office. [fn 8]
Another leading Bush supporter was Ray Cline. During 1979 it was Ray Cline who had gone
virtually public with a loose and informal but highly effective campaign network mainly composedof former intelligence officers. Cline had been the CIA Station Chief in Taiwan from 1958 to 1962. (^)
He had been Deputy Director of Central Intelligence from 1962 to 1966, and had then gone on to
direct the intelligence gathering operation at the State Department. Cline became a de facto White
House official during the first Bush Administration, and wrote the White House boiler plate entitled
"National Security Strategy of the United States" under which the Gulf war was carried out.
Cline later said that his approach to Bush's 1979-80 primary campaign was to "organize something
like one of my old CIA staffs." "I found there was a tremendous constituency for the CIA when
everyone in Washington was still urinating all over it," commented Cline to the Washington Post of
March 1, 1980. "Itfor George's candidacy." 's panned out almost too good to be true. The country is waking up just in time
Heading up the Bush campaign muck-raking "research" staff was Stefan Halper, Ray Cline's son in
law and a former official of the Nixon White House.
A member of Halper's staff was a CIA veteran named Robert Gambino. Gambino had held the
sensitive post of director of the CIA's Office of Security. It will be recalled that the Office of
Security constitutes the interface between Langley and state and local police departments all across
the United States with whom it must cooperate to protect the security of CIA buildings and CIA
personnel, as for example in cases in which these latter may run afoul of the law. The Office of