Chapter –XIV

Bush in Beijing

Whatever benign star it is that tends George Bush's destiny, lights his ambition, it was early on

trapped in the flawed orbit of Richard Nixon. Bush's meteoric ascent, in a decade's time, from

county GOP chairman to national chairman, including his prestigious ambassadorship to the

United Nations, was due largely to the strong tug of Nixonian gravity. Likewise, his blunted hopes

and dimmed future, like the Comet Kohoutek, result from the too-close approach to a fatal sun. [fn

1]

Several minutes before Ford appeared for the first time before the television cameras with
Nelson Rockefeller, his vice president designate, he had placed a call to Bush to inform
him that he had not been chosen, and to reassure him that he would be offered an
important post as a consolation. Two days later, Bush met Ford at the White House. Bush
claims that Ford told him that he could choose between a future as US envoy to the Court
of St. James in London, or presenting his credentials to the Palais de l'Elysee in Paris.
Bush would have us believe that he then told Ford that he wanted neither London nor
Paris, but Beijing. Bush's accounts then portray Ford, never the quickest, as tamping his
pipe, scratching his head, and asking, "Why Beijing?" Here Bush is lying once again.
Ford was certainly no genius, but no one was better situated than he to know that it would
have been utter folly to propose Bush for an ambassadorship that had to be approved by
the Senate.

Why Beijing? The first consideration, and it was an imperative one, was that under no
circumstances could Bush face Senate confirmation hearings for any executive branch
appointment for at least one to two years. There would have been questions about the
Townhouse slush fund, about his intervention on Carmine Bellino, perhaps about Leon
and Russell, and about many other acutely embarrassing themes. All of the reasons which
had led Ford to exclude Bush as vice president, for which he would have needed the
approval of both Houses of Congress, were valid in ruling out any nomination that had to
get past the senate. After Watergate, Bush's name was just too smelly to send up to the
Hill for any reason, despite all the power of the usual Brown Brother, Harriman/Skull and
Bones network mobilization. It would take time to cauterize certain lesions and 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
Watergate dominated the legislative branch, a high-profile job for Bush was out of the
question.