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 I carried 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 chief of
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 late August, 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 with Washington 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. Bruce had been the chief of the London bureau of the Office of Strategic
Services during World War II, which 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 as Richard 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, obsessive, morally insane support for
Deng Xiao-ping, Li Peng, and Yang Shankun during the aftermath of the Tien An Men
massacre of June, 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