and moderate Republican layers might constitute a fatal impediment to Ford's prospects
of getting himself elected to a term of his own.
Accordingly, when Kissinger visited Bush in Beijing in October, 1975, he pointedly
inquired as to whether Bush intended to enter any of the Republican presidential
primaries during the 1976 season. This was the principal question that Ford had directed
Kissinger to ask of Bush. Bush's exit from Beijing occurred within the context of Ford's
celebrated Halloween Massacre of early November, 1975. This "massacre," reminiscent
of Nixon's cabinet purge of 1973 ("the Saturday night massacre"), was a number of
firings and transfers of high officials at the top of the executive branch through which
Ford sought to figure forth the political profile which he intended to carry into the
primaries and, if he were successful in the winter and spring, into the Republican
convention and, beyond that, into the fall campaign. So each of these changes had a
purpose that was ultimately rooted in electioneering.
In the Halloween massacre, it was announced that Vice President Nelson Rockefeller
would under no circumstances be a candidate to continue in that office. Nelson's
negatives were simply too high, owing in part to a vigorous campaign directed against
him by LaRouche. James "Rodney the Robot" Schlesinger was summarily ousted as the
Secretary of Defense; Schlesinger's "Dr. Strangelove" overtones were judged not
presentable during an election year. To replace Schlesinger, Ford's White House chief of
staff, Donald Rumsfeld was given the Pentagon. Henry Kissinger, who up to this moment
had been running the administration from two posts, NSC director and Secretary of State,
had to give up his White House office and was obliged to direct the business of the
government from Foggy Bottom. In consolation to him, the NSC job was assigned to his
devoted clone and later business associate, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Brent
Scowcroft, a Mormon who would later play the role of exterminating demon during
Bush's Gulf war adventure. At the Department of Commerce, the secretary's post that had
been so highly touted to Bush was being vacated by Rogers Morton. Finally, William
Colby, his public reputation thoroughly delapidated as a result of the revelations made
during the Church Committee and Pike Committee investigations of the abuses and
crimes of the CIA, especially within the US domestic sphere, was canned as Director of
Central Intelligence.
Could this elaborate reshuffle be made to yield a job for Bush? It was anything but
guaranteed. The post of CIA director was offerred to Washington lawyer and influence
broker Edward Bennett Williams. But he turned it down.
Then there was the post at Commerce. This was one that Bush came very close to getting.
In the Jack Marsh files at the Gerald Ford Library there is a draft marked "Suggested
cable to George Bush," but which is undated. The telegram begins: "Congratulations on
your selection by the President as Secretary of Commerce." The job title is crossed out,
and "Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" is pencilled in.
So Bush almost went to Commerce, but then was proposed for Langley instead. Bush in
his campaign autobiography suggests that the CIA appointment was a tactical defeat, the