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 rakeoff from the four companies with which he was involved was $112,000,
according to Bush's 1977 tax return.
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 returns from 1977 through 1985, the
Ponderosa partnership accrued to Bush a paper loss of $225,160 which 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 real estate scams. We also see why it is no surprise that the
one fiscal innovation which has earned 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 $30,000 to Bush's
1988 campaign.
In 1978, Bush crony and cabinet member Robert Mosbacher, a veteran of the Lietdtke-
CREEP money transfers, devised a scheme to set up a partnership to buy some small
barges to transport petroleum products. Bush invested $50,000 in this deal, which had
netted him some $115,373 in income by 1988, when Bush's share had increased in value
to $60,000. In 1988 it was forecast that this investment would continue to pay $20,000
per year for the foreseeable future. James Baker III also sank $50,000 into this deal, and
has been rewarded by similar handsome payoffs. Mosbacher commented that this barge
caper had turned out to be a "very, very good investment."
But Bush's main preoccupation during these years was to assemble a political machine
with which he could bludgeon his way to power. After his numerous frustrations of the
past, Bush was resolved to organize a campaign that would go far beyond the innocuous
exercise of appealing for citizens' votes. If such a machine were actually to succeed in