LaRouche's attack sent out a shock wave, which, as it advanced, detonated one turbulent
assault on Bush after the other. The spell was broken; Bush was vulnerable.
One who was caught up in the turbulence was William Loeb, the opinionated
curmudgeon of Pride's Crossing, Massachusetts who was the publisher of the Manchester
Union-Leader, the most important newspaper in the state. Loeb had supported Reagan in
1976 and was for him again in 1980. Loeb might have dispersed his fire against all of
Reagan's Republican rivals, including Howard Baker, Robert Dole, Phil Crane, John
Anderson, John Connally, and Bush. It was the LaRouche campaign which demonstrated
to Loeb long before the Iowa caucuses that Bush was the main rival to Reagan, and
therefore the principal target. As a result, Loeb would launch a barrage of slashing attacks
on Bush. The other GOP contenders would be virtually ignored by Loeb.
Loeb had assailed Ford as "Jerry the Jerk" in 1976; his attacks on Sen. Muskie reduced
the latter to tears during the 1972 primary. Loeb began to play up the theme of Bush as a
liberal, as a candidate controlled by the "internationalist" (or Kissinger) wing of the GOP
and the Wall Strreet bankers, always soft on communism and always ready to undermine
liberty through Big Government here at home. A February editorial by Loeb reacted to
Bush's Iowa success with these warnings of vote fraud:
The Bush operation in Iowa had all the smell of a CIA covert operation....Strange aspects of the
Iowa operation [included] a long, slow count and then the computers broke down at a very
convenient point, with Bush having a six per cent bulge over Reagan...Will the elite nominate their
man, or will we nominate Reagan? [fn 19]For Loeb the most damning evidence was Bush's membership in the Trilateral
Commission, the creature of David Rockefeller and the internmational bankers. Carter
and his administration had been packed with Trilateral members; there were indications
that the establishment choice of Carter to be the next US president had been made at a
meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Kyodo, Japan, where Carter had been introduced
by Gianni Agnelli of Italy's FIAT motor company.
Loeb simplified all that: "George Bush is a Liberal" was the title of his editorial
published the day before the primary. Loeb flayed Bush as a "spoiled little rich kid who
has been wet-nursed to succeed and now, packaged by David Rockefeller's Trilateral
Commission, thinks he is entitled to the White House as his latest toy."
Shortly before the election Loeb ran a cartoon entitled "Silk Stocking Republicans,"
which showed Bush at a cocktail party with a cigarette and glass in hand. Bush and the
other participants, all male, were wearing women's panty-hose. This was the message that
Loeb had apparently gotten from Bush's body language.
Paid political ads began to appear in the Union-Leader sponsored by groups from all over
the country, some helped along by John Sears of the Reagan campaign. One showed a
drawing of Bush juxtaposed with a Mr. Peanut logo: "The same people who gave you
Jimmy Carter want now to give you George Bush," read the headline. The text described
a "coalition of liberals, multinational corporate executives, big-city bankers, and hungry