Reagan now proceeded to the convention floor, where he would announce this choice of
Bush. Knowing that this decision would alienate many of Reagan's ideological backers,
the Reagan campaign leaked the news that Bush had been chosen to the media, so that it
would quickly spread to the convention floor. They were seeking to cushion the blow, to
avoid mass expressions of disgust when Bush's name was announced. Even as it was,
there was much groaning and booing among the Reagan faithful.
In retrospect, the sucess of Bush's machinations at the 1980 convention can be seen to
have had a very sinister precedent at the GOP convention held in Philadelphia just eighty
years earlier. At that convention, William McKinley, one of the last of the Lincoln
Republicans, was nominated for a second term.
The New York bankers, especially the House of Morgan, wanted Theodore Roosevelt for
vice president, but McKinley and his chief political ally, Senator Marc Hanna, were
adamant that they wanted no part of the infantile and megalomaniac New York governor.
At one point Hanna exclaimed to a group of southern delegates, "Don't any of you realize
that there's only one life between this madman and the White House!" Eventually
McKinley's hand was forced by a group of New York delegates who were motivated
primarily by their desire to get the unpopular and erratic Roosevelt out of the state at any
cost. They told Hanna that unless Roosevelt were on the ticket, McKinley might loose the
vital New York electoral votes. McKinley and Hanna capitulated, and Theodore
Roosevelt joined the ticket. [fn 34]
Within one year, President McKinley was assassinated at Buffalo, and Theodore
Roosevelt assumed power in the name of the fanatical and imbecilic Anglo-Saxon
imperial strategy of world domination which helped to precipitate the First World War.
Did Bush's professed admiration for Theodore Roosevelt include a desire to seize the
presidency via a similar path? The events of March, 1981 will give us cause to ponder.
As the Detroit convention cam to a close, the Reagan and Bush campaign staffs were
merged, with James Baker assuming a prominent position in the Casey-run Reagan
campaign. The Ray Cline, Halper, and Gambino operations were all continued. From this
point on, Reagan's entourage would be heavily infiltrated by Bushmen.
The Reagan-Bush campaign, now chock full of Bush's Brown Brothers, Harriman/Skull
and Bones assets, now announced a campaign of espionage. This campaign told reporters
that it was going to spy on the Carter regime.
Back in April, Carter had taken to live television at 7 AM one morning to announce some
ephemeral progress in his efforts to secure the release of State Department officials and
others from the US Embassy in Teheran that were being held as hostages by the
Khomeini forces in Iran. This announcement was timed to coincide with Democratic
primaries in Kansas and Wisconsin, in which Carter was able to overwhelm challenges
from Teddy Kennedy and Jerry Brown. A memo from Richard Wirthlin to Casey and
Reagan initiated a discussion of how the Carter gang might exploit the advantages of