This corresponds exactly to Bush's policy. During the 1988 campaign, Bush presented his
views on hostile takeovers, using the forum provided by his old friend T. Boone Pickens'
USA Advocate, a monthly newsletter published by the United Shareholders Association,
which Pickens runs. In the October, 1988 issue of this publication, Bush made clear that
he was not worried about leveraged buyouts. Rather, what concerned Bush was the need
to prevent corporations from adopting defenses to deter such attempted hostile takeovers.
Bush indicated he wanted to ban poison pill defenses, which often take the form of a new
class of stock in a company that lets its holders buy stock in the successor company at
rock-bottom prices after a buyout. Poison pills were invented by New York lawyer Marty
Lipton, and did not deter raider Sir James Goldsmith from seizing control of Crown
Zellerbach in the mid-1980's, although Goldsmith's costs were increased.
Bush also railed against "golden parachutes," which provide lucrative settlements for top
executives who are ousted as the result of a takeover:
I am frankly a bit skeptical about claims that these so-called 'defensive' tactics are necessary to
encourage long-term investment. Studies suggest that prices of stock reflect information that is
publicly available. Sometimes it seems that managers use these tactics to save themselves from the
competitive pressures of the market for corporate control, not to protect the interests of the
shareholders.^Bush was clearly hostile to any federal restrictions on hostile takeovers. If anything, he
was closer to those who demanded that the federal government stop the states from
passing laws that interfere with LBO activity. For that notorious corporate raider and
disciple of Chairman Mao Liedtke, T. Boone Pickens, the message was clear:
I know that Vice President Bush is a free enterpriser. I don't think there is any doubt if you look at
what Vice President Bush has said and what Gov. Dukakis has said that Bush is pro-stockholder. I
would say Dukakis is pro-management. *The expectations of Pickens and his ilk were not disappointed by the Bush cabinet that
took office in January, 1989. The new Secretary of the Treasury, Bush crony Nicholas
Brady, was only a supporter of leveraged buyouts; he had been one of the leading
practitioners of the mergers and acquisitions game during his days in Wall Street as a
partner of the Harriman-allied investment firm of Dillon Read.
The family of Nicholas Brady has been allied for most of this century with the Bush-
Walker clan. During his Wall Street career at Dillon, Read, Brady, like Bush, cultivated
the self-image of the patrician banker, becoming a member of the New York Jockey Club
and racing his own thorougbred horses at the New York tracks once presided over by
George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush. Brady, like Bush, is a member of the
Bohemian Club of San Francisco and attended the Bohemian Grove every summer.
Inside the Bohemian Grove oligarchic pantheon, Brady enjoys the special distinction of
presiding over the prestigious Mandalay Camp (or cabin complex), the one habitually
attended by Henry Kissinger, and sometimes frequented by Gerald Ford. When Senator
Harrison Williams of New Jersey was driven out of office by the FBI's "Abscam"
entrapment operation, Brady was appointed to fill out the remainder of the term to which
Williams had been elected. Brady is also reportedly a victim of dyslexia.