under US jurisdiction. Eastern has disappeared, and Continental has been joined in
bankruptcy by Midway, America West, while Pan American sold off a large part of its
operations to Delta while teetering on the verge of liquidation. Icahn's TWA is bankrupt
in every sense except the final technicalities. Northwest, having been taken through the
wringer of an LBO by Albert Cecchi, is now busy lining up subsidies from the state of
Minnesota and other sources as a way to stay afloat. It is widely believed that when the
dust settles, only Delta, American, and perhaps United will remain among the large
nationwide carriers. At that point hundreds of localities will be served by only one airline,
and that airline will proceed to raise its fares without any fear of price competition or any
other form of competition. With that, air travel will float beyond the reach of much of the
American middle class, and the final fruits of airline deregulation will be manifest. In the
meantime, it must be feared that the erosion of safety margins will exact a growing toll of
human lives in airline accidents. If such tragedies occur, the bereaved relatives will
perhaps recall George Bush's friend Frank Lorenzo.
And how, the reader may ask, was George Bush doing financially while surrounded by so
many billions in junk bonds? Bush had always pontificated that he had led the fight for
full public disclosure of personal financial interests by elected officials. He never tired of
repeating that "in 1967, as a freshman member of the House of Representatives, I led the
fight for full financial disclosure." But after he was elected to the vice presidency, Bush
stopped disclosing his investments in detail. He stated his net worth, which had risen to
$2.1 million by the time of the 1984 election, representing an increase of some $300,000
over the previous five years. Bush justified his refusal to disclose his investments in
detail by saying that he didn't know himself just what securities he held, since his
portfolio was now in the blind trust mentioned above. The blind trust was administered
by W.S. Farish & Co. of Houston, owned by Bush's close crony William Stamps Farish
III of Beeville, Texas, the descendant of the Standard Oil executive who had backed
Heinrich Himmler and the Waffen SS. [fn 13]
NOTES:
- Walter Pincus and Bob Woodward, "Doing Well With help From Family, Freinds," Washington Post,
August 11, 1988. - Houston Chronicle, February 21, 1963. See clippings available in Texas Historical Society, Houston.
- Thomas Petzinger, Oil and Honor (New York, 1987), pp. 244-245.
- See Washington Post, February 5, 1989.
- For the relation between George Bush and Henry Kravis, see Sarah Bartlett, The Money Machine: How
KKR Manufactured Power & Profits (New York, 1991), pp. 258-259 and 267-270. - Roy C. Smith, The Money Wars (New York, 1990), p. 106.
- Bartlett, pp. 269-270.