Bush's trip to Khartoum was also designed to serve the Israeli Mossad. During his visit,
Bush secured the consent of Nimiery to an Israeli airlift known as "Operation Moses,"
which transferred thousands of Ethiopian Jews from the Sudan to Israel. The Israeli
presence was linked to the plan to topple Nimiery.
In July, 1985, Bush was President for a Day, when Reagan transferred his powers to the
vice president before undergoing anesthesia in the course of an operation to remove an
intestinal polyp. Bush had flown to Kennbunkport on July 12, the same day that Reagan
was admitted to Bethesda naval hospital for an examination. When it was found that
Reagan would require an operation the next day, Bush flew back from Kennbunkport to
get his hands on the long-awaited levers of power. At 10:32 AM, Reagan signed letters to
House Speaker Tip O'Neill and Senate President Pro Tempore Stron Thurmond passing
the helm to Bush. Reagan's operation began slightly before noon, and Bush was acting
president when he arrived at Andrews Air Force Base about half an hour later. Bush got
to his home at the Naval Observatory and spent the rest of the day there. His staff said
that nothing presidential happened before Reagan awoke from his anesthesia at 7:22 PM
and signed a paper resuming his powers.
Had nothing presidential really happened? As Jack Anderson wrote some years later, it
was really "nothing...unless you're talking to former president Gerald R. Ford, the king of
pratfalls." It appears that Bush, doubtless overcome by the euphoria of power, had
slipped while playing tennis and hit his head rather seriously. According to some high-
level White House officials polled by the Jack Anderson column, the manic Bush had
actually been "unconscious" for a time, but never "incapacitated." "It wasn't serious
enough to be checked," according to a Bush aide, and Bush "slept it off." [fn 10] Not
much here for a campaign speech celebrating Bush's experience, which now included a
brief encounter with the dizzy apex of power itself.
For Reagan's State of the Union message in January, 1986, Bush's handlers worked hard
to prevent him from "squirming, yawning, slumping, gazing into space and mostly
looking...bored by his president." Bush was drilled into rapt attention for the Great
Communicator's words by viewing embarrassing film clips of himself presiding over
earlier joint sessions of the Congress. [fn 11] Otherwise, Bush had won some notoriety
for changing his watchbands to match his suit. [fn 12]
More than anything, Bush wanted an early endorsement from Reagan in order to suppress
or at least undercut challenges to his presumptive front-runner status from GOP rivals in
the primaries; it was already clear that Senator Bob Dole might be the most formidable of
these. Bush feared Dole's challenge, and desperately wanted to be annointed as Reagan's
heir-apparent as soon as possible before 1988. But Reagan had apparently not gotten over
the antipathy to Bush he had conceived during the Nashua Telegraph debate of 1980.
According to a high-level Reagan Administration source speaking in the summer of
1986, "more than once the president [told Bush], 'Obviously, I'm going to stay neutral
until after the convention, and then I'm going to work for whichever candidate comes out
on top." [fn 13] Despite Bush's "slavish devotion," Reagan wanted to keep the door open