Rediscovered and posted for archival purposes. The original still exists- http://prorev.com/bush2.htm
19th century
CONSORTIUM NEWS –
In the late 19th Century, Samuel Bush moved to Ohio from Orange,
New Jersey, where he had attended the nearby Stevens Institute
of Technology in Hoboken. He made the first big move in his manufacturing
career as an engineer with Buckeye Steel Castings Company, which
produced gun barrels and railroad parts. Samuel Bush became a
confidante of the company’s president, Frank Rockefeller, a brother
of the enormously wealthy and powerful John D. Rockefeller, who
owned Standard Oil. Another participant in Buckeye Steel was
railroad baron E.H. Harriman. . .
1908
CONSORTIUM NEWS –
Samuel Bush took over from Frank Rockefeller as president of
the company in 1908, and held that job for the next 20 years.
. . Samuel Bush’s Buckeye Steel made the gun barrels for Remington.
. . During World War I, Remington supplied 67 percent of all
the weapons and ammunition used by the Allied forces.
Samuel’s son, Prescott Bush, served as
an artillery liaison officer with the French forces during the
war and wrote back home about his heroic exploits in letters
that were published. But the exploits proved to be fabricated,
forcing Prescott to apologize. But that didn’t deter him – or
dim his career prospects. . .
1918
Prescott Bush Sr., leads a raid on a Indian
tomb to secure Geronimo’s skull for Skull & Bones.
1919
Prescott Bush married the daughter of George
Herbert Walker.
George Herbert Walker forms W.A.Harriman
& Co. with Averell Harriman as chairman
1924
WA Harriman establishes Union Banking Corp.
in partnership with the German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, who
will be a major donor to the Nazi Party.
1930s
CONSORTIUM NEWS – Prescott
Bush was a fanatical opponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt. There
were even rumors that Bush tried to encourage a military coup
against Roosevelt after his election as President in 1933. But
the evidence – while intriguing – has never been conclusive.
Similar secrecy and uncertainty surrounded
the intricate web of ownership and control of Harriman’s Union
Banking Corp., which Prescott Bush administered in collaboration
with backers of Germany’s Nazi Party.
As a rising star at the Harriman firm,
Prescott Bush became a director (effectively in charge) of Harriman’s
UBC, which had a financial relationship with German industrialist
Fritz Thyssen, an early supporter of Adolf Hitler.
Brown Brothers Harriman supplied Thyssen
with financing and other banking services that allowed the Nazis
to build up their war machine. After Thyssen broke with Hitler
in 1939, Thyssen’s banking empire came under control of the Nazi
government, with Prescott Bush continuing as a behind-the-scenes
force in the relationship.
1937
Prescott Bush’s investment firm sets up
deal for the Luftwaffe so it can obtain tetraethyl lead.
1940s
GUARDIAN – George
HW Bush’s grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was
a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their
involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. The Guardian
has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the
US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a
director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.
His business dealings . . continued until his company’s assets
were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The
evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor
to argue that the late senator’s action should have been grounds
for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. . .
The new documents . . show that even after
America had entered the war and when there was already significant
information about the Nazis’ plans and policies, he worked for
and profited from companies closely involved with the very German
businesses that financed Hitler’s rise to power. It has also
been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped
to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political
dynasty. . .
While there is no suggestion that Prescott
Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal
that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman, acted as
a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped
finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the
end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows
Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation
that represented Thyssen’s US interests and he continued to work
for the bank after America entered the war.
NEWSWEEK
[POLISH EDITION] – Prescott Sheldon
Bush, grandfather of George Walker Bush, had financial dealings
during World War II with the Nazis, amassing a family fortune
as a banker. Prescott Bush was a shareholder of the company United
Banking Corporation, working with industrialist Fritz Thyssen
from the Nazistowskiego Silesian Consolidated Steel Corporation,
where Auschwitz prisoners worked.
NEW STATESMAN, APRIL 15, 2002 – In 1926,
Averell Harriman welcomed a familiar name into his Wall Street
firm (W A Harriman and Co) as senior partner – Prescott Bush,
father to one American president and grandfather to another.
The association was to end simultaneously in fabulous wealth
and temporary ignominy – at the height of the Second World War,
in 1942, the New York Herald Tribune reported that the Union
Banking Corporation, of which Prescott Bush was a director and
E Roland Harriman a 99 per cent shareholder, was holding a small
fortune under the orders of Adolf Hitler’s financier. Under the
Trading with the Enemy Act, all of Union Banking Corporation’s
capital stock was seized.
INDYMEDIA, ISRAEL [1] - On October
20, 1942, the U.S. government had had enough of Prescott Bush
and his Nazi business arrangements with Thyssen. Over the summer,
The New York Tribune had exposed Bush and Thyssen, whom the Tribune
dubbed “Hitler’s Angel.” When the US government saw
UBC’s books, they found out that Bush’s bank and its shareholders
“are held for the benefit of … members of the Thyssen
family, [and] is property of nationals … of a designated enemy
country.” . . .
On November 17, 1942, The US government
also took over the Silesian American Corporation, but did not
prosecute Bush . . . The companies were allowed to operate within
the Government Alien Property custodian office with a catch –
no aiding the Nazis. In 1943, while still owning his stock, Prescott
Bush resigned from UBC and even helped raise money for dozens
of war-related causes as chairman of the National War Fund.
After the war, the Dutch government began
investigating the whereabouts of some jewelry of the Dutch royal
family that was stolen by the Nazis. They started looking into
books of the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart. When they discovered
the transaction papers of the Silesian American Corporation,
they began asking the bank manager H.J. Kounhoven a lot of questions.
Kouwenhoven was shocked at the discovery and soon traveled to
New York to inform Prescott Bush. According to Dutch intelligence,
Kouwenhoven met with Prescott soon after Christmas, 1947. Two
weeks later, Kouwenhoven apparently died of a heart attack.
By 1948, Fritz Thyssen’s life was in ruins.
After being jailed by the Nazis, he was jailed by the Allies
and interrogated extensively, but not completely, by US investigators.
Thyssen and Flick were ordered to pay reparations and served
time in prison for their atrocious crimes against humanity. .
.
When Thyssen died, the Alien Property Custodian
released the assets of the Union Banking Corporation to Brown
Brothers Harriman. The remaining stockholders cashed in their
stocks and quietly liquidated the rest of UBC’s blood money.
Prescott Bush received $1.5 million for
his share in UBC. That money enabled Bush to help his son, George
Herbert Walker Bush, to set up his first royalty firm, Overby
Development Company, that same year. It was also helpful when
Prescott Bush left the business world to enter the public arena
in 1952 with a successful senatorial campaign in Connecticut.
On October 8th, 1972, Prescott Bush died of cancer and his will
was enacted soon after.
In 1980, when George H.W. Bush was elected
vice president, he placed his father’s family inherence in a
blind trust. The trust was managed by his old friend and quail
hunting partner, William “Stamps” Farish III. Bush’s
choice of Farish to manage the family wealth is quite revealing
in that it demonstrates that the former president might know
exactly where some of his inheritance originated. Farish’s grandfather,
William Farish Jr., on March 25th, 1942, pleaded “no contest”
to conspiring with Nazi Germany while president of Standard Oil
in New Jersey. He was described by Senator Harry Truman in public
of approaching “treason” for profiting off the Nazi
war machine. Standard Oil, invested millions in IG Farben, who
opened a gasoline factory within Auschwitz in 1940. The billions
“Stamps” inherited had more blood on it then Bush,
so the paper trail of UBC stock would be safe during his 12 years
in presidential politics.
It has been 60 years since one of the great
money laundering scandals of the 20th century ended and only
now are we beginning to see the true historical aspects of this
important period of world history, a history that the remaining
Holocaust survivors beg humanity to “never forget.”
[Investigative journalist John] Loftus believes history will
view Prescott Bush as harshly as Thyssen. “It is bad enough
that the Bush family helped raise the money for Thyssen to give
Hitler his start in the 1920s, but giving aid and comfort to
the enemy in time of war is treason. The Bush bank helped the
Thyssens make the Nazi steel that killed Allied solders. As bad
as financing the Nazi war machine may seem, aiding and abetting
the Holocaust was worse. Thyssen’s coal mines used Jewish slaves
as if they were disposable chemicals. There are six million skeletons
in the Thyssen family closet, and a myriad of criminal and historical
questions to be answered about the Bush family’s complicity.”
[1] Because of Israeli
government suppression, this site is no longer available
JOHN
BUCHANAN, NEW HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE
– After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media,
newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives
and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather
of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of
and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the
Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive
action against Bush and his “enemy national” partners.
The documents also show that Bush and his
colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of
the Treasury and FBI, tried to conceal their financial alliance
with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron
who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler’s
rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German
law.
Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate
that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman,
younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George
Herbert Walker, President Bush’s maternal great-grandfather,
continued their dealings with the German industrial baron for
nearly eight months after the U.S. entered the war.
. . . The mainstream media have apparently
made no attempt since World War II to either verify or disprove
the allegations of Nazi collaboration against the Bush family.
Instead, they have attempted to dismiss or discredit such Internet
sites or “unauthorized” books without any journalistic
inquiry or research into their veracity.
The National Review ran an essay on September
1 by their White House correspondent Byron York, entitled “Annals
of Bush-Hating.” It begins mockingly: “Are you aware
of the murderous history of George W. Bush – indeed, of the entire
Bush family? Are you aware of the president’s Nazi sympathies?
His crimes against humanity? And do you know, by the way, that
George W. Bush is a certifiable moron?” York goes on to
discredit the “Bush is a moron” IQ hoax, but fails
to disprove the Nazi connection.
The more liberal Boston Globe ran a column
September 29 by Reason magazine’s Cathy Young in which she referred
to “Bush-o-phobes on the Internet” who “repeat
preposterous claims about the Bush family’s alleged Nazi connections.”
. . . Major U.S. media outlets, including
ABC News, NBC News, The New York Times, Washington Post, Washington
Times, Los Angeles Times and Miami Herald, have repeatedly declined
to investigate the story when information regarding discovery
of the documents was presented to them beginning Friday, August
29
MORE
ON THE BUSH FAMILY & THE NAZIS
SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE:
The president of the Florida Holocaust Museum said Saturday that
George W. Bush’s grandfather derived a portion of his personal
fortune through his affiliation with a Nazi-controlled bank.
John Loftus, a former prosecutor in the Justice Department’s
Nazi War Crimes Unit, said his research found that Bush’s grandfather,
Prescott Bush, was a principal in the Union Banking Corp. in
Manhattan in the late 1930s and the 1940s. Leading Nazi industrialists
secretly owned the bank at that time, Loftus said, and were moving
money into it through a second bank in Holland even after the
United States declared war on Germany. The bank was liquidated
in 1951, Loftus said, and Bush’s grandfather and great-grandfather
received $1.5 million from the bank as part of that dissolution
. . . . SARASOTA
HERALD TRIBUNE
CONSORTIUM NEWS – One
of the Bush-connected companies, Consolidated Silesian Steel,
made use of Nazi slave labor from concentration camps, including
Auschwitz. After Germany declared war on the United States, the
U.S. government investigated these relationships and seized Harriman’s
UBC in 1943 under the Trading with the Enemy Act. However, following
the war, rather than face the ignominy of profiting off his dealings
with the Nazis, Bush was compensated for the seizure of the bank,
receiving a $1.5 million settlement from the U.S. government,
an astonishing amount of money in 1945. .
1950s
`WE WERE TERRIBLE TO ANIMALS,’ recalled
[Bush childhood pal Terry] Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind
the Bush borne turned into a small lake after a good rain, and
thousands of frogs would come out. `Everybody would get BB guns
and shoot them,’ Throckmorton said. `Or we’d put firecrackers
in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.’- Nicholas D.
Kristof, Midland Life,
1952
Prescott Bush is elected to the Senate
from Connecticut and will serve three terms.
1953
George HW Bush and the Liedtke brothers
form Zapata Petroleum. Zapata’s subsidiary, Zapata Offshore,
later becomes known for its close ties to the CIA.
1954
The Bush family buys out the Liedtke brothers.
1955
George HW Bush sets up a Mexican drilling
operation, Permago, with a frontman to obscure his ownership.
The frontman later is convicted of defrauding the Mexican government
of $58 million.
1959
Manuel Noriega recruited as an agent by
the US Defense Intelligence Agency.
1960s
Kitty Kelley writes that George H.W. Bush
successflly comes to the rescue when son Jeb violates Andover’s
alcohol ban, but he’s allowed to finish his degree after his
father intervenes. Dad later gets an honorary transfer for son
Marvin after he is found with drugs.
After his sister dies, young George writes
a school paper in which he says “the lacerates ran down
my cheeks.” He also has a confederate flag hanging in his
dorm room.
1960
Some investigators believe George HW Bush
spent part of this year and the next in Miami on behalf of the
CIA, organizing rightwing exiles for an invasion of Cuba. Is
said to have worked with later Iran-Contra figure Felix Rodriguez.
1961
According to the Realist, CIA official
Fletcher Prouty delivers three Navy ships to agents in Guatemala
to be used in the Bay of Pigs invasion. Prouty claims he delivered
the ships to a CIA agent named George Bush. Agent Bush named
the ships the Barbara, Houston and Zapata.
Bay of Pigs invasion fails. Right-wingers
blame Kennedy for failure to provide air cover. CIA loses 15
men, another 1100 are imprisoned.
George HW Bush invites Rep. TL. Ashley
— a fellow Skull & Boner — down to Texas for a party in
order to meet “an attractive girl.” Bush writes that
“she may be accompanied by an Austrian ski instructor but
I think we can probably flush him at the local dance hall.”
Bush notes that he’s had to unlist his phone because “Jane
Morgan keeps calling me all the time.” [From a letter in
the Ashley archives uncovered by Spy magazine.]
Zapata annual report boasts that the company
has paid no taxes since it was founded.
1963
John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Internal
FBI memo reports that on November 22 “reputable businessman”
George H. W. Bush reported hearsay that a certain Young Republican
“has been talking of killing the president when he comes
to Houston.” The Young Republican was nowhere near Dallas
on that date. When CIA director, Bush will request many of the
Kennedy assasination files.
According to a 1988 story in The Nation,
a memo from J. Edgar Hoover states that “Mr. George Bush
of the CIA” had been briefed on November 23rd, 1963 about
the reaction of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami to the assassination
of President Kennedy. George says it ain’t him, admits he was
in Texas but can’t remember where.
1964
George HW Bush runs as a Goldwater Republican
for Congress. Campaigns against the Civil Rights Act.
1966
Bush, runs as a moderate Republican, gets
elected to Congress. Robert Mosbacher chairs Oil Men for Bush.
Apache leader Ned Anderson meets with the
Skull & Bones lawyer and George Bush’s brother Jonathan who
attempt to return the skull Prescott Bush had looted in 1933.
Anderson refuses the skull because he says it isn’t Geronimo’s.
1967
RICHARD GOODING, STAR WEEKLY, July 27,
1999 – Presidential candidate George HW Bush once led a Yale
fraternity that barbarically branded its new members on their
backsides with a red-hot metal rod as part of a sadistic hazing
practice. “I got branded and I didn’t like it one bit,”
Professor Bradford Lee of the elite Naval War College in Newport,
R.I.-an ex-football player and onetime member of Bush’s Delta
Epsilon Kappa fraternity-told STAR in an exclusive interview.
“It did burn,” he says, recalling the terrifying experience.
“I think I still have the mark on me.”
A Star investigation has revealed that
he was president of Delta Epsilon Kappa when the hazing scandal
broke in the campus newspaper in the late ’60s-leading to the
fraternity being fined and the branding practice halted. Amazingly,
Bush, now the governor of Texas, defended the illegal torture
of the young fraternity pledges at the time as a harmless prank-insisting
that it was comparable to “only a cigarette burn” which
left “no scarring mark physically or mentally.” But
others said the branding resulted in a second-degree burn that
left a half-inch scab in the shape of the Greek letter Delta.
Lee-who still bears the mark 32 years
later-is not sure who actually wielded the brand because the
pledges were not allowed to look at their tormentors. “But
I do know that George Bush was very active in all the fraternity
activities then.”
Lee, who was a guard on the Yale football
team, recalled that the branding came after “a long initiation
that went on into the early morning hours.” He says the
idea was to wear you out so much that you allowed your bare flesh
to be singed. “I was already tired from football practice
earlier that day. I was so groggy I wasn’t exactly sensitive
to what they were up to. I wasn’t very happy about it.”
. . . Bill Katz, now a community college
teacher in northern New Jersey, told Star that the branding was
done with “a wire coat hanger twisted into a triangle and
heated up” in the fireplace. “They touched you just
above the buttocks, in the small of the back,” he says.
. . . And Boston lawyer Franklin Levy
said that to increase the fear of the moment, the older fraternity
men first brandished an actual glowing hot branding iron-to make
them think that was what awaited them. “When they burned
me,” Levy remembers, “I jumped a mile.”
Before the brandings, pledges had to
endure hours of being kicked and a vicious round of tannings
with wooden paddles-another practice that Yale has ruled taboo.
“On that night,” according to an account in the Yale
Daily News in 1967, ‘each pledge was forced to sit with his head
between his legs, motionless, for two to five hours.
“If he coughed, raised his hand
or talked, he was kicked by an older brother.” After all
the beatings, recalled one fraternity member, the branding was
almost a relief.
In the wake of the Yale Daily News’ expose
of the fraternity’s hazing, Bush, whose father was also a DKE
at Yale, admitted the branding to the New York Times in November
1967. But Bush – whose college nickname was “Lip” for
his Texas wisecracks – also ripped into Yale for being too “Haughty”
to “allow this type of pledging to go on.”
1968
George W. Bush joins Skull & Bones
at Yale
1970s
A professor at the Harvard Business School
shows his students the film, “Grapes of Wrath.” Student
George W wants to know, “Why are you going to show us that
Commie movie?” His review of the movie: “Look. People
are poor because they are lazy.”
1970
Bush loses Senate race to Lloyd Bentsen,
despite $112,000 in contributions from a White House slush fund.
Jim Baker is campaign chair. Bush later claims to have reported
correctly all but $6000 in cash –which he denies he got. A 1992
story in the New York Times says the $6000 was listed in records
of Nixon’s “townhouse operation” which was designed
in part to make GOP congressional candidates vulnerable to blackmail.
1971
Bush is named UN Ambassador by Nixon.
Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs
finds enough evidence of Noriega’s involvement in drug dealing
to indict him, but US Attorney’s office in Miami considers grabbing
Noriega in Panama for trial here to be impractical. State Department
also urges BNDD to back off.
1972
Bill Liedtke gathers $700,000 in anonymous
contributions for the Nixon campaign, delivering the money in
cash, checks and securities to the Committee to Re-Elect the
President (the infamous CREEP) one day before such contributions
become illegal. Bill says he did it as a favor to George.
1973
Bush is named GOP national chair. Brings
into the party the Heritage Groups Council, an organization with
a number of Nazi sympathizers.
Bush, according to Lowell Weicker, inquires
as to whether records of the “townhouse operation”
should be burned.
Robert Mosbacher wins an offshore drilling
concession from Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Watergate tapes indicate concern by Nixon
and aide HR Haldeman that the investigation into Watergate might
expose the “Bay of Pigs thing.” Nixon also speaks of
the “Texans” and the “Cubans.” and mentions
“Mosbacher.”
In another tape, Nixon decides following
his re-election to get signed resignations from his whole government
so he can centralize his power. Says Nixon to John Erlichman:
“Eliminate everyone, except George Bush. Bush will do anything
for our cause.”
1974
Georgfe HW Bush is named special envoy
to China.
1975
DEA report notes Noreiga’s involvement
in drug trade.
George W. Bush graduates from Harvard Business
School
1976
Jerry Ford names George HW Bush CIA director,
his fourth political patronage job in a little over five years.
Bush later claims this is the first time he ever worked for the
CIA. At his confirmation hearings, Bush says, “I think we
should tread very carefully on governments that are constitutionally
elected.”
Bush holds first known meeting with Noriega.
Noriega starts receiving $110,000 a year from the CIA.
Noriega found to be working for Cubans
as well, but keeps his CIA gig.
Bush sets up Team B within the CIA, a group
of neo-conservative outsiders and generals who proceed to double
the agency’s estimate of Soviet military spending.
Senate committee headed by Frank Church
proposes revealing size of the country’s black budget — intelligence
spending that, in contradiction to the Constitution, is kept
secret even from the Hill. According to journalist Tim Weiner,
Bush argues that the revelation would be a disaster and would
compromise the agency beyond repair. By a one vote margin the
matter is referred to the Senate. It never reaches the floor.
Chilean dissident Orlando Letelier is assassinated
by Chilean secret police agents. CIA fails to inform FBI of pending
plot and of assassins’ arrival in US. CIA claims the hit was
the work of left-wingers in search of a martyr.
Bush writes internal CIA memo asking to
see cable on Jack Ruby visiting Santos Trafficante in jail. In
1992, Bush will deny any interest in the JFK assassination while
CIA head.
Bush claims nuclear war is winnable.
1977
Philippine dictator Marcos buys back Robert
Mosbacher’s oil concession. Mosbacher claims he was swindled.
Philippine officials say they never saw any expenditures by Mosbacher
on the project.
1978
George HW Bush, Mosbacher and Jim Baker
become partners in an oil deal.
From a Washington Post article by Bob Woodward
and Walter Pincus: “According to those involved in Bush’s
first political action committee, there were several occasions
in 1978-79, when Bush was living in Houston and traveling the
country in his first run for the presidency, that he set aside
periods of up to 24 hours and told aides that he had to fly to
Washington for a secret meeting of former CIA directors. Bush
told his aides that he could not divulge his whereabouts, and
that he would not be available.” Former CIA chief Stansfield
Turner denies such meetings took place.
George W. Bush declares his candidacy for
the Midland Congressional district. He wins the Republican primary
and loses in the general election.
George HW. Bush begins operations of his
oil firm, Arbusto Energy. With the help of Jonathan Bush, he
assembles several dozen investors in a limited partnership including
Dorothy Bush, Lewis Lehrman, William Draper, and James Bath,
a Houston aircraft broker
1979
Fifty Bush family investors
and friends, led by uncle Jonathan, a New York Republican Party
official and an investment manager, invest $4.7 million to set
up young Bush in a company called Arbusto.
1980
GHW Bush runs for the presidency after
agreeing to prospective manager James Baker’s condition that
mistress and aide Jennifer Fitzgerald can’t be arround, according
to journalist Kitty Kelly.
GHW Bush becomes Reagan’s vice presidential
candidate. Runs as a rightwinger again.
Mosbacher becomes chief fundraiser for
Bush’s presidential campaign. Forms a millionaire’s club of 250
contributors, each of whom cough up $100,000.
William Casey forms a working group to
prepare for possible Carter October political surprise. In early
October, an Iranian official meets with three top Reagan campaign
aides. All three deny memory of the meeting in subsequent proceedings.
On October 21, Reagan hints he has a secret
plan to release the hostages. This is right around the alleged
date of a Paris meeting at which the so-called “October
Surprise” was settled. Some allege that at this meeting
it was agreed to end the arms embargo against Iran if Iran would
release its hostages after the election. While Bush’s presence
at this meeting has been denied by the House committee investigating
the October Surprise, Bush’s whereabouts at this critical time
remain in doubt. The White House, in fact, has leaked conflicting
stories.
Prescott Bush writes a letter to James
Baker in September which says, “Herb Cohen – the buy that
offered help on the Iranian hostage situation – called me yesterday
afternoon. herb has a couple of reliable sources on the National
Security Council, about whome the [Carter] administration does
not know, who can keep him posted on developments.”
Rep. Dan Quayle goes on a Florida golfing
vacation with seven other men and Paula Parkinson — an insurance
lobbyist who later posed nude for Playboy. Parkinson describes
Quayle as a husband on the make, but says she turned him down
because she was already having an affair with another congressman.
Marilyn Quayle says, “anybody who knows Dan Quayle knows
he would rather play golf than have sex.”
The Reagan-Bush campaign receives stolen
copies of Carter’s briefing books.
GHW Bush’s campaign manager, James Baker,
forces the dismissal of Bush aide Jennifer Fitzgerald, described
in a 1982 Time story as having “much to say about where
Bush goes, what he does and whom he sees.” Bush continues
to pay Fitzgerald out of his own pocket.
1981
Reagan-Bush inaugurated. Hostages released
moments before. Shortly thereafter, arms shipments to Iran resume
from Israel and America. In July, an Argentinean plane chartered
by Israel crashes in Soviet territory. It is found to have made
three deliveries of American military supplies to Iran. In a
1991 story in Esquire, Craig Unger quotes Alexander Haig as saying
“I have a sneaking suspicion that someone in the White House
winked.” Says Unger: “This secret and illegal sale
of military equipment continued for years afterwards.”
James Baker named Reagan’s chief of staff.
SEC filings for Zapata Oil for 1960-66
are found to have been “inadvertently destroyed.”
Reagan authorizes CIA assistance to Contras.
1982
CIA director William Casey begins Operation
Black Eagle to expand US role in Central America. Urges use of
“selected Latin American and European governments, organizations
and individuals” in the project.
Inslaw, a computer software company, signs
a $10 million contract to install a case-tracking program in
94 US Attorney’s offices. Four months later, after obtaining
a copy of Inslaw’s proprietary version of the program, the government
cancels the contract and begins an aggressive campaign to force
the company into bankruptcy. Later sources claim that the program
was installed by the CIA and sold to various foreign intelligence
agencies.
After $3 million is poured into Arbusto
with little oil and no profits, just tax shelter George W. Bush
changes the company name to Bush Exploration Oil Co. Subsequently
he is kept afloat by an investment from Philip Uzielli, a Princeton
friend of James Baker III. For the sum of $1 million, Uzielli
bought 10% of the company at a time in 1982 when the entire enterprise
was valued at less than $400,000. Subsequently, to save the company
George W. Bush merges with Spectrum 7, a small oil firm owned
by William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. DeWitt had graduated from
Yale a few years earlier than Bush and was the son of the former
owner of the Cincinnati Reds. Bush becomes president of Spectrum
7. He also gets 14% of the Spectrum’s stock. Meanwhile, 50 original
investors in Arbusto get paid off at about 20 cents on the dollar.
Prescott Bush Jr.’s campaign for senator
from Connecticut goes down hill after he tells a woman’s club:
“I’m sure there are people in Greenwich who are glad [the
immigrants] are here, because they wouldn’t have someone to help
in the house without them.”
1983
Noriega meets again with George Bush.
GHW Bush presents an autographed photo
to a WWII Ukrainian leader under the Nazis, whose regime killed
100,000 Jews.
KAL 007 crashes under circumstances that
remain suspicious to this day.
GHW Bush promotes Jennifer Fitzgerald from
appointments secretary to executive assistant. Seven staffers
resign in protest. Fitzgerald tells the New York Post: “Everyone
keeps painting me as this old ogre. I really don’t worry about
it. All these bizarre things just simply aren’t true.”
Neil Bush forms his first oil company.
He puts in $100, his partners contribute $160,000 and Neil is
named president of the firm, JNB Exploration.
Jeb Bush’s business partner, Alberto Duque,
goes bankrupt, is eventually convicted of fraud and is sentenced
to 15 years in prison.
1984
Jeb Bush lobbies the Department of Health
& Human Services on behalf of Cuban–American businessman
Miguel Recarey, Jr., whose medical firm, IMC, later collapses.
Recarey, who was close to mobster Santos Trafficante and the
contras, later disappears with at least $12 million in federal
funds.
George Bush takes part in meetings to plan
increased “third country” aid to the Contras..
CIA mines Nicaraguan harbors.
Spectrum 7 Corporation,
an Ohio oil exploration outfit owned by Dubya’s Yalie pal William
DeWitt Jr., buys out Bush Exploration, setting up young Bush
as CEO at $75,000 a year and giving him 1.1 million shares of
the firm’s stock. The company’s fortunes soon sink, with $400,000
in losses and a debt of $3 million.
1985
Jennifer Fitzgerald is sent to work on
Capitol Hill after stories arise linking her romantically with
George Bush.
Stuart Spencer’s public relation firm starts
receiving over $350,000 from Panama to improve Noriega’s image.
CIA starts using BCCI as a conduit.
George GHW Bush thanks Oliver North for
“dedication and tireless work with the hostage thing, with
Central America.” Bush will later deny knowing about the
Contra effort until late 1986.
Neil Bush joins the board of Silverado
S&L, serves until 1988. Silverado loans his partners in JNB
$132 million which they never repay. Silverado will eventually
collapse at a taxpayer cost of $1 billion.
408 TOW anti-tank missiles are shipped
from Israel to Iran. A day later, US hostage Benjamin Weir is
released.
1986
VP Bush goes to Honduras to promote support
for the Contras. Takes along baseball players Nolan Ryan and
Gary Carter.
Contra figure Felix Rodriguez meets with
Donald Gregg, Bush’s national security advisor, to complain about
Iran-Contra operatives skimming funds from the Contras.
GHW Bush may have made several secret visits
to Damascus between 1986-88 according to a 1992 report in Time,
which said two senior GOP senators were pressing for a probe.
The allegation is that Bush went to negotiate the release of
hostages in Lebanon but in fact stonewalled Syria, “playing
for campaign timing. Republicans want to get to the bottom of
intelligence-community suspicions that the US somehow blew a
chance to free Terry Anderson and his fellow captives.”
Iranian arms runner Manucher Ghorbanifar
proposes “diversion” of profits from Iran arms sales
to Contras.
George W. Bush and partners receive more
than $2 million of Harken Energy stock in exchange for their
failing oil well operation, which had lost $400,000 in the prior
six months. Bush puts
up about $500,000 and gets a $120,000 annual consulting fee along
with $131,250 in stock options. After
Bush joined Harken, the largest stock position and a seat on
its board were acquired by Harvard Management Company. Harvard agrees to buy 1.35 million shares of
Harken for $2 million and invest another $20 million in Harken
projects.
Jeb Bush is hired by Miguel Recarey to
find a new headqarters for his business. Jeb is paid $75,000
but fails to come up with a building for IMC.
According to an HHS Medicare fraud inspector
later, Miguel Recarey’s IMC is using Medicare funds to treat
wounded Contras. IMC is receiving $30 million a month for its
Medicare patients. Robert Teich, a DEA official in Miami, will
later say, “IMC is a classic case of embezzlement of government
funds.” He calls the skimming of Medicare funds a “bust
out” in which money is “drained out the back door.”
The Wall Street Journal will report that Santos Trafficante “helped
out when Recarey needed business financing.”
JIM YARDLEY, NY TIMES – In his earliest
known tie to the Enron Corporation, President Bush, then an oil
man in West Texas, joined an energy drilling venture organized
in 1986 by a subsidiary of Enron. The drilling operation – which
succeeded in striking oil and natural gas in Martin County –
came as Mr. Bush’s company, the Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation,
was struggling to stay afloat during a collapse in world oil
prices. The company was also in final negotiations to be taken
over by a Dallas-based company, Harken Energy. Executives involved
in the drilling venture characterized it as an ordinary business
deal. Enron Oil and Gas, then an exploration subsidiary with
offices here in Midland, served as operator and majority partner.
Mr. Bush’s company, which had a 10 percent working interest in
the deal, was one of a handful of minority investors . . . It
is unclear whether Mr. Bush was involved in the deal because
he controlled adjacent mineral leases or if Spectrum 7 was simply
sought out as an investor. Bill Morrison, who ran the Midland
office of Enron Oil and Gas at the time, said he recalled soliciting
about 12 to 15 companies as potential investors in the project,
including Spectrum 7. He said many companies, struggling for
capital, declined the offer, but Spectrum 7, apparently with
cash on hand, signed on for the 10 percent interest.
1987
Bush’s former chief of staff, Daniel Murphy,
flies to Panama with South Korean influence peddler Tongsun Park
on a private plane owned by arms dealer Sargis Soghnalian to
meet with Noriega. Murphy later tells a Senate subcommittee that
he informed Noriega that he need not resign before the 1988 election
despite the Reagan administration public pressure to the contrary.
Bill Casey dies.
Lee Atwater accuses Robert Dole of spreading
stories about Bush and Jennifer Fitzgerald. An agreement is worked
out, as reported by Sidney Blumenthal in the Washington Post:
“The Dole people didn’t spread any rumors and promised not
to do it again. And the Bush people haven’t spread rumors about
the Dole people spreading rumors and won’t do it again. “
Harken Energy, with George W Bush
on the board, gets rescued by aid from the BCCI-connected Union
Bank of Switzerland in a deal brokered by Jackson Stephens, later
to show up as a key supporter of Bill Clinton. The deal was also
pushed along by another Clinton friend, David Edwards. Edwards
will bring BCCI-linked investors into Harken deals including
Abdullah Bakhsh, purchases $10 million in shares of Stephens
dominated Worthen Bank.
Jan. 15: Dan Lasater begins serving
a 30-month sentence for cocaine distribution. In July, he is
paroled to a Little Rock halfway house.
1988
Dan Quayle is named VP candidate. Stuart
Spencer is assigned to improve Dan Quayle’s image, the same job
he handled for Noriega and Nixon.
Quayle embarrasses campaign by such statements
as “[The Holocaust] was an obscene period in our nation’s
history,” adding that “I didn’t live in this century.”
Prisoner who claimed he sold marijuana
to Quayle is put into solitary confinement by the head of federal
prisons, aborting a planned news conference shortly before the
election.
Silverado S&L goes under after receiving
126 cease & desist orders in past four years from the Topeka
office of the Office of Thrift Supervision. These orders found
conflict of interests, insider abuse and other violations.
Dwight Chapin, ex-Nixon dirty trickster,
gets job in Bush campaign.
Rudi Slavoff becomes head of Bulgarians
for Bush. In 1983, Slavoff organized an event honoring Austin
App, promoter of the theory that the Holocaust was a hoax.
Slavoff joins other GOP ethnic leaders
in the Coalition of American Nationalities co-chaired by Edward
Derwinski. Among them is a former member of an Hungarian pro-Nazi
party. After press revelations, eight of the leaders accused
of anti-semitism resign from the campaign. Bush says: “Nobody’s
giving in… These people left of their own account.”
GOP flier warns that “all the murderers,
rapists and drug pushers and child molesters in Massachusetts
vote for Michael Dukakis.”
Bush establishes Team 100, which will eventually
grow to 249 individuals who contribute nearly $25 million in
soft money to help the GOP cause. The contributions also apparently
help the contributors, various of whom get ambassadorial appointments,
legislative favors, and intervention on regulatory and criminal
matters.
Bush denies knowledge of Noriega’s involvement
in drug dealing.
The Willie Horton ad is aired. Credit for
similar tactics is given to campaign guru Lee Atwater, whose
PR firm had represented drug-connected Bahamian prime minister
Oscar Pinding and the Philippines’ Marcos. Atwater himself had
represented UNITA, the CIA-backed Africa rebel group.
Fred Malek, ex-Nixon aide, resigns from
the Bush campaign after it’s revealed that he compiled a list
of Jews in the Labor Dept. as part of a Nixon investigation of
a “Jewish cabal.”
A few days before the supposedly surprise
arrest of five BCCI officials, some of the world’s most powerful
drug dealers quietly withdraw millions of dollars from the bank.
Some government investigators believe the dealers were tipped
off by sources within the Bush administration.
Although Felix Rodriguez, former leading
cop under Batista, claims he left the CIA in 1976, Rolling Stone
reports that he is still going to CIA headquarters monthly to
receive assignments and get his bulletproof Cadillac serviced.
Bankruptcy judge George Bason Jr. concludes
that the government stole Inslaw’s software through “trickery,
fraud and deceit.”
Stock market drops 43 points on false rumor
that Washington Post was about the publish the Bush-Fitzgerald
story.
Aziz Rehman, a junior BCCI official in
Miami, tells a Senate committee that “I saw Jeb Bush two
or three times over there. . . This was all part of the bank’s
trying to cultivate public officials and prminent individuals.”
Another BCCI official will write in his diary, “Jeb Bush,
VP George Bush’s son, [is] a name. . .to be remembered.”
1989
Bush inaugurated. Aides tell the press
that the new administration would rather “stay one step
behind than be one step ahead.”
Bush authorizes CIA support to Noriega’s
opposition, giving Noriega an excuse to annul Panama’s elections.
Bush claims executive privilege to avoid
testifying in the Oliver North trial, thus becoming first president
to use this power to keep his acts as vice president under wraps.
Dan Quayle declares changes in Soviet Union
“just a public relations extravaganza.”
Bush brother Prescott flies to Shanghai
after the Tiananmen Square massacre to close a deal for an $18
million resort there, despite his brother’s ban on high-level
Chinese contacts. Prescott says, “We aren’t a bunch of carrion
birds coming in to pick the carcass. But there are big opportunities
in China, and America can’t afford to be shut out.”
Prescott Bush also visits Japan, searching
for consulting contracts just ten days before his brother arrives
on a presidential tour. The Japanese firm that paid Prescott
a quarter-million dollar consulting fee comes under investigation
for exchange law violations and links to the Japanese mob.
C. Boyden Gray, the president’s top ethics
official, corrects his 1985 and 1986 financial disclosure forms.
He forgot to include $98,000 in income.
George Bush signs the S&L bailout bill
promising that “these problems will never happen again.”
The Chicago Tribune reports: “After
14 fishing outings, the President has failed to catch a single
fish.”
At White House behest, the DEA lures drug
dealer to Lafayette Park to make arrest in front of presidential
home for the benefit of Bush’s upcoming drug speech. At first,
drug dealer is dubious, asks DEA agent, “Where the fuck
is the White House?”
Defense secretary nominee John Tower runs
into confirmation troubles when it is revealed that he has received
hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from defense
contractors. Runs into more trouble with revelations of womanizing
and drinking. His nomination is rejected.
The sale of three communications satellites
to China is announced. Prescott Bush is a $250,000 consultant
in the deal.
GOP memo is leaked implying that House
Speaker Tom Foley is a homosexual.
President Bush signs a top-secret directive
ordering closer ties with Iraq, which opens the way for $1 billion
in new aid just a little more than a year before Bush goes to
war against that country. The agricultural credit allows Saddam
Hussein to use his hard currency for a massive military buildup.
A second judge concurs that the government
stole Inslaw’s software.
The Statistical Abstract of the United
States, published by the US government, reports that the GNP
of East Germany during the 1980s was greater than that of West
Germany. The figures come from the CIA.
Bahrain officials suddenly break off offshore
drilling negotiations with Amoco and decide to deal with Harken
Energy, George Bush Jr.’s firm. Harken has had a series of failed
ventures and no cash, so the Bass brothers are brought in to
finance Harken’s efforts at a cost of $50 million.
Neil Bush bails out of JNB Exploration,
the firm where he became president with a $100 ante, leaving
his partners to worry about its debt. Days earlier he forms Apex
Energy with a personal investment of $3000. The rest of the money
— $2.7 million — comes from an SBA program designed to help
“high risk start-up companies.” Like JNB, it proves
to be just that. Apex will later go belly-up with no assets.
Two months after his father’s inauguration,
George W. Bush announces that he and a syndicate of investors
have purchased the Texas Rangers. The investors are Edward “Rusty”
Rose, Richard Rainwater, Bill DeWitt, Roland Betts (a former
Yale frat brother) and Tom Bernstein (Bett’s partner in a film
investment concern). While Bush appears to lead the group, Rainwater
makes clear that Rose is to control how the business is run.
Bush’s stake in the $86 million deal is 2%, financed with a $500,000
loan from a Midland Bank of which he had been a director and
$106,000 from other sources. Rainwater and Rose put up 14.2 million,
Betts and Bernstein invested about $6 million and the balance
comes from smaller investors and loans. Bush will eventually
sell his share for $15 million.
1990
DAILY
ENRONFederal regulators give Bush son Neil the
mildest possible penalty in the $1 billion failure of the Silverado
S&L. The deal is so good that Bush drops his appeal. Among
other things, Neil, as a Silverado director, voted to approve
over $100 million in loans to his business partners.
January:
Bahrain awards exclusive offshore drilling rights to Harken Oil.
This is a surprise as Harken is in very shaky financial condition,
has never drilled outside of Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma and
had never drilled undersea at all. The Bass brothers are brought
in by Harken for sufficient equity – $25 million – to proceed
with the effort. Harvard Management increases its investment.
Harken’s stock price rises from $4.50 to $5.50.
May Harken officials
warn board the company is about to run out of cash.
June Harken drills two dry holes in Bahrain. George W. Bush sells two-thirds of his Harken Energy
stock at the top of the market for $850,000, a 200% profit, but
makes no report to the SEC as required by law. Bush Jr. says
later the SEC misplaced the report. An SEC representative responds:
“nobody ever found the ‘lost’ filing.” One week after
Bush’s sale, Harken reports an earnings plunge. Harken stock
falls more than 60%. Bush uses most of the proceeds to pay off
the bank loan he had taken a year earlier to finance his portion
of the Texas Rangers deal.
August: Saddam
Hussein invades Kuwait. Harken’s stock price drops substantially.
Two months after Bush sells his stock, Harken posts losses for
the 2nd quarter of well over $20 million and is shares fall another
24 %, by year end Harken is trading at $1.25. Bush has insisted
that he did not know about the firm’s mounting losses and that
his stock sell-off was approved by Harken’s general counsel.
George W. Bush is asked by Carlyle Group
to serve on the board of directors of Caterair, one of the nation’s
largest airline catering services which it had acquired in 1989.
The offer is arranged by Fred Malek, long time Bush associate
who is then an advisor to Carlyle.
October:
Arlington, Texas Mayor Richard Greene signs a contract that guarantees
$135 million toward the new Texas Ranger Stadium’s estimate price
of $190 million. The Rangers put up no cash but finance their
share through a ticket surcharge. From the team’s operating revenues,
the city will earn a maximum of $5 million annually in rent,
no matter how much the Rangers reap from ticket sales and television
(a sum that will rise to $100 million a year). Another provision
permitts the franchise to buy the stadium after the accumulated
rental payments reached a mere $ 60 million. The property acquired
so cheaply by the Rangers includes not just a fancy new stadium
with a seating capacity of 49,000 but an additional 270 acres
of newly valuable land. Legislation is passed and signed that
authorizes the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority
with power to issue bonds and exercise eminent domain over any
obstinate landowners. Never before had a Texas municipal authority
been given the license to seize the property of a private citizen
for the benefit of other private citizens. A recalcitrant Arlington
family refuses to sell a 13 acre parcel near the stadium site
for half its appraised value. The jury awards more than $4 million
to the family.
November: Harken transfers
$20 million in debts to Harvard partnership, eliminates another
$16 million in debt by transferring assets to Harvard.
Fred Malek returns to power with ambassador
status to head up planning for the economic summit.
S&L industry is losing money at the
rate of $3 million a minute. Bailout chief estimates total cost
at $325-500 billion.
Some 200 young soccer players have their
games canceled for security reasons because Bush wants to go
fishing on the Potomac nearby. Says one seven-year-old player:
“We had a tough soccer game and he’s just going fishing.
He could play somewhere else.”
Bush son Jeb gets the federal government
to pay off the $4,5 million he owed to a failed Florida thrift.
Jeb pays $500,000.
Bush brother Jonathan’s east coast brokerage
fined in two states for violating laws and Jonathan is barred
from public trading in Massachusetts.
Bush’s attorney general, Richard Thornberg,
is warned about BCCI but does nothing.
Federal court of appeals throws out the
Inslaw case on the grounds that it did not belong in bankruptcy
court.
Bush says, “The economy is headed
in the right direction.”
1991
January: President Bush attacks Iraq.
February: Dubya, as the official in charge
at Harken, reports his stock sale to the SEC – eight months late.
April – The SEC begins an investigation
into Harken dealings. Chairman Richard Breeden, who was appointed
by the senior Bush and served him as an economic policy adviser,
hails from Baker & Botts, a big Texas oil law firm where
he was a partner. Inside the SEC, James Doty, general counsel
and the official in charge of any litigation that might come
out of the Harken investigation, is another alumnus of Baker
& Botts. And as a private attorney, before joining the government,
Doty represented the younger Bush in matters related to Dubya’s
ownership of the Rangers.
August – The
SEC reports that
its staff has reviewed thousands of pages of documents, interviewed
witnesses and met lawyers for Harken and Mr Bush. It concludes
that there is insufficient evidence to determine that Mr Bush
had any inside information or advance knowledge of Harken’s losses.
The SEC recommends that the matter be closed.
September: Harvard begins selling Harken
stock at more than $6 a share, receiving $7.4 million over the
next 12 months.
Former top aide to White House Chief of
Staff John Sununu goes to work for a prominent figure in the
BCCI scandal less than a month after leaving the Bush administration.
Edward Rogers Jr. signs a $600,000 contract to give legal advice
to Sheik Kamal Adham, an ex-Saudi intelligence officer who is
being investigated for his role in BCCI’s takeover of First American
Bancshares.
The Miami acting US Attorney is allegedly
rebuffed by the Justice Department in his efforts to indict BCCI
and some of its principal officers on tax fraud charges. Justice
Department later denies this occurred.
Danny Casolaro, a reporter investigating
the Inslaw story, is found dead in a motel room bathtub, the
day after he met a key source. The death was ruled a suicide.
Perhaps he is despondent over the loss of his briefcase, which
is missing from the room.
George Bush spends three nights in a Houston
hotel so he can claim Texas residency. Texas has no income tax.
Neil Bush bails out of Apex Energy after
collecting $320,000 in salary plus expenses. Bill Daniels, cable-TV
magnate who has been lobbying against regulation of the cable
industry, offers Neil a job. According to a representative, he
“thought Neil deserved a second chance.”
1992
New York Times reports that three of Bush’s
top fundraisers are being sued in connection with bank failures
and another pleaded guilty to mail fraud in connection with an
S&L. These men include the GOP national finance chair, vice
chair and two co-chairs of the President’s Dinner, which raised
$9 million for Republican causes.
Former US Attorney General Elliot Richardson,
representing the owners of Inslaw, tells Mother Jones, “I
don’t know any case where the government has stonewalled like
this.”
First of Harken Energy’s wells off Bahrain
comes up dry. George W. Bush takes a leave of absence from the
firm to work in his father’s campaign, saying “I don’t want
to involve this company in any kind of allegations of conflicts
or whatever may arise.”
Village Voice reports that President Bush
has taken at least 76 partisan flights during his term, at a
cost to the taxpayers of over $6 million.
Nixon’s Jew hunter Fred Malek is back as
Bush’s campaign manager.
Campaign sells photo opportunities with
the president at a fundraiser for $92,000 each.
Washington, DC, loses $52,000 in taxes
because Bush claims to be a Texas resident.
Donald H. Alexander contributes $100,000
to Team 100; shortly thereafter he’s named ambassador to the
Netherlands.
Bush says: “I will do what I have
to do to be reelected.”
JERRY URBAN, HOUSTON CHRONICLE,
JUNE 4, 1992: The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network — known
as FinCEN — and the FBI are reviewing accusations that entrepreneur
James R. Bath guided money to Houston from Saudi investors who
wanted to influence US policy under the Reagan and Bush administrations,
sources close to the investigations say . . . The federal review
stems in part from court documents obtained through litigation
by Bill White, a former real estate business associate of Bath
. . . White became entangled in a series of lawsuits and countersuits
with Bath, who for some six years has prevailed in the courts.
. . . In sworn depositions, Bath said he represented four prominent
Saudis as a trustee and that he would use his name on their investments.
In return, he said, he would receive a 5 percent interest in
their deals. Tax documents and personal financial records show
that Bath personally had a 5 percent interest in Arbusto ’79
Ltd., and Arbusto ’80 Ltd., limited partnerships controlled by
George W. Bush, President Bush’s eldest son. Arbusto means ‘bush’
in Spanish. Bath invested $ 50,000 in the limited partnerships,
according to the documents. There is no available evidence to
show whether the money came from Saudi interests. George W. Bush’s
company, Bush Exploration Co., general partner in the limited
partnerships, went through several mergers, eventually evolving
into Harken Energy Corp., a suburban Dallas-based company . .
. Bush said that to his knowledge, Bath’s investment was from
personal funds, and no Saudi money was invested in Arbusto. Bath,
55, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, declined to comment for the
record. Spokesmen for FinCEN and the FBI also declined to comment.
According to a 1976 trust agreement, drawn shortly after Bush
was appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi
Sheik Salem M. Binladen appointed Bath as his business representative
in Houston. Binladen, along with his brothers, owns Binladen
Brothers Construction, one of the largest construction companies
in the Middle East. According to White, Bath told him that he
had assisted the CIA in a liaison role with Saudi Arabia since
1976. Bath has previously denied having worked for the CIA .
. . Bath received a 5 percent interest in the companies that
own and operate Houston Gulf Airport after purchasing it on behalf
of Binladen in 1977.
1993
The SEC ends a perfunctory
investigastion of Harken.
With the new Ranger stadium being readied
to open the following spring, George W. Bush announces that he
would be running for governor. He is says his campaign theme
will be self-reliance and personal responsibility rather than
dependence on government.
PBS FRONTLINE: [From a
French source] The Saudi authorities’ decision to issue an arrest
warrant for Osama bin Laden on 16 May 1993 does not threaten
to affect the relationship between the bin Ladens and the royal
family. Osama, one of Mohammed’s youngest son, has been known
for years for his fundamentalist activities . . . King Fahd’s
two closest friends were: Prince Mohammed Ben Abdullah (son of
Abdul Aziz’ youngest brother), who died in the early ’80s and
whose brother, Khaled Ben Abdullah (an associate of Suleiman
Olayan), still has free access to the king; and Salem bin Laden,
who died in 1988 . . . Like his father in 1968, Salem died in
a 1988 air crash…in Texas. He was flying a BAC 1-11 which had
been bought in July 1977 by Prince Mohammed Ben Fahd. The plane’s
flight plans had long been at the center of a number of investigations.
According to one of the plane’s American pilots, it had been
used in October 1980 during secret Paris meetings between US
and Iranian emissaries. Nothing was ever proven, but Salem bin
Laden’s accidental death revived some speculation that he might
have been “eliminated” as an embarrassing witness.
In fact, an inquiry was held to determine the exact circumstances
of the accident. The conclusions were never divulged . . . There
was also a political aspect to Salem bin Laden’s financial activities
. . . Salem bin Laden played a role in the US operations in the
Middle East and Central America during the ’80s. On his death
in 1968, Sheik Mohammed left behind not only an industrial and
financial estate but also a progeny made up of no less than 54
sons and daughters, the fruit of a number of marriages . . .
Upon Sheik Salem’s death, the leadership of the group passed
to his eldest son, Bakr, along with thirteen other brothers who
make up the board of the bin Laden group. The most important
of these are Hassan,Yeslam and Yehia. Most of these brothers
have different mothers and different nationalities as well. Each
has his own set of affinities, thus contributing to the group’s
international scope. Bakr and Yehia are seen as representatives
of the “Syrian group”; Yeslam, of the “Lebanese
group”. There is also a “Jordanian group.” Abdul
Aziz, one of the youngest brothers, represents the “Egyptian
group” and is also manager of the bin Laden group’s Egyptian
branch, which employs over 40,000 people. Osama bin Laden is,
incidentally, the only brother with a Saudi mother.
1994
George W. Bush is elected Governor of Texas,
defeating Ann Richards 53 to 46 %.
1999
George W. Bush celebrates the Martin Luther
King holiday by staying inside the Governor’s Mansion with the
windows closed so he wouldn’t hear the thousands of Martin Luther
King celebrants listening to speeches right outside his window
on the Texas capitol grounds, less than a football field away
. .
NEWSMAX: Soon-to-be GOP presidential nominee
George W. Bush was suspended during his service in the Texas
Air National Guard for failing to take a physical that included
a drug test, The Sunday Times of London reports . . . “In
April 1972 the Pentagon implemented a drug-abuse testing program
that required officers on ‘extended active duty’, including reservists
such as Bush, to undergo at least one random drug test every
year,” reported the Times. “The annual medical exam
that year included a routine analysis of urine, a close examination
of the nasal cavities and specific questions about drugs.”
. . . But in May 1972, he took a leave of absence from the Guard
to work on the Senate campaign of Winton Blount, a friend of
George Bush Sr., then a Texas congressman. Bush Jr. applied for
a transfer from Houston to Dannelly Air Force Base in Montgomery,
Alabama. But, says the Times, documents show no evidence that
once in Alabama, Bush ever attended the required training. Bush’s
commander for the period in question, Gen. William Turnipseed,
now retired, claims the young airman never showed up for regular
drills . . . The Texas Governor has been plagued by drug questions
since last summer, when he claimed to be drug free for the last
25 years . . . Still, despite a deluge of media speculation over
Bush’s possible past cocaine use, not a single witness has come
forward to say they saw him use the drug. On the other hand,
no fewer than six witnesses have claimed in published reports
that President Clinton used cocaine.
Neil Bush makes at least $798,00 in three stock trades in a single
day of a company where he had been employed as a consultant.
The company, Kopin Corporation of Taunton, Massachusetts, announced
good news about a new Asian client that sent its stock value
soaring. Bush stated that he had no inside knowledge and that
his financial advisor had recommended the trades. He said, “any
increase in the price of the stock on that day was purely coincidental,
meaning that I did not have any improper information.” When
asked, in January 2004, about the stock trades, Bush contrasted
the capital gains he reported in 1999 and 2000 with the capital
losses on Kopin stock he reported ($287,722 in all) in 2001.
[Wikipedia]
Bush co-founds Ignite! Learning, an educational
software corporation. Bush has said he started Austin-based Ignite!
Learning six years ago because of his learning difficulties in
middle school and those of his son, Pierce Bush. The software
uses multiple intelligence methods to provide varying types of
content to appeal to multiple learning styles. To fund Ignite!,
Bush raised $23 million from U.S. investors, including his parents,
Barbara and former President George Bush, as well as businessmen
from Taiwan, Japan, Kuwait, the British Virgin Islands and the
United Arab Emirates, according to documents filed with the Securities
and Exchange Commission. Russian billionaire expatriate Boris
Berezovsky, Berezovsky’s partner Badri Patarkatsishvili, Kuwaiti
company head Mohammed Al Saddah, and Chinese computer executive
Winston Wong are documented investors. [Wikipedia]
“Some
people have too much freedom.” — George W. Bush2000
“Jeb’s the smart one”
— George Bush Sr. to dinner partner
Former President George
Bush tries to block Gen. Manuel Noriega’s release from a US prison
because he fears the Panamanian strongman wants to kill him.
Noriega attorney Frank Rubino says the assertion was made by
Assistant US Attorney Pat Sullivan, who represented the government
at a parole hearing for Noriega.
* “Please! Don’t kill
me.” — George W. Bush to Larry King, mocking what Karla
Faye Tucker said when asked “What would you say to Governor
Bush?” prior to her execution by lethal injection (as reported
by Talk magazine, September 1999).
PRATAP CHATTERJEE, SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN: early last October, every member
of a ninth grade girls track team and the freshman the football
team at suburban Houston’s Deer Park High School’s north campus
returned from practice reporting severe breathing problems. That
day Deer Park registered 251 parts of ozone per billion, more
than twice the federal standard, and Houston surpassed Los Angeles
as the smoggiest city in the United States. One of the biggest
sources of Deer Park’s pollution is a plant owned by Enron, Houston’s
wealthiest company – and the single largest contributor ($555,000
and counting) to the political ambitions of Texas Governor and
Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush. Kenneth Lay,
the chief executive of Enron, has personally given over $100,000
to Bush’s political campaigns, more than any other individual
. . . Enron is best known as the largest buyer and seller of
natural gas in the country. Its 1999 revenues of $40 billion
make it the 18th largest company in the United States . . . Texas
activists say that this tight connection between Bush and Lay
bodes ill for the country, if Bush is elected. Andrew Wheat,
from Texans for Public Justice, a campaign finance advocacy group
in Austin, compared the symbiotic relationship between Enron
and the Governor to “cogeneration” – a process used
by utilities to harness waste heat vented by their generators
to produce more power. “In a more sinister form of cogeneration,
corporations are converting economic into political power,”
Wheat explained.
2003
Washington Post reports that Bush’s salary
from Ignite! is $180,000 per year.
2006
Over 13 U.S. school districts have used
federal funds made available through the No Child Left Behind
Act of 2001 in order to buy Ignite’s products at $3,800 apiece.
[Wikipedia]
2007
Boris Berezovsky, a political enemy of
Russian President Vladimir Putin is under indictment for fraud
in Russia and an applicant for asylum in the United Kingdom.
Berezovsky has been an investor in Bush’s Ignite! program since
at least 2003. Bush met with Berezovsky, who has been described
as “notorious” and a “wheeler-dealer,” in
Latvia. The meeting caused tension between that country and Russia
due to Berezovsky’s fugitive status. Bush has also been seen
in Berezovsky’s box at a British soccer stadium for a game. [Wikipedia]
2010
MAJOR FUNDRAISER FOR BUSH, CLINTON,
OBAMA PLEADS GUILTY TO CONNING BANKS OUT OF $292 MILLION
BUSH REGIME PRESSURED HOMELAND
CHIEF TO RAISE THREAT LEVEL BEFORE ELECTION
BUSH UNLEASHED BIBLICAL BABBLE
ON CHIRAC
BUSH REGIME HID PHOTOS OF ARCTIC
SEA CHANGE
| FROM THE CAMPAIGNTHE BOOK ON BUSHThe most startling article yet on George W. Bush comes from none other than Paul Krassner, the Moses of the alternative press, in what he declares to be the next to last issue of the Realist. Krassner claims to have obtained the report of a special consultant hired by the Bush campaign to analyze the findings of a private investigator also employed by Bush to discover what others might reveal about the Republican candidate. Krassner says he got the document from a source high in the Bush campaign.This may sound weird, but it’s the sort of thing that politicians actually do these days. The Review has previously reported on an similar investigation apparently ordered by Hillary Clinton for the 1992 campaign (The investigator in that case ended up dead in a gang style slaying). The Bush report is pretty mild stuff compared Unlike Clinton’s story, there is no mention On the other hand, there is nothing in A few excerpts: On charges of public drunkenness including “There is not question that on several On group sex — once allegedly over 24 “Of more concern are two instances, On a woman who claimed to have gotten drugs “In casual conversation at the end CAVEAT: It is possible that, in a preemptive THE REVIEW LIST Questions the media probably won’t ask George W. Bush
|
- Or might he have been thinking of the
deal in 1986 when, after Spectrum 7 had lost $400,000 in six
months, you sold it to Harken Energy, becoming a major Harken
stockholder and receiving a good salary as a director and consultant? - Or was it that time when you sold two-thirds
of your Harken stock for a 200% profit on June 22, 1990, just
40 days before the start of the Gulf War and one week before
the company announced a $23 million quarterly loss, setting off
a 60% drop in share price over the next six months? - Why were you so valuable to these companies
given your less than impressive business acumen? - When you and your Harken partners ran
short of cash and hooked up with investment banker Jackson Stephens
of Little Rock, Arkansas, he got you a $25 million stock purchase
by Union Bank of Switzerland. Did you know that Sheik Abdullah
Bakhsh, who joined your board as a part of the deal, was connected
to BCCI? Did you know that the United Bank was connected to BCCI
(including its operations in Panama), the Nugan Hand Bank (a
notorious CIA-front in Australia), and Ferdinand Marcos? - Did you know that it was Jackson Stephens
who introduced the players in what would turn out to be the infamous
First American-BCCI deal?Why do your think the government of Bahrain chose Harken to drill
its offshore wells even though it had never dug overseas or in
water before? Why do you think it chose Harken, with no relevant
experience, over Amoco, with plenty of it? Did you ever discuss
with your dad Harken-Bahrain deal? Did any sheiks or other officials
ever express any concern over the failure of Harken to find any
oil? Do you think they really cared? - Tell us again why you waited almost a
year past the legal deadline to file the necessary SEC report
on your Harken stock deal.You borrowed $180,000 from Harken at a low rate. Did you ever
pay it back or was it included among that $341,000 Harken listed
in SEC documents as loaned to executives and later forgiven? - You have worked closely with a number
of persons with CIA ties. Do you think it is healthy for the
country to have three presidents in a row so closely connected
with this intelligence agency?Do you think it is healthy for the country to have three presidents
in a row who are Yale men? - Your grandfather Prescott was on the board
of Brown Harriman which helped provide some of the financing
for the Soviet and Nazi regimes. Do you think this was a wise
idea? - As president would you continue this tradition
in our policy towards China? - During World War II your grandfather had
property seized under the Trading with Enemy Act. Was he pro-Nazi
or just a proto-neo-capitalist ahead of his time? - What is the American voter to make of
the fact that two of your brothers, one father, one grandfather,
and one uncle have been involved in unseemly scandals of one
sort or another? How do you distinguish your ethical code from
theirs? - One of your Uncle Prescott’s hot deals
resulted in an early but major transfer of sensitive technology
to the Chinese government. Your father in 1989 lifted sanctions
that blocked such ventures. Do you approve of Uncle Prescott
and your father’s behavior in these matters? As president would
you allow such deals to continue? - Do you approve of your uncle and father’s
role in what has become to be known as the “October Surprise?” - You invested $600,000 in the Texas Rangers
and later sold out for $15 million. What did you do for the Rangers
in between? How much of this profit reflected your ability to
get the city of Arlington to condemn land for a ball park at
1/6 its true worth and then impose a 1/2 cent sales tax to subsidize
your business? Is this an example of what you meant in 1993 when
you said, “The best way to allocate resources in our society
is through the marketplace. Not through a governing elite?” - Can you name a business deal you have
been in that hasn’t raised ethical questions? That has made a
profit without some form of government subsidy? - Why did you have to hire private investigators
to find out what dirt private investigators might be able to
dig up on you?Do you think that you have used more or less cocaine than, say,
Marion Barry or Bill Clinton?Discuss this remark by Michael King in the Texas Observer: “Although
by his own admission George W. was an indifferent student, he
was nevertheless the deserving-by-both beneficiary of the oldest
most illegitimate, and most sacrosanct form of affirmative action.
. . It’s business as usual.” - Since you want to help “instill individual
responsibility” and give people a “future of opportunity,
instead of dependence on government,” why did you and your
neighbors at the exclusive Rainbo Club development get a tax
break from your government? - In what ways do such tax breaks differ
from welfare benefits other than that welfare recipients are
more needy? - Do you believe that being a member of
a secret society dedicated to promoting fraternal nepotism in
public office is consistent with being president of a democracy? - If the words “skull and bones”
are mentioned at a White House news conference, will you — as
the tradition of the society demands — feel compelled to leave
the room?THE LIST
State rankings of Texas
under George Bush
– Teacher salaries at beginning of 1st
term , 36– Teacher salaries at beginning of 2nd term, 38
– Teacher salaries plus benefits, 50
– High school completion rate, 48
– SAT scores – 1996 combined math & verbal: 995, 44
– SAT scores – 1998 combined math & verbal: 995, 44
– Highest % of children without health insurance, 1
– Highest % of poor working parents without insurance, 1
– Highest % of population without health insurance, 2
– Highest number of people stripped of Medicare benefits, 1
– Highest teen birth rate, 5
– Per capita funding for public health, 48
– Delivery of social services, 47
– Mothers receiving prenatal care, 45
– Child support collections, 45
– Number of executions, 1
– Teen smoking – down nationally, flat in Texas,
– Teen drug use – down nationally, up 30% in Texas
– Pollution released by manufacturing plants, 1
– Greenhouse gas emissions, 1
– Spending for parks and recreation, 48
– Spending for the arts, 48
– Public libraries and branches, 46
– Spending for the environment, 49
– Best place to raise children, 48
– Home ownership, 44
– Highest homes insurance rates in the nation, 1
– Spending for police protection, 47
BILLIONAIRES FOR BUSH (OR GORE)
Similarities between the candidates:
– Father was a powerful Washington insider
– Opposes raising the minimum wage to match the cost of living
– Supports corporate-managed trade: (NAFTA, WTO & IMF)
– Favored repeal of federal guarantee of assistance to poor children
– Got rich in a business subsidized by taxpayers Bush: oil &
gas, baseball stadiums; Gore: agribusiness– Supports Federal Reserve policy of keeping wages low to prop
up stock prices– Will continue taxpayer subsidies of generous CEO salaries
– Supports tens of billions of dollars in corporate subsidies
– Will continue to tax earnings from stock market at lower rate
than income from actual work– Supports repeal of Depression-era banking regulations designed
to protect small depositors– Raised record amounts of campaign cash from wealthy corporate
donors– Same color and gender as every other President
– In the richest 5% of population
– Mediocre golfer
– 66 corporations have given to both Bush and Gore
FEELING BUSH’S PAIN
[The web site, GWBush.com, has obtained
a number of letters from inmates imprisoned on drug charges that
compare their “youthful indiscretions” with those of
Dubya. Here’s one]Boy, do I feel your pain. Why are people
always dredging up what you did a decade, even two or three decades
ago? After all, Henry Hyde and Bob Livingston were still enjoying
“youthful indiscretions” at our age! And what about
those in Congress who “experimented” with drugs? (You
and I just abused them!). Hell, the same drugs they “experimented”
with, they’re mandating 10 and 20, even life sentences for first
time, non-violent experimenters — far more than for bank robbery
and rape. If (select) drugs are worthy of such irrational sentences,
why can’t people avoid responsibility for “lesser”
offenses, say, “experimenting” with bank robbery, or
“experimenting” with rape? Nah, this drug thing they’re
hanging on you isn’t right. Like you say, it’s time to “forgive
and forget.”I noticed the press you are getting for
being coked up at your Dad’s inauguration. Strictly your business
I figure. Besides, drinking heavy like you did, a pinch of Peruvian
marching powder can really help titrate that buzz. It’s like
Oreos and milk, isn’t it? I’ve been there. But can I give you
some advice? Switch to pot. That disco dust and alcohol can make
you mean, while pot mellows you out – you know what I mean. Besides,
it makes you a hell of a lot more “compassionate.”
You ain’t itchin’ to pull the trigger on every execution that
comes across your desk (especially the 14 year olds you pushed
to be able to fry)!Speaking of forgetting, I’ve been rotting
in federal prison for years now. The only one who hasn’t forgotten
me is my federal prosecutor. Don’t get me wrong, I sort of like
Paul (I call him Paul; he calls me scumbag druggie). He’s like
a pit bull you can’t help but grow fond of, even though he’d
be a lot happier, I’ll bet, if he “experimented” like
you and me. Come to think of it, being forgotten isn’t all that
great. Your wife, your dog, and especially the message it sends
to the kids. Forgiving though, that’s more in line with the “compassionate”
thing you are pushing. I like the “responsibility”
thing too.Yes George (can I call you George?; we’re
so alike I feel we could be friends) it’s time to accept responsibility
for your actions, then to forget, then forgive. Just like you
say. — Kevin McHall Reg. No. 05689-052 PO Box 9000 Seagoville,
Texas 75159-9000GREAT MOMENTS
OF THE BUSH CAMPAIGN
DAVID LETTERMAN: How do you look so youthful
and rested?GEORGE W. BUSH: Fake it.
DAVID LETTERMAN: And that’s pretty much how you’re going to run
the country?* * *
DAVID LETTERMAN: Let me remind you of one thing, governor: the
road to Washington runs through me.GEORGE W. BUSH: It’s about time you had the heart to invite me.
[Boos]DAVID LETTERMAN: You’re winning delegates left and right, governor.
* * *
DAVID LETTERMAN: You often say: I’m a uniter, not a divider.
What does that mean?GEORGE W. BUSH: It means when it comes time to sew up your chest
cavity, we use stitches as opposed to opening it up. [Boos]WHY GROWN UP MEN
ACT THE WAY THEY DO
[The following, while not providing
information new to TPR readers, represents something of a break-through
in the mainstream press, which (with a few exceptions such as
Esquire) has treated Yale’s hyper-powerful and bizarre fraternity
as if it was also a member of Skull & Bones]STEPHEN PROTEHRO, SALON: Though a seniors-only
society, Skull and Bones is more than a tad sophomoric. Each
May on “Tap Day,” senior Bonesmen troll around Yale’s
campus, selecting, or “tapping,” 15 juniors for membership
in the upcoming class. The initiation rites that follow sound
like something out of Fred Flintstone’s Water Buffalo Lodge or
a Robert Bly retreat. Each knight, as neophytes are called, reportedly
regales his fellow initiates with his sexual exploits. (He may
or may not be naked and may or may not be lying in a coffin.)
During initiation, he endures some sort of physical challenge
(mud wrestling? diving into a dung pile?) before being born again
with a new name and a new identity. In the outside world, members
are never to speak about their society. If outsiders raise the
topic, Bonesmen are supposed to leave the room. Members take
their secrecy oath seriously — no insider has ever published
an exposé — so it is impossible to separate the realities
from the rumors that swirl around the society. One rumor has
each new member receiving a $15,000 payout. Another says the
interior of the “Tomb” (the eerie Gothic headquarters
where twice-a-week meetings are held) is decorated with human
remains, including the skulls and bones of notables such as Mexican
revolutionary Pancho Villa and Apache warrior Geronimo. — SALONBUSH AT LARGE
“The lessons learned are is that the
United States must not retreat within our borders. That we must
promote the peace. In order promote the peace we’ve got to have
strong alliances–alliances in Europe, alliances in the Far East.
In order promote the peace, I believe we ought to be a free-trading
nation. … The lessons of Acheson and Marshall are is that our
nation’s greatest export to the world has been, is, and always
will be the incredible freedoms we understand in the great land
called America.”– George W. BushI asked [Bush] about the efforts of Southern
Baptists to convert Jews, and he responded: “I mean,
that’s the Southern Baptists. But I don’t think that this is
a government function.” –Franklin Foer“When Forbes pushed [Bush] to explain
how, precisely, his administration would respond to rising oil
costs, Bush fell apart. His answer: “We’d keep plans in
place to say to our drillers, ‘Keep on exploring.’ — Tucker
CarlsonTHE REVIEW LIST
Books the George Bush campaign
claims its candidate has been
reading while running for president
— “Acheson: The Secretary of State
Who Created the American World,” by James Chace. 512 pages.— A biography of John D. Rockefeller. 774 pages.
— A book on Chinese-American relations. 476 pages.
— Total pages of books Bush is said to be reading: 1,762
“Sitting down and
reading a 500-page book on public policy or philosophy or something.”
— George W. Bush when asked to name something he isn’t good
at (Talk magazine, September 1999).THE REVIEW LIST
Nicknames Given George W. Bush
W.
II
Two
Too
Guv
G.W.
G-Dub
G-Bub
Shrub
Dubya
Junior
Bushie
Guv-Dub
Bushbush
George II
George Two
George Too
Boy George
King George
Copyright 2000, The Progressive
Review
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