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Subject: BFEE scorecard
BUSH FAMILY MACHINATIONS, 1918-2000
1918 Prescott Bush Sr., leads a raid on a Indian
tomb to secure
Geronimo's skull for Skull & Bones.
1937 Prescott Bush's investment firm sets up deal
for the Luftwaffe
so it can obtain tetraethyl lead.
1942 Three firms with which Prescott Bush is associated
are seized
under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
1953 George 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 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.
1960 Some investigators believe George 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 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.
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 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.
1968 George W. Bush joins Skull & Bones at Yale
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 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 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 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 W. 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
1980 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.
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.
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.
1983 Noriega meets again with George Bush.
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.
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 later
collapses. Recarey, who was close to mobster
Santos Trafficante, 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.
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 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.
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 a failing oil well
operation, which had
lost $400,000 in the prior six months. After
Bush joined Harken, the
largest stock position and a seat on its board
were acquired by
Harvard Management Company. The Harken board
gave Bush $600,000
worth of the company's publicly traded stock,
plus a seat on the
board plus a consultancy that paid him up to
$120,000 a year. When
Harken runs short of cash it hooks up with investment
banker Jackson
Stephens of Little Rock, Arkansas, who arranges
a $25 million stock
purchase by Union Bank of Switzerland. Sheik
Abdullah Bakhsh, who
joins the board as a part of the deal, is connected
to the infamous BCCI.
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 project 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.
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.
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 Federal 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
to proceed with the
effort. Harken's stock price increases from $4.50
to $5.50.
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 until March 1991. 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.
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 million
he owed to a failed Florida thrift.
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 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."
1993 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.
1994 George W. Bush is elected Governor of Texas,
defeating Ann
Richards 53 to 46 %.
1999 George W. Bush executes his 99th prisoner.
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
[across the street].
Bush claims to be reading four serious books while
campaigning for
president. Total pages of the four books: 1,762
* "When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world
and you knew
exactly who they were. It was us versus them
and it was clear who
them was. Today we are not so sure who the they
are, but we know
they're there." -- Texas Gov. George W. Bush,
presidential candidate.
* "Food on the family." -- George W. Bush listing
one of the
priorities of his future administration.
* "This is Preservation month. I appreciate preservation.
This is
what you do when you run for president. You've
got to preserve." --
George W. Bush to several hundred children at
an elementary school
in Nashua that was celebrating what it called
Perseverance Month
(not Preservation Month).
* "Is your children learning?" -- George W. Bush on education.
* "Some people have too much freedom." -- George W. Bush
* "The Grecians." -- George W. Bush on Greek people.
* "What I'm against is quotas. I'm against hard
quotas, quotas that
basically delineate based upon whatever. However
they delineate,
quotas, I think, vulcanize society." -- George
W. Bush, meaning to
say "balkanize," not "vulcanize" -- we think
-- and something about
quotas (Austin American-Statesman 3/23/99).
* "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).
* "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).
* "Tell them I have learned from mistakes I may
or may not have
made." -- George W. Bush
2000 "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.
Copyright 2000 The Progressive Review Also,'Sam
Smith's Great
American Political Repair Manual' is published
by WW Norton.
2000 (continued) Al Gore gets more popular votes
than George W. Bush
in the November presidential elections, but a
winner is unable to be
declared because the outcome depends upon a state
of Florida recount
that must made, according to Florida law, since
the eventual winner
will have a majority of less than 1% of the vote.
Many of the
counties do not do a recount, but simply re-report
their first
results. Other counties decide to accept late
overseas ballots,
contrary to Florida law. Bush enlists James Baker
to oversee his
post-campaign Florida campaign. Although Jeb,
as Florida governor,
recuses himself from official state participation
in the recount,
phone records later made public lead observers
to question that
statement. The Florida Supreme Court directs
that the entire state
must physically recount all of the votes, but
the U.S. Supreme Court
overrules, declaring George W. Bush the victor
in order to protect
our tradition of the smooth transition of power.
The vote was 5-4.
Although the court ruled that the decision could
never be used as
precedent in any future legal case, it was determined
that allowing
the State of Florida to recount its votes, even
though it is legally
required to do so, would not be in the best interest
of George W.
Bush's presidential aspirations. On the basis
of the Supreme Court's
decision, Bush was declared the victor in Florida,
thus winning the
majority of electoral votes and thus being elected
the nation's 43rd
president.
2001 Bush is sworn in as president and Dick Cheney,
Sec. of Defense
under Poppy, is sworn in as vice-president. Numerous
key members of
the Regan-Bush and Bush-Quayle administrations,
including those who
left under a Contra cloud, are brought back into
the new
administration.
With Bush as front man and Cheney as the brains
behind the throne,
Bush begins to consolidate power with fast-track
plans to weaken
government regulations of corporations, begin
drilling on previously
out of bounds environmentally fragile sites,
place greater world
trade powers in the White House, establish formal
governmental
funding of religions, allow greater civil rights
discrimination in
the name of freedom, shift more of the nation's
wealth away from the
middle class and into the hands of the wealthy
through changes in
the tax laws, further establish military dominance
in the world and
in space through missile defense, and weaken
international compacts
protecting the environment and controlling small
arms.
79 year old Andrew Marshall, a colleague of Herman
"Dr. Strangelove"
Kahn at the Rand think tank in the 50's appointed
head of the
Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment and major
speechwriter of Bush's
Missle Defense System speeches.
Taking a cue from the Bush Administration, Japan
deals with Iran to
provide oil field studies, indicating that the
Clinton Sanctions Act
will no longer be enforced against Iran.