Transcript: Chapter 03

Narrator: After the war, Bush followed his father and his brother Prescott and entered Yale. Two and one-half years later, he had a degree in economics, Phi Beta Kappa -- and a son. George W. was born in New Haven in 1946. Like his father, Bush was tapped for Skull and Bones, Yale's most elite secret society. Henry Stimson, now retired as Secretary of War, presided over his initiation. Despite his admiration for his father and for Stimson, Bush did not follow them into the world of finance. All three of his brothers did.

Barbara Bush: He told me, "I want to work with something I can touch. I don't want to work on Wall Street with money, and I don't want to go into a sort of family business. I really want to work with something I can touch."

Ajax commercial (archival): Use Ajax, boom boom, the foaming cleanser.

Peter Roussel, press aide, 1970-74: One of his very first job interviews, maybe his first, was at Procter & Gamble. He had an interview. And he got rejected, got turned down for the job. And I asked him one day, I said, "Have you ever thought about that much, how your life might have been totally different? And he said, "I'd probably been a lousy soap salesman." Actually he said, "It helped me, because I thought: You know, I'm going to show these people that I do have the right stuff. I'm going to go out and make it somewhere else."

Narrator: Lured by the romance of a post-war oil boom, the Bushes headed to West Texas.

John Robert Greene: He wants an adventure. He wants a challenge. And there was nothing more challenging than Wildcatting oil. This is the greatest adventure you can have on the continent -- on the United States continent after World War II. It's the closest thing to uncharted territory that you can have.

Narrator: George Bush started in the oil business in Odessa in 1948 painting spare pumps for $375 a month. He was on a management track, but within two years, with two children to support, he struck out on his own as a wildcatter.

Herbert Parmet, biographer: George got investments from his uncle Herbie, his father, and people like Eugene Meyer of the Washington Post. It was not only a way to make a fortune. It was a way for him to stake out on his own.

Narrator: Bush's company Zapata Petroleum hit it big in 1954. Five years later George and Barbara moved to Houston, the headquarters of Zapata Offshore. George was prospering as its president, but there was a void in their lives. They hoped that Barbara, who was pregnant, could fill it. Their second child, Robin, had been born in 1949. She was diagnosed with leukemia when she was three. Their doctor advised them to let her die at home. Instead, they took her to New York's Sloan Kettering Hospital. Yale classmate Lud Ashley visited daily.

Lud Ashley, classmate: George was running the household back in Texas, flying up weekends -- flying from Texas when it used to take eight or nine hours to fly to New York. Barb was there all the time. Almost 24 hours a day. In all my years I've seen such a strength of character as she showed during that desperately difficult time.

Doro Bush Koch: My Dad told me that he had trouble looking into her eyes and comforting her and doing the things he wanted to do. My mom was the one who was able to hold her hand and love her and comfort her. But then later on, when my mom fell apart after Robin died, it was my dad who looked in her eyes and held her hand, and gave her the strength to go on.

Narrator: Robin died on October 12, 1953, two months before her fourth birthday.

John Robert Greene: I believe that the death of Robin sobered George Bush and turned him into an adult that could be an empathetic politician, that could be an individual who could strike on civil rights and disabilities for Americans. I really think that it was that important.

Narrator: In the late 1950s, after the birth of Jeb in 1953, Neil in 1955 and Marvin in 1956, Bush wrote a letter to his mother: "There is about our house a need. We need some starched crisp frocks to go with all our torn-kneed blue jeans and helmets. We need some soft blond hair to offset those crew cuts. We need a dollhouse to stand firm against our forts and rackets and thousand baseball cards. We need someone to cry when I get mad -- not argue. We need a little one who can kiss without leaving egg or jam or gum. We need a girl."

Jeb Bush, son: I read that letter in my mom's book, and actually listened to it on tape. I was driving home on I-95, the traffic was going crazy, and I started crying uncontrollably. I had to stop in the middle of this interstate. I called my mother up to tell her how much I loved her and how much I loved my dad, and she of course -- her immediate response was, "You didn't read the book. You had to wait for the tape to come out." She gave me grief for that. But it was pretty typical of my dad to write those kinds of letters.

Doro Bush Koch: I just learned this story a few years ago, on my birthday, when my mom wished me a happy birthday and she told me that she remembered the day I was born, that Dad came to the nursery and pressed his face against the glass and sobbed.