Transcript: Chapter 08

Narrator: In August 1974, Bush retreated to Kennebunkport.

Barbara Bush: Here he feels at peace. It's roots of his family. His mother was born here. He'll tell you it's CAVU. Now, I never can remember what that means, but it's Ceiling And Visibility Unlimited. And that's what he feels about Kennebunkport, Maine. He's at peace here.

Narrator: President Gerald Ford, Nixon's successor, was about to choose his vice-president. Bush was the first choice of party leaders. At Walker's Point, he anxiously awaited the news.

Willard "Spike" Heminway, friend: Barbara Bush called up, says, "Come on over. Got to do something with George. He's getting finicky over here." So I go over, and there he is underneath the toilet, fixing toilets. And I said, "Is this the way a potential vice-president's going to act?" And he said, "Get in here and help me fix these toilets."

Narrator: Ford called him to say he has selected former governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller. "Yesterday was a real downer," Bush wrote Lud Ashley. "I guess I had let my hopes zoom unrealistically, but today perspective is coming back, and I realize I was lucky to be in the game at all."

Lud Ashley: It's his way of relaxing. And it's nonstop. It's just from-from one event to the other. I often say that in his crankcase, there's no reverse. There's no neutral. There's just drive. [laugh] And that's all there is in his crankcase. He's just always on the go.

Narrator: Ford offered Bush another ambassadorship. He could have chosen England or France, but he chose China. A friend recalled, "he wanted to get as far away from the stench of Watergate as possible." After little more than a year, another odor wafted his way. Congress was investigating CIA abuses.

Senator Frank Church (archival): We must insist that these agencies operate strictly within the law...

Narrator: The Bushes were bicycling in Beijing when a cable arrived from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Would Bush take over the CIA?

Barbara Bush: It just was a huge shock. And George got the message, and then he called George W. and said to him, "George, please call your brothers and sisters," and see how they'd feel about my coming home and heading the CIA." And George called back in about an hour and said, "They say, come home." And I've always thought George never called them. That he just decided arbitrarily that we should come home. And I thought then that this was the end of politics, that this would be just the end of our political life.

Narrator: "Here are my heartfelt views," Bush cabled Kissinger, "I do not have politics out of my system entirely and I see this as the total end of any political future." But "If this is what the President wants me to do the answer is a firm 'Yes.'"

George H. W. Bush (archival): Some of my friends have asked me, "Why do you accept this job with all the controversy swirling around the CIA with its obvious barriers to political future?" My answer is simple. First, the work is desperately important to the survival of this country and to the survival of freedom around the world. And second, old fashioned as it may seem to some, it is my duty to serve my country. And I didn't seek this job but I want to do it, and I will do my very best. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Narrator: Bush found CIA staffers demoralized. "We did have the feeling we were terribly alone, and there was no one out there defending us," one remembered. "George became a champion." Bush saw his job as boosting morale at CIA headquarters and reassuring Congress that the "rogue elephant" was under control.

George H. W. Bush: I can say, sir, that we would not disseminate that kind of intelligence on American citizens to the Cabinet committee, but we would disseminate it to the Justice Department.

Narrator: He made 51 appearances on Capitol Hill in less than a year.

Narrator: After six months on the job he wrote President Ford: "Morale at the CIA is improving. Our recruitment is up. Our people are willing to serve abroad and take the risks involved."

Narrator: When Jimmy Carter was elected President in 1976, Bush offered to remain at the CIA to burnish the agency's reputation as bipartisan.

News announcer (archival): There is increasing speculation that CIA Director George Bush may be asked to stay at his post during the new administration, but as he arrived today, he and Carter aides all refused comment on that.

George H. W. Bush (archival): I'm going to use the same ground rules that we had before, which is we're here to have a professional intelligence briefing.

Narrator: Bush became the first CIA director to be dismissed by an incoming president.

Herbert Parmet: Here was Bush, having made this concession in order to reaffirm the CIA post as being non-political, only in the end to see himself forced out because of the advent of a new administration. Well, Bush was determined to fight back, and fight back into the political arena.

Narrator: Demoralized, George Bush returned to private life in Houston. "He felt like a race horse under wraps," a biographer wrote. Bush described his "withdrawal symptoms" to a friend. "I just get bored silly about whose daughter is a Pi Phi or even about who's banging old Joe's wife," he wrote. "I think I want to at least be in a position to run in 1980. But it seems so presumptuous and egotistical." George did his best to drown out his mother's voice. For two years he served on corporate boards and built his war chest for a presidential campaign. "He is finally getting better about blowing his own horn," Barbara wrote, "the thing we were taught as children never to do."

Narrator: On May 1 1979 George H. W. Bush returned to Washington.

George H. W. Bush (archival): Ladies and gentlemen, I am a candidate for president of the United States. Before responding to questions, I would like to introduce you to my family. My mother, Mrs. Prescott Bush, who some of you may remember. My wife Barbara, most of you know. My oldest son George and his wife Laura, from west Texas. My son Jeb, his wife Columba from Houston, Texas.

Narrator: Bush distanced himself from the Republican front-runner, Ronald Reagan, the conservative governor of California, by invoking language used by President Eisenhower.

George H. W. Bush (archival): There is in our affairs at home a middle way between the untrammeled freedom of the individual and the demands for the welfare of the whole nation.

Narrator: In one year Bush traveled 329 days calling in all his chits from his years at the Republican National Committee. In a surprise victory, George Bush defeated Reagan in the Iowa caucus.

George H. W. Bush (archival): Iowa has set something in motion. The forward momentum is clearly established, and I am absolutely convinced I will be your next President.

Narrator: In the important New Hampshire primary, Reagan challenged Bush to a one on one debate and agreed to pay the cost of the event. At the last minute, in a clever ploy, Reagan wanted to change the rules to include the other candidates. Bush -- and the moderator -- stuck to the original agreement.

Ronald Reagan (archival): Mr. Breen. If you ask me if you--

Moderator (archival): Can you turn off that microphone please?

Ronald Reagan (archival): I am paying for this microphone, Mr. Green.

Narrator: That night George Bush learned how formidable a candidate Ronald Reagan could be.

Timothy Naftali: George Bush is like a boy who's dropped off at the wrong birthday party. He's just so awkward and doesn't know what to do, and he looks a little bit miffed.

George H. W. Bush (archival): I have been invited here as a guest of the Nashua newspaper. I will play by their rules. I am their guest, and I am very glad to be here. Thank you very, very much.

Narrator: Bush lost New Hampshire, but continued to challenge Reagan -- ridiculing his so-called "supply side" tax policy -- the notion that taxes could be cut without reducing spending.

George H. W. Bush (archival): This theory that Governor Reagan is talking about is what I call a 'voodoo economic' policy.

Narrator: Reagan appealed to staunch anti-communists and social conservatives, two of the groups Bush welcomed into the Republican Party in Harris County almost 20 years before. As a moderate, George Bush was chasing the caboose of the party he had helped to create. By May campaign manager James Baker urged him to pull out.

James Baker: Reagan had-had collected sufficient number of delegates to be- to be nominated, and my advice to George at the time was that we ought to fold up our tent, and not go out to California and try and contest Reagan in his home state, because if we did that, there'd be no chance whatsoever that he would be put on the ticket.

Ronald Reagan: I have asked and I am recommending to this convention that tomorrow, when the session reconvenes, that George Bush be nominated.