Nixon's Secret (71 page)

In one programmed outburst during the Watergate hearings, Weicker—making sure the cameras were focused on him—had cried out, “Republicans do not cover up, Republicans do not go ahead and commit illegal acts, and God knows Republicans don’t view their fellow Americans as enemies to be harassed; but rather I can assure you that Republicans . . . look upon every American as a human being to be loved and won.” At the same time he denounced the White House for allegedly seeking to smear him, claiming that Charles Colson had been leaking nasty things about him to the press. Naturally Weicker was opposed to leaking. Except of course when he did the leaking. For, as it turned out, Weicker and his staff were feeding out confidential materials to press people on an almost daily basis. Weicker’s arrogant disregard of the rules shocked most of his colleagues. As columnist Nick Thimmesch observed, the senator “acted every bit as high-handed as anyone in Nixon’s White House ever did and could have well been a Watergate himself if he had the opportunity.”

As I had detailed previously despite the fact that Weicker insists in his memoir
Maveric:* A Life in Politics
, he had cautioned Nixon advisor Murray Chotiner not to provide covert aid to Tom Dodd, the now disgraced Democrat US senator who was running as an Independent. Chotiner and White House fundraiser Herbert Kalmbach would dispatch former New Jersey State Senator Harry Sears, a friend of John Mitchell’s to Hartford with two suitcases of cash to fuel Dodd’s effort. Dodd, the very model of an august Roman senator, finished with twenty-five, pulling Catholic Democrats off of the Democratic nominee Rev. Joe Duffey, thus electing Weicker with 41 percent of the vote. Between the Townhouse cash and the secret subsidies to Dodd, Murray Chotiner elected Lowell Weicker. Let no good deed go unpunished.

Senate Watergate Committee Majority Counsel Sam Dash would admit that Weicker would vote with the panel Democrats for any broader subpoena power or area of investigation, saying in essence that Weicker was in the bag and the committee Republican were powerless to stop the one-sided investigation of Nixon in the Watergate matter.

Additionally, while Bush was never charged in connection with the operation, it was not for lack of trying. Nixon White House documents from July 1973, shortly after Mr. Bush became chairman of the Republican National Committee, indicate a willingness by Mr. Bush to burn party records related to Townhouse. Prosecutors’ notes from an interview with Mr. Gleason include the following quote, “Bush called Weicker, asked whether he should burn [records of payments from the Townhouse Operation to the RNC].” That is to say, Bush indicated a willingness to obstruct an investigation into the Townhouse Operation, actively conspired to obstruct justice, and presumably was willing to lie under oath should investigators come looking for RNC records relating to the operation.

The Bush-Weicker-Gleason relationship bears further discussion. While Senator Weicker was one of the beneficiaries of the Townhouse funds during the 1970, to the tune of $71,000,
21
he has only admitted to reporting the $6,000 in cash, while ignoring the other $65,000 we now know him to have received.
22
Additionally, Weicker, who served as an enemy to the administration during the Watergate proceedings, eventually hired Jack Gleason as a legislative aide.
23
It seems bizarre that an individual who made his reputation by turning on the administration in the name of good governance would hire the man responsible for gross campaign finance violations, targeting Weicker’s own campaign.

While Bush’s involvement with the Townhouse Operation was well documented from the moment the story broke, the events surrounding Townhouse were damaging to Bush multiple times over the duration of his political career. After Nixon’s resignation and Ford’s ascension to the presidency, one of the most burning political questions in the country was whom Ford would choose as his vice president. Many viewed Bush, who at this point had served in many high-profile positions, as one of the front-runners, along with New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. While Ford had already selected Rockefeller for the position over the course of August 16/17, 1974,
Newsweek
ran a piece on August 18 speculating that Bush’s ambitions for the office have been badly damaged “because of alleged irregularities in the financing of his 1970 Senate race.”
24
While it remains unclear who leaked the information to the press (Bush has always believed it to be Ford political adviser Melvin Laird; Ford biographer James Cannon has reported that Ford’s senior aide Donald Rumsfeld, considered by some a dark horse for the position, leaked it to further his chances), it is quite certain that Bush’s chances were essentially nonexistent as a result of his involvement in the Townhouse Operation.
25

Nineteen seventy-four was not the end of the grief that Bush would endure as a result of his involvement with Nixon’s Townhouse operation. At the end of 1975 Bush, at that point serving as head of the US Liaison Office in Beijing, was angling for an appointment by President Ford to head the Commerce Department.
26
Bush felt that Commerce would position him for a chance to be named to the Ford ticket in 1976, as Rockefeller had announced his intention to step away from the vice presidency at the end of the term. However, Ford decided to appoint Bush Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The agency was at that time battling two congressional hearings, and Bush, given his legacy as RNC chair during Watergate and as a recipient of Townhouse funds, was highly controversial.
27
Bush, to his disappointment, was made to agree to Ford’s decision to remove him from contention for the vice presidency as a condition of his appointment to the CIA.
28
Again, Bush’s political ambitions were thwarted as a result of his Townhouse involvement. Interestingly, while the majority of the Senate was placated by this compromise position, and Bush was confirmed 64-27, two of the 41 GOP Senators did not support Bush’s confirmation—including the abstaining Lowell Weicker.
29

Again, and again, Townhouse and the Nixon connection rose to challenge Bush in his ambitions. During his 1980 campaign, on the heels of his success in the Iowa Caucuses, Townhouse would again plague Bush. The
Manchester Union-Leader
, an unabashedly conservative paper, very much pro-Reagan in his campaign against Bush, would again revive the charges against Bush regarding Townhouse.
30
So concerned was the Bush camp about the possibility that the allegations would again surface, that the Watergate special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who had cleared Bush of wrong doing, was given a place on Bush’s presidential steering committee; this despite Mr. Jaworski’s professed Democratic allegiance.
31

The Townhouse Operation would further hinder Bush’s political ambitions during his run for reelection as president in 1992, the twentieth anniversary of the Watergate break-in. An in-depth
New York Times
article published in June 1992 revived the debate of Bush’s involvement with Townhouse and presented much of the evidence discussed above. The allegations of Bush’s willingness to destroy evidence, while denounced by the Bush camp, was particularly damaging to his campaign.
32
The details of Bush’s involvement with Townhouse struck many as illustrative of his political careerism at best, and evidence of the type of cynical calculation and aloofness through which prism many voters had come to view Bush. It was perhaps not as fatal in ‘92 as it had been in 1974, however, his involvement with Townhouse still cost Bush dearly at a time when he was attempting to recover from a surprisingly difficult, for an incumbent, primary campaign.

Bush’s brother Jonathan Bush said that George was “getting in position to run for president.” Peter Roussel, Bush’s highly regarded press aide from 1970 to 1974, said, “There were high hopes for him in that race. It was one of the premier races of that year, and a lot of people thought, well, Bush is going to win this Senate race, and there’s probably a good chance that’ll be the stepping stone for him ultimately going to run for president.” Bush lost, however.

As a victim of two unsuccessful Senate campaigns, Bush’s political future was in doubt. For the next eighteen years, he was not in control of his political career. He was well suited to advance his career by serving others in administrative posts, but it seemed a dead end. When Nixon offered him an insignificant job as assistant to the president, Bush made his case for more.

* * *

When Bush heard that Nixon Treasury Secretary David Kennedy was leaving, he inquired of the president for the job. He was shocked to learn that his nemesis John Connally would be taking that job. “Bush hated Connally,” David Keene, Bush’s 1980 political honcho, told me at the time. Bush sold Nixon on going to the UN as ambassador. Bush got to brush up his foreign policy credentials and attend endless cocktail parties. He wrote notes, kept in touch with his friends, and bided his time.

Kissinger and Nixon both considered Bush a lightweight. He was never told of the back-channel communiqués with the Communist Chinese. He staked himself out at the UN as a hardliner for Nationalist China and against the Reds. Bush was kept in the dark about Nixon’s visit to China. George and Barbara Bush lived blissfully ignorant in a sumptuous double apartment at the Waldorf Towers, where Herbert Hoover had lived and Mrs. Douglas MacArthur was still a neighbor.

Nixon would then appoint Bush chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Senator Bob Dole served Nixon well as chairman of the Republican National Committee. Day-to-day operations were run by cochair Thomas B. Evans, Jr., later a Delaware congressman and an important early supporter of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Nixon decided to sack Dole for no other good reason other than he had gotten beaten up for attacking Democrats on behalf of Nixon. The president asked Bush to take Dole’s place. “Dole is still pissed about it,” Scott Reed, the Kansas senator’s 1996 campaign manager, told me in 2013. Bush would use the party post to cultivate organizational Republicans making alliances with Goldwaterites like Arizona’s Dean Burch and Nebraska’s Dick Herman. Bush would defend Nixon as the Watergate scandal gained steam but would, after the release of the so-called Smoking Gun tape tell Nixon it was time to throw in the towel.

John Sears made short work of Bush presidential aspirations in 1980.

Nixon was stunned when Reagan selected Bush to be vice president. “Nancy thinks he’s a jerk,” the former president confided in me. “And Ron doesn’t like him. After that Nashua thing [the Nashua, New Hampshire, Republican debate] Ron never got over his dislike for the guy.” Nixon had been in touch with Kissinger during the Republican National Convention as the former secretary of state labored mightily to convince Reagan to take former President Gerald Ford for vice president and divide the country’s top job into a copresidency. “Henry is getting grabby,” Nixon told me. “It’ll never work.” A week after the Republican National Convention, Nixon would tell me, “even Bush is better than that crazy Ford idea.”

“Bush was dead as Kelsey’s nuts,” Nixon confided. “Two losing races for the US Senate and then he fumbles the nomination after winning Iowa. Ron blew political life into a loser.” Sometimes Bush’s presidency would enrage the thirty-seventh president. “Why the hell can’t he speak English?” Nixon would ask me. “He acts like one of those goddamn country clubbers.”

NOTES

1
.     Walshe, Shushannah. “Bush 41, Reagan consoled Nixon During Watergate. ABC News. August 21, 2013.

2
.     Ibid.

3
.     Guariglia, Matthew. “New Nixon Tapes: Prez Tells George H.W. Bush He Had ‘Nothing to Do With Those Goddamn Things’ [AUDIO]” The Heavy
http://www.heavy.com/news/2013/08/new-richard-nixon-tapes-george-bush-kennedy-assassination/

4
.     Baker, Russ. Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America, 160.

5
.     Pincus, Walter. Woodward, Bob. “George Bush: Man and Politician.” The Washington Post. August 9,1988

6
.     Baker, Family of Secrets, 164.

7
.     Baker, Family of Secrets, 161.

8
.     Bedard, Paul. “Nixon Nearly Picked Bush as VP: Instead, Spiro T. Agnew got the nod in 1968, says book.” US News & World Report, 10 Aug. 2011.

9
.     Pincus & Woodward, “George Bush: Man and Politician.”

10
.   Novak, Robert. The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington, p. 144.

11
.   Baker, Family of Secrets, 164.

12
.   Allen, Gary. The Man Behind the Mask, p. 131

13
.   Dean, John. Blind Ambition, 59-62.

14
.   Werth, Barry, 31 Days, pp. 115-116

15
.   Ibid

16
.   Ibid

17
.   Esper, George. “Bush Says No Wrong Involved in Acceptance of Funds,” Associated Press. February 7, 1980

18
.   Lukas, J. Anthony, Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years, p. 111.

19
.   Gerth, Jeff. Pear, Robert. “Files Detail Aid to Bush by Nixon White House, New York Times June 11, 1992

20
.   Ibid

21
.   Armstrong, Scott, “Weicker Raises Funds Question Involving Bush,” The Washington Post, February 29, 1980

22
.   “Campaign Gift Cleared: Weicker” The Meriden Record. July 1, 1976

23
.   Armstrong, Scott, “Weicker Raises Funds Question Involving Bush,” The Washington Post, February 29, 1980

24
.   Werth, 2006 pp. 114-116

25
.   Ibid

26
.   Pincus, Walter. Woodward, Bob. “Presidential Posts and Dashing Hopes; Appointive Jobs Were Turning Points” The Washington Post, August 9, 1988

27
.   Ibid

28
.   Ibid