The Family (89 page)

The family at the patriarch’s seventy-fifth birthday celebration, June 10, 1999, shortly after the elder Bush had parachuted onto the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station. Seated from left: Neil, Governor George W. Bush, President Bush (41), Governor Jeb Bush, Marvin, and Doro. Standing: Sharon, Laura, Barbara, Columba, Margaret, and Bobby Koch.

The small fraternity of former presidents and their first ladies who gathered on April 16, 1997, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the rededication of the Ford Museum. Seated: Lady Bird Johnson, Barbara Bush, Betty Ford, and Rosalynn Carter. Standing: President Bush (1989–93) making rabbit ears behind his wife’s head, President Ford (1974–77), and President Carter (1977–81).

George Bush meets in his private office at the White House with Jennifer Fitzgerald on May 8, 1989. Fitzgerald became deputy chief of protocol when Bush became President, and remained with him until the end of his public career in 1992.

Jennifer Fitzgerald at the White House on November 30, 1974, before leaving for China to become George Bush’s close personal aide. Known as “the other woman” in Bush’s life, Fitzgerald was his personal assistant for fourteen years.

Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush, January 27, 1981, a week after the inaugural. Their relationship was publicly cordial but privately corrosive. During their eight years in the White House, Mrs. Reagan never invited the Bushes to the family quarters. Reagan’s biographer Edmund Morris said, “Barbara never forgave Nancy for treating them like the help.”

Vice President and Mrs. Bush aboard Air Force Two on October 25, 1984, a few days after the Vice President’s debate with the Democrat Geraldine Ferraro. Barbara Bush described her husband’s opponent as a word that “rhymes with rich.”

Representative George H.W. Bush (R-TX) is poised to pin a lieutenant bar on his son George W. Bush in 1968 after the son, who never attended Officers’ Training School, received a special commission as a second lieutenant in the Texas Air National Guard.

The 1978 campaign poster for George W. Bush with his new bride, Laura Lane Welch, from Midland, Texas. They spent their honeymoon driving around West Texas as George sought to win a seat in the House of Representatives. He lost to his Democratic opponent, Kent Hance, who switched parties years later and supported Bush when he ran for governor.

George W. Bush at Arlington Stadium in Texas on April 18, 1989, after the American and National League owners approved the sale of the Texas Rangers to a group fronted by Bush and financed by others. The President’s son, who invested only $500,000, made $15 million when the team was sold in 1998.

The brothers’ sibling rivalry was not evident in 1955 when George W. Bush, nine, posed with his brother John Ellis “Jeb” Bush, two. Growing up, they competed ferociously in sports and later in politics for the approval of their absentee father.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush embraces his brother, the presumed President-elect, George W. Bush, on election night 2000. Earlier in the evening, when the networks called Florida for Bush’s opponent, Al Gore, Jeb was in tears.

Florida’s Secretary of State Katherine Harris with Governor Jeb Bush on December 18, 2000, after announcing Florida’s electoral votes “officially” going to George W. Bush. Harris’s decisions assured victory for the governor’s brother. In 2002, Harris was elected to the House of Representatives from Florida’s thirteenth district. On May 14, 2001, Jeb called a press conference to deny rumors that he had had an affair with Harris.