What It Takes (111 page)

Bush could never understand all those reporters “who put me down on the couch.”

Why was he always up in Maine? Wasn’t it elitist?
...

For God’s sake, he’d been coming to this place every summer of his
life
(save for one, when he was bombing the Nips back to Tokyo). ... He didn’t pick it for status! He didn’t pick it at all! Look, there was his
mother’s
house, the anchor of the family ... surely they could understand
that
. They wanted character?

Oh, he read the stories—though he said he didn’t, or said he forgot them the minute he put them down. (“Bar’s the one who’d remember that kind of thing.”) ... But he remembered, too. Some of the bad ones he could
recite
. And he remembered who wrote them. He always thought, in fact, it must be something about them—or them and him ...a personal thing.

So he’d try to have them over to the house—drinks, or the boat ... think it helped? Saul Friedman, the reporter for
Newsday
, known him for twenty-five years—Saul covered his first campaign in Houston!—Saul says, “Why’d you get a boat like
that
? What’re you try’na
prove
? A sailboat is
your
kind of boat.”

A
sailboat
!

Why couldn’t these people see?

Just as he could not inhabit a french-fry-shocked Chevy, he could not
imagine
what it was like for reporters, to sit for fruitless days in a lousy hotel in a small town in Maine, killing time, trying to divine if something was ever going to happen in a campaign that didn’t seem to be a campaign ... not here, anyway—no matter how many white men flew in for conferences, briefings, and strategy set-tos, to which, of course, reporters were not invited.

The press could ask the pols who motored in for visits: “Whad’ja talk about with the Vice President?”

“Oh, you know ... fishing.” (That was the truth!)

Sometimes, reporters could catch one of the white men on his way to the airport, after a conference.

What went on?

Any actions, decisions?

Who said what?

Of course, the white men could never, uh, exactly remember, if anybody in particular said anything, you know, in particular ... no, it was just nice to be up in Maine. (True enough, too.)

No wonder the stories said the Bush campaign had no positions. No wonder they implied that Bush was pandering and playing through the campaign. No wonder they started using the quotes from du Pont and Kemp—how Bush was ducking the debate, was not
man enough
to join a contest of issues, to put forth his agenda for the nation and its people. ... The reporters came, they did their jobs, they asked around—and (in Al Haig’s notable phrase), they didn’t hear a
whimp
!

They looked at the distant house on the Point, and they saw:

White people at play.

They asked the candidate’s main man, Atwater ... and Lee talked about how great it was to get away from the noise and heat, to talk things over, all the white men together, in the sparkle of sun-on-water, the quiet cool of the night. Lee talked about how
classy
it was:

“What’s
Bob Dole
gonna do?” said the gentle Campaign Manager. “Rent a trailer and invite all the New Hampshire Police Chiefs down to see him in his
Airstream
? ...”

But Atwater (who was new at being a white man) missed the point—it wasn’t class, or escape, not in the view from the big house.

Kennebunkport, all the “cottages,” and Walker’s Point in particular, had to do with America’s
substitute
for class—that is, money and power. The stern gentlemen in their wing collars and boater hats who built these oceanfront mansions were not the idle rich of their day. They were men of big works and large affairs ... they’d catch the
State o’ Maine
sleeper Friday night from New York and, forty-eight hours later, they’d kiss their children goodbye again for the overnight trip back to Wall Street or midtown. Kennebunkport was their creation, for lives of the most rapacious striving.

Here is a fact about Walker’s Point that should be borne in mind:

In the plan of the town, and through its early decades, this unique, irreplaceable spit of land was called Damon’s Point, or more popularly, Damon’s Park ... because it was the townspeople’s favorite retreat, a place (as the local historian wrote) of “wandering well-worn woodland paths; a small pond; fragrant juniper and sun-warmed blueberries; and unsurpassed views in both directions along the shoreline of the Kennebunks. ...”

That’s before the Walkers bought it—so much for the public park.

Yes, proprieties were observed (white shorts and shirt on the court, please) ... but the point, at the Point, was who played—and won. Yes, the Walker boys were expected at St. Ann’s every Sunday—their mother was a very religious woman ... imagine her dismay (though shock was unlikely) to find her sons, before church, in a circle by the driveway, laying down their bets on the first hymn—even or odd?

The W-word at the Point was Winning.

In the summer of 1987, while Bush reck-reated, David Broder wondered in print whether Bush was too much “an innocent” to survive the slaughter of a campaign. The Karacter Kops weighed in with profiles—mostly following the lead of the Chief Majorette: “
Is George Bush Too Nice to Be President?
” ... They all stressed the privilege, the security of his youth, all the friends he made at school ...

But what were friends for?

Remember the Andover newspaper poll: “The average student came to Andover with making contacts uppermost in his mind.” Friends were the fellows who helped you play the game ... and win. That was the real game—great doings, the lifelong King of the Mountain—the scramble onward and upward from Andover Hill to the boardroom, or the Cabinet table. ...

Consider the transcontinental, transgenerational web of friendship, family, and power that supported one Bush-scramble, the creation and financing of Zapata Off-Shore Company:

George’s main booster was still Uncle Herbie, whose company, G.H. Walker & Co., was underwriter for nearly all of Zapata Off-Shore’s early public offerings of stocks and bonds. The law firm representing G.H. Walker & Co. was Winthrop, Stimson, the firm founded by Elihu Root in 1868. Henry Stimson (Andover’s chairman and icon) was taken into the firm by Root in 1891. The actual lawyering on Zapata issues was done by Endicott P. “Cotty” Davison, a grandson of the legendary founder and headmaster of Groton, Endicott Peabody, and, with George Bush, a Bonesman at Yale in 1948. For Zapata Off-Shore’s initial public offering, however, Bush wanted a Texas company to underwrite. Luckily, Robert Parish, who had been at Andover with Bush, was working at the Houston investment bank of Underwood, Neuhaus. (Parish and Milton Underwood took seats on the board of Zapata Off-Shore.) Parish called his friend Baine Kerr, who had experience in the oil and gas business, to do the Texas lawyering. Kerr was an associate at Baker & Botts, the prestigious Houston law firm founded by the grandfather of James A. Baker III. One of the early partners at Baker & Botts had been Robert S. Lovett, who became counsel to E.H. Harriman’s Union Pacific and later served on the board of directors and as president of the railroad. Lovett was a self-educated man—his formal training ended after the third grade. But his own son, Robert A. Lovett, went on to the Hill School (with Herbie Walker and his brothers) and to Yale, where he was Skull and Bones. Lovett the younger, who commanded the first U.S. Naval Air Squadron, married Adele Brown, daughter of James Brown, a senior partner in Brown Brothers. Lovett also rose to partner at Brown Brothers and helped to arrange the merger of Brown Brothers with W.A. Harriman & Co., a company formed by E.H. Harriman’s sons, Averell and Roland, and run for a time by George Bush’s grandfather, G.H. Walker. Prescott Bush was a top partner in the firm for forty years. In fact, the Harrimans’ top men, Pres Bush and Knight Wooley, had been Skull and Bones at Yale with four of the partners at Brown Brothers: Lovett, Ellery James, Laurence Tighe, and Charles Dickey. And just as Davison had been at Yale with Bush, so, too, Root, Stimson, the Harrimans, and all the Walkers were Yale alumni. And not only did they do business, but they were part of a line—from Root to Stimson to Lovett—that held sway in the U.S. departments of War and State, from the Spanish-American to the Vietnam War.

Tell the truth, the Walkers of Walker’s Point were not so much interested in matters of public policy. More than most, they tended to strip the game to its essence—which was to put oneself and one’s heirs firmly astride the fuel lines of the great economic engine. When Bush’s Uncle Herbie shoved those new Zapata shares into the portfolios of his favored investors (with such blunt insistence that it actually caused some talk within the firm) ... he did not have in mind the energy requirements and policies of the Republic. No, he was backing his favorite, Poppy. He was betting his horse to win.

Yes, there was security in the web—it could act as an extraordinary safety net: in the early years of Zapata Off-Shore, a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico blew away one of Bush’s three multimillion-dollar oil rigs ... disappeared it, and with it, a third of Bush’s business prospects. George was under great stress—though amid the Walkers and Bushes in Maine, nothing was ever really
said
about it. ... Of course, Zapata was insured (through George’s brother, Pressy) ... but still, it was woeful news for the company, its investors and creditors. Sure enough, the officers of the Morgan Guaranty Bank were upset (most upset that they had not been told), so the bank president called his friend, Dr. Johnny Walker, in Kennebunkport. Johnny Walker told brother Herbie, who snapped: “What the hell are
they
calling for? I’ve got three or four guys who’ll cover the whole thing!” ... and Herbie called the president of Morgan Guaranty to tell him to get off of George Bush’s back. ... In fact, almost a week of sun-and-sea passed in Kennebunkport before Herbie or Johnny found cause to
mention
the matter to George.

Still, in the end, it was win or lose with the Walkers, and within the wider web of white men in which Bush came of age and became a star. Herbie was not cutting slack for his nephew—he was still betting to win. (He held on to Zapata Off-Shore to the end, till George Bush, himself, sold out in ’65 to devote himself to politics. Even when the stock sank to two dollars and change, Herbie would insist: “Gonna be the
greatest
stock.
Y’gotta
go with management! ...”) The trick was to have enough muscle and will to stay in the game ... and narrow the odds.

Herbie had the will. He was the second patriarch of the Point, which spoke volumes for his strength and standing within the web. In each generation, there was, after all, only one man to tend Walker’s Point, and defend it, for the family and its heirs. ... That was another easy misconception about this world of ferocious white men: in the end, there was nothing collegial about control, or winning. Only one man could have the big house.

And in his generation, George Bush was that man ... that kind of winner. It was not Herbie’s sons, Bert or Ray, who took the big house. And it was not for George Bush to take, in turn, the smaller bungalow where his parents, Pres and Dottie, had summered. The family was its own Ranking Committee ... and Poppy was The One.

Maybe it was not entirely coincidence that it was at the Point, amid that family, that George Bush first said where
he
thought his life should lead. It was a summer evening in the sixties, the family was gathered, idly, with a TV on—pictures of a great hall, a national convention, a massed crowd cheering, and politicians on stage, waving and smiling ... George Bush was lying on the floor of the living room, on his side, his head propped on an elbow, his eyes on the screen, as he said:

“I’m gonna be up there, sometime.”

Maybe it was not entirely coincidence ... when Herbie passed away, a decade later, and his widow, Mary, was going to sell the Point (a group of Arab investors meant to break up the parcel), Herbie’s brothers brought matters to a head and prevailed upon Mary to sell the land and the big house (for a great deal less than it would fetch from the foreigners) to George Bush. It would not be easy for George. The house had been wrecked by a big storm. A wing was in ruins, the great parlor jutting out to sea was battered open to the weather ... the place would need plenty of cash—more than George Bush had, at the time. But he was The One, family-ordained. ... Maybe it was not entirely coincidence:

That was the year he first ran for President.

No one understood the web and George Bush’s place in it—or appreciated it—like the First Son and chip off the block, George W. Bush. That’s why he never offered the Veep advice.

It was
because
he knew his father: how Bush was about “team play” ... about letting people do their jobs ... about professional people who shouldn’t have to look over their shoulders at every member of the family. That’s why Junior tried to keep quiet—he put his head down, did his work.

But that work was in the campaign, every day. And George W. Bush had method—hard to see, sometimes, but ... method, nonetheless. He’d have a rotating gaggle in his office all day, bullshitting, playing with the toys on his desk, giggling at the T-shirts and gimcracks tacked all over the walls, while Junior sat with his boots on the desk, a chew in his bottom lip, talkin’ on the phone and spittin’ in the basket ... and listening. Sometimes people would get so easy in his office, they’d say what they thought.

That’s how Junior knew—what they said and what they thought. He knew ... when they looked at his dad like a kid with his first bike—sure he was going to crash and maim himself somehow. Like they were with the debate—oh, Junior knew. It pissed him off. He knew
why
that stuff was in the papers, about Bush ducking. ...

That’s why he brought up the stories.

They were playing golf—“electric polo,” they called it. The way Bushes played—and played through—the course was theirs to race. (
Whap!
Hit the ball, gun the cart, jump out while the tires are still skidding grass—
Whap!
... Two hours, start to finish! A truly athletic event!)