He couldn’t have realized it at the time, but his words set a standard that both Jeb and I would strive to follow when we held public office.
The final straw came on August 5, 1974. The Supreme Court had ruled that the White House must turn over all the tapes to Leon Jaworski, the new Watergate special prosecutor and a friend of Dad’s from Houston. The tapes revealed that Nixon had spoken to one of his aides about thwarting the FBI’s investigation into the Watergate break-in. That was proof that he knew about the cover-up and that he had lied to the country. The revelation shattered Dad’s trust in Nixon.
The day after the smoking-gun tape became public, Nixon held a meeting with his Cabinet and key political advisers. Dad attended the meeting and witnessed a surreal scene in which the President spent the meeting talking about the economy and other policy issues rather than confronting the only question that really mattered. Later that day, Dad gave Nixon’s Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig, a candid assessment. After speaking to some of his old friends in Congress, he had learned that the President would not have the votes to survive an impeachment proceeding.
Despite his deep disappoint
Mother and Dad were relieved by the President’s decision. They went to the White House for his farewell address. As Dad described it, the White House was filled with “an aura of sadness, like someone had died.” In the East Room, where I had first met Nixon at the ecumenical church service a few years earlier, he concluded his speech by saying, “Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”
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IT WOULD HAVE been hard to imagine at the time, but serving as party Chairman during Watergate proved to be a valuable experience. Dad met hundreds of party leaders and grassroots Republican activists—a network that would prove vital in his later campaigns. Although he saw how people in honorable positions could do dishonorable things, he didn’t let the experience jade his view of public service.
The Watergate experience confirmed a key lesson: A leader must surround himself with people of good character and set high standards. Watergate also reinforced the importance of personal relationships. Nixon seemed to have few real friends. He seemed introverted, mysterious, and suspicious. A cost of his isolation was that he had no one to keep him grounded or talk him out of his worst instincts. By contrast, my father was extroverted, optimistic, and determined to see the best in people. As a result, he managed to maintain his friendships in Washington throughout Watergate—and he struck up some new ones. One unlikely friend was Bob Strauss, Dad’s counterpart at the Democratic National Committee. They bonded over their experiences and shared many laughs. They came to respect each other so much that Dad later named Strauss Ambassador to the Soviet Union. The contrast was striking. Richard Nixon kept a list of his political enemies; George Bush turned his political opponents into friends.
Unfortunately, the hangover from Watergate would affect every President who followed Richard Nixon. A generation of reporters saw the Washington Post win a Pulitzer for exposing the scandal, and many dreamed of being the next Woodward or Bernstein. A strong and skeptical press corps is good for democracy. Often the media’s first instinct is to portray every story as a scandal, however, which presents a distorted picture of government and leaves the public cynical.
As for George Bush, his character and good judgment allowed him to survive Watergate with his reputation and integrity intact—a feat that seems more impressive with time.
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AFTER WATCHING Richard Nixon board the helicopter on the South Lawn for his departure from the White House on August 9, 1974, Mother and Dad returned to the East Room to see the new President, Gerald Ford, take the oath of office. Ford remains the only President who was never elected; Richard Nixon appointed him after his first Vice President, Spiro Agnew, resigned to avoid jail time for tax fraud.
Ford offered an immediate contrast with Nixon. He was a big, sturdy Midwesterner with an optimistic demeanor, exactly the kind of healer the nation needed. When President Ford uttered his famous line “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over,” it seemed to me that he was referring to more than Watergate. My hope was that a long era of tension and pain—the race riots, Vietnam, Nixon’s enemies list—was coming to a close.
Ford immediately had to make a major decision. Former President Nixon could have faced criminal charges for his involvement in Watergate. President Ford understood that a trial of the former President would have forced the American people to relive the traumas of Watergate for years to come. He removed that possibility by granting Nixon a full and unconditional pardon. His decision was deeply unpopular, and many think it cost him the 1976 election. George Bush respected the President’s decision. Not only was it necessary, but it also showed political courage.
I spent the summer of 1974 in Fairbanks, Alaska, where I was working a job for Alaska International Air. I had gone there between my first and second years of Harvard Business School both to satisfy my sense of adventure and to assess the business opportunities. I was startled by the beauty of Alaska and enjoyed the hiking, the fishing, and the long summer days. I was also surprised, however, by how dependent the state and its businesses were on the federal government. That did not appeal to me, and by the end of the summer I concluded that business opportunities were better in Texas.
One morning I picked up the local newspaper in Fairbanks and read that George Bush was on the short list of people who Gerald Ford was considering to fill the vacant vice presidency. It had never occurred to me that Dad would be a candidate for the job. I called Dad, who confirmed that the report was true.
“Well, there are some people who think I could do a good job,” he said, “but I wouldn’t make much out of it.”
He was on the list partly because an RNC poll of party leaders showed that Dad had more support than anyone else. Some of his friends on Capitol Hill were lobbying the new President on his behalf. If Dad wanted to be VP, I was rooting for him hard. Deep down I wondered whether Ford could pick someone with such a recent connection to Nixon.
Sure enough, I heard on the radio a few days later that Ford had selected Nelson Rockefeller, the Governor of New York, to be the new Vice President. I could only imagine what Prescott Bush would have thought of that choice.
Two days later, President Ford called my father to the Oval Office to discuss his future. Dad told him that he had enjoyed his time at the UN and that he would like to expand his diplomatic experience. The President told him he could take his pick of ambassador