As my parents knew from their meager access to American news, the CIA was facing withering criticism from the public, the media, and Congress. In December 1974, the New York Times had published a front-page article revealing that the CIA, under multiple Presidents, had engaged in illegal activities, including monitoring domestic antiwar activists and other dissident groups. Congress formed the Church and Pike Committees to investigate. Angry legislators demanded transparency and a massive overhaul of the agency. As my father read the message to Mother, she broke down in tears. The President had just asked the man she loved to reenter the swamp.
Mother wasn’t the only one who had misgivings about the offer. Dad was reluctant too. Democrats had made huge gains in the 1974 congressional elections that followed Watergate, and my father knew that dealing with the most liberal Congress in recent memory would be very unpleasant. He also wanted to keep the door open to pursue further political ambitions. He had been considered for VP in 1974, and Republicans in Texas were talking to him about running for Governor in 1978. Those plans would be threatened if he took the CIA job. As he put it in a letter to his brothers and sister, the CIA was a “graveyard for politics.”
Yet again, Dad’s sense of duty prevailed. He had dealt with the CIA during his time at the UN and in China, and he knew the importance of their work. A few hours after he received the telegram, Dad cabled back to Washington to accept the job. As he explained to the President and Kissinger, “My Dad inculcated into his sons a set of values that have served me well in my own short public life. One of these values quite simply is that one should serve his country and his President. And so if this is what the President wants me to do the answer is a firm ‘YES.’ ”
The CIA position required confirmation by the Senate. The nomination became controversial when some Senators loudly claimed that George Bush was too political for the job. Dad pointed out that he had held nonpolitical posts at the UN and in China, and he assured the Senators that partisanship would play no role in the assignment. Still, they demanded more. In a historically unusual letter, President Ford provided a written guarantee that he would not consider George Bush for Vice President when he ran for reelection in 1976. The President was willing to do what was necessary to get his nominee confirmed, and Dad’s commitment to serve his country was strong enough that he gave up his constitutional right to run for office. The Senate confirmed him by a vote of sixty-four to twenty-seven.
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DIRECTOR BUSH BEGAN the new job by developing a strong and trusting relationship with his new colleagues. That task was especially important at the CIA, where agency morale was sagging because of the beating the CIA had been taking in Congress and the press. The agency’s image had been tarnished badly.
From the beginning, Dad made it clear that he believed in the agency’s mission and would stand up for its people. In his appearances before Congress and the media, he stressed the importance of a robust intelligence capacity. While acknowledging past abuses, he explained the measures the agency had taken to correct them. Most important, he called the intelligence officers “patriots,” a term that few people were willing to use in public when the daily headlines blared about the CIA’s past transgress
He showed his support for the agency in other ways. President Ford had offered him an office in the Old Executive Office Building, right next to the White House. Accepting the office would have signaled his importance in Washington, where proximity to the President is a proxy for power. He turned the President’s offer down. He felt that his office should be at agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia. There he took the employee elevator, not the one reserved for the Director. Around Christmas 1976, he arranged for the great jazz artist Lionel Hampton to perform a concert for the employees in “the Bubble,” the CIA’s large auditorium. (Unlike the Christmas party back in West Texas, Dad didn’t tend bar.)
Director Bush traveled to CIA stations abroad to thank analysts and case officers. Some in the clandestine service had never met a CIA Director. He also made some difficult personnel decisions that were necessary to improve the agency—another reason why it was so important for him to develop trust early on. He gently eased out older agency leaders, which gave him a way to promote junior officers and address the recruitment problem. And he spoke out forcefully against leakers, including former CIA agent Philip Agee, who had just released a tell-all book. My father could forgive a lot of mistakes, but he believed that it was disgraceful for a man to violate his oath and reveal state secrets, especially when it could lead to the loss of innocent American life.
It didn’t take long for word to get around Langley that George Bush cared deeply about the CIA’s mission and people. He found the work fascinating; his inquisitive nature was sated by the agency’s cadre of brilliant analysts. Remarkably, in just one year, he developed a strong bond with the people of the CIA—dedicated public servants who did not often receive the public appreciation that they deserved. One historian called him the most popular director since Allen Dulles in the 1950s.
Dad’s affection for the CIA lasted long past his year at Langley. As President, he asked for in-person CIA briefings almost every day. When I was elected President, he advised me to do the same. I took his advice and found the briefings by the smart, capable CIA analysts one of the most interesting aspects of my job. Like Dad, I gained great respect for the fearless officers of the clandestine service.
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TRUE TO HIS WORD, Dad stayed out of politics throughout his time at the CIA. President Ford’s poll numbers had suffered after his pardon of Nixon, and the economy was struggling. In November 1976, he lost a close election to Jimmy Carter. Dad had met Carter during the campaign when the Georgia Governor requested intelligence briefings so that he could be up to speed if he won the election. After Carter’s victory, Dad offered to stay on. He had been at the agency for only a year, and he felt that he could provide stability while the President filled the rest of his national security team.
Jimmy Carter decided to let Dad go, a move that I thought was a mistake. When he became President twelve years later, Dad retained CIA Director William Webster, who had been appointed by Ronald Reagan. When I took office, I retained Director George Tenet, who had been appointed by Bill Clinton. I thought my decision would send a signal of continuity and nonpartisa
Ultimately, a Democratic President did recognize Dad’s contributions to the CIA. In 1998, Bill Clinton signed legislation sponsored by Congressman Rob Portman of Ohio that renamed the agency’s headquarters. When I made my first visit to Langley, Director George Tenet said, “Mr. President, welcome to the George Bush Center for Intelligence.”
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IN THE SPACE of one decade, George Bush had served as Ambassador to the United Nations, Republican Party Chairman, Liaison Officer in China, and Director of the CIA. He had seen a President fall and a new world power begin to rise. He had dealt successfully with diplomats, communists, and spies. He had led organizations through crises and emerged with his reputation enhanced. Yet when George Bush boarded a commercial flight to Houston after Jimmy Carter’s inauguration, most observers believed his political career was over. According to conventional wisdom, none of the jobs he had held in the 1970s were viewed as a springboard to political success.