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man."
Bush's opening statement was also in the main a tissue of banality and
cliches. He indicated his support for the Rockefeller Commission report
without having mastered its contents in detail. He pointed out that he had
attended cabinet meetings from 1971 to 1974, without mentioning who the
President was in those days. Everybody was waiting for this consummate
pontificator to get to the issue of whether he was going to attempt the
vice-presidency in 1976. Readers of Bush's propaganda biographies know that
he never decides on his own to run for office, but always responds to the
urging of his friends. Within those limits, his answer was that he was
available for the second spot on the ticket. More remarkably, he indicated
that he had a hereditary right to it -- it was, as he said, his
"birthright."
Would Bush accept a draft? "I cannot in all honesty tell you that I would
not accept, and I do not think, gentlemen, that any American should be
asked to say he would not accept, and to my knowledge, no one in the
history of this Republic has been asked to renounce his political
birthright as the price of confirmation for any office. And I can tell you
that I will not seek any office while I hold the job of CIA Director. I
will put politics wholly out of my sphere of activities." Even more, Bush
argued, his willingness to serve at the CIA reflected his sense of noblesse
oblige. Friends had asked him why he wanted to go to Langley at all, "with
all the controversy swirling around the CIA, with its obvious barriers to
political future?"
Magnanimously, Bush replied to his own rhetorical question: "My answer is
simple. First, the work is desperately important to the survival of this
country, and to the survival of freedom around the world. And second, old
fashioned as it may seem to some, it is my duty to serve my country. And I
did not seek this job but I want to do it and I will do my very best." /
Note #7
Stennis responded with a joke that sounds eerie in retrospect: "If I
thought that you were seeking the Vice Presidential nomination or
Presidential nomination by way of the route of being Director of the CIA, I
would question your judgment most severely." There was laughter in the
committee room.
Senators Barry Goldwater and Stuart Symington made clear that they would
give Bush a free ride not only out of deference to Ford, but also out of
regard for the late Prescott Bush, with whom they had both started out in
the Senate in 1952. Senator Thomas McIntyre was more demanding, and raised
the issue of enemies list operations, a notorious abuse of the Nixon (and
subsequent) administrations:
"What if you get a call from the President, next July or August, saying
'George, I would like to see you.' You go in the White House. He takes you
over in the corner and says, 'Look, things are not going too well in my
campaign. This Reagan is gaining on me all the time. Now, he is a movie
star of some renown and has traveled with the fast set. He was a Hollywood
star. I want you to get any dirt you can on this guy because I need it.'|"
What would Bush do? "I do not think that is difficult, sir," intoned Bush.
"I would simply say that it gets back to character and it gets back to
integrity; and furthermore, I cannot conceive of the incumbent doing that
sort of thing. But if I were put into that kind of position where you had a
clear moral issue, I would simply say 'no,' because you see I think, and
maybe -- I have the advantages as everyone on this committee of 20-20
hindsight, that this agency must stay in the foreign intelligence business
and must not harass American citizens, like in Operation Chaos, and that
these kinds of things have no business in the foreign intelligence
business." This was the same Bush whose 1980 campaign was heavily staffed
by CIA veterans, some retired, some on active service and in flagrant
violation of the Hatch Act. This is the Vice President who ran Iran-Contra
out of his own private office, and so forth.
Gary Hart also had a few questions. How did Bush feel about assassinations?
Bush "found them morally offensive and I am pleased the President has made
that position very, very clear to the Intelligence Committee...." How about
"coups d'etat in various countries around the world," Hart wanted to know.
"You mean in the covert field?" replied Bush. "Yes." "I would want to have
full benefit of all the intelligence. I would want to have full benefit of
how these matters were taking place but I cannot tell you, and I do not
think I should, that there would never be any support for a coup d'etat; in
other words, I cannot tell you I cannot conceive of a situation where I
would not support such action." In retrospect, this was a moment of
refreshing candor.
Gary Hart knew where at least one of Bush's bodies was buried:
Senator Hart: You raised the question of getting the CIA out of domestic
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zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkwiatpolny.htw.pl
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Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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