41: A Portrait of My Father Read online

  Copyright © 2014 by George W. Bush

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Photograph from George W. Bush’s Inauguration as Governor of Texas from Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 18, 1995 © 1995 McClatchy. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.

  http://www.star-telegram.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress

  ISBN 9780553447781

  eBook ISBN 9780553447798

  eBook design adapted from book design by Elizabeth Rendfleisch

  Frontispiece oil painting by President George W. Bush

  Photograph of frontispiece oil painting by Grant Miller

  Cover design by Chris Brand

  Front cover photograph by William Coupon/Corbis

  v4.0

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Beginnings

  War

  Heading West

  Hat in the Ring

  Man of the House

  Photo Insert 1

  Diplomacy

  Runner-Up

  Within a Heartbeat

  The Road to the White House

  Photo Insert 2

  Number 41

  The Hardest Year

  The Afterlife

  Photo Insert 3

  Acknowledgments

  To Mother and Dad with love

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  A FEW MONTHS AFTER we left the White House, Laura and I invited Tim Lawson and his wife, Dorie McCullough Lawson, to our ranch in Crawford, Texas. I had commissioned Tim—a real artist, not an amateur like me—to paint some scenes of the landscape we love. As Tim observed the native prairie grasses and live oaks on the property, Dorie and I talked about her father, David McCullough. I told her that a highlight of my presidency had been meeting her dad, the fine historian and Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer of John Adams.

  After updating me on her father’s health and projects, Dorie said, “You should know that one of my father’s great regrets in studying John Adams is there was no serious account of him by his son John Quincy Adams.”

  She knew, of course, my connection to John Quincy: We are the only sons of Presidents who have served as Presidents ourselves. “For history’s sake,” she said, “I think you should write a book about your father.”

  At the time, I was working on a memoir of my own presidency. But Dorie’s idea planted a seed. Eventually, it sprouted into this book.

  Over the years, I suspect there will be many books analyzing George Herbert Walker Bush, the man and his presidency. Some of those works may be objective. This one is not. This book is a love story—a personal portrait of the extraordinary man who I am blessed to call my dad. I don’t purport to cover every aspect of his life or his years of public service. I do hope to show you why George H.W. Bush is a great President and an even better father.

  I loved writing this book; I hope you enjoy reading it.

  BEGINNINGS

  IN LATE MAY 2014, I received a phone call from Jean Becker, my father’s longtime chief of staff. She got straight to the point.

  “Your dad wants to make a parachute jump on his ninetieth birthday. What do you think?”

  About eighteen months earlier, Jean had called to review the funeral arrangements for my father. He had spent nearly a month in the hospital with pneumonia, and many feared that this good man was headed toward eternity. He could not walk, and he tired easily. In my phone calls to Dad, he never complained. Self-pity is not in George Bush’s DNA. Now he was hoping to complete another parachute jump—the eighth of his life, counting the one he made after his torpedo bomber was struck by Japanese anti-aircraft fire over the Pacific in 1944.

  “Are you sure this is what he wants?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” she said.

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “Some say yes, some say no.”

  “What about Mother?”

  “She is concerned. She knows that he wants to do it. But she’s worried that the jump will tire him out and he won’t be able to enjoy the birthday party that she’s planning for that night.”

  After some thought, I said, “I think he ought to do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it will make him feel younger.”

  The truth is that my opinion didn’t matter much. After a parachute jump on his eighty-fifth birthday, my father had announced that he would make another jump on his ninetieth birthday. And George H.W. Bush is a man of his word.

  A few weeks later, Laura and I arrived for the birthday celebration in Kennebunkport, Maine. The jump logistics were complete, the party was planned, and Mother was now on board. The afternoon before the jump, I sat next to Dad on the porch of his beloved home at Walker’s Point, perched on a rocky outcropping over the Atlantic. I had been painting an ocean scene and was wearing cargo pants stained with oil paint. For a few peaceful minutes, we stared quietly at the sea.

  “What are you thinking about, Dad?” I asked.

  “It’s just beautiful,” he said, still looking out at the ocean. It seemed that he had said all that he wanted to say.

  We sat quietly for a few more minutes. Was he reflecting on the jump? His life? God’s grace? I did not want to interrupt.

  Then he spoke. “Do those pants come in clean?”

  I laughed, something I have been doing with my father all my life. His quip was typical. He was not nervous about his jump or his life. He was at peace. And he was sharing his joy with others.

  The morning of Dad’s birthday, June 12, dawned chilly and gray. There was a modest breeze, about fifteen miles per hour. At first, we feared that the clouds might force a change in plans. Fortunately, the veteran paratroopers coordinating the jump, known as the All Veteran Group, determined that the visibility was sufficient. The mission was a go.

  The crew fired up the Bell 429 helicopter that was parked on the lush green lawn outside the two-story wooden cabin that served as Dad’s office at Walker’s Point. Dad was clad in a custom-fitted black flight suit with a patch that read “41@90.” His preflight routine included a final weather clearance, a harness check, and an interview with my daughter Jenna, a correspondent for the TODAY show. Even with his jump looming, he was willing to share his time to help his granddaughter.

  “What’s your birthday wish on your ninetieth birthday?” Jenna asked.

  “For happiness for my grandkids,” he replied. “I hope they have the same kind of life I have for ninety years—full of joy.”

  He did have one more wish: “Make sure the parachute opens.”

  Family and friends gathered at the landing zone: the lawn of my parents’ church, St. Ann’s, the same place where Dad had landed five years earlier and where his parents had been married ninety-three years earlier. (As Mother put it, if the jump did not succeed, at least we wouldn’t have to travel far for the burial.) At about ten forty-five a.m., one of the members of the jump team approached me.

  “Mr. President,” he said, “your father is airborne.”

  A few minutes later, we spotted a small speck in the sky—the chopper at 6,500 feet. After the helicopter m
ade a circle around the church, we saw several chutes pop open. Two belonged to the video jumpers tasked with chronicling the leap. The other was a large red, white, and blue chute carrying Dad and master jumper Mike Elliott, who was making his third jump with Dad and his 10,227th jump overall. The crowd cheered as the tandem headed our way.

  “They sure are coming in hot,” my brother Marvin said, with a touch of worry.

  He was right. The wind had taken the chute off course. Mike corrected with a hard turn in the final descent. Dad slammed into the ground, skidded for a few feet, and then face-planted into the grass.

  The crowd went silent. Would he get up? Was he hurt? No one moved until the ground crew lifted him into his wheelchair. The grandkids struck up a chorus of “Happy Birthday” to camouflage their anxiety.

  Finally the sea of uniforms parted. George H.W. Bush had a smile on his face.

  I grabbed Mother, and we walked toward Dad. She leaned over and gave him a kiss. I followed with a handshake and a hug.

  “How did it feel?” I asked.

  “Cold,” he said.

  “I’m sure proud of you, Dad,” I said. “That was an awesome jump.”

  He pointed to his partner. “Mike did all the work,” he said.

  The scene captured the character of George Bush. He was daring and courageous, always seeking new adventures and new challenges. He was humble and quick to share credit. He deflected attention from himself and refused to brag about his accomplishments. He trusted others and inspired their loyalty. And above all, he found joy in his family and his faith. Nothing made him happier than being surrounded by his wife, children, and grandchildren in a place where he had so many wonderful memories.

  After the jump, Dad returned to Walker’s Point to eat, take a nap, and prepare for the 250 family members, friends, and Bush administration alumni attending the birthday party that night. He rewarded himself with a Bloody Mary over lunch. Then he received a call from his friend Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie star and former Governor of California.

  “Happy birthday,” Arnold said, “to the most badass ninety-year-old I know.”

  I agreed with Arnold’s assessment. George H.W. Bush set an example for many people in many ways. He is determined to live his life to the fullest—to the very end.

  —

  WALKER’S POINT, the site of my father’s ninetieth-birthday parachute jump, is a fitting place to begin the story of George Herbert Walker Bush. The stunning eleven acres consist of a rugged promontory jutting into the Atlantic Ocean off the southeast coast of Maine close to the town of Kennebunkport. The land was purchased around the turn of the twentieth century by my father’s grandfather and namesake, George Herbert Walker. Known to his family and friends as Bert, G.H. Walker was a fierce competitor in all aspects of life. In his younger years, he played competitive polo and briefly held the title of Missouri heavyweight boxing champion. Later he was an accomplished golfer who founded the Walker Cup competition between American and British amateurs.

  Bert Walker’s competitive drive extended into the world of business, where he earned a reputation as a hard-charging entrepreneur. He started his own investment firm in his hometown of St. Louis at age twenty-five. After a few flush years, he moved his operation to a larger stage, New York City. There he joined forces with another savvy investor, William Averell Harriman, and became President of W.A. Harriman & Company. Bert Walker wasn’t afraid to risk money, and he sure wasn’t afraid to spend it. He owned a yacht, Rolls-Royces, and homes up and down the East Coast—including Walker’s Point, the only one that remains in our family.

  As a father, Bert Walker doled out tough love to his sons. His youngest son, Lou, once showed up drunk for a mixed doubles championship at the tennis club in Kennebunkport. The whole family was gathered for the match. When Bert Walker, standing courtside clad in a tie, discovered his son’s debauchery, he pulled him off the court. Back at Walker’s Point, Lou was summoned into his father’s office. Bert Walker told him that his drunken performance had stained the family reputation. Then he imposed the sentence: Instead of returning for his next semester at Yale, Lou would spend a year working in the Pennsylvania coal mines. To show up drunk for tennis was rude and disrespectful, and those qualities were not tolerated in Bert Walker’s boys.

  In sharp contrast to the way he treated his sons, Bert Walker showered his two daughters with affection. He showed particular warmth toward his younger daughter, Dorothy, who was born in Kennebunkport in 1901. In return, Dorothy Walker adored her father. And somehow she managed to inherit his best qualities while sanding off his rough edges. Eventually she passed those traits on to her son George Herbert Walker Bush.

  Like her father, my grandmother had an insatiable competitive streak. My mother once dubbed her “the most competitive living human,” a title she earned in pursuits from tennis (she was a nationally prominent player in the small world of women’s amateur tennis) to tiddlywinks. She once challenged a friend to swim from Walker’s Point to the Kennebunk River Club, over a mile away. Thinking she was joking, the friend quit after a few hundred yards. My grandmother swam the full distance in the frigid Atlantic waters. In her most legendary feat, she played in a family softball game while nine months pregnant, swatted a home run in her final at bat, and then announced that she had started labor as she crossed the plate.

  My grandmother tempered her zeal to win with genuine humility, and she demanded that all her children do the same. She expected grace in victory, good sportsmanship in defeat, and a commitment to “do your best” at all times. She instructed her children to downplay personal accomplishments and share credit with others. And her cardinal rule was that one must never brag. In her view, arrogance was unattractive, and a person with true self-confidence did not need to gloat. “No one likes a braggadocio,” she liked to say.

  When my father was a child in Greenwich, Connecticut, my grandmother asked him how one of his baseball games had gone.

  “It was great,” he replied. “I hit a home run.”

  “That’s nice, George,” she responded.

  Then she stuck in the dagger. “But how did the team do?”

  Another time, Dad explained that he’d lost a tennis match because he’d been off his game.

  “You don’t have a game,” his mother shot back. “If you work harder, maybe you’ll get one.”

  His mother’s early lessons in humility stayed with my father his entire life. During his 1988 presidential campaign, I accompanied him to the National Press Club in Washington, DC. He was there to share his knowledge of world affairs and answer questions from the audience. George Bush knew the policy issues cold. His handling of questions on Soviet relations and Central America was a tour de force. As a lighthearted finale, the moderator asked, “Why are you wearing a red tie?”

  The question caught him off guard. From my chair next to the podium, I could see him struggling for an answer. I stage-whispered, “Because I spilled gravy on my blue one.”

  Dad grabbed the verbal lifeline, and the room erupted in laughter at his self-deprecating quip. Then he ruined the moment by blurting out, “That’s what you have a son for.” That was typical of my father. Proper attribution of the gravy line made no difference to me; I just wanted him to look good. But George Bush was just too humble to fake it.

  Dorothy Walker Bush was a woman of strong faith. She read Bible verses to her children over breakfast every morning. One of her favorites passages was Proverbs 27:2: “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth.” Every Sunday, she expected the family to go to church, usually Christ Church in Greenwich or St. Ann’s in Kennebunkport.

  While religion played a central role in her life, she never used her beliefs to judge others harshly. Her faith was solid and enduring, and it gave her an enormous capacity to love. When I think of her, the words angelic and saintly come to mind. One of my favorite memories is of visiting her and my grandfather in Greenwich when I was little. She would tickle my back as we knelt d
own to say prayers before bed: “Now I lay me down to sleep.”

  My grandmother reserved a special kind of love for my dad. As his brother Jonathan once told me, “Mum loved us all, but she loved your father more.” He continued, “The amazing thing is, none of us resented that. We loved him too.” It says a lot about my grandmother and my father that their family felt that way. When Dorothy Walker Bush died at age ninety-one, Dad called her “the beacon of the family…the candle around which all the moths fluttered.” Of all the influences in his life, nobody did more to mold his character than his mother.

  —

  IN THE FALL of 1919, shortly after she celebrated her eighteenth birthday, Dorothy Walker met Prescott Bush in her hometown of St. Louis. He stood six foot four and weighed well over two hundred pounds, without a trace of flab. He had dark black hair, a deep baritone voice, and a big, bright smile. He had come to my grandmother’s house to visit her older sister, Nancy, whom he had recently met at a St. Louis social club. When he saw Dottie Walker stride into the room from an afternoon tennis match, he was smitten. Before long, so was she.

  Like Dorothy Walker, Prescott Bush had grown up in the Midwest. His father, S.P. Bush, ran a manufacturing company in Columbus, Ohio, called Buckeye Steel. An avid sportsman, S.P. had helped organize a local baseball league, served as an assistant coach on the Ohio State football team, and cofounded Scioto Country Club, which featured a Donald Ross–designed golf course where Bobby Jones won the U.S. Open in 1926 and a young Jack Nicklaus learned to play.

  After spending his childhood in Columbus, Prescott Bush went east to Rhode Island for boarding school at St. George’s. He excelled in the classroom and, like his father, was a fine athlete. His best sports were baseball and golf. While my grandfather wasn’t exactly the Golden Bear, he remains the best golfer ever to tee it up in our family. He held a scratch handicap for most of his life, competed in the U.S. Senior Open, and more than once shot his age.