George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

speculation," Bush would explain years later, "and you could get equity capital for new
ventures." [fn 14]
1954 was also the year that the US overthrew the government of Jacopo Arbenz in
Guatemala. This was the beginning of a dense flurry of US covert operations in central
America and the Caribbean, featuring especially Cuba.
The first asset of Zapata Offshore was the SCORPION, a $ 3.5 million deep-sea drilling
rig that was financed by $1.5 million from the initial stock sale plus another $2 million
from bonds marketed with the help of Uncle Herbie. The SCORPION was the first threelegged
self-elevating mobile drilling barge, and it was built by R. G. LeTourneau, Inc., of
Vicksburg, Mississippi. The platform weighed some 9 million pounds and measured 180
by 150 feet, and the three legs were 140 feet long when fully extended. The rig was
floated into the desired drilling position before the legs were extended, and the main body
was then pushed up above the waves by electric motors. The SCORPION was delivered
early in 1956, and was commissioned at Galveston in March, 1956, and was put to work
at exploratory drilling in the Gulf of Mexico during the rest of the year.
During 1956, the Zapata Petroleum officers included J. Hugh Liedtke as president,
George H.W. Bush as vice president, and William Brumley of Midland, Texas as
treasurer. The board of directors lined up as follows:
George H.W. Bush, Midland, Texas;
J.G.S. Gammell, Edinburgh. Scotland, Manager of British Assets Trust, Limited;
J. Hugh Liedtke, Midland, Texas;
William C. Liedtke, independent oil operator, Midland, Texas;
Arthur E. Palmer, Jr., New York, NY, a partner in Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam, and
Roberts;
G.H. Walker Jr. (Uncle Herbie), managing partner of G.H. Walker and Co., New York,
NY;
Howard J. Whitehill, independent oil producer of Tulsa, Oklahoma;
Eugene F. Williams, Jr., secretary of the St. Louis Union Trust Company of St. Louis,
Missouri;
D.D. Bovaird, president of the Bovaird Supply Co. of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and chairman of
the board of the Oklahoma City branch of the Tenth Federal District of the Federal
Reserve Board; and
George L. Coleman, investments, Miami, Oklahoma.