George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

15. See Zapata Petroleum Corporation annual report for 1956, Microform Reading Room, Library of
Congress.
16. Harry Hurt III, p. 194.
17. "Zapata Petroleum Corp.," Fortune, April, 1958.
18. Walter Pincus and Bob Woodward, "Doing Well With Help From Family, Friends," Washington Post,
August 11, 1988.
19. Petzinger, p. 63.
20. "Love Her And Leave Her," Forbes, September 15, 1974, pp. 54-5.
21. See Petzinger, pp. 64-67.
22. Zapata Offshore Annual Report 1964, Microform Reading Room, Library of Congress.
23. See Bush folder, Yarborough Papers, Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas,
Austin.
24. See Jonathan Kwitny, "The Mexican Connection of George Bush," Barron's, September 19, 1988.
Chapter -IX- Bush Challenges Yarborough for the
Senate
Bush's unsuccessful attempt in 1964 to unseat Texas Democratic Senator Ralph
Yarborough is a matter of fundamental interest to anyone seeking to probe the
wellsprings of Bush's actual political thinking. In a society which knows nothing of its
own recent history, the events of a quarter century ago might be classed as remote and
irrelevant. But as we review the profile of the Bush Senate campaign of 1964, what we
see coming alive is the characteristic mentality that rules the Oval Office today. The main
traits are all there: the overriding obession with the race issue, exemplified in Bush's
bitter rejection of the civil rights bill before the Congress during those months; the
genocidal bluster in foreign affairs, with proposals for nuclear bombardment of Vietnam,
an invasion of Cuba, and a rejection of negotiations for the return of the Panama Canal;
the autonomic reflex for union-busting expressed in the rhetoric of "right to work"; the
paean to free enterprise at the expense of farmers and the disadvantaged, with all of this
packaged in a slick, demagogic television and advertising effort.
During this Senate race, Bush assumed the coloration of a Goldwater Republican. It
remains highly significant that Bush began his public political career in the ideological
guise of a southern Republican, specifically in Texas. The Republican Party in Texas had
been in total eclipse since the time of Reconstruction, with the state GOPers complaining
that they were living in a one-party state. During the 1950's, the personal popularity of
Eisenhower and the increasing visibility of ultra-left Wall Street investment bankers in
the circle of Adlai Stevenson's backers began to offer the Texas Republicans some