George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

That other Texan was John Connally, who had played the role of Bush's nemesis in the
elections just concluded by virtue of the encouragement and decisive support which
Connally had given to the Bentsen candidacy. Nixon was now fascinated by the prospect
of including the right-wing Democrat Connally in his cabinet in order to provide himself
with a patina of bi-partisanship, while emphasizing the dissension among the Democrats,
strengthening Tricky Dick's chances of successfully executing his Southern Strategy a
second time during the 1972 elections.
The word among Nixon's inner circle of this period was "The Boss is in love," and the
object of his affections was Big Jawn. Nixon claimed that he was not happy with the
stature of his current cabinet, telling his domestic policy advisor John Ehrlichmann in the
fall of 1970 that "Every cabinet should have at least one potential President in it. Mine
doesn't." Nixon had tried to recruit leading Democrats before, asking Senator Henry
Jackson to be Secretary of Defense and offering the post of United Nations Ambassador
to Hubert Humphrey.
Within hours after the polls had closed in the Texas senate race, Bush was received a call
from Charles Bartlett, a Washington columnist who was part of the Prescott Bush
network. Bartlett tipped Bush to the fact that Treasury Secretary David Kennedy was
leaving, and urged him to make a grab for the job. Bush called Nixon and put in his
request. After that, he waited by the telephone. But it soon became clear that Tricky Dick
was about to recruit John Connally and with him, perhaps, the important Texas electoral
votes in 1972. Secretary of the Treasury! One of the three or four top posts in the cabinet!
And that before Bush had been given anything for all of his useless slogging through the
1970 campaign! But the job was about to go to Connally. Over two decades, one can
almost hear Bush's whining complaint.
This move was not totally unprepared. During the fall of 1970, when Connally was
campaigning for Bentsen against Bush, Connally had been invited to participate in the
Ash Commission, a study group on government re-organization chaired by Roy Ash.
"This White House access was dangerously undermining George Bush," complained
Texas GOP chairman O'Donnell. A personal friend of Bush on the White House staff
named Peter Flanigan, generated a memo to White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman
with the notation: "Connally is an implacable enemy tof the Republican party in Texas,
and, therefore, attractive as he may be to the President, we should avoid using him
again." Nixon found Connally an attractive political property, and had soon appointed
him to the main Wite House panel for intelligence evaulations: "On November 30, when
Connally's appointment to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was announced, the
senior senator from Texas, John Tower, and George Bush were instantly in touch with the
White House to express their 'extreme' distress over the appointment. [fn 2] Tower was
indigant because he had been promised by Ehrlichman some time before that Connally
was not going to receive an important post. Bush's personal plight was even more
poignant: "He was out of work, and he wanted a job. As a defeated senatorial candidate,
he hoped and fully expected to get a major job in the administration. Yet the
administration seemed to be paying more attention to the very Democrat who had put him
on the job market What gives? Bush was justified in asking." [fn 3]