George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

assistant, Tom Lais. Later there would be meetings with his two deputies, Ambassadors
Christopher Phillips and W. Tapley Bennett of the State Department. Pete Roussel was
also still with him as publicity man.
For Bush, a 16-hour work day was more the rule than the exception. His days were
packed with one appointment after another, luncheon engagements, receptions, formal
dinners-- at least one reception and one dinner per day. Sometimes there were three
receptions per day-- quite an opportunity for networking with like-minded freemasons
from all over the world. Bush also travelled to Washington for cabinet meetings, and still
did speaking engagements around the country, especially for Republican candidates. "I
try to get to bed by 11:30 if possible, " said Bush in 1971, "but often my calendar is so
filled that I fall behind in my work and have to take it home with me." Bush bragged that
he was still a "pretty tough" doubles player in tennis, good enough to team up with the
pros. But he claimed to love basbeall most. He joked about questions on his ping pong
skills, since these were the months of ping pong diplomacy, when the invitation for a US
ping pong team to visit Peking became a part of the preparation for Kissinger's China
card. Mainly Bush came on as an ultra-orthodox Nixon loyalist. Was he a liberal
conservative?, asked a reporter. "People in Texas used to ask me that in the campaigns,"
replied Bush. "Some even called me a right-wing reactionary. I like to think of myself as
a pragmatist, but I have learned to defy being labelled...What I can say is that I am a
strong supporter of the President. If you can tell me what he is, I can tell you what I am."
Barbara liked the Waldorf suite, and the enthusiastic host and hostess soon laid on a
demanding schedule of recepetions, dinners, and entertainments.
Soon after taking up his UN posting, Bush received a phone calle from Assistant
Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs Joseph Sisco, one of Kissinger's principal
henchmen. Sisco had been angered by some comments Bush had made about the Middle
East situation in a press conference after presenting his credentials. Despite the fact that
Bush, as a cabinet officer, ranked several levels above Sisco, Sisco was in effect the voice
of Kissinger. Sisco told Bush that it was Sisco who spoke for the United States
government on the Middle East, and that he would do both the on-the-record talking and
the leaking about that area. Bush knunckled under, for these were the realities of the
Kissinger years.
Henry Kissinger was now Bush's boss even more than Nixon was, and later, as the
Watergate scandal progressed into 1973, the dominion of Kissinger would become even
more absolute. During these years Bush, serving his apprenticeship in diplomacy and
world strategy under Kissinger, became a virtual Kissinger clone in two senses. First, to a
significant degree, Kissinger's networks and connections merged together with Bush's
own, foreshadowing a 1989 administration in which the NSC director and the number
two man in the State Department were both Kissinger's business partners from his
consulting and influence-peddling firm, Kissinger associates. Secondly, Bush assimilated
Kissinger's characteristic British-style geopolitical mentality and approach to problems,
and this is now the epistemology that dictates Bush's own dealing with the main
questions of world politics.