George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

Cline later said that his approach to Bush's 1979-80 primary campaign was to "organize
something like one of my old CIA staffs." "I found there was a tremendous constituency
for the CIA when everyone in Washington was still urinating all over it," commented
Cline to the Washington Post of March 1, 1980. "It's panned out almost too good to be
true. The country is waking up just in time for George's candidacy."
Heading up the Bush campaign muck-raking "research" staff was Stefan Halper, Ray
Cline's son in law and a former official of the Nixon White House.
A member of Halper's staff was a CIA veteran named Robert Gambino. Gambino had
held the sensitive post of director of the CIA's Office of Security. It will be recalled that
the Office of Security constitutes the interface between Langley and state and local police
departments all across the United States with whom it must cooperate to protect the
security of CIA buildings and CIA personnel, as for example in cases in which these
latter may run afoul of the law. The Office of Security is reputed to possess extensive
files on the domestic activities of American citizens. David Aaron, Brzezinski's deputy at
the Carter National Security Council, recalled that some high Carter officials were
"upset" that Gambino had gone to work for the Bush camp. According to Aaron, "several
[CIA] people took early retirement and went to work for Bush's so-called security staff.
The thing that upset us, was that a guy who has been head of security for the CIA has
been privy to a lot of dossiers, and the possibility of abuse was quite high, although we
never heard of any occasion when Gambino called someone up and forced them to do
something for the campaign." [fn 9]
Other high-level spooks active in the Bush campaign included Lt. General Sam V.
Wilson and Lt. General Harold A. Aaron, both former directors of the Defense
Intelligence Agency. Another enthusiastic Bushman was retired General Richard
Stillwell, formerly the CIA's Chief of Covert Operations for the Far East. The former
Deputy Director for Operations Theodore Shackley was also on board, reportedly as a
speechwriter, but more likely for somewhat heavier work.
According to one estimate, at least 25 former intelligence officials worked directly for the
Bush campaign. As Bill Peterson of the Washington Post wrote on March 1, 1980,
"Simply put, no presidential campaign in recent memory--perhaps ever--has attracted as
much support from the intelligence community as the campaign of former CIA Director
George Bush."
Further intelligence veterans among the Bushmen were Daniel C. Arnold, the former CIA
Station chief in Bangkok, Thailand, who retired early to join the campaign during 1979.
Harry Webster, a former clandestine agent, became a member of Bush's paid staff for the
Florida primary. CIA veteran Bruce Rounds was Bush's "director of operations" during
the key New Hampshire primary. Also on board with the Bushmen was Jon R. Thomas, a
former clandestine operative who had been listed as a State Department official during a
tour of duty in Spain, and who later worked on terrorism and drug trafficking at the State
Departement. Andrew Falkiewicz, the former spokesman of the CIA in Langley, attended
some of Bush's pre-campaign brainstorming sessions as a consultant on foreign policy