George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

Houston liberal Republican enclave and in northwest Dallas. Reagan swept the rest,
especially the rural areas. [fn 25 ]
The issue became acute among the Bushmen on May 20. This was the day Bush won in
Michigan, but that Bush win was irrelevant because Reagan, by winning the Nebraska
primary the same day, had acquired enough pledged delegates to acquire the arithmetical
certainty of being nominated on the first ballot. In the tradition of Dink Stover at Yale,
which says that one must not be a quitter, Bush made some noises about going on to Ohio
and to California on the outside chance that Reagan might self-destruct through some
horrendous gaffe, but this was merely histrionics. Bush allowed himself to be convinced
that discretion was the better part of valor by David Keene and speechwriter (and later
red Studebaker biographer) Vic Gold. His campaign was now $400,000 in debt, but
Mosbacher later claimed to have wiped that slate clean within two months. Bush
officially capitulated on May 26, 1980, and declared that he would support Reagan all the
way to November. Reagan, campaigning that day at the San Bernardino County
Fairgrounds, commended Bush's campaign and thanked him for his support.
All the money and organization had not sufficed. Bush now turned his entire attention to
the quest for his "birthright," the vice presidency. This would be his fifth attempt to attain
that office, and once again, despite the power of Bush's network, success was uncertain.
Inside the Reagan camp, one of Bush's greatest assets would be William Casey, who had
been closely associated with the late Prescott Bush. Casey was to be Reagan's campaign
manager for the 1980 elections. In 1962, Prescott and Casey had co-founded a think tank
called the National Strategy Information Center in New York City, a forum where Wall
Street lawyers like Casey could join hands with politicians from Prescott's wing of the
Republican Party, financiers, and the intelligence community. The National Strategy
Information Center provided material for a news agency called Forum World Features, a
CIA proprietary that operated in London, and which was in liaison with the British
Information Research Department, a cold-war propaganda unit set up by Christopher
Mayhew of British intelligence with the approval of PM Clement Attlee. Forum World
Features was part of the network that got into the act during the destabilization of Harold
Wilson for the benefit of Margaret Thatcher. [fn 26]
This Prescott Bush-William Casey think tank promoted the creation of endowed chairs in
strategic analysis, national intelligence, and the like on a number of campuses. The
Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies, later the home of Kissinger,
Ledeen, and a whole stable of ideologues of Anglo-American empire, was in part a result
of the work of Casey and Prescott.
Casey was also an old friend of Leo Cherne. When Cherne was appointed to PFIAB in
the summer of 1973, Casey, who was at that time Nixon's Undersecretary of State for
Economic Affairs, sent Cherne a warm note of congratulations telling how "delighted" he
had been to get the official notice of Cherne's new post. [fn 27]