George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

Casey was also a close associate of George Bush. During 1976, Ford appointed Casey to
PFIAB, where Casey was an enthusiastic supporter of the Team B operation along with
Bush and Cherne. George Bush and Casey would play decisive roles in the secret
government operations of the Reagan years.
As the Republican convention gathered in Detroit in July, 1980, the problem was to
convince Reagan of the inevitability of tapping Bush as his running mate. But Reagan did
not want Bush. He had conceived an antipathy, even a hostility for George. One factor
may have been British liberal Peter Teeley's line about Reagan's "voodoo economics."
But the decisive factor was what Reagan had experienced personally from Bush during
the Nashua Telegraph debate, which had left a lasting and highly derogatory impression.
According to one account of this phase, "ever since the episode in Nashua in February,
Reagan had come to hold the preppy Yankee transplant in, as the late Senator Robert
Kerr of Oklahoma used to say, mimumum high regard. 'Reagan is a very gracious
contestant,' one of his inner circle said, 'and he generally views his opponents with a good
deal of respect. The thing he couldn't understand was Bush's conduct at the Nashua
Telegraph debate. It imprinted with Reagan that Bush was a wimp. He remembered that
night clearly when we had our vice-presidential discussions. He couldn't understand how
a man could have sat there so passively. He felt it showed a lack of courage." And now
that it was time to think about a running mate, the prospective presidential nominee gave
a sympathetic ear to those who objected to Bush for reasons that ran, one of the group
said later, from his behavior at Nashua to 'anit-Trilateralism'" According to this account,
conservatives seeking to stop Bush at the convention were citing their suspicions about a
"'conspiracy' backed by Rockefeller to gain control of the American government." [fn 28]
Drew Lewis was a leading Bushman submarine in the Reagan camp, telling the candidate
that Bush could help him in electoral college megastates like Pennsylvania and Michigan
where Ted Kennedy had demonstrated that Carter was vulnerable during the primaries.
Lewis badgered Reagan with the prospect that if he waited too long, he would have to
accept a politically neutral running mate in the way that Ford took Dole in 1976, which
might end up costing him the election. According to Lewis, Reagan needed to broaden
his base, and Bush was the most palatable and practical vehicle for doing so.
Much to his credit, Reagan resisted; "he told several staff members and advisers that he
still harbored 'doubts' about Bush, based on Nashua. "If he can't stand up to that kind of
pressure,' Reagan told one intimate, 'how could he stand up to the pressure of being
president?' To another, he said: "I want to be very frank with you. I have strong
reservations about George Bush. I'm concerned about turning the country over to him.'"
As the convention came closer, Reagan continued to be hounded by Bushmen from inside
and outside his own campaign. A few days before the convention it began to dawn on
Reagan that one alternative to the unpalatable Bush might be former President Gerald
Ford, assuming the latter could be convinced to make the run. Two days before Reagan
left for Detroit, according to one of his strategists, Reagan "came to the conclusion that it