George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

Further investigation of this potentially embarrassing complex of allegations was greatly
hindered by the death of Robert Y. Eckels on December 24, 1989.
Bush's big money campaigning was especially dependent upon Texas oilmen, whose
largesse he required to stoke his political machine. Bush was running a political action
committee called the Fund for America's Future which raised $3.9 million in off-year
1985, a hefty sum. Of that take, about a fifth was raised from 505 Texas donors, with
Texans giving more than the residents of any other state. $135,095 of Bush's money
harvest came from persons who could be clearly identified as oil industry figures, and the
rakeoff here was probably much greater. When the price of a barrel of oil fell during this
period from $39 to $12, Bush had a big problem. His donors began to squawk.
Overall, the collapse of the oil price, itself a result of the world-wide industrial
depression, was a boon to the bankrupt US dollar. The insolvent greenback was shored up
by this new subsidy, which restored a little of the currency's ability to command some
real commodities in the real world. But for Bush's immediate cronies and money-minded
political base, it was a disaster. "You've got to figure George was getting banged around
by all his oil friends, particularly the drillers, who have been hurt the most," a
Congressional Bushman told the Washington Post. [fn 25] Sure enough, Bush's old pal
Bill Liedtke, now the president of POGO Producing in Houston, a drilling company,
confirmed that his man was highly attuned to the issue: "George understands very well
that you're going to lose a certain percentage of production permanently if the price goes
too low. Ever since I have known him, back to the Eisenhower era, he has been very
sensitive to the connection between a strong [oil] industry and national security." [fn 26]
Robert Mosbacher, Bush's moneybags, confirmed this view in spades: "I always find that
when I talk to George about the oil and gas business, he's up to speed. He has two sons in
the business, and he stays in touch through them."
The collapse of the oil price posed a real problem that should have been answered by
introducing an oil tariff with a trigger price of $25 per barrel, so that the domestic price of
oil would never fall below that figure, as was proposed at the time by a few spokesmen
for the oil patch. That would have been the equivalent of setting up a parity price for oil,
and would have given domestic producers solid certainties for long-term development
and planning. But the Reagan Administration in general was still wedded to the
president's irrational fetishism of "the magic of the marketplace," and would violently
oppose anything smacking of dirigism or re-regulation.
Bush was not interested in a parity price for oil. He rather took advantage of a scheduled
trip to the Middle East, during which he was supposed to be discussing regional security
matters, to talk up the price of oil with his long-time crony King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
Bush expressed his concern about "the free fall" of oil prices and talked with Fahd about
"how [the Saudis] feel there can be some stability to a market that certainly can't be very
happy to them." He denied that he had come to Saudi Arabia on a "price-fixing mission,"
but invoked national security. Bush lectured Saudi Oil Minister Zaki Yamani about the
saturation of the world oil market. The implication was clear: the Saudis were supposed
to cut back their production. [fn 27] It was a few weeks later that the US bombed Libya.