George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

Bush a testimonial of support about the lessons of Munich 1938 and appeasement that
Bush would wave around all through the war. It was unfortunate that freedom from
communist tyranny for some politicians seemed to mean the freedom to lick Bush's
boots. In Speyer, Germany, Bush had another apoplectic moment when Catholic Bishop
Anton Schlembach wished Bush success "but without war and bloodshed." Bush sat redfaced
like a roasted cherub. Germans were not happy about Bush's extortion of their
country when they needed money to rebuild the newly freed federal states in the east;
Germany was now reunified. Bush had a strained meeting with Kohl, and, at the CSCE
finale in Paris, a cordial one with Mitterrand, with whom his rapport was excellent. Here
our hero pressed Gorbachov for a Soviet imprimatur on his war resolution, but
Gorbachov was still stalling.
On Thanksgiving Day, Bush and Bar were with the troops in Saudi Arabia. Many soldiers
told reporters that they were not happy to be there, and were not in favor of war. One
trooper asked Bush, "Why not make a deal with Saddam Hussein, Mr. President?" while
Bush gagged on his chicken a la king Meal Ready to Eat (MRE). Flying westward the
next day, Bush stopped in Geneva for a meeting with Hafez Assad of Syria, a true villain
and butcher who had, during the month of October, taken advantage of his deal with
Bush to finish off Gen. Aoun's independent Lebanese state. Bush's meeting with Assad
lasted for three hours. Assad had provided 7,500 Syrian troops for the coalition attack
force in Saudi Arabia, which he promised to increase to 20,000. "Mr. Assad is lined up
with us with a committment to force," said Bush. "They are on the front line, or will be,
standing up to this aggression."
Manic hysteria at the top of a bureaucratic apparatus will swiftly infect the lower
echelons as well, and this was illustrated by the mishaps of Bush's travelling entourage,
which clashed with Swiss security officers while entering and leaving Geneva Airport. A
new factor exacerbating Bush's mental instability during this trip was the imminent fall of
his Anglo-Saxon Svengali, Margaret Thatcher, who was about to be dumped as prime
minister, primarily because she had become persona non grata among the leaders of
western Europe in an era in which Britain's future survival depended on parasitizing the
wealth of the continent. The Swiss have some of the most level-headed and expert airport
protocol personnel in the world, but Bush's retinue was determined to run amok. Bush
and Fitzwater wanted the press corp free to run around the airport to get the most
dramatic shots and sound bites of Bush's epic entry into one of the centers of world
diplomacy. When Bush landed, the "photo dogs" wanted to gather under the wing of
Bush's plane, but the Swiss moved them out of the area. At the departure, the press corps
went bonkers, and many of them had to be physically restrained by the Swiss officers
when they attempted to break through a crowd-control line. Fitzwater complained that
State Department protocol chief Joseph V. Reed (the scion of the Jupiter Island magnate)
had had a machine gun shoved into his stomach, and that Sununu had been "verbally
abused" during the altercation. But Fitzwater was an accomplished prevaricator: "I must
say I have never seen that kind of brutal and vicious treatment by a security force in the
last 10 years. It's strange. It's supposedly a peace-loving nation but they gave us the most
vicious treatment I've ever seen." Thierry Magnin described the actions of some US
reporters as "deplorable" and "inadmissable." Magnin said there had been "a row and