George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

ignores all evidence that might tend to puncture this myth, was timed to coincide with the
Gulf crisis and Bush's war with Iraq. This is a vile tract written with the open assistance
of Bush, Barabara Bush, and the White House staff. Flight of the Avenger recalls the
practice of totalitarian states according to which a war waged by the regime should be
accompanied by propaganda which depicts the regime's strong man in an appropriately
martial posture. In any case, this book deals with Bush's life up to the end of World War
II; we never reach Odessa.
Only one of the full-length accounts produced by the Bush propaganda machine about
their candidate neglects the red Studebaker story. This is Nicholas King's George Bush: A
Biography, the first book-length version of Bush's life, produced as a result of Pete
Roussel's efforts for the 1980 campaign. Nicholas King had served as Bush's spokesman
when he was US Ambassador to the United Nations. King admits at the beginning of his
book that he can be impugned for writing a work of the most transparent apologetics: "In
retrospect," he says in his preface, "this book may seem open to the charge of puffery, for
the view of its subject is favorable all around." [fn 6] Indeed.
Books about Barbara Bush slavishly rehearse the same details from the same printout.
Here is the relevant excerpt from the warmly admiring Simply Barabara Bush: A Portrait
of America's Candid First Lady, written by Donnie Radcliffe and published after Bush's
1988 election victory:
With $3,000 left over after he graduated in June, 1948, he headed for Texas in the 1947 red
Studebaker his father had given him for graduation after George's car died on the highway. [fn 7]
Even foreign journalists attempting to inform their publics about conditions in the United
States have fallen victim to the same old Bush printout. The German author and reporter
Rainer Bonhorst, the former Washington correspondent of the Westdeutsche Allgemeine
Zeitung, in his 1988 book George Bush: Der neue Mann im Weissen Haus, named a
chapter of this Bush political biography "Im roten Studebaker nach Texas." Bonhorst
writes as follows:
Dann war da noch die Sache mit dem roten Studebaker. Sie spielt--gleich nach dem
Weltkriegseinsatz-- eine zweite zentrale Rolle in der Lebensgeschichte des George Bush. Es ist die
Geschichte seiner Rebellion. Der Schritt, der aus dem steifen Neuenglaender einen laessigen
Texaner machte, aus dem reich geborenen Patriziersohn einen Selfmademann. [...] Also packten
George und Barbara Bush, 24 und 23 Jahre alt, er gerade mit dem Studium fertig, sie vorzeitigaus
ihrer Universitaet ausgeschieden und seit ein paar Monaten Mutter, ihr Baby und ihre Koffer und
luden sie auf ihr knallrotes Studebaker-Coupe. "Ein supermoderner, schnittiger Wagen, allerdings
etwas laut fuer den neuenglischen Geschmack," erinnerten sich die Bushs spaeter. Aber
schliesslich ging es ja ab nach Texas. [fn 8]
We see that Bonhorst is acutely aware of the symbolic importance assumed by the red
Studebaker in these hagiographic accounts of Bush's life.
What is finally the truth of the matter? There is good reason to believe that George Bush
did not first come to Odessa, Texas, in a red Studebaker. One knowledgeable source is
the well-known Texas oil man and Bush campaign contributor Oscar Wyatt of Houston.