http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/140
The Patrician, Elitist Corruption of the Bush Dynasty and Where Was
George H. W. Bush on November 22, 1963 Anyway?
Submitted by mark karlin on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 9:56am. Interviews
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
I am very careful not to speculate. What I do is begin with the
curious fact that G.H.W. Bush has said he could not remember where he
was on November 22, 1963. That makes him just about the only adult
alive at the time who has that memory defect.
-- Russ Baker, author, Family of Secrets -- The Bush Dynasty, the
Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their
Influence Means for America
* * *
BuzzFlash has often said that "conspiracy theories" exist because a
threshold of people believe that the official version of an event or
personal history does not pass the believability test. But then the
fun begins, because theories are just that, so you become an advocate
of one perspective or the other, hopefully based on the strength of
the argument and the backing of documentation. But that becomes more
difficult as time passes and access to the unofficial version of
events becomes more difficult.
Russ Baker has assembled the case to be made for the dark underside of
the Bush dynasty, sort of a corrupt patrician elitist mob that
relocated from New England to Texas (and Florida).
Choose what you want to believe from Baker's book, but he's a credible
journalist who has a case to make, and he's got a lot of tasty Bush
family morsels to chew upon.
We interviewed him about his just published, Family of Secrets -- The
Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and
What Their Influence Means for America
* * *
BuzzFlash: These are the last days of Bush dynastic rule, unless Jeb
-- running for Florida Senator in 2010 -- makes a run for the
presidency in 2012 or 2016. Why did you release this expose on the
Bush dynasty now?
Russ Baker: There was so much disinformation out there, and so many
layers of secrecy and obfuscation, that it took me five years to
complete my reporting. As for relevance, there is no better time than
now to try and comprehend what we have just been through--and how it
is likely to affect us as Barack Obama takes over. Some countries have
convened "truth commissions" to come to terms with their own tragic
epochs. But here in the U.S., we tend to want to shut the door and
move on. As I discovered, there was an entire hidden stratum of truth
underlying the rise of the Bushes -- a truth that, if not reckoned
with, threatens to derail the reforms we all hope are on the horizon.
BuzzFlash: Over the years, one of the most discussed allegations about
George Herbert Walker Bush was that he was a CIA operative back in the
later '50s and early '60s and was lurking around the periphery of the
Kennedy assassination. You discuss this in your book, of course.
What, in summary, do you suggest was "Poppy" Bush's role with the
Kennedy assassination and the CIA at the time?
Russ Baker: I am very careful not to speculate. What I do is begin
with the curious fact that G.H.W. Bush has said he could not remember
where he was on November 22, 1963. That makes him just about the only
adult alive at the time who has that memory defect. Seeking to
understand why he would not want to answer that question, I discovered
that, in fact, he had been in Dallas that day. After that, he traveled
to a nearby city, and then placed an odd phone call that established
in FBI files a record of his being outside Dallas at the time of the
call.
As intriguingly, it turns out that G.H.W. Bush was a friend of the
intelligence operative who befriended and guided Lee Harvey Oswald
after his return to Dallas from the Soviet Union. I also provide much
evidence that Bush Sr. had a connection to the CIA long before his
short period as CIA director. There is much more, covering chapter
after chapter of Family Secrets. Let's just say for now that there is
enough to raise the eyebrows to the ceiling.
BuzzFlash: Obviously it is more than just irony, according to your
book, that George Herbert Walker Bush became head of the CIA, and that
the Langley headquarters was named after him.
Russ Baker: Taking into account that George H.W. Bush was head of the
Agency for just a single year, it cannot be considered inconsequential
that he was selected over far longer-serving directors for this honor.
It does seem to suggest that his contributions to the agency went
beyond that one year -- and that these were both highly valued and
never publicly acknowledged.
BuzzFlash: >From my perspective, one of the most controversial
sections of your book deals with "Poppy" Bush's alleged role in
getting Nixon out of office. I don't think that BuzzFlash's friend,
John Dean, is probably too happy with your conclusions, although I
haven't had a chance to ask him. So why was Bush the Father involved
in booting Nixon out of office?
Russ Baker: The Watergate revelations in Family of Secrets surprised
me as much as they will surprise readers. I had, frankly, taken the
conventional story for granted until I started doing my own
investigative work. I was trying to understand the nature of the
relationship between Nixon and the Bush family, which has never been
properly explored elsewhere. The reasons for ousting Nixon? It appears
that certain elements closely tied to Bush Sr. -- parts of the
national security apparatus, the military, industrialists and oilmen
-- got fed up with Nixon's surprising degree of independence early in
his administration, and considered his initiatives a real threat. As
with other aspects of the book, the public would be well advised not
to conclude anything from summaries such as this, but to read the
facts and decide for themselves.
As for John Dean, I began with the conventional-wisdom assumptions
about Watergate. I thought of him as the reborn liberal, the regular
on BuzzFlash, MSNBC and the like. But my research kept leading me to a
story that is more complicated, to say the least. The facts suggest
someone much more implicated in the events that led to Nixon's
downfall, and in a way I did not expect. There are some
little-understood relationships to consider, some phone records, some
little-known Nixon tapes to review.
BuzzFlash: Stepping back from the specifics of your book, you
basically are contending that we have had a shadow government for most
of at least 50 years. Who decides who is in such a shadow government?
Russ Baker: It certainly isn't you or me. My guess, based on years of
reporting and observation, is that oligarchies in this country
function much as they do elsewhere. They are better hidden, however,
in part -- paradoxically -- because we think our society is so open,
such that hidden centers of power could not exist. We deride those who
seek more thorough explanations as "conspiracy nuts" and the rest. We
are dealing with some sophisticated operators, moreover -- who know
that Americans feel their country could not possibly harbor the same
sorts of tendencies we see everywhere else. Coups, oligarchies, sure
-- somewhere else.
BuzzFlash: A few years back, many of our readers purchased the Kevin
Philips book, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics
of Deceit in the House of Bush. I remember interviewing Philips, and
amidst his loathing of the Bush dynasty, he was quite forceful in
describing them as basic "crooks." Do you agree?
Russ Baker: I am a fan of Kevin, and consider Family of Secrets an
effort to build upon his important work. In this case though, I think
he understates what is going on. I believe that the Bushes, and the
people who back them, view themselves as operating on another plane,
and they think that they are better than the rest of us. Essentially,
they see themselves as saviors of civilization -- their idea of
civilization -- and this sense of entitlement and self-justification,
which runs deep, gives them license to do things that are inimical to
freedom and truth.
Some of these are now commonly known -- from widespread spying on
Americans to imprisonment without charges. Others, it appears, are
more personal, more ruthless, and more venal. The stuff we assume only
happens on foreign soil, or in Hollywood films. The sense of moral
entitlement, of knowing what is right, meshes, by the way, with the
certitude of their odd bedfellows in the Religious Right. The two
came together in the person of George W. Bush.
BuzzFlash: Is George "W" Bush smart enough to know what larceny he is
up to? Or does it just come instinctively? I don't think that you'll
get many arguments from BuzzFlash readers that he is the runt of the
litter.
Russ Baker: I think George W. Bush is much smarter than many people
realize. His well-known limitations with regard to attention span,
communication and the like do not negate his talents in other
respects. In Family of Secrets, I provide many examples of his
practical skills: cultivating a highly misleading personal resume,
keeping and burying family secrets, memorizing large amounts of data,
and so on. George W. was a key tactician for his father's
presidential campaign; he designed his own strategy for corralling the
religious right. He once explained to an aide how to plant stories
deep in order to let reporters think they were discovering them. No dummy.
BuzzFlash: How does the shadow financial government of Texas gas and
oil work as a unit with the riverboat gamblers and frauds on Wall Street?
Russ Baker: I think I will leave that for my next book.
BuzzFlash: There's a basic assumption in your findings that the U.S.
government serves corporate and the personal financial interests of
elected officials. Please explain how this relates to the Bushes.
Russ Baker: I don't know that the government serves the personal
financial interests of elected officials so much as the interests of
corporations and the wealthy. Those in turn take care of elected
officials who serve them, when the latter leave government. The old
revolving door. What distinguishes the Bushes is the extent to which
they view government as existing almost solely to advance the
interests of their own narrow swath of society.
BuzzFlash: Before we finish up, we just have to ask about your take on
the documentation of Senator Prescott Bush's financial relationship to
dealings with the Nazis.
Russ Baker: I have looked at some of the documentation. I don't know
that Prescott was particularly trying to help the Nazis -- he and his
firm had a long-standing relationship with powerful German
industrialists, and when Hitler came to power, well, business was
business. Horrifying and amoral, if not immoral, to be sure, but
consider the sorts of regimes Wall Street has dealt with over the years.
BuzzFlash: What is the biggest "bombshell" in Family of Secrets?
Russ Baker: Based on early feedback, I'd say there are a number of
contenders. Could be the four chapters of never-before-revealed facts
surrounding the JFK assassination. Or the evidence I have uncovered
suggesting a new interpretation of Watergate. Some are most intrigued
by the new examples of George W. as a naughty fellow and moral
hypocrite -- including on the matter of abortion. And some say that my
examination of W.'s military service record is especially effective in
settling the dispute over whether this eager-beaver "warrior king"
skipped out on his own military obligations. Finally, some are most
struck by the new evidence of a cynical calculation behind George W's
so-called religious rebirth.
For me, the big story is simply the cumulative sense, based on
hundreds and hundreds of fresh facts, of the extent to which elites
write our history. And the realization that, as we flee the Bush
years, we remain utterly in the dark about so much.
BuzzFlash interview by Mark Karlin.
