Family Man
2004-04-17 19:18:42 UTC
George W. Bush's Lost Year in 1972 Alabama
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., (PS) - The result of an investigation into George
W. Bush's lost year in 1972 reveals a cocky privileged son who used his
family connections to avoid military service in Vietnam and spend seven
months in Alabama partying. He clearly skipped out on National Guard duty
and avoided a mandatory drug test, all while learning the politics of "dirty
tricks," deception and coded racism in the land of George Wallace.
It was the year Wallace, the spunky Alabama governor and presidential
candidate, was gunned down in a Maryland parking lot, the year of the
Watergate break in and the beginning of the end for "Tricky Dick" Nixon. It
was also the last year for segregationists to openly fight integration of
the public schools, a time when racism went underground in American politics
in the form of a "Dixie Strategy." And it was the beginning of a major
political realignment that transformed the American South from a one-party
Democratic stronghold into a solid block for the GOP.
Bush made the move to Alabama in May to work on Winton "Red" Blount's
campaign for the U.S. Senate against Southern Democrat John Sparkman. The
lessons of that year were not lost on Bush or his political adviser Karl
Rove, who also cut his political teeth in 1972. Their path to electoral
success is a lesson in itself about the state of American Democracy, an
issue suitable for an H.L. Mencken-style analysis.
Privileged Son
Those who encountered Bush in Alabama remember him as an affable social
drinker who acted younger than his 26 years. Referred to as George Bush, Jr.
by newspapers in those days, sources say he also tended to show up late
every day, around noon or one, at Blount's campaign headquarters in
Montgomery. They say Bush would prop his cowboy boots on a desk and brag
about how much he drank the night before.
They also remember Bush's stories about how the New Haven, Connecticut
police always let him go, after he told them his name, when they stopped him
"all the time" for driving drunk as a student at Yale in the late 1960s.
Bush told this story to others working in the campaign "what seemed like a
hundred times," says Red Blount's nephew C. Murphy Archibald, now an
attorney in Charlotte, N.C., who also worked on the Blount campaign and said
he had "vivid memories" of that time.
"He would laugh uproariously as though there was something funny about
this. To me, that was pretty memorable, because here he is, a number of
years out of college, talking about this to people he doesn't know,"
Archibald said. "He just struck me as a guy who really had an idea of
himself as very much a child of privilege, that he wasn't operating by the
same rules."
During this period Bush often socialized with the young ladies of
Huntingdon College, located in the Old Cloverdale historic neighborhood
where he stayed. Bush even dated Nixon's daughter Tricia in the early 1970s,
according to newspaper accounts. Bush was described as "young and
personable" by the Montgomery Independent society columnist, and seen
dancing at the Whitley Hotel on election night November 7 with "the blonde,
pretty Emily Marks."
During the 2000 campaign, the Boston Globe named Marks as one of Bush's
former girlfriends. But she and several other women who dated him during
that time refused to say anything bad on the record about Bush, now a
sitting president.
Many of those who came into close contact with Bush say he liked to
drink beer and Jim Beam whiskey, and to eat fist-fulls of peanuts, and
Executive burgers, at the Cloverdale Grill. They also say he liked to sneak
out back for a joint of marijuana or into the head for a line of cocaine.
The newspapers that year are full of stories about the scourges of cocaine
and heroin making their way into the U.S. from abroad in the early days of
the so-called "war on drugs." Remember the French Connection?
According to Cathy Donelson, a daughter of old Montgomery but one of the
toughest investigative reporters to work for newspapers in Alabama over the
years, the 1960s came to Old Cloverdale in the early 1970s about the time of
Bush's arrival.
"We did a lot of drugs in those days," she said. "The 1970s are a blur."
The top radio hits in 1972 included "My Ding-A-Ling" by Chuck Berry,
"Honky Cat" by Elton John, "Long Cool Woman" by the Hollies and "Feeling
Alright" by Joe Cocker, along with "I Am Woman" by Helen Reddy, "Heart of
Gold" by Neil Young, "Ben" by Michael Jackson and "Black and White" by Three
Dog Night.
It was that kind of year.
To "Blount's Belles," a group of young Republican women and Montgomery
debutantes working for the Blount campaign, Bush is remembered showing up in
"denim" and cowboy boots. To one who talked about those times but requested
anonymity, "We thought he was to die for."
Winton Bount's son Tom, an accomplished architect who designed the
Shakespeare Festival Theater in Montgomery, remembers well his encounter
with Bush. He recently co-produced and underwrote a telling movie called The
Trip, set in the period from 1973 to the early 1980s, about a young gay
Texan and his conservative Republican lover. The son known as "Tommy" said
he ended up in the same car with Bush, with Bush driving, on election night.
"He was an attractive person, kind of a 'frat boy,'" Blount said. "I
didn't like him."
He remembers thinking to himself, "This guy thinks he is such a
cuntsman, God's gift to women," he said. "He was all duded up in his cowboy
boots. It was sort of annoying seeing all these people who thought they were
hot shit just because they were from Texas."
Bush also made an impression on the "Blue-Haired Platoon," a group of
older Republican Women working for Blount. Behind his back they called him
"the Texas soufflé," Archibald said, because he was "all puffed up and full
of hot air."
Archibald was recruited by Blount's Washington staff for his
administrative skills after returning home from a tour of duty as a
lieutenant in Vietnam.
Failure of Duty
Bush avoided Vietnam by using family connections to move ahead in line for
acceptance into the National Guard in Texas. He was assigned to train as a
pilot on the F-102 Delta Dagger, a plane scheduled for the scrap heap,
guaranting Bush would never have to fly in Vietnam himself.
That May, Bush first requested a transfer from his Texas unit to the
9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base, a postal unit, after
he had already moved to Alabama to work on Blount's campaign. The transfer
was approved by his superiors in Houston, after the fact, but ultimately
denied up the chain of command, since the unit only met one weekend night a
month and had no airplanes. Bush was finally approved for a transfer on
Sept. 5, five months after he had already established a residence in
Alabama, to the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery. His
orders, available on the Net, required him to report to the unit commander,
Gen. William Turnipseed. He is named in the orders.
In interviews with the Boston Globe in 2000, Turnipseed and his
administrative officer in 1972, Kenneth K. Lott, said they had no memory of
Bush ever reporting, and could produce no documentation that he ever even
checked in.
''Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not,''
Turnipseed said. ''I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we
had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered.''
In a follow-up interview, Turnipseed acted like he wished the story
would go away, but said, "Yes, I think I would have remembered."
Rewards offered by veterans groups in Alabama and Texas for any proof
that Bush showed up have never been claimed. There were 700 active guardsmen
in Alabama at that time and not one who saw him on the base has come
forward. Even an extensive investigation by the president's campaign staff
could not turn up a shred of evidence that Bush pulled any duty, according
to newspaper accounts. [Note: This story was published Feb. 2, before the
onslaught of records. Watch this site for developing news.].
Perhaps the reason he didn't log any time toward his six-year commitment
was because the base had no Delta Daggers, although that would not explain
why he was granted an after-the-fact transfer there in the first place. Or
perhaps it had something to do with the military's new policy of mandatory
drug screening, implemented in April. Bush's required physical exam
officially came up in August due to his birth date, but records indicate he
never showed up for a physical in Montgomery or when he returned to Houston
after the election.
Bush was never punished for skirting Guard requirements, even though the
military had passed a rule in 1969 warning volunteers that failure to
fulfill the contract would result in immediate selection for active duty in
Vietnam. For not taking a physical, though, he was grounded that August and
never flew again, records show, until last year when he reportedly says he
took the "stick" in a Navy plane on his way to declare "mission
accomplished" over Iraq on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.
The gap in Bush's military records for 1972, and his lack of a full
answer to the question about his drug use, generated stories during the 2000
campaign. Bush refused for months to say whether he had ever used illegal
drugs. Then he changed his stance, according to the Boston Globe, saying he
had not used illegal drugs "since 1974."
Two books now contain the charge that Bush was arrested for possession
of cocaine in 1972 in Texas, most likely in late November or December after
his stint in Alabama. Bush was allowed to perform community service in 1973
by working for a minority children's program in Houston, Professionals
United for Leadership League (PULL), chaired by his father. The record of
that arrest was expunged, meaning he apparently received the equivalent of
Youthful Offender status at the age of 26.
There are several possible interpretations of whether Bush can be called
AWOL during that period, or even a Deserter. Activist film maker Michael
Moore's claim that George W. Bush was a Deserter when he skipped out on
National Guard duty in 1972 is one interpretation, but is not entirely based
on the facts or a correct interpretation of military regulations.
According to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a soldier would be
considered Absent Without Leave (AWOL) if missing from his unit for 30 days
or less. If absent for more than 30 days, a soldier would be considered a
Deserter, if he had "no intention of returning."
But Bush's superiors, at least in Houston, knew where he was. He did
come back and received an honorable discharge.
Moore's claim was dodged by Democratic candidate for president Wesley
Clark during a New Hampshire debate on Fox News in January, in response to
pointed questions by Peter Jennings of ABC and Britt Hume of Fox in response
to Moore's endorsement of Clark the previous week.
The debate about whether Bush was AWOL, as the Boston Globe reported, or
deserves Deserter status, as claimed by Moore, may be missing the point. It
may be more accurate to say that while Bush was not technically AWOL or a
Deserter, he was allowed to do things no average member of the National
Guard would ever be allowed to do. Any other member of the Guard, without
Bush's family connections, would be expected to wait until a transfer
approval went through before leaving town, much less moving four states away
to work for a political campaign. Also, the military does not usually grant
transfers to soldiers to units that have a purpose with no resemblance to
their training.
So the point is, Bush is no military hero. He is no Wesley Clark, or
John Kerry, both of whom earned purple hearts and other medals for being
injured in the line of duty.
Dirty Tricks
It is also apparent that Bush learned one of his first lessons in the
politics of "dirty tricks," deception and coded racism in 1972. It was the
biggest year for "Tricky Dick" style dirty tricks in American politics. A
group of Cubans working secretly for the Committee to Reelect the President,
otherwise known as CREEP, broke into the Democratic Party headquarters at
the Watergate Hotel in Washington on June 17.
Just prior to the day on May 15 when Alabama Governor and presidential
candidate George Wallace took a bullet in a Maryland parking lot - a shock
but a political relief for President Richard Nixon and Democratic candidate
George McGovern in a race for the White House themselves - Bush was
recruited for the Blount campaign by another Texan and Bush family friend
named Jimmy Allison.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., (PS) - The result of an investigation into George
W. Bush's lost year in 1972 reveals a cocky privileged son who used his
family connections to avoid military service in Vietnam and spend seven
months in Alabama partying. He clearly skipped out on National Guard duty
and avoided a mandatory drug test, all while learning the politics of "dirty
tricks," deception and coded racism in the land of George Wallace.
It was the year Wallace, the spunky Alabama governor and presidential
candidate, was gunned down in a Maryland parking lot, the year of the
Watergate break in and the beginning of the end for "Tricky Dick" Nixon. It
was also the last year for segregationists to openly fight integration of
the public schools, a time when racism went underground in American politics
in the form of a "Dixie Strategy." And it was the beginning of a major
political realignment that transformed the American South from a one-party
Democratic stronghold into a solid block for the GOP.
Bush made the move to Alabama in May to work on Winton "Red" Blount's
campaign for the U.S. Senate against Southern Democrat John Sparkman. The
lessons of that year were not lost on Bush or his political adviser Karl
Rove, who also cut his political teeth in 1972. Their path to electoral
success is a lesson in itself about the state of American Democracy, an
issue suitable for an H.L. Mencken-style analysis.
Privileged Son
Those who encountered Bush in Alabama remember him as an affable social
drinker who acted younger than his 26 years. Referred to as George Bush, Jr.
by newspapers in those days, sources say he also tended to show up late
every day, around noon or one, at Blount's campaign headquarters in
Montgomery. They say Bush would prop his cowboy boots on a desk and brag
about how much he drank the night before.
They also remember Bush's stories about how the New Haven, Connecticut
police always let him go, after he told them his name, when they stopped him
"all the time" for driving drunk as a student at Yale in the late 1960s.
Bush told this story to others working in the campaign "what seemed like a
hundred times," says Red Blount's nephew C. Murphy Archibald, now an
attorney in Charlotte, N.C., who also worked on the Blount campaign and said
he had "vivid memories" of that time.
"He would laugh uproariously as though there was something funny about
this. To me, that was pretty memorable, because here he is, a number of
years out of college, talking about this to people he doesn't know,"
Archibald said. "He just struck me as a guy who really had an idea of
himself as very much a child of privilege, that he wasn't operating by the
same rules."
During this period Bush often socialized with the young ladies of
Huntingdon College, located in the Old Cloverdale historic neighborhood
where he stayed. Bush even dated Nixon's daughter Tricia in the early 1970s,
according to newspaper accounts. Bush was described as "young and
personable" by the Montgomery Independent society columnist, and seen
dancing at the Whitley Hotel on election night November 7 with "the blonde,
pretty Emily Marks."
During the 2000 campaign, the Boston Globe named Marks as one of Bush's
former girlfriends. But she and several other women who dated him during
that time refused to say anything bad on the record about Bush, now a
sitting president.
Many of those who came into close contact with Bush say he liked to
drink beer and Jim Beam whiskey, and to eat fist-fulls of peanuts, and
Executive burgers, at the Cloverdale Grill. They also say he liked to sneak
out back for a joint of marijuana or into the head for a line of cocaine.
The newspapers that year are full of stories about the scourges of cocaine
and heroin making their way into the U.S. from abroad in the early days of
the so-called "war on drugs." Remember the French Connection?
According to Cathy Donelson, a daughter of old Montgomery but one of the
toughest investigative reporters to work for newspapers in Alabama over the
years, the 1960s came to Old Cloverdale in the early 1970s about the time of
Bush's arrival.
"We did a lot of drugs in those days," she said. "The 1970s are a blur."
The top radio hits in 1972 included "My Ding-A-Ling" by Chuck Berry,
"Honky Cat" by Elton John, "Long Cool Woman" by the Hollies and "Feeling
Alright" by Joe Cocker, along with "I Am Woman" by Helen Reddy, "Heart of
Gold" by Neil Young, "Ben" by Michael Jackson and "Black and White" by Three
Dog Night.
It was that kind of year.
To "Blount's Belles," a group of young Republican women and Montgomery
debutantes working for the Blount campaign, Bush is remembered showing up in
"denim" and cowboy boots. To one who talked about those times but requested
anonymity, "We thought he was to die for."
Winton Bount's son Tom, an accomplished architect who designed the
Shakespeare Festival Theater in Montgomery, remembers well his encounter
with Bush. He recently co-produced and underwrote a telling movie called The
Trip, set in the period from 1973 to the early 1980s, about a young gay
Texan and his conservative Republican lover. The son known as "Tommy" said
he ended up in the same car with Bush, with Bush driving, on election night.
"He was an attractive person, kind of a 'frat boy,'" Blount said. "I
didn't like him."
He remembers thinking to himself, "This guy thinks he is such a
cuntsman, God's gift to women," he said. "He was all duded up in his cowboy
boots. It was sort of annoying seeing all these people who thought they were
hot shit just because they were from Texas."
Bush also made an impression on the "Blue-Haired Platoon," a group of
older Republican Women working for Blount. Behind his back they called him
"the Texas soufflé," Archibald said, because he was "all puffed up and full
of hot air."
Archibald was recruited by Blount's Washington staff for his
administrative skills after returning home from a tour of duty as a
lieutenant in Vietnam.
Failure of Duty
Bush avoided Vietnam by using family connections to move ahead in line for
acceptance into the National Guard in Texas. He was assigned to train as a
pilot on the F-102 Delta Dagger, a plane scheduled for the scrap heap,
guaranting Bush would never have to fly in Vietnam himself.
That May, Bush first requested a transfer from his Texas unit to the
9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base, a postal unit, after
he had already moved to Alabama to work on Blount's campaign. The transfer
was approved by his superiors in Houston, after the fact, but ultimately
denied up the chain of command, since the unit only met one weekend night a
month and had no airplanes. Bush was finally approved for a transfer on
Sept. 5, five months after he had already established a residence in
Alabama, to the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery. His
orders, available on the Net, required him to report to the unit commander,
Gen. William Turnipseed. He is named in the orders.
In interviews with the Boston Globe in 2000, Turnipseed and his
administrative officer in 1972, Kenneth K. Lott, said they had no memory of
Bush ever reporting, and could produce no documentation that he ever even
checked in.
''Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not,''
Turnipseed said. ''I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we
had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered.''
In a follow-up interview, Turnipseed acted like he wished the story
would go away, but said, "Yes, I think I would have remembered."
Rewards offered by veterans groups in Alabama and Texas for any proof
that Bush showed up have never been claimed. There were 700 active guardsmen
in Alabama at that time and not one who saw him on the base has come
forward. Even an extensive investigation by the president's campaign staff
could not turn up a shred of evidence that Bush pulled any duty, according
to newspaper accounts. [Note: This story was published Feb. 2, before the
onslaught of records. Watch this site for developing news.].
Perhaps the reason he didn't log any time toward his six-year commitment
was because the base had no Delta Daggers, although that would not explain
why he was granted an after-the-fact transfer there in the first place. Or
perhaps it had something to do with the military's new policy of mandatory
drug screening, implemented in April. Bush's required physical exam
officially came up in August due to his birth date, but records indicate he
never showed up for a physical in Montgomery or when he returned to Houston
after the election.
Bush was never punished for skirting Guard requirements, even though the
military had passed a rule in 1969 warning volunteers that failure to
fulfill the contract would result in immediate selection for active duty in
Vietnam. For not taking a physical, though, he was grounded that August and
never flew again, records show, until last year when he reportedly says he
took the "stick" in a Navy plane on his way to declare "mission
accomplished" over Iraq on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.
The gap in Bush's military records for 1972, and his lack of a full
answer to the question about his drug use, generated stories during the 2000
campaign. Bush refused for months to say whether he had ever used illegal
drugs. Then he changed his stance, according to the Boston Globe, saying he
had not used illegal drugs "since 1974."
Two books now contain the charge that Bush was arrested for possession
of cocaine in 1972 in Texas, most likely in late November or December after
his stint in Alabama. Bush was allowed to perform community service in 1973
by working for a minority children's program in Houston, Professionals
United for Leadership League (PULL), chaired by his father. The record of
that arrest was expunged, meaning he apparently received the equivalent of
Youthful Offender status at the age of 26.
There are several possible interpretations of whether Bush can be called
AWOL during that period, or even a Deserter. Activist film maker Michael
Moore's claim that George W. Bush was a Deserter when he skipped out on
National Guard duty in 1972 is one interpretation, but is not entirely based
on the facts or a correct interpretation of military regulations.
According to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a soldier would be
considered Absent Without Leave (AWOL) if missing from his unit for 30 days
or less. If absent for more than 30 days, a soldier would be considered a
Deserter, if he had "no intention of returning."
But Bush's superiors, at least in Houston, knew where he was. He did
come back and received an honorable discharge.
Moore's claim was dodged by Democratic candidate for president Wesley
Clark during a New Hampshire debate on Fox News in January, in response to
pointed questions by Peter Jennings of ABC and Britt Hume of Fox in response
to Moore's endorsement of Clark the previous week.
The debate about whether Bush was AWOL, as the Boston Globe reported, or
deserves Deserter status, as claimed by Moore, may be missing the point. It
may be more accurate to say that while Bush was not technically AWOL or a
Deserter, he was allowed to do things no average member of the National
Guard would ever be allowed to do. Any other member of the Guard, without
Bush's family connections, would be expected to wait until a transfer
approval went through before leaving town, much less moving four states away
to work for a political campaign. Also, the military does not usually grant
transfers to soldiers to units that have a purpose with no resemblance to
their training.
So the point is, Bush is no military hero. He is no Wesley Clark, or
John Kerry, both of whom earned purple hearts and other medals for being
injured in the line of duty.
Dirty Tricks
It is also apparent that Bush learned one of his first lessons in the
politics of "dirty tricks," deception and coded racism in 1972. It was the
biggest year for "Tricky Dick" style dirty tricks in American politics. A
group of Cubans working secretly for the Committee to Reelect the President,
otherwise known as CREEP, broke into the Democratic Party headquarters at
the Watergate Hotel in Washington on June 17.
Just prior to the day on May 15 when Alabama Governor and presidential
candidate George Wallace took a bullet in a Maryland parking lot - a shock
but a political relief for President Richard Nixon and Democratic candidate
George McGovern in a race for the White House themselves - Bush was
recruited for the Blount campaign by another Texan and Bush family friend
named Jimmy Allison.