The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/George H.W. Bush.md

title	aliases	category	created	updated	tags	summary	born	died	location	relations
George H.W. Bush	George H.W. Bush George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker Bush President Bush Bush 41	Political Figure	2024-04-25	2026-10-26	KeyFigure Person Israel DarkAllianceInvestigation OctoberSurprise IranContra Stargate BCCI	Director of Central Intelligence in 1976 and 1977, Vice President and 41st President, whose record includes Israel's nuclear program, the Vela incident, Iran-Contra, October Surprise, BCCI and BNL.	1924-06-12	2018-11-30	Milton, Massachusetts	type with role start fn reported_to Gerald R. Ford Director of Central Intelligence 1976-01-30 38 type with role start end fn director_of Central Intelligence Agency Director of Central Intelligence 1976-01-30 1977-01-20 38 type with role start end fn reported_to Ronald Reagan Vice President 1981-01-20 1989-01-20 120 type with role start end fn head_of United States President of the United States 1989-01-20 1993-01-20 120 type with start fn subject_of October Surprise 1993-01-03 105 type with fn member_of Skull and Bones 5 type with role fn employed_by The Carlyle Group Senior adviser on Asia 159 type with start fn participant_in South Florida Drug Task Force 1982-01-28 29

George H.W. Bush served as the Vice President under President Ronald Reagan and later as the 41st President of the United States. He was present at a meeting of Reagan's high command following the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak bombing in June 1981, where he agreed that some sanctions against Israel were essential.¹ The same history of Israel's nuclear program includes the Vela incident of September 1979, the double flash recorded by an American Vela satellite over the South Atlantic.¹

Bush directed the Central Intelligence Agency from January 1976 to January 1977. His name recurs in the record of the Iran-Contra Affair, the October Surprise allegations, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the Atlanta branch of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, and the Contras supply network.

Early Life, Yale and Skull and Bones

Bush was the son of Prescott Bush, an investment banker who represented Connecticut in the United States Senate from 1952 until 1963.² He graduated from Phillips Academy on his eighteenth birthday in 1942 and enlisted in the United States Navy the same day. He became a naval pilot in July 1943, flew torpedo bombers in the Pacific, and was shot down on September 2, 1944 on a mission against a radio site; a submarine rescued him and he received the Distinguished Flying Cross. He married Barbara Bush on January 6, 1945, and after his discharge in September 1945 enrolled at Yale University, where he completed an economics degree on an accelerated program by 1948, captained the baseball team, and joined the Skull and Bones society.² The couple's children were George W. Bush (born July 6, 1946, the eldest son and later the 43rd President), Robin (1949 to 1953), John Ellis (Jeb Bush), Neil Bush, Marvin and Dorothy.²³

A 1988 profile of Bush, "The Ultimate Loyalist," describes William Sloane Coffin as an Andover classmate of Bush's and a fellow member of Skull and Bones at Yale, and says the two "took separate paths afterward." The profile adds that Coffin was then the head of SANE/FREEZE, an antinuclear organization, and recounts a squash game the two played when Bush visited Yale during Coffin's chaplaincy.⁴

The George H. W. Bush Presidential Library's response to a 2009 request for records on the Skull and Bones Society, filed as FOIA 2009-0116-F, describes the society as one "of which George H. W. Bush and his father Prescott Bush were both members."⁵ The same response describes a rumor about the skull of the Apache leader Geronimo and the society, and does not endorse it.⁵ The file contains correspondence from President Bush to William F. Buckley Jr. and Thomas W. Ludlow Ashley about a Buckley article in National Review answering Pat Buchanan's characterization of Bush's foreign policy as "Skull and Bones foreign policy" during the 1992 campaign, and administrative forms for a Skull and Bones tea held at the White House on October 20, 1989.⁵

The membership index that Antony C. Sutton reproduces lists Bush under the class of 1948, and the 1971 membership catalogue entry for him gives his service as a United States congressman from 1966 to 1970.⁶ The Yale class history of 1917 states of Prescott Sheldon Bush: "He belongs to the Whiffenpoofs, Psi Upsilon, and Skull and Bones."⁷ In 2017 a pro se complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas (Madrigal v. Russell Trust Association) named Bush, with the Russell Trust Association, Willard Mitt Romney and Yale University, as defendants; it alleged that the society holds the skull of Pancho Villa. The court dismissed it for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the plaintiff and Bush were both Texas residents and no federal question was presented, entered final judgment on December 18, 2017, and the Fifth Circuit dismissed the appeal on February 28, 2018.⁸

The Yale Alumni Magazine reported in 2006 that the centennial history of the society by F. O. Matthiessen names Prescott Bush, Ellery Sedgwick James and Neil Mallon, all of the class of 1917 and at Fort Sill in early 1918, among the members who unearthed a skull there, and that Jonathan Bush met Ned Anderson of the San Carlos Apache Tribe about it.⁹ On May 9, 2006 the Associated Press reported a 1918 letter, found by the researcher Marc Wortman, that one society member wrote to another. The letter describes the skull and remains as taken from the grave at Fort Sill to a stone tomb in New Haven. The report names the writer as Winter Mead and states that Mead was not at Fort Sill. According to the report, Skull and Bones legend places Prescott Bush among the members who dug up the grave while Army volunteers from Yale were stationed at the fort during World War I. Wortman said that he was skeptical that the remains were Geronimo's.¹⁰

On October 20, 1942 at Washington, the Alien Property Custodian, Leo T. Crowley, signed Vesting Order No. 248, which vested the capital stock of the Union Banking Corporation, a New York corporation, in the Custodian. The order was published in the Federal Register on November 7, 1942. It lists 4,000 shares. E. Roland Harriman held 3,991 of them and Prescott S. Bush held one. The order states that all of the shares were held for the benefit of Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart, N.V., of Rotterdam, "which bank is owned or controlled by members of the Thyssen family, nationals of Germany and/or Hungary."¹¹

Zapata Petroleum and Zapata Off-Shore

Bush moved to Odessa, Texas in 1948, worked for Dresser Industries from 1950, and that year formed an oil development company in Midland that merged with another company three years later to create Zapata Petroleum. In 1954 he became president of the subsidiary Zapata Off-Shore Company and moved the company and his family to Houston.² WhoWhatWhy reports that Zapata Petroleum began in 1953 "through joint efforts with Thomas J. Devine, a CIA staffer who had resigned his agency position that same year." The article quotes a CIA memorandum of November 29, 1975 that describes Devine as an "oil wild-catting associate of Mr. Bush."¹² The same article quotes a 1968 memorandum that places Devine back in agency work under commercial cover from 1963.¹³ WhoWhatWhy also reports that the CIA documents were released in 1998 from a batch of records provided to the House Select Committee on Assassinations.¹³

The CIA biographical sheet lists Bush as an oil field supply salesman for Dresser Industries in Midland, Texas, from 1948 to 1951, and records the formation of Bush-Overbey Oil Development, Inc., in 1951.¹⁴ The Miller Center biography dates his arrival in Midland to 1950, after an equipment-clerk job for an oil company in Odessa in 1948, and places the formation of the oil development company in 1950.²

Two 1988 accounts tie the Dresser job to Neil Mallon, head of Dresser Industries. Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus reported that Mallon gave Bush his first job out of Yale.¹⁵ Randall Rothenberg reported that Bucky Bush described Mallon as a family friend who "could charm the fangs off a snake," and who offered George a bottom-of-the-ladder job at Dresser Industries in Midland, Texas.¹⁶ Anthony L. Kimery wrote that Bush began his career as a salesman for IDECO, a Dresser subsidiary.¹⁷

In All the Best, Bush wrote that "I accepted the job from Neil Mallon and drove our 1947 Studebaker (a graduation gift from my parents) to Odessa, Texas," described Mallon as "Yale classmate of my Dad's" and "an intimate family friend," and wrote that the couple changed the name of their third son "from Henry to Neil" because "We wanted to name him for Neil Mallon, whose name was really Henry."¹⁸ In Looking Forward he called Mallon "a friend and a mentor second only to my father," and wrote that he became "a full-fledged Ideco salesman, selling drilling bits."¹⁹ On April 12, 1951 he wrote to "Mr. H.N. Mallon, Dresser Industries, Dallas, Texas": "Dear Neil, This will let you know that we are in business."¹⁸

The corporation that later carried the Zapata name filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the former conformed names Zapata Off Shore Co, dated from January 15, 1969, and Zapata Norness Inc, dated from March 14, 1972. Its fiscal 1994 annual report states that "Zapata Corporation is a Delaware corporation organized in 1954."²⁰ Electronic filings on EDGAR begin on February 8, 1994, and the company's record under Central Index Key 109177 starts from that period.²¹

The 1963 Hoover Memorandum

In 1997 the Assassination Records Review Board asked the CIA about a memorandum dated November 29, 1963 that carries the name of J. Edgar Hoover. The Review Board's letter of December 18, 1997 quotes the memorandum's statement that "the substance of the foregoing information [on the assassination of President Kennedy] was orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency."²² The letter describes the document as "dated November 29,1963, prepared under the name of John Edgar Hoover."²²

The routing of the memorandum is recorded in two conflicting ways. A Review Board staff memorandum of January 8, 1998 describes it as concerning Hoover's conversation with President Lyndon B. Johnson about the assassination, and says the memorandum is located in Johnson O&C File 92.²³ A CIA memorandum by Michelle Combs to T. Jeremy Gunn, dated July 15, 1998, describes it as a memorandum from Hoover to the director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department.²⁴

The Review Board's letter quotes the CIA as having confirmed that "the search query included George Herbert Walker Bush prior to 1970." The letter asks the agency to determine whether George Herbert Walker Bush is the person to whom the memorandum refers.²² A CIA memorandum from J. Barry Harrelson to Gunn, dated February 25, 1998, states that the search "determined the Agency has no record of any association with George Herbert Walker Bush during the 1963 time period."²⁵

The Combs memorandum records that the only other "George Bush" serving in the CIA in 1963 was a junior analyst who has repeatedly denied being the "George Bush" referenced in the memorandum. It also cites an entry in the calendar of Director Allen Dulles for October 4, 1961 that names an Army major general George Bush, with "no indication if this General Bush could be the referenced George Bush."²⁴

An undated Review Board draft request bearing Gunn's name refers to an affidavit of George William Bush dated September 21, 1988.²⁶

In 1988 Stephen Hart issued a statement answering a report by Joseph McBride that appeared in The Nation on July 16, 1988. WhoWhatWhy quotes the statement as concluding: "Must be another George Bush."²⁷ McBride described the response as "rather detailed for a ritual non-denial."²⁷

The CIA's 1998 answer, the Review Board staff's account of it, the 1988 statement and the 1988 affidavit all concern the same name. The records do not establish which George Bush the memorandum means.

The South Florida Drug Task Force and the Medellín Cartel

As Vice President, Bush oversaw anti-drug efforts as head of the South Florida Drug Task Force while the administration simultaneously protected Contra-connected drug traffickers. The contradiction between Bush's public anti-drug posture and the covert reality of the Contra supply chain became a recurring theme in the Dark Alliance narrative.²⁸

Reagan's statement of January 28, 1982 announced the federal anticrime task force for southern Florida: "To coordinate this effort, I am today announcing the establishment of a special task force, headed by Vice President George Bush, to analyze the problems and determine what steps we must take during the period of aggravated crime incidence."²⁹ In a statement to a 1988 Senate subcommittee, Admiral Daniel Murphy said: "The President appointed Vice President Bush to direct the task force comprised of the Secretaries of State, Defense, Transportation, Treasury, Health and Human Service, and the Attorney General."³⁰

The Kerry Committee report, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy (1988), states: "These cables led to a 1982 meeting between Vice President Bush, Admiral Daniel Murphy and Bahamian Prime Minister Lynden Pindling, at which the Norman's Cay problem was raised. The Vice President chastised the Prime Minister for what was taking place."³¹

The Medellin Cartel reportedly made a deal with Vice President Bush. Informant Allen Raul Rudd told federal officials that Pablo Escobar described "an agreement or relationship between Bush and the American government and members of the Medellín cartel which resulted in planes flying guns to the cartel in Colombia." Escobar claimed to have a picture of Bush posing with Medellín cartel leader Jorge Ochoa in front of suitcases full of money, held as blackmail to be released at "the appropriate time."²⁸

Contra Connections and the War on Drugs

At the same time Reagan and Bush were publicly whipping the American public into a frenzy over street-corner crack dealers, Oliver North and other top administration officials were livid that Contra-connected drug trafficker General Jose Bueso Rosa had even been charged with a crime. North's computer messages about Bueso Rosa illustrated how skewed the Reagan administration's sense of justice had become regarding its "War on Drugs." Scott Weekly, a figure connected to the CIA and the Hasenfus shootdown, claimed on tape that he reported to people who reported to Bush.³²

Political Career Before the CIA

Bush became Republican Party chairman in Harris County, Texas, lost the 1964 Senate race to Ralph Yarborough, won the House seat for Houston's Seventh District in 1966 and was reelected in 1968. He lost the 1970 Senate race to Lloyd Bentsen. In December 1970 President Richard Nixon nominated him as ambassador to the United Nations; in 1973 Nixon moved him to the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, which he held through the Watergate period until Nixon's resignation in August 1974. President Gerald R. Ford then made him chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China, and in 1975 asked him to direct the CIA. After Ford lost in 1976, Bush offered to stay as director and Jimmy Carter declined.² James C. Oberwetter, the spokesman for Hunt Oil Company in a 1977 episode involving the FBI, had been press secretary to Congressman Bush.³³

Out of Office, 1977 to 1981

In January 1977, as chairman of the National Foreign Intelligence Board, Bush wrote to Vice Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, then vice director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, thanking him for a year of advice to the board.³⁴ U.S. News & World Report stated on April 7, 1980 that Bush was a present or former member of the Trilateral Commission; the magazine reported that he "resigned from the organization in 1978" and quoted him as saying that "to suggest that those that belong to the commission . . . are involved in a conspiracy is absurd."³⁵ Bush announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination on May 1, 1979.² William H. Draper III was national cochairman of the finance committee for Bush's 1980 presidential campaign, according to the White House announcement of March 18, 1981 nominating Draper to head the Export-Import Bank of the United States.³⁶ Bush ran on the Reagan ticket and won the vice presidency in the November 1980 election.²

Director of Central Intelligence, 1976 to 1977

On November 3, 1975 President Gerald R. Ford announced at a news conference that he intended to nominate Ambassador Bush, then the United States representative to the People's Republic of China, as Director of Central Intelligence, succeeding William Colby.³⁷ Bush was sworn in as Director of Central Intelligence on January 30, 1976.³⁸ As director of central intelligence in 1976 Bush was briefed on the CIA's remote-viewing research at Stanford Research Institute after the agency learned that Soviet visitors were "questioning Puthoff and Targ at SRI," and left office before reacting.³⁹

The Senate Armed Services Committee reported the nomination through Senator John Tower. Hearings were held on December 15 and 16, 1975. Bush told the committee that "I do feel we need a covert capability," and pledged to "faithfully try to testify before the appropriate oversight committees of the U.S. Congress."⁴⁰ The committee's report of December 18, 1975 recommends confirmation "subject to the nominee's commitment to respond to requests to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee."⁴⁰ The committee approved him 12 to four. The full United States Senate followed in January with a 64 to 27 vote, after a two-hour debate, according to Studies in Intelligence.⁴¹

In a memorandum to the recipients of National Intelligence Estimate 11-3/8-76, Bush called the estimate "the official appraisal of the Director of Central Intelligence." He wrote that "there is a negative aspect that is already clear and which concerns me deeply; namely, the selective leaks regarding the details of the process and, worse, the substantive conclusions developed by the 'Team B' panel that was concerned with Soviet strategic objectives." He added: "There is no truth to such allegations."⁴²

The Team B report, "Soviet Strategic Objectives: An Alternative View," describes the experiment as "undertaken by the DCI on behalf of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board." It names Richard Pipes as team leader and lists William Van Cleave, Daniel O. Graham, Thomas Wolfe and John Vogt as members. An advisory panel included Foy Kohler, Paul Nitze, Seymour Weiss, Jasper Welch and Paul Wolfowitz. The report states that its views "do not represent either coordinated National Intelligence or the views of the Director of Central Intelligence."⁴³

William Beecher broke the Team B story in the Boston Globe on October 20, 1976, according to the editors' note in the Foreign Relations volume. A story by David Binder in the New York Times of December 26, 1976 reported the estimate's findings and drew in part on an interview with Bush.⁴² On January 19, 1977 Bush wrote to Cherne, chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, about Team B's recommendations.⁴⁴

On February 11, 1976 Bush announced new guidelines governing the agency's relations with the American press. The guideline states: "Effective immediately, CIA will not enter into any paid or contractual relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station."⁴⁵ The report of the Church Committee, chaired by Frank Church, also states that the CIA had maintained covert relationships with about 50 journalists, and that Bush "undertook as one of his first actions to recognize the 'special status afforded the American media under our Constitution.'"⁴⁶

On February 10, 1976 the Washington Star reported that Bush, according to a CIA spokesman, "has urged executives of The New York Times and CBS news to support the agency's efforts to keep secret the names of journalists who have aided intelligence operations."⁴⁷

In June 1976 the Washington Star reported that U.S. District Judge June Green ordered CIA Director Bush "not to destroy the files gathered by the CIA." Green also granted an appeal that the files be "protected" pending a civil action by the American Civil Liberties Union. The files were part of Operation CHAOS and had been gathered by the CIA at the request of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, who feared extensive foreign influence on domestic unrest.⁴⁸

The Letelier assassination in Washington in September 1976 brought Chile into the Director's correspondence. On September 29, 1976 Senator Daniel Inouye wrote to Bush thanking him for a briefing, and noted that Orlando Letelier "was recently discussed at a high-level policy meeting within the Chilean government."⁴⁹ On October 9, 1976 U.S. Attorney General Edward Levi wrote to Bush that "the Central Intelligence Agency may be in a position to obtain information bearing on these violent activities."⁵⁰ Brent Scowcroft endorsed the request on October 21, 1976.⁵⁰

A 1980 radio interview transcript in the CIA reading room quotes a speaker, identified only as "MAN," who refers to "our book" and says: "we've been able to establish that George Bush personally handled the information from Paraguay in this intervening week, and discussed it with Vernon Walters, and together made the decision, first of all, to say, 'No, we have nothing to do with this mission.'"⁵¹ The transcript does not identify the speaker further.

The Paraguayan material concerned two Chileans traveling on Paraguayan passports under false names. A later Foreign Relations volume records that in July 1976 presidential adviser Conrado Pappalardo approached Ambassador George Landau in Asunción about the two. Pappalardo said they would contact "then-U.S. Deputy Director of Central Intelligence General Vernon Walters."⁵² A memorandum by Eugene Propper, quoted in the same volume, states that the CIA advised that Walters had retired from the agency on July 2, 1976.⁵³

On August 11, 1976 Bush wrote a memorandum headed "The Death of Roselli," concerning the murder of Johnny Roselli. In it he wrote, "I told him that I would like to see the FBI get into the Roselli case." He wrote that he was "most anxious to see the matter fully investigated so that the CIA would be officially exonerated."⁵⁴

The memorandum records that calls to Senators had suggested that the CIA was involved in the murder, and that he had asked Attorney General Levi to bring the FBI into the case.⁵⁴

On the Letelier investigation, Propper, Assistant Attorney General J. Stanley Pottinger and Bush met to decide how far the CIA could help with the Cuban exile side of the inquiry.⁵⁵ Newspaper clippings that the defendants in United States v. Sampol filed to show prejudicial publicity described "a carefully worded agreement placing the Letelier case in a 'national security' status." Defense counsel for Guillermo Novo and others told the jury that "the CIA and not the Chilean government masterminded the Letelier assassination," and the appeal brief rested the theory on Michael Townley's CIA contacts and on a Fort Lauderdale firm, Audio Intelligence Devices, where Townley spent the morning of September 21, 1976.⁵⁶ The Washington Post reported on November 1, 1976 a belief at the CIA that Chilean operatives had not carried out the bombing, which Bush was said to have expressed to Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger the week before.⁵⁷ On November 5, 1976 Assistant Attorney General Richard Thornburgh asked the State Department to arrange interviews in Caracas of Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles and two others held in connection with the Cubana Flight 455 bombing, naming Propper and FBI special agents Carter Cornick and Raul Salinas as the investigators to be sent.⁵⁸

When Bosch entered the United States on February 18, 1988, Acting Associate Attorney General Joe D. Whitley ordered him excluded on January 23, 1989, writing that "For 30 years Bosch has been resolute and unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist violence." In 1990, over the Justice Department's objection, the Bush White House released him.⁵⁹ The Bush administration also agreed in 1990 to lift sanctions on Chile if the new civilian government prosecuted Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza for the Letelier murder, in which Ronni Moffitt also died; the two served their terms at Punta Peuco.⁶⁰

The Foreign Relations volume on Panama prints a memorandum of conversation dated October 6, 1976 that is catalogued among the "DCI (Bush) Files on Noreiga." Its source note records "Three pages not declassified."⁶¹ The document concerns Manuel Noriega, whose relations with the agency the volume documents.

On October 18, 1976 Bush wrote to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the subject of leaks, in a letter that refers to "where these vicious leaks came from."⁶²

Joseph Trento wrote in Prelude to Terror that in 1976, after the Church Committee hearings, Alexandre de Marenches of the French SDECE organized an informal consortium, the Safari Club, in coordination with Bush. Trento lists its members as the SDECE, Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Directorate under Kamal Adham, Egypt's Mukhabarat, Morocco's DST under Ahmed Dlimi, and the CIA, with the purpose of continuing anti-Soviet covert operations in Africa and the Middle East that congressional restrictions had made difficult for the agency; he places Egypt's service in the group as the supplier of Soviet-compatible weapons for operations in the Horn of Africa.⁶³ De Marenches maintained personal relationships with American directors including Bush and William J. Casey.⁶⁴

In Angola the CIA's Operation IAFEATURE (1975 to 1976) supported UNITA and the FNLA against the MPLA, with Congo as the logistics base; the Church Committee and later writers record William Colby and then Bush as the directors who managed it. The program was ended by the Clark Amendment, section 404 of Public Law 94-329, enacted June 30, 1976.⁶⁵

William Barr worked at the agency from 1973 to 1977 while attending law school, and as assistant legislative counsel under Director Bush in 1976 worked against legislation of Representatives Michael Harrington and Bella Abzug that would have required notice to people whose mail the agency had opened under HTLINGUAL. Barr later joined the White House domestic policy staff, where he worked with C. Boyden Gray, counsel to Vice President Bush, and in 1988 helped screen vice-presidential candidates through Robert Kimmitt.⁶⁶

Israel's Nuclear Program and Israeli Channels

In March 1976 Carl E. Duckett openly discussed Israel's nuclear weapons at an informal seminar, stating that Israel was estimated to have ten to twenty nuclear weapons "available for use." Hersh wrote that the disclosure forced Bush, the newly installed director, to issue a public statement assuming "full responsibility," and that it led to Duckett's retirement. Duckett later acknowledged that rumors of his drinking were the stated reason for his departure but insisted that the real issue was Bush's unwillingness to promote him. Hersh adds that Duckett's 1974 estimate remained the official American estimate until the early 1980s.⁶⁷

Ari Ben-Menashe wrote that he briefed Nachum Admoni in July 1986 on the Israeli intelligence network's arms sales to Iran for Vice President Bush.⁶⁸ The Israeli arms dealer Al Schwimmer, a special adviser to Prime Minister Shimon Peres from September 1984 at a salary of one shekel a year, met President Reagan and Vice President Bush in that capacity.⁶⁹ Ben-Menashe also wrote that Israeli intelligence believed Amiram Nir's death in 1988 to have been a CIA operation intended to keep his testimony from embarrassing Peres, Reagan or Bush.⁶⁸

On January 20, 1991 President Bush telephoned Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir twice from Camp David, at 3 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Washington time, to thank Israel for its "restraint" in not retaliating for the Iraqi Scud attacks. The spokesman Marlin Fitzwater quoted the president as telling Shamir: "I understand the anguish of your people and your Government." Lawrence Eagleburger and Paul Wolfowitz were sent to Israel, and American crews arrived to operate Patriot missile batteries.⁷⁰ According to the counterintelligence history "Decade of the Spy," Bush denied clemency to Jonathan Pollard in January 1993.⁷¹

Stargate, Center Lane, and the Army

The Stargate Project appears in the record through the agency's own accounts. Kenneth A. Kress, writing in Studies in Intelligence for the winter of 1977, states that "During November of 1976, Director George Bush became aware that official Soviets were visiting and questioning Puthoff and Targ at SRI about their work in parapsychology. Mr. Bush requested and received a briefing on CIA's investigations into parapsychology. Before there was any official reaction, he left the Agency."³⁹

Kress also writes that Director Stansfield Turner stated publicly that the CIA "has had operational interest in parapsychology."⁷²

As vice president, in 1983 (the chronology's date reads as March 31 or August 3), Bush "was briefed for thirty minutes concerning Center Lane related activities by Dr. Jack Vorona, DIA," the Army's remote-viewing unit, with "Adm. Murphy, C/S," and "Mr. Gregg" present (Donald Gregg). The United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) chronology records that "the briefing was well received and the Vice President was interested and impressed."⁷³ A memorandum for the record by Major Gerald Fox dated April 1, 1983 lists the three projects used on March 31, 1983 to brief the Vice President, among them Project 8034, described as a "KGB agent."⁷⁴ Vorona of the DIA is the first-named member of the November 1978 oversight group of the Grill Flame committee and the first-listed attendee in February 1979.⁷⁵

According to an Air War College research report by Dolan M. McKelvy citing Ronald McRae's Mind Wars (1984), CIA director Bush in 1976 enthusiastically gave Edgar Mitchell "permission to organize high-level seminars at the CIA to discuss possible intelligence applications" of parapsychology; the report says that interest waned in 1977 when Stansfield Turner replaced Bush.⁷⁶

The Vice President's Briefings and Travel

On April 2, 1982 Casey sent Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr. a "Quick Intelligence Assessment on Falkland Affairs" referring to "the Argentine invasion Friday," with a copy to Vice President Bush.⁷⁷ In a letter to Time in January 1982, Assistant Secretary of State John H. Holdridge wrote that Bush had confirmed during a visit to Australia that there had been no CIA involvement in the Nugan Hand Bank, and that Frank Church had said the Senate committee found no evidence implicating the agency. A CBS broadcast of September 22, 1982 quoted former bank executive Neil Evans, who had immunity, as saying: "We were to become the paymasters for the CIA around the world."⁷⁸ Michael Hand was the bank's co-founder.

On April 12, 1986 Vice President Bush flew to Marib in North Yemen and dedicated the refinery of the Alif field that Hunt Oil had found in 1984, the first oil discovered in the country. Ray Hunt, head of the company, sat on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 2001.⁷⁹

On January 20, 1987 Bush said that an American "in terrorist hands is tortured and, in the case of William Buckley, killed," referring to the CIA's Beirut station chief William Buckley.⁸⁰ On August 17, 1988 he called the death of Pakistan's President Zia ul-Haq in a C-130 explosion "a great tragedy."⁸¹ Celerino Castillo said that on or about January 14, 1986 he tried to alert Vice President Bush at a U.S. embassy party in Guatemala that "something funny" was going on at Ilopango Airbase, and described what followed: "But he just shook my hand, smiled and walked away from me."⁸²

Gregg, Rodriguez, and the Vice President's Office

At a February 1988 hearing on the testimony of Danilo Blandon, Senator John Kerry addressed a call to Castro: "while Vice President Bush denied that he made the call, and I do accept his word, it also was learned last night on McNeil-Lehrer that a former NSC staffer admitted that, indeed, there was prior notice given to Castro."⁸³

Blandon also described Felix Rodriguez as "the liaison for providing weapons to the Contras in El Salvador."⁸⁴ Walsh's chapter 29 states that Gregg "arranged for Rodriguez to meet Vice President Bush on January 22, 1985. According to Gregg, the purpose of the meeting was to inform Bush that Rodriguez wanted to work in El Salvador against the guerrillas."⁸⁵ The meeting took place in the Old Executive Office Building, where Rodriguez was "watching a television report on the Bush family."⁸⁵

The 1988 hearing record gives the date of that meeting as February 22, a month later than Walsh's date. In the July 1988 hearings Rodriguez said that he had passed to the FBI and CIA, early in 1985, information from Ramon Milian Rodriguez, whom he called a liar, and in later questioning by Kerry said he met Vice President Bush on February 22.⁸⁶ Rodriguez also answered a question from Kerry: "No, sir. I didn't go there that often as people have publicized."⁸⁶

Part IX of Walsh's report states that Gregg "claimed that, notwithstanding the Administration's interest in the success of the contras, he never mentioned any information regarding contra resupply to Vice President Bush."⁸⁷ The Kerry report says that before Murphy's 1987 trips to Panama he met with officials including "the Vice President's National Security Advisor, Donald Gregg."⁸⁸

Iran-Contra and the Pardons

The executive summary of the final report of the Lawrence Walsh states that the investigation "did not develop evidence that proved that Vice President Bush violated any criminal statute. Contrary to his public pronouncements, however, he was fully aware of the Iran arms sales."⁸⁹ The summary adds that "Bush was regularly briefed, along with the President, on the Iran arms sales, and he participated in discussions to obtain third-country support for the contras." It states that the Independent Counsel "obtained no evidence that Bush was aware of the diversion."⁸⁹ The same summary says that the pardon of Caspar Weinberger on December 24, 1992 "pre-empted a trial in which defense counsel indicated that they intended to call Bush as a witness."⁸⁹

Chapter 28 of the report, headed "George Bush," records that Bush told the FBI in December 1986, and was deposed by the Independent Counsel on January 11, 1988, that he had been regularly informed of events connected with the arms sales, including the 1985 Israeli missile shipments. Walsh writes that these statements "conflicted with his more extreme public assertions that he was 'out of the loop' regarding the operational details of the Iran initiative."⁹⁰ Walsh also writes that "The criminal investigation of Bush was regrettably incomplete."⁹⁰

In 1988 Bush told the Washington Post, "The President and I cooperated fully with the various investigations, turned over thousands of documents and directed our staffs to do the same."⁹¹ In September 1992 he said, "I have nothing to explain."⁹¹

Part IX of the report, on the White House investigations, states that the Independent Counsel "concluded that no criminal charges should be brought against President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Meese or Regan because the belated production of notes and other documents delayed the investigation beyond the point where it could be effective."⁹² The same part states that senior advisers including Vice President Bush "were informed in 1985 of presidential approval of the transactions." It also says that the Independent Counsel "found considerable evidence that the President and the Vice President knew about and, in some instances, directly participated in contra-funding efforts during this period."⁹²

The diary is the subject of a separate passage. Walsh writes that "[t]he personal diary of Vice President Bush was disclosed to Independent Counsel only in December 1992, despite early and repeated requests for such documents."⁹³ On December 11, 1992 Chester Paul Beach, associate counsel to President Bush, informed the Independent Counsel that a diary kept by Bush from his vice presidency had not been produced. The report describes it as consisting of "Bush's nightly dictation concerning the events of the day."⁹³ The first entry, dated November 4, 1986, describes "the beginning of what I hope will be an accurate diary." An entry for November 5, 1986 reads: "I'm one of the few people that know fully the details."⁹⁴

The report records a document request that reached the vice president's office. C. Boyden Gray and John Schmitz told office heads that the request "covers all personal and official records of OVP staff members."⁹⁵

After the pardons, Bush refused to be interviewed unless the interview was limited to his non-production of the diary and personal notes. The Independent Counsel declined those conditions. In late February 1993 Bush's counsel set out six professed obstacles to a deposition.⁹¹ The report states that a grand jury subpoena was not issued because the office did not believe there was an appropriate likelihood of a criminal prosecution.⁹³

On December 24, 1992 Bush issued Proclamation 6518, granting pardons to Caspar Weinberger, Robert McFarlane, Elliott Abrams, Dewey Clarridge, Clair George and Alan Fiers. In the proclamation Bush wrote that "the common denominator of their motivation ... was patriotism." He described the prosecutions as "a profoundly troubling development in the political and legal climate of our country: the criminalization of policy differences. ... The proper target is the President, not his subordinates; the proper forum is the voting booth, not the courtroom."⁹⁶

Walsh responded that the pardon of Weinberger "undermines the principle that no man is above the law."⁹⁷ The Fourth Interim Report of February 8, 1993 includes the phrase "prevent full disclosure of some new key fact to the American people," and states that the pardon "thwarted the public airing of new and disturbing facts about the actions of Weinberger and other senior Executive Branch officials."⁹⁸

The Tower Commission also examined the Vice President's contacts with Israeli channels. Its report records that "The Vice President was in Israel on July 29. While there, he met with Nir." The Vice President told the board that, before the meeting, he had been uneasy and tried to call John Poindexter.⁹⁹ Bush related that his discussion with Amiram Nir "was generally about counterterrorism. There was no discussion of specifics relating to arms going to the Iranians, e.g., the price of TOW missiles was never raised."⁹⁹ The report also contains the phrase that the interests of the United States were "in the grip of the Israelis."⁹⁹

At the National Security Planning Group meeting of June 25, 1984, the minutes record Casey saying: "We need the legal opinion which makes clear that the US has the authority to facilitate third country funding for the anti-Sandinistas." Vice President Bush asked: "How can anyone object to the US encouraging third parties to provide help to the anti-Sandinistas under the finding? The only problem that might come up is if the United States were to promise to give these third parties something in return so that some people could interpret this as some kind of an exchange." Robert McFarlane proposed "that there be no authority for anyone to seek third party support for the anti-Sandinistas until we have the information we need," and Reagan said: "If such a story gets out, we'll all be hanging by our thumbs in front of the White House until we find out who did it." The meeting took place under the Boland Amendment.¹⁰⁰

The The Enterprise (Iran-Contra) ran the Contra supply operation through the Ilopango Airbase in El Salvador, where CIA Hangar No. 4 was turned over to its operations in 1985; Felix Rodriguez, who had connections to Gregg, then National Security Adviser to the Vice President, coordinated aircraft and logistics there.¹⁰¹

In 1992 Bush asked former Attorney General Griffin Bell to assist in seeking the release of Bush's Iran-Contra deposition, and on December 30, 1992 the White House press secretary issued a statement on the investigation.¹⁰² Barr later said that at the end of the administration he advised Bush to pardon Weinberger "and about five others," and of the Iran-Contra pardons: "I certainly did not oppose any of them."¹⁰³ Christopher Drogoul, the Atlanta BNL manager, was indicted on February 28, 1991, the day after Bush ordered the ceasefire in the Gulf War.¹⁰⁴

The October Surprise

The October Surprise allegation concerns whether the 1980 Reagan campaign delayed the release of the American hostages held in Iran until after the election. The House October Surprise Task Force issued its joint report on January 3, 1993 as Calendar No. 634 of the 102d Congress.¹⁰⁵

In the task force's account of Ari Ben-Menashe's claims about the Paris meetings of October 1980, he remained in the foyer, and "[j]ust prior to the meeting Mehdi Karrubi arrived, followed shortly by George Bush and William Casey by way of an elevator reserved for this purpose."¹⁰⁶ The report records that Ben-Menashe "had told reporters for Newsweek magazine that he was positive he had seen George Bush at the Paris meetings on both October 19 and October 20, 1980." The report also notes that Sukkot fell on September 25 in 1980.¹⁰⁶

The task force concludes that Ben-Menashe's account of the October meetings, "like his other October Surprise allegations, is a total fabrication."¹⁰⁶ On Ben-Menashe's account of a meeting at the L'Enfant Plaza hotel in Washington, which he tied to the Iran-Israel Joint Committee, the task force wrote that "Ben-Menashe's account is demonstrably false from beginning to end."¹⁰⁷ It states that the personnel records supplied by the Government of Israel, with Ben-Menashe's contemporaneous handwritten answers to the questions he had to answer for the External Relations Department when traveling abroad, showed that he did not travel outside Israel in October 1980, and that exit stamps on his civilian passport indicated the same.¹⁰⁶

On Bush's whereabouts the task force reports that Secret Service records place him in Washington on October 19 and campaigning on October 20, 1980. It states that "these records and testimony conclusively prove candidate George Bush's whereabouts in October, 1980," and that "The Task Force has determined that Bush did not travel to Paris during the period of time in question as has been alleged by many October Surprise witnesses."¹⁰⁸ The report generalizes the point: "In almost all instances, the evidence clearly establishes the presence of major alleged participants in Paris meetings to be someplace else, doing something else."¹⁰⁹

Richard Brenneke testified that a pilot, Rupp, flew Bush, Casey and others to Paris. The task force records that at Brenneke's trial in Oregon in 1990 he retracted his earlier testimony that he had seen Bush and Allen at the meeting.¹¹⁰ The task force states that "Brenneke's testimony that he was in Paris is false." Brenneke's 1980 daily calendar "indicates that he was in the Pacific Northwest when he claimed to have been in Paris."¹¹¹ The report also says that Brenneke "played a central role in falsely propagating the October Surprise allegations for financial and personal reasons."¹¹¹

A 1988 Senate subcommittee report summarizes Brenneke's claims that he had "personally discussed the operation with members of the Vice President's staff." The subcommittee concluded that although Brenneke produced thousands of pages of documents relating to proposed arms deals, "there is no evidence that any of them ever came to fruition." It also found that Brenneke "received completely fabricated information about arms deals from undercover agents of the Customs Service."¹¹²

The task force examined the calendar of William J. Casey. It records a July 30, 1980 entry for a 6:45 p.m. dinner with George Bush at the Alibi Club.¹¹³ The report's analysis of Casey's movements states that "The evidence strongly indicates that Casey departed the United States on July 27, arrived in London on July 28, and departed London for the United States on July 29."¹¹⁴ Loose calendar pages for July 26 and 27, October 21, October 29, November 3 through 11, and November 13 are listed as missing. The task force states that "[t]he dates July 26th and October 21st are of particular interest to the Task Force."¹¹⁵

Robert Parry reported in 2011 on a memorandum for the record that Beach wrote on November 4, 1991. The memorandum records that State Department legal adviser Edwin D. Williamson told Beach that the department held material that included "a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown."¹¹⁶ Parry writes that "there's no indication that the White House told investigators about Williamson's information," and that the Bush library withholds nearly a quarter of its roughly 4,800 pages.¹¹⁶

The task force also records Reagan's statements. In a June 15, 1991 interview Reagan said, "I did some things actually the other way, to try and be of help in getting those hostages." In a sworn written answer dated October 23, 1992 he wrote that "I and Reagan/Bush campaign officials made it clear by our conduct and statements during the campaign that we were supportive of the Carter administration efforts to secure the release of American hostages held in Iran."¹¹⁷

Ben-Menashe's account of the Paris meeting names others besides Bush and Casey. He wrote that George Cave, Robert McFarlane and Donald Gregg attended; that Simon Gabbay coordinated the October 1980 meeting between Israeli and Iranian delegations that included Bush, Casey and Mehdi Karrubi, with the aim of eliminating direct contact between Israeli and Iranian embassy personnel; and that Uri Simchoni was part of the Israeli delegation.⁶⁸ Cave also attended a meeting in Santiago in late 1986, according to Ben-Menashe, where American officials reaffirmed their intention to maintain arms channels to Iraq.⁶⁸ Barbara Honegger published October Surprise (Tudor Publishing, 1989), one of the first extended accounts of the allegations; she alleged meetings in Madrid in July 1980 and in Paris in October 1980 involving Casey, Bush and European intermediaries including de Marenches.¹¹⁸

Cheri Seymour wrote in The Last Circle that the attorney Paul Wilcher believed his client Gunther Karl Russbacher to be a political prisoner persecuted because he allegedly flew former President Bush to Paris to meet leading Iranians to make a deal to supply Iran with weapons in exchange for keeping the 52 American hostages until after the November election. On or about May 21, 1993 Wilcher hand-delivered a 100-page letter to Attorney General Janet Reno claiming that holdover Justice Department employees from the Reagan-Bush era were responsible for government cover-ups; he was interviewed by Carl Stern, Reno's public relations officer, on or about June 11, and his body was found in his apartment on June 23, 1993. Sarah McClendon, a White House correspondent and friend of Wilcher, wrote that Wilcher held the Russbacher belief.¹¹⁹ Seymour also wrote that Michael Riconosciuto, a source of Danny Casolaro's investigation of The Octopus, claimed that he and an associate named Brian personally carried $40 million to Iranian officials for that purpose.¹¹⁹

The Presidency: Panama, Appointees and Executive Actions

Bush was inaugurated as the 41st President on January 20, 1989.¹²⁰ Dick Cheney recalled in the Miller Center oral history of the Bush presidency that "Panama was a great training experience for us as an administration. We had the opportunity to have an objective, have to use force, coordinate with the Congress, deal with the public, all of those things that come with using the force." The invasion of Panama in December 1989 removed Manuel Noriega; Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in the same project: "Nobody even remembers the Panama war. You don't ever hear of it. But I viewed it as the template of how we should do things."¹²¹ Seymour wrote that the Cali Drug Cartel was contrasted with the Medellin Cartel, which Noriega chose to support, ultimately leading to his ousting by Bush; she wrote that the DEA's Centac 21 task force, which had targeted Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela and Jose Santacruz Londono in the 1978 indictments, was dismantled under the Reagan and Bush administrations, leaving disgruntled agents to suspect a CIA connection.¹¹⁹ Seymour added that Bush reportedly made secret visits to Damascus for hostage negotiations, and that after Desert Storm Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III encouraged Syria and Israel to recognize each other's Lebanese occupation zones under a 1990 accord that left Syria in control of the Bekaa Valley.¹¹⁹

The Cox Committee counted twelve national-interest determinations for launches of commercial satellites on Chinese rockets between 1989 and early 1998, three by President Bush and nine by Bill Clinton; the last, of February 18, 1998, applied to the Loral-built Chinasat-8 satellite, a company then headed by Bernard L. Schwartz.¹²² National Security Directive 67, signed by Bush on March 30, 1992, replaced the lettered programs of the National Reconnaissance Office with three functional directorates, and the existence of the office was declassified on September 18, 1992.¹²³ Bush's report to Congress of September 1991 under the Iraq Sanctions Act of 1990 stated that "United States suppliers did not contribute directly to Iraq's conventional or nonconventional weapons capability." Gonzalez said that after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, SerVaas Inc. renegotiated a brass-plant contract with its Iraqi counterparts and sold it through a foreign holding company to escape the president's order freezing Iraqi assets.¹²⁴ The prime minister of Jamaica, Michael Manley, sworn in again on February 13, 1989, said that he planned to travel to Washington to meet Bush, congressional leaders and officials of the Drug Enforcement Administration.¹²⁵

Richard Thornburgh continued as Attorney General under Bush through 1991, resigning in August 1991 to run for the Senate.¹²⁶ Kenneth Starr was the 39th Solicitor General from 1989 to 1993 under Bush.¹²⁷ Steve Forbes, president of Forbes magazine, was renominated to the Board for International Broadcasting, which oversees Radio Free Europe, by the Bush White House on January 4, 1990 and again on June 19, 1992, each time with designation as chairman.¹²⁸ Jay Lefkowitz served under Bush as deputy executive secretary of the Domestic Policy Council and director of cabinet affairs.¹²⁹ Loretta Preska was appointed a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by Bush in 1992.¹³⁰ Lawrence Eagleburger, president of Kissinger Associates from 1984 to 1989, was deputy secretary of state under Baker and secretary of state in the last weeks of the administration; Brent Scowcroft, vice chairman of the firm's Washington office, became national security adviser in January 1989.¹³¹

Iraq, Osirak, and the Teicher Declaration

The Teicher declaration of January 31, 1995, on the Iran-Iraq War, filed in the Florida prosecution of Carlos Cardoen and others, states in paragraph 7 that a secret 1986 message from Reagan to Saddam Hussein, urging a stepped-up air war against Iran, was delivered by Vice President Bush to Hosni Mubarak, who passed it to Saddam Hussein. The declaration also states that Teicher wrote Bush's talking points for the 1986 meeting with Mubarak.¹³² A corrective declaration filed in October 1996 addresses paragraphs 15 through 18.¹³³

The BNL and Iraqgate Record

The Atlanta branch of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro extended credits to Iraq that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence examined in February 1993. The committee reports that a National Security Council Deputies Committee meeting on May 29, 1990 was held "to resolve the issue of the second $500 million tranche," and that Robert M. Gates chaired it.¹³⁴ Barr and Richard opposed going forward with the second tranche, citing the prosecutor's intent to indict Iraqi officials who were involved in "significant criminal violations." The meeting's conclusion was "that the Iraqi government simply be advised that the U.S. would not go forward with the second tranche until the investigation in Atlanta was completed."¹³⁴ The indictment in Atlanta was returned on February 28, 1991.¹³⁴

On October 2, 1989 Bush signed National Security Directive 26, classified SECRET. It states that the government "should propose economic and political incentives for Iraq to moderate its behavior and to increase our influence with Iraq," and that "any illegal use of chemical and/or biological weapons will lead to economic and political sanctions."¹³⁵

The Commodity Credit Corporation Iraq Program ran alongside the BNL loans. On October 6, 1989 Secretary of State Baker assured Tariq Aziz that American concern over proliferation was worldwide and not directed at Iraq; the department then offered Iraq 500 million dollars in guarantees, with a second 500 million to follow "after successful conclusion of the BNL investigation," a condition Iraq rejected.¹³⁶ Friedman wrote in Spider's Web on the BNL Scandal that the House Banking Committee under Gonzalez documented the Reagan administration's and the early Bush administration's consistent support for Iraq's weapons procurement networks, including knowledge of chemical weapons use.¹³⁷

In a 1992 statement in the House, Representative Henry B. Gonzalez quoted the sentence "United States suppliers did not contribute directly to Iraq's conventional or nonconventional weapons capability." He added that "[s]everal Bush administration officials in a position to know the truth have testified before Congress about the United States role in enhancing Iraq's military capability."¹³⁸ The White House's unclassified summary of September 1991 uses different language on the same question.¹³⁹

BCCI and the Gulf Finance Network

The Senate report on the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, prepared by Senators John Kerry and Hank Brown and published in December 1992, describes a figure named Lake who "received $200,000 in payments from Abu Dhabi last fall in connection with this work." The report says he was performing, "as a volunteer, in an unpaid position," the job of "deputy manager to President Bush's re-election campaign."¹⁴⁰ Kerry, then subcommittee chairman, said at a hearing on March 18, 1992: "I do not believe that Mr. Lake should be sitting in on White House campaign strategy meetings while he is also providing strategy to Sheikh Zayed on how to deal with problems arising out of his ownership of BCCI."¹⁴⁰

The report's chapter on Ed Rogers quotes Rogers's resignation letter, which states that "The ethics atmosphere at the Bush White House was to go the extra mile...."¹⁴¹ The report places Sam Bamieh in Bush's Team 100 fundraising program in 1988.¹⁴² It also records that Richard Helms wrote to Vice President Bush on behalf of Mohammed Rahim Motaghi Irvani on October 29, 1987.¹⁴³

The Justice Department's response to Kerry's inquiry about its February 1990 letters states that "The first letter by Mr. Saphos is obviously worded poorly."¹⁴⁴ A July 24, 1990 letter from Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Navarro to Kerry also appears in the record.¹⁴⁵ The report asks whether the Customs undercover investigation of BCCI "is the kind of investigation that President Bush and the Congress desire."¹⁴⁶

Stephens, Bath and the Gulf Financiers

Jackson Stephens of Stephens Inc. gave to Reagan, Bush and Clinton, and in 1977 introduced the Bank of Credit and Commerce International to the American bank it would secretly acquire.¹⁴⁷ Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin wrote in 1992 that Stephens backed Bush that year while employees of Stephens Inc. gave more money to the Clinton campaign than the employees of all but two other firms; they also wrote that Hillary Clinton, then Hillary Rodham, did legal work in 1978 for Systematics Inc. when it was sued over the stock accumulation for Agha Hasan Abedi.¹⁴⁸ The firm gave 100,000 dollars to a dinner for President Bush in May 1991, and family members and employees gave more than 83,000 dollars to Clinton by the summer of 1992; Worthen Bank, whose chairman Curt Bradbury had been a Stephens officer, extended the Clinton campaign a 3.5 million dollar line of credit.¹⁴⁹

James R. Bath told Time in 1991 that his friendship with Bush dated from their service in the Guard and that he was only "slightly" acquainted with the then-President.¹⁵⁰ Craig Unger wrote in Salon in 2004 that the second name on a Guard order, released earlier under the Freedom of Information Act to the researcher Marty Heldt, was Bath's, and that the White House redacted it when it released George W. Bush's military records in March 2004; Bath confirmed that he was the man named and said: "Geo did not use drugs."¹⁵¹ Lucy Komisar wrote in 2007 that in 1976, when Bush headed the CIA, the agency sold some planes of its proprietary airline Air America to Skyway, "a company owned by Bath and Bin Mahfouz"; she wrote that Khalid bin Mahfouz's family bought 20 to 30 percent of BCCI for nearly one billion dollars, and that when Harken Energy got into financial trouble in 1987 Stephens helped it obtain 25 million dollars from Union Bank of Switzerland and a board seat went to the Harken shareholder Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, "whose chief banker was BCCI shareholder Bin Mahfouz." Harken's proxy statement of April 25, 1994 listed Bakhsh with 6,935,364 shares, 11.66 percent of its common stock.¹⁵² Time described Bakhsh as the reclusive Saudi who bought an 11 percent stake in Harken, of which George W. Bush was a director.¹⁵³

Hinckley

John W. Hinckley Jr. shot President Reagan on March 30, 1981. The Houston Post reported that Neil Bush, a son of Vice President Bush, had been scheduled to have dinner the day after the shooting with Scott Hinckley, the brother of the gunman. WhoWhatWhy reports that the story was picked up by the Associated Press and UPI.¹⁵⁴

At a press conference the day after the shooting, Neil Bush acknowledged that Scott Hinckley had also been at his house "a couple of months earlier, at his surprise birthday party." Neil Bush said, "I have no idea."¹⁵⁴

The vice president's press secretary, Peter Teeley, told a UPI reporter, as WhoWhatWhy quotes him: "I don't know a damn thing about it. All I know is what you're telling me." Teeley said that the vice president "made no mention of it whatsoever."¹⁵⁴

The diary of Chase Untermyer, a Bush aide, records that "Neil and Sharon do know Hinckley's brother (in Denver) and were planning to have dinner with them tomorrow night."¹⁵⁴

WhoWhatWhy also reports, citing an Associated Press item of April 1, 1981, that the Department of Energy told the Hinckley family's oil business that it might be penalized about $2 million.¹⁵⁵

Franklin Cover-Up Allegations

John DeCamp wrote on the Franklin matter in Nebraska. An advertisement for his book, reproduced in a compilation of material gathered by Ted Gunderson, states that the book "contains numerous references to President George Bush."¹⁵⁶

The same compilation relays a 1989 report in the Washington Times by George Archibald that key Reagan and Bush administration officials were ensnared in a federal probe tied to an escort service and Craig Spence.¹⁵⁷

Allegations in the Casolaro and Mind-Control Literature

Seymour wrote that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police inquirer Sean McDade told her that Canadian officials might have bought the PROMIS software unlawfully from officials of the Reagan and Bush administrations, that the RCMP had traced banking transactions supporting this, and that a successful inquiry "could cause the entire U.S. Republican Party to be dismantled."¹¹⁹ In September 2001 Admiral Daniel Murphy, who had served as chief of staff to Vice President Bush during the first Reagan term when the PROMIS misappropriations began, told Bill Hamilton of INSLAW that he had a "hunch" that there was still another use of PROMIS that INSLAW had not yet discovered; Murphy died on September 21, 2001.¹¹⁹

Project Monarch is described in a 1996 PROBE article by A.B.H. Alexander, which reports the claim of Cathy O'Brien that she delivered messages to foreign leaders including Mexican President Carlos Salinas on behalf of Vice President Bush, using keyword-triggered personality compartments.¹⁵⁸

The Carlyle Group

In March 2002 Tim Shorrock wrote in The Nation that "Bush is Carlyle's senior adviser on Asia and makes his money by giving speeches at Carlyle's investment conferences."¹⁵⁹ The article quotes William Conway of The Carlyle Group describing "the cast of ex-Presidents and former officials, including George H.W. Bush, James Baker III and Frank Carlucci, on its payroll."¹⁵⁹

Appointees in the Epstein Record

Lefkowitz, who served under Bush at the Domestic Policy Council, was later the principal defense negotiator of the September 2007 Epstein non-prosecution agreement between Jeffrey Epstein and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida; he retired from Kirkland & Ellis in March 2026, saying he would not have taken the Epstein matter "knowing what we all know now."¹⁶⁰ Starr was a partner at Kirkland before and after his service as Solicitor General.¹⁶⁰ Preska, whom Bush appointed in 1992, took over Giuffre v. Maxwell after the death of Judge Robert W. Sweet in 2019 and ruled until 2026 on the release of its sealed discovery.¹⁶¹ Federal Election Commission records show a 1988 contribution to Bush by Philip Scaturro, whose contributions otherwise went mostly to Democratic candidates.¹⁶²

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and the FBI Vault

A letter to FBI Director William S. Sessions, held in the Bureau's vault, is quoted by Larry Holzwarth in a HistoryCollection article. The letter states that "President Bush (George H. W. Bush), when asked about UFOs, told the person asking 'You don't know the half of it.'" The letter writer reminds the director that Bush "was formerly with the CIA." Because the letter calls Bush "President," it can date only from January 1989 onward.¹⁶³

The astrophysicist Eric Davis recalled Bush telling him that humans made contact with aliens at a secretive New Mexico air base in 1964. The account was published by OK! Magazine on November 24, 2025 and carried by AOL, and is tied to the documentary The Age of Disclosure. When Bush asked for more details, he was told that he did not have a need-to-know.¹⁶⁴

Footnotes

---

1. Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (Random House, 1991). ↩︎

2. Miller Center, University of Virginia, "George H. W. Bush: Life Before the Presidency." Phillips Academy, Navy service 1942 to 1945, marriage of January 6, 1945, Yale economics degree by 1948, baseball captain, Skull and Bones, Prescott Bush's Senate service 1952 to 1963, the Texas oil years, the 1964 to 1974 political offices, the CIA appointment, the May 1, 1979 announcement, and the children's names and birth years. https://millercenter.org/president/bush/life-before-the-presidency ↩︎

3. White House, "Biography of President George W. Bush" (archived, georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov). Born July 6, 1946, in New Haven; sworn in January 20, 2001 and January 20, 2005. ↩︎

4. "The Ultimate Loyalist," profile of George Bush, 1988, CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580046-1. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp99-01448r000401580046-1 ↩︎

5. George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, FOIA response 2009-0116-F, records relating to the Skull and Bones Society. https://bush41library.gov/download/file/4777 ↩︎

6. Antony C. Sutton, America's Secret Establishment (1983), 1971 membership catalogue entry "BUSH, 1948, George Herbert Walker," and index of members by class year, class of 1948. https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones ↩︎

7. History of the Class of Nineteen Hundred and Seventeen, Yale College, vol. 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1917), entry for Prescott Sheldon Bush, pp. 105 to 106. https://archive.org/details/historyofclassof00murr ↩︎

8. Madrigal v. Russell Trust Association, No. 2:17-cv-00340 (S.D. Tex.), docket entries 1, 6, 8 and 17. https://archive.org/details/gov.uscourts.txsd.1463674 ↩︎

9. Kathrin Day Lassila and Mark Alden Branch, "Whose Skull and Bones?," Yale Alumni Magazine, May/June 2006. https://web.archive.org/web/20060614215733/http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2006_05/notebook.html ↩︎

10. Associated Press, reprinted by CBS News, "Letter May Back Yale Claim On Geronimo," May 9, 2006: "according to the letter, written by Winter Mead"; "But Mead was not at Fort Sill"; "According to Skull and Bones legend, members, including President George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, dug up Geronimo's grave when a group of Army volunteers from Yale were stationed at the fort during World War I." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/letter-may-back-yale-claim-on-geronimo/ ↩︎

11. Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order No. 248, Washington, October 20, 1942, Federal Register, November 7, 1942, pp. 9097-9098. ↩︎

12. Russ Baker, "CIA Helped Bush Senior In Oil Venture," WhoWhatWhy, January 7, 2007, quoting a CIA memorandum of November 29, 1975. https://whowhatwhy.org/2007/01/07/cia-bush-senior-oil-venture/ ↩︎

13. Russ Baker, "CIA Helped Bush Senior In Oil Venture," WhoWhatWhy, January 7, 2007, citing a 1968 memorandum and the 1998 release of CIA documents. https://whowhatwhy.org/2007/01/07/cia-bush-senior-oil-venture/ ↩︎

14. Central Intelligence Agency, "Biographical Information on George H. W. Bush," undated sheet, CIA reading room document CIA-RDP99-01448R000401590001-9. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-01448r000401590001-9 ↩︎

15. Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus, "Bush Opened Up To Secret Yale Society," Washington Post, dated August 7, 1988 in the CIA reading room record, CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580058-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-01448r000401580058-8 ↩︎

16. Randall Rothenberg, "In Search of George Bush," March 6, 1988, CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP99-01448R000401580078-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-01448r000401580078-6 ↩︎

17. Anthony L. Kimery, "George Bush and the CIA: In the Company of Friends," CovertAction Information Bulletin no. 41 (Summer 1992), CIA-RDP99-01448R000401570011-0. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-01448r000401570011-0 ↩︎

18. George Bush, All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings (New York: Scribner, 1999), biographical note on Neil Mallon, the account of the move to Odessa, the letter of April 12, 1951, and the passage on naming the third son. https://archive.org/details/allbestgeorgebus0000bush ↩︎

19. George Bush with Victor Gold, Looking Forward (New York: Doubleday, 1987). https://archive.org/details/lookingforward00bush ↩︎

20. Zapata Corporation, annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal 1994, filed December 29, 1994, accession 0000899243-94-000388, Item 1 and filer header (former conformed names), CIK 109177. ↩︎

21. SEC EDGAR filing history for CIK 109177 (Zapata Corporation and successor names); start of electronic filings February 8, 1994. ↩︎

22. Assassination Records Review Board, letter to John Pereira, December 18, 1997, CIA release 104-10336-10008. ↩︎

23. Assassination Records Review Board staff memorandum by Haron, January 8, 1998 (FBIMEM.002). ↩︎

24. CIA memorandum from Michelle Combs to T. Jeremy Gunn, July 15, 1998 (CIA-IR09). ↩︎

25. CIA memorandum from J. Barry Harrelson to T. Jeremy Gunn, February 25, 1998, within release 104-10336-10008. ↩︎

26. Assassination Records Review Board draft request, "George Bush," undated, bearing Gunn's name. ↩︎

27. WhoWhatWhy, "Classic Who: GHW Bush and the JFK Assassination," October 24, 2017, reporting Stephen Hart's 1988 statement and Joseph McBride's report in The Nation, July 16, 1988. https://whowhatwhy.org/2017/10/24/classic-ghw-bush-jfk-assassination/ ↩︎

28. Gary Webb, Dark Alliance (Seven Stories Press, 1998), ch. 13, "The wrong kind of friends." ↩︎

29. Ronald Reagan, "Statement Announcing the Establishment of a Federal Anticrime Task Force for Southern Florida," January 28, 1982. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-announcing-the-establishment-federal-anticrime-task-force-for-southern-florida ↩︎

30. Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Hrg. 100-773, pt. 4 (July 1988), statement of Adm. Daniel J. Murphy, pp. 224-225. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152832_0009 ↩︎

31. Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Prt. 100-165 (1988), p. 19. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras ↩︎

32. Gary Webb, Dark Alliance (Seven Stories Press, 1998), ch. 20, "It is a sensitive matter." ↩︎

33. FBI Headquarters file on H.L. Hunt, part 2 (FOIA release), Hunt Oil Company and Estate of H.L. Hunt press releases, March 4 and April 1, 1977, https://archive.org/details/foia_Hunt_H.L.-HQ-2 ; Marie Fagnant (Assassination Records Review Board staff), "Summary of Dallas Figures," memorandum, July 31, 1997; Bill Porterfield, "H.L. Hunt's Long Goodbye," Texas Monthly, March 1975. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/h-l-hunts-long-goodbye/ ↩︎

34. George Bush, Chairman, National Foreign Intelligence Board, letter to Vice Admiral Bobby R. Inman, January 1977 (DCI/IC 77-0402), CIA CREST copy CIA-RDP80M00165A002600030024-8. https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP80M00165A002600030024-8 ↩︎

35. "We've Been Asked: What Is the Trilateral Commission?" U.S. News & World Report, April 7, 1980, p. 37, reprinted in Congressional Research Service, The Trilateral Commission, Issue Packet IP0092 (Library of Congress, 1981). ↩︎

36. Ronald Reagan, "Nomination of William H. Draper III To Be President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States," March 18, 1981, The American Presidency Project. https://presidency.ucsb.edu/node/247393 ↩︎

37. "The President's News Conference," November 3, 1975. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/the-presidents-news-conference-60 ↩︎

38. "Remarks at the Swearing In of George Bush as Director of Central Intelligence," January 30, 1976. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-swearing-george-bush-director-central-intelligence ↩︎

39. Kenneth A. Kress, "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," Studies in Intelligence 21, no. 4 (winter 1977), p. 15. CIA reading room CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0. Reprinted with the author's January 1999 postscript in Journal of Scientific Exploration 13, no. 1 (1999). ↩︎

40. Senate nomination record for George H. W. Bush as Director of Central Intelligence, hearings of December 15-16, 1975, and committee report of December 18, 1975. CIA reading room CIA-RDP91-00901R000100050001-3. ↩︎

41. Center for the Study of Intelligence, "Intelligence and Congress: The Nomination of George H. W. Bush as DCI," Studies in Intelligence 65, no. 4 (December 2021). https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/Article_Intel_Congress_Nomination_ofGHWBush_as_DCI_Studies_65_4_December2021.pdf ↩︎

42. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, vol. XXXV, doc. 170, memorandum from Director of Central Intelligence Bush to recipients of National Intelligence Estimate 11-3/8-76, with editorial note citing William Beecher, Boston Globe, October 20, 1976, and David Binder, New York Times, December 26, 1976. ↩︎

43. "Soviet Strategic Objectives: An Alternative View, Report of Team B." CIA reading room CIA-RDP91M00696R001000110006-8. ↩︎

44. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, vol. XXXV, doc. 174, Bush to Cherne, January 19, 1977. ↩︎

45. Church Committee, Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Book I, p. 455 (1976). https://archive.org/details/finalreportofsel01unit ↩︎

46. Church Committee, Final Report, Book I, p. 193. https://archive.org/details/finalreportofsel01unit ↩︎

47. Norman Kempster, Washington Star, February 10, 1976. CIA reading room CIA-RDP99-00498R000100040124-3. ↩︎

48. "'Operation Chaos' Files Ordered Held," Washington Star, June 16, 1976. CIA reading room CIA-RDP90-01208R000100170029-4. ↩︎

49. Letter from Daniel K. Inouye to George Bush, September 29, 1976. CIA reading room 03303946. ↩︎

50. Letter from Edward H. Levi to George Bush, October 9, 1976, with Scowcroft's endorsement of October 21, 1976. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, vol. E-11, pt. 2, doc. 250. ↩︎

51. CIA reading room document 05535911, 1980 radio interview transcript (speaker identified as "MAN"). ↩︎

52. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, vol. XXIV, doc. 209. ↩︎

53. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, vol. XXIV, doc. 217, memorandum quoted in the volume. ↩︎

54. Memorandum by George Bush, "The Death of Roselli," August 11, 1976. CIA reading room 00508811. ↩︎

55. Timothy S. Robinson, "The Letelier Case," The Washington Post, May 21, 1978, p. A4, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP99-00498R000100050048-7, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000100050048-7. ↩︎

56. Brief for Appellants, United States v. Sampol, Nos. 79-1541 and 79-1542 (D.C. Cir. 1979), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-appeal.pdf ; Petition of the United States for Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc, United States v. Sampol (D.C. Cir., October 29, 1980), https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-rehearing.pdf. ↩︎

57. "No New Leads Uncovered by Letelier Probe," The Washington Post, November 1, 1976, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP99-00498R000100020097-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000100020097-6 ↩︎

58. Secretary of State to American Embassy Caracas, "Interrogation of Bosch," telegram 1976STATE277225, November 11, 1976, quoting Richard L. Thornburgh's letter of November 5, 1976, Department of State, released 2006; Zach Dorfman, "Codename: Chilbom," The Atavist Magazine, no. 59, June 21, 2016. https://magazine.atavist.com/2016/codename-chilbom ↩︎

59. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Associate Attorney General, In the Matter of Orlando Bosch-Avila, decision of Acting Associate Attorney General Joe D. Whitley in exclusion proceedings, January 23, 1989; National Security Archive, "Bombing of Cuban Jetliner 30 Years Later," Electronic Briefing Book 202, October 5, 2006. ↩︎

60. Peter Kornbluh, "A Modicum of Justice for Ronni Karpen Moffitt," The Nation, September 2026. ↩︎

61. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, vol. XXII, Panama, doc. 133, memorandum of conversation, October 6, 1976, source note. ↩︎

62. Letter from George Bush to Donald H. Rumsfeld, October 18, 1976. CIA reading room CIA-RDP79-00498A000600090009-7. ↩︎

63. Joseph Trento, Prelude to Terror: The Rogue CIA and the Legacy of America's Private Intelligence Network (Carroll & Graf, 2005), pp. 52-108; Alexandre de Marenches and David Andelman, The Fourth World War (Random House, 1992); Church Committee, S. Rept. 94-755, 1976. ↩︎

64. Roger Faligot and Pascal Krop, La Piscine: Les Services Secrets Français, 1944-1984 (Seuil, 1985); Alexandre de Marenches and Christine Ockrent, Dans le Secret des Princes (Stock, 1986). ↩︎

65. Church Committee, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, S. Rept. 94-465, 1975; Ludo De Witte, The Assassination of Lumumba (Verso, 2001); International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976, Public Law 94-329, 90 Stat. 729 (June 30, 1976), sec. 404. ↩︎

66. Miller Center, University of Virginia, "William P. Barr Oral History," interview of April 5, 2001, George H. W. Bush Oral History Project. https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/william-p-barr-oral-history ↩︎

67. Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (Random House, 1991), ch. 18. ↩︎

68. Ari Ben-Menashe, Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network (Sheridan Square Press, 1992; TrineDay reprint, 2015). ↩︎

69. The Tower Commission Report: The Full Text of the President's Special Review Board (New York: Bantam Books and Times Books, 1987), pp. 24-25, 30-31; Tom Tugend, "Al Schwimmer, Israel Air Force pioneer, dies at 94," Jewish Journal (Los Angeles), June 12, 2011; JTA Staff, "Pardoned American served Israel in 1948," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 28, 2001. ↩︎

70. Maureen Dowd, "War in the Gulf: The President; Bush Urges Israeli Restraint in Phone Appeals to Shamir," The New York Times, January 20, 1991, p. 16. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/20/world/war-gulf-president-bush-urges-israeli-restraint-phone-appeals-shamir.html ↩︎

71. "Decade of the Spy," undated counterintelligence history extract, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book 407, Doc. 14. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB407/docs/EBB-PollardDoc14.pdf ↩︎

72. Kress, "Parapsychology in Intelligence," Studies in Intelligence 21, no. 4 (winter 1977), p. 16. CIA reading room CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0. ↩︎

73. US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "List of Events from September 1977 to January 1986," entry for 1983. CIA reading room CIA-RDP96-00788R001100020001-8. ↩︎

74. Memorandum for the record, "Briefing," Major Gerald Fox, April 1, 1983, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700270002-4. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700270002-4 ↩︎

75. Defense Intelligence Agency, S-1004/DT-1, "Minutes of the Meeting, DoD Grill Flame Committee," November 28, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130006-1; "Minutes of the Grill Flame Committee Meeting, 14 Feb 79," CIA-RDP96-00788R002000130002-5. ↩︎

76. Dolan M. McKelvy, Psychic Warfare: Exploring the Mind Frontier, Air War College research report, Air University, CIA-RDP96-00789R001001420001-3, citing Ronald M. McRae, Mind Wars (1984), p. 103. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r001001420001-3 ↩︎

77. William J. Casey to Alexander M. Haig, Jr., April 2, 1982, with "Quick Intelligence Assessment on Falkland Affairs (April 2, 1982)," CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP84B00049R000701780017-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84b00049r000701780017-6 ↩︎

78. John H. Holdridge, letter, "Australian Intrigue," Time, January 3, 1982, CIA-RDP90-00806R000200820017-1, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000200820017-1 ; CBS, "The Nugan Hand Bank," Evening News transcript, September 22, 1982, CIA-RDP90-00552R000201840002-6, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP90-00552R000201840002-6 ↩︎

79. "Vice President George Bush, completing a 10-day trip aimed...," United Press International, April 12, 1986, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/04/12/Vice-President-George-Bush-completing-a-10-day-trip-aimed/5692513666000/ ; "Top-secret cronies," Salon, November 17, 2005, https://www.salon.com/2005/11/17/pfiab/ ↩︎

80. Bill Gertz, "Vice President confirms Buckley was tortured and killed," Washington Times, January 21, 1987, CIA-RDP90-00965R000302310058-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302310058-3 ↩︎

81. Denholm Barnetson, "President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel and...," United Press International, August 17, 1988. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/08/17/President-Mohammad-Zia-ul-Haq-US-Ambassador-Arnold-Raphel-and/3467587793600/ ↩︎

82. Dennis Bernstein and Robert Knight (Pacific News Service), report published by Salon, October 8, 1996. https://www.salon.com/1996/10/08/news_555/ ↩︎

83. Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Hrg. 100-773, pt. 2 (February 1988), Senator Kerry, pp. 265-266. ↩︎

84. Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Hrg. 100-773, pt. 2 (February 1988), testimony of Danilo Blandon, pp. 136-137. ↩︎

85. Lawrence E. Walsh, Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, vol. I, ch. 29, citing Gregg grand jury testimony of October 9, 1987 and Rodriguez grand jury testimony of December 4, 1987. https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_29.htm ↩︎

86. Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Hrg. 100-773, pt. 4 (July 1988), Rodriguez testimony, p. 344. ↩︎

87. Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, Part IX, p. 443. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/part_ix.htm ↩︎

88. Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Prt. 100-165 (1988), p. 96. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras ↩︎

89. Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, Executive Summary, p. xviii. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/execsum.htm ↩︎

90. Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 28, "George Bush," pp. 473-474. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_28.htm ↩︎

91. Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 28, p. 479 and note 67 (Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1992; Washington Post, 1988). ↩︎

92. Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, Part IX, "Investigations of the White House," pp. 443-444. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/part_ix.htm ↩︎

93. Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 28, pp. 474-475, on the diary, the pardons and the grand jury. ↩︎

94. Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 28, p. 480 and note 74 (diary entries of November 4 and 5, 1986). ↩︎

95. Walsh, Final Report, vol. I, ch. 28, p. 478. ↩︎

96. Proclamation 6518, Granting Pardons, December 24, 1992, 107 Stat. 2606-2607. ↩︎

97. Brown University, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, Iran-Contra materials, "The Pardons," quoting Walsh's response to the pardon of Caspar Weinberger. https://webhelper.brown.edu/cheit/ ↩︎

98. Walsh, Final Report, vol. II, Fourth Interim Report to Congress, February 8, 1993, pp. 585-587. ↩︎

99. The Tower Commission Report, February 26, 1987, pp. 383-384. https://archive.org/details/towercommission00unit ↩︎

100. National Security Planning Group minutes, June 25, 1984, "Central America," National Security Archive, The Iran-Contra Affair 20 Years On, EBB 210, document 2 (IC 00463), pp. 12, 14. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/2-NSPG%20minutes%206-25-84%20(IC%2000463).pdf ; Iran-Contra report, ch. 26, pp. 403-404. ↩︎

101. Walsh, Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, vol. I, ch. 29 (Gregg and Rodriguez); Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Prt. 100-165 (1989), p. 96. ↩︎

102. George Bush, "Statement by Press Secretary Fitzwater on the Iran-Contra Investigation," December 30, 1992, The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-press-secretary-fitzwater-the-iran-contra-investigation ; U.S. Department of Justice, "Griffin Boyette Bell," Attorneys General biographies. ↩︎

103. Miller Center, University of Virginia, "William P. Barr Oral History," interview of April 5, 2001, George H. W. Bush Oral History Project (remarks on Bua, Lacey, Civiletti, inherent authority, and the pardons). https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/william-p-barr-oral-history ↩︎

104. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair, S. Prt. 103-12 (February 1993), pp. 4-5, 10; Lacey, Report of the Independent Counsel, Serial No. 103-95, pp. 344-345; "Drogoul gets 37 months in BNL bank scandal," United Press International, December 9, 1993; United States v. Drogoul, 1 F.3d 1546 (11th Cir. 1993). ↩︎

105. Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980, 102d Cong., 2d sess., January 3, 1993, Calendar No. 634. https://archive.org/details/6199732-Joint-Report-of-the-October-Surprise-Task-Force ↩︎

106. Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 148. ↩︎

107. Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 110. ↩︎

108. Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, pp. 172-173. ↩︎

109. Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 175. ↩︎

110. Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 149, citing the Rupp sentencing (D. Colo., September 23, 1988) and the Brenneke trial (D. Or., May 3, 1990). ↩︎

111. Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, pp. 150-151. ↩︎

112. Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy, S. Prt. 100-165 (1988), pp. 131-132. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras ↩︎

113. Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 90, Casey calendar. ↩︎

114. Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, p. 102. ↩︎

115. Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, pp. 20-21, missing calendar pages. ↩︎

116. Robert Parry, "October Surprise Evidence Surfaces," Consortium News, July 14, 2011. https://consortiumnews.com/2011/07/14/october-surprise-evidence-surfaces/ ↩︎

117. Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force, pp. 173-174, Reagan statements. ↩︎

118. Barbara Honegger, October Surprise (New York: Tudor Publishing, 1989). ↩︎

119. Cheri Seymour, The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal (TrineDay, 2010). ↩︎

120. Miller Center, University of Virginia, "George H. W. Bush: Key Events." https://millercenter.org/president/bush/key-events ↩︎

121. Miller Center, "Statecraft: The Bush 41 Team," "Proving ground: How the December 1989 invasion of Panama shaped the Bush 41 foreign policy team," quoting Richard Cheney and Colin Powell in the George H. W. Bush Oral History Project. https://millercenter.org/statecraftmovie/proving-ground ↩︎

122. U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, Report (H. Rept. 105-851), vol. III, ch. 9, p. 50. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851/pdf/GPO-CRPT-105hrpt851.pdf ↩︎

123. Bruce Berkowitz, The National Reconnaissance Office at 50 Years: A Brief History (Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance, September 2011), pp. 20-21, 23-26. ↩︎

124. Henry B. Gonzalez, "Brass Factory in Iraq," Congressional Record, House, September 25, 1992, p. H9502; Gonzalez floor statement of August 10, 1992. ↩︎

125. Gayle Young, "Socialists Take the Helm in Jamaica. Manley hopes to strengthen US ties by aiding war on drugs," The Christian Science Monitor, February 14, 1989. https://www.csmonitor.com/1989/0214/ojam.html ↩︎

126. "Richard Lewis Thornburgh," Office of the Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Attorneys General of the United States; Miller Center, "Richard Thornburgh." ↩︎

127. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Solicitor General, "Solicitor General: Kenneth W. Starr," historical biography (updated September 18, 2023). https://www.justice.gov/osg/bio/kenneth-w-starr ↩︎

128. George Bush, "Nomination of Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr., To Be a Member of the Board for International Broadcasting, and Designation as Chairman," January 4, 1990, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/264564 ; George Bush, "Digest of Other White House Announcements," June 19, 1992, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/391789 ↩︎

129. U.S. Department of State, "Jay Lefkowitz, Special Envoy, Human Rights in North Korea," biography, released May 25, 2006. https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/66929.htm ; The White House (George W. Bush archives), "Personnel Announcement," January 31, 2002. ↩︎

130. Federal Judicial Center, "Preska, Loretta A.," Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges. https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/preska-loretta ↩︎

131. Henry B. Gonzalez, "Kissinger Associates, Scowcroft, Eagleburger, Stoga, Iraq, and BNL," Congressional Record, House, April 28, 1992, pp. H2694-H2701. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920428g.htm ↩︎

132. Declaration of Howard R. Teicher, United States v. Carlos Cardoen et al., No. 93-241-CR-Highsmith (S.D. Fla., January 31, 1995), para. 7. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq61.pdf ↩︎

133. Corrective declaration of Howard R. Teicher, docket 679, United States v. Cardoen (October 31, 1996). Archive.org item utf-893cr-241-de-679. ↩︎

134. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair, S. Prt. 103-12 (February 1993). https://intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf ↩︎

135. National Security Directive 26, "U.S. Policy Toward the Persian Gulf," October 2, 1989, classified SECRET. George H. W. Bush Presidential Library copy. ↩︎

136. General Accounting Office, report on Iraq's participation in the Commodity Credit Corporation's GSM-102 and GSM-103 export credit guarantee programs, GAO/NSIAD-91-76, November 1990, appendix I; Henry B. Gonzalez, "Continuing Saga of Attempts to Thwart BNL Investigation," Congressional Record, House, May 18, 1992, pp. H3370-H3373; "Bush's embarrassing Lavoro scandal," The Baltimore Sun, April 28, 1992. ↩︎

137. Alan Friedman, Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq (Bantam Books, 1993). ↩︎

138. Representative Henry B. Gonzalez, Congressional Record, 1992. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/1992_cr/h920925g.htm ↩︎

139. White House, unclassified summary of Iraq sanctions and weapons exports, September 1991. ↩︎

140. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, The BCCI Affair, S. Prt. 102-140 (December 1992), p. 461. https://archive.org/details/thebcciaffair_202003 ↩︎

141. The BCCI Affair, S. Prt. 102-140, p. 542, chapter on Ed Rogers. ↩︎

142. The BCCI Affair, S. Prt. 102-140, p. 538. ↩︎

143. The BCCI Affair, S. Prt. 102-140, Helms letters to Vice President Bush, October 29, 1987. ↩︎

144. The BCCI Affair, S. Prt. 102-140, Justice Department response on the February 1990 letters by Mr. Saphos. ↩︎

145. The BCCI Affair, S. Prt. 102-140, letter of Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Navarro to Senator Kerry, July 24, 1990. ↩︎

146. The BCCI Affair, S. Prt. 102-140, p. 508. ↩︎

147. "Jackson Thomas Stephens (1923-2005)," Encyclopedia of Arkansas; Financial General Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger, 523 F. Supp. 744 (D.D.C. 1981); 680 F.2d 768 (D.C. Cir. 1982). ↩︎

148. Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin, False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, the World's Most Corrupt Financial Empire (Houghton Mifflin, 1992), ch. 18 and p. 428. https://archive.org/details/bypetertruellauthorlarrygurwinauthorfalseprofitsth ↩︎

149. "Meet The Family That Bankrolled Clinton," The Seattle Times, January 31, 1993, https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19930131&slug=1682819 ; House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Investigation of Political Fundraising Improprieties and Possible Violations of Law, H. Rept. 105-829 (1998), vol. 2; Roger Morris, Partners in Power (Henry Holt, 1996); Truell and Gurwin, False Profits, pp. 41 and 428. ↩︎

150. Jonathan Beaty, "A Mysterious Mover of Money and Planes," Time, October 28, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718843/a-mysterious-mover-of-money-and-planes/ ↩︎

151. Craig Unger, "Mystery man," Salon, April 28, 2004. https://www.salon.com/2004/04/28/james_bath/ ↩︎

152. Lucy Komisar, "Questions Linger About Bushes and BCCI," Inter Press Service, April 4, 2007, https://www.ipsnews.net/2007/04/finance-questions-linger-about-bushes-and-bcci/ ; Harken Energy Corporation, proxy statement (Schedule 14A), filed April 25, 1994, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313478/0000950134-94-000454.txt ↩︎

153. Richard Behar, "Global Intrigue: The Wackiest Rig in Texas," Time, October 28, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718865/global-intrigue-the-wackiest-rig-in-texas/ ↩︎

154. WhoWhatWhy, "Bush Angle to Reagan Shooting Still Unresolved as Hinckley Walks," August 16, 2016, reporting the Houston Post story, Neil Bush's press conference, Peter Teeley's statement to UPI, and the Untermyer diary. https://whowhatwhy.org/2016/08/16/bush-angle-reagan-shooting-still-unresolved-hinckley-walks/ ↩︎

155. WhoWhatWhy (2016), citing an Associated Press item of April 1, 1981, on the Department of Energy notice to the Hinckley family business. ↩︎

156. Ted L. Gunderson compilation, FBI The Finders, advertisement for John DeCamp's book. https://archive.org/details/ted-gunderson-fbi-the-finders ↩︎

157. Ted L. Gunderson compilation, FBI The Finders, relaying a Washington Times report by George Archibald (1989). ↩︎

158. A.B.H. Alexander, "Sex, Drugs, the CIA, MIND CONTROL and Your Children," PROBE, c. 1996. ↩︎

159. Tim Shorrock, "Crony Capitalism Goes Global," The Nation, March 14, 2002. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/crony-capitalism-goes-global/ ↩︎

160. "Jeffrey Epstein's Disgraced Lawyer Jay Lefkowitz Who Secured Sweetheart Deal Leaves Firm," The Daily Beast, March 2026; U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Solicitor General, "Solicitor General: Kenneth W. Starr"; U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284. ↩︎

161. Brown v. Maxwell; Dershowitz v. Giuffre, 929 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. 2019), Nos. 18-2868, 16-3945-cv(L) (July 3, 2019). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4636340/brown-v-maxwell-dershowitz-v-giuffre/ ↩︎

162. Federal Election Commission, Schedule A individual contributions, API query contributor_name "SCATURRO, PHILIP" (41 results). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=SCATURRO%2C%20PHILIP ↩︎

163. Larry Holzwarth, "FBI Files: Unexplained Phenomenon Files from the FBI's Vault," HistoryCollection, quoting an anonymous letter to FBI Director William S. Sessions. https://historycollection.com/unexplained-phenomenon-files-from-the-fbis-vault/6/ ↩︎

164. Allie Fasanella, "George H. W. Bush 'Knew' Humans Made Contact With Aliens in 1964," OK! Magazine, November 24, 2025, carried by AOL. https://www.aol.com/articles/george-h-w-bush-knew-161144400.html ↩︎