Articles:
“Senators Assail Railways, Charging Stock Juggling,”
New York Times
, Dec. 21, 1937; “Rail Financing Curb Urged in Senate Report,”
New York Herald Tribune
, July 28, 1940; “American Capital Pouring into Europe,”
New York Times
, July 14, 1929; “Third Plea for Loans to Pay Bonds Denied,”
New York Times
, Feb. 5, 1942; M. J. Racusin, “Thyssen Has $3,000,000 Cash in New York Vaults,”
New York Herald Tribune
, July 31, 1941; “Thyssen’s Role in World Affairs Still a Mystery,”
New York Herald Tribune
, July 31, 1941; “No Honey, No Flies,”
Time
, March 2, 1942; “Leo the Lion,”
Time
, March 23, 1942; Curtis Lang, “Bad Company,”
Village Voice
, May 5, 1992; “Author Links Bush Family to Nazis,”
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
, Nov. 11, 2000; Martha Pierce on cover of
Vogue
, Aug. 15, 1940; Suzy Kane, “What the Gulf War Reveals About George Bush’s Childhood,”
Journal of Psychohistory
20, no. 2 (Fall 1992); Garry Wills, “The Ultimate Loyalist,”
Time,
Aug. 22, 1988; Hugh A. Mulligan, “‘I Knew He Was Something Special,’”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, Sept. 27, 1988; “Washington Week,”
Wallingford Post
, May 26, 1960; Margaret Warner, “Bush Battles the ‘Wimp’ Factor,”
Newsweek
, Oct. 19, 1987; Brock Brower, “Captain Enigma: Can George Bush Lead the Nation?”
Life
, May 1988; Bruce Mohl, “Bush, at Alma Mater, Stresses Values of a Good Education,”
Boston Globe
, May 3, 1987; Ernest B. Furgurson, “Bush’s War,”
Washingtonian
, Aug. 1985; Marjorie Williams, “Barbara’s Backlash,”
Vanity Fair
, Aug. 1992.
Interviews:
Indiana Earl, July 20, 2001, and Aug. 14, 2001; George “Red Dog” Warren, Jan. 8, 2003; William Sloane Coffin, June 15, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002; correspondence with Patricia Lewis, July 2, 2002; John Loftus, June 13, 2001; correspondence with Ruth Quattlebaum, Phillips Academy, Andover, archives, March 18 and 24, 2003, and Nov. 4, 2003; Christopher Larsen, June 18, 2003, Sept. 25, 2003, and Nov. 12, 2003; Peggy Adler, March 31, 2003; Jesse Nichols, April 15, 2002; Don Ritchie, March 19, 2002.
RE: Fritz Thyssen
Fritz Thyssen (1873–1951) was the scion of a powerful German family whose fortune was based on steel manufacturing. He was attracted to right-wing causes and became a financial backer of the Nazis about 1928. Thyssen’s connection with the Nazis became public in 1932, when he arranged for Hitler to speak before the Düsseldorf Industry Club. In July 1933, Thyssen became the Nazis’ economic czar in Rhineland-Westphalia, Germany’s major industrial region; he later was named to the Prussian State Council and became a Reichstag member from Düsseldorf. However, Thyssen broke with Hitler in 1939 and fled Germany. In 1941 he was captured by police in Vichy France as he was preparing to leave for South America, and he spent the remainder of the war imprisoned in a series of concentration camps. After the war, he was fined by a denazification court, and he finally immigrated to Argentina, where he died.
RE: “Trading with the Enemy”
There has been a great deal of inaccuracy about Silesian-American Corporation and Union Banking Corporation because of a widespread misunderstanding over the role of the Office of Alien Property. On April 14, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9142, which, “under the Authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 and the First War Powers Act,” established the Office of Alien Property Custodian in the Office for Emergency Management and transferred to it all the “functions, personnel, and property of the Alien Property Division, Justice Department.” The OAP was empowered to administer $7 billion worth of enemy assets in the United States. Generally, the OAP issued a vesting order, through which the U.S. government took control of a property. The vested property was either returned after the war or liquidated for the benefit of the government. On November 17, 1942, the OAP issued Vesting Order 370, by which it took control of the
German-owned
shares of Silesian-American Corporation. The OAP’s action had nothing to do with George H. Walker’s earlier efforts on behalf of the
American
shareholders of Silesian-American. Similarly, when the OAP issued Vesting Order 248, by which it acquired control of Union Banking Corporation—which documents show the government had decided in November 1941 to treat as a German-controlled company—the action was not a reflection on the activities of Prescott Bush and the partners of Brown Brothers Harriman; it was a consequence of the Thyssen family’s ownership of the Dutch bank that, in turn, owned Union Banking. Documents in the National Archives indicate that Union Banking Corporation was liquidated shortly after the war and that the U.S. government denied legal appeals by the family of Fritz Thyssen’s brother, a Hungarian citizen, to compensate them.
CHAPTER 5
Records:
George H.W. Bush World War II letters from Chapel Hill and Corpus Christi, Sept. 3 and 27, 1944, Prescott Bush letter to Ann White, Oct. 13, 1944, Marvin Pierce letter to J. G. Kiefaber, March 22, 1948, George Bush Personal Papers, World War II Correspondence, George Bush Presidential Library; Albert Morano Oral History transcripts, Greenwich Library Oral History Project, Greenwich Library, Greenwich, Conn.; National Archives summary, George H.W. Bush Military Personnel Record and James Smith Bush Military Personnel Record obtained through Freedom of Information Act; deck log pages for USS
San Jacinto,
June 19, 1944, and June 24, 1944, and deck log pages for USS
C. K. Bronson
, June 19, 1944, National Archives; “Commander Torpedo Squadron 5, Aircraft Action Report, 8 September 1944,” “U.S.S. San Jacinto War Diary, September 1944,” “U.S.S. Finback (SS230)—Report of War Patrol Number Ten, 16 August to 4 October 1944,” National Archives; translation, “Summary of Combat Results of Allied [Japanese] Forces, 1st Anti-Aircraft (Asahiyama) 9/2/44,” received from David Robb; Prescott Bush to Samuel Bemiss, Samuel M. Bemiss Papers, Virginia Historical Society; Prescott Bush to W. Averell Harriman, July 19, 1944, W. Averell Harriman Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room.
Books:
George Bush letters to Dorothy Bush, undated, from Minneapolis, letter to Dorothy and Prescott Bush, undated, from Chapel Hill, letters to Dorothy and Prescott Bush, April 27, 1944, May 24, 1942, Sept. 3, 1944, Aug. 13, 1944, letter to Prescott Bush, Nov. 1, 1943, in George Bush,
All the Best, George Bush
(New York: Touchstone, 1999); George Bush with Victor Gold,
Looking Forward
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987); Barbara Bush,
Barbara Bush: A Memoir
(New York: St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 1995) and
Reflections
(New York: Scribner, 2003).
Articles:
Benjamin C. Bradlee, “Then and Now,”
Washington Post
, Sept. 28, 2001; Beth McLeod, “President’s Mother Was Captain of Smooth-Sailing Family Ship,”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, June 30, 1991; “A Son’s Restless Journey,”
Newsweek
, Aug. 7, 2000; Brock Brower, “Captain Enigma: Can George Bush Lead the Nation?”
Life,
May 1988; Sidney Blumenthal, “War Story: George Bush’s Many Versions,”
New Republic
, Oct. 12, 1992; Allan Wolper and Al Ellenbert, “The Day Bush Bailed Out,”
New York Post
, Aug. 12, 1988; Dan Morgan, “Bush Released Intelligence Report to Rebut Gunner’s Story of 1944 Mission,”
Washington Post
, Aug. 14, 1988; Ernest B. Furgurson, “Bush’s War,”
Washingtonian
, Aug. 1985; “Church Crowded at Bush-Pierce Wedding,”
Rye Chronicle
, Jan. 12, 1945; Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, “Lunch with Bar: An Interview with the Ancien Regime,”
New Republic
, Nov. 9, 1992.
Interviews:
Courtney Callahan, April 17, 2003, and Aug. 29, 2003; Anthony A. Morano, Dec. 5, 2001; correspondence with Jason Morano, Dec. 17, 2001. Interviews by David Robb: Leo Nadeau, April 1991; Wendell Tomes, May 11, 1991; Legare Hole, May 1991; Harold Nunnally, May 11, 1991; James Bryan, May 3, 1991.
CHAPTER 6
Records:
Prescott Bush to Charles Seymour and Yale
1948 Class Book
, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University; William F. Buckley Jr. interviewed by Geoffrey Kabaservice, Griswold-Brewster Oral History Project, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University; receipt for 1947 Studebaker, George Bush to his mother, Oct. 28, 1948, and transcript of David Frost interview with George and Barbara Bush, Aug. 25, 1998, George Bush Presidential Library; correspondence with Thomas “Lud” Ashley concerning gifts to RTA 1966 and to Yale 1970, Thomas L. Ashley Papers, Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University; Prescott S. Bush Oral History, 1966, Columbia University Oral History Research Project, Eisenhower Administration Project.
Books:
George Bush with Victor Gold,
Looking Forward
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987); George Bush letter to FitzGerald Bemiss, June 1948, in George Bush,
All the Best, George Bush
(New York: Touchstone, 1999); Barbara Bush,
Barbara Bush: A Memoir
(New York: St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 1995); Donnie Radcliffe,
Simply Barbara Bush
(New York: Warner Books, 1989); Alexandra Robbins,
Secrets of the Tomb
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2002); Richard Ben Cramer,
What It Takes
(New York: Vintage Books, 1993); Fitzhugh Green,
George Bush: An Intimate Portrait
(New York: Hippocrene Books, 1989); Gail Sheehy,
Characters
(New York: William Morrow, 1988); Peggy Noonan,
What I Saw at the Revolution
(New York: Random House, 1990); Darwin Payne,
Initiative in Energy
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979); H. G. Bissinger,
Friday Night Lights
(Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1990).
Articles:
“Over 5300 Students Register for Fall Term,”
Yale Daily News
, Nov. 2, 1945; Lois Romano, “Joseph Reed, Protector of Propriety; On the Eve of the Floating Summit, Bush’s Protocol Chief in the Wings,”
Washington Post
, Nov. 28, 1989; “Senior Society Elections,”
Yale Daily News,
May 16, 1947; Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus, “Bush Opened Up to Secret Yale Society,”
Washington Post
, Aug. 7, 1988; “A Son’s Restless Journey,”
Newsweek
, Aug. 7, 2000; James Keogh, “Barbara Remembers,”
Greenwich
, Dec. 1994; Barbara Matusow, “Mama’s Boy,”
Washingtonian
, June 2001; “Bush Named New Baseball Captain,”
Yale Daily News
, Sept. 22, 1947; Michael P. Keating, “Stan’s the Man,”
York Weekly,
June 19, 2002; “Stifel Nicolaus Head Glad Bush Turned Down Family Business,”
Tulsa World
, Oct. 27, 1988; cover story,
Nutmegger
, Sept. 1978; Barry Bearak, “His Great Gift, to Blend In,”
Los Angeles Times
, Nov. 22, 1987; Garry Wills, “Father Knows Best,”
New York Review of Books
, Nov. 5, 1992; “Mrs. Bush—U.N. Wife, ‘I’d Pay to Have This Job,’”
Washington, D.C., Sunday Star
, Feb. 20, 1972; Bill Minutaglio, “George W.’s Secret Weapon,”
Talk
, March 2000; “Auto Crash Kills Publisher’s Wife as He Reaches for Spilling Cup,”
New York Times
, Sept. 24, 1949; “Mrs. Pierce’s Death Shocks Community,”
Rye Chronicle
, Sept. 29, 1949; Susan Watters, “Feisty Lady,”
W
, Oct. 31, 1988.
TV:
“Barbara Bush, First Mom,” A&E
Biography,
May 9, 2001.
Interviews:
Isolde Chapin, Dec. 19, 2001; Jim Finkenstaedt, June 4, 2002; Harry Finkenstaedt, June 21, 2002; Frank “Junie” O’Brien, April 30, 2003; Betsy Trippe DeVecchi, July 20, 2003; Robert DeVecchi, July 21, 2003; Stephen Thayer, May 2003; correspondence with William R. Massa Jr., Yale Manuscripts and Archives, Feb. 19, 2002; correspondence with Geoffrey Kabaservice, Aug. 16, 2001, and Oct. 9, 2001. Interview by David Robb: Thomas “Lud” Ashley, May 1991.
RE: Skull and Bones Appointments
George H.W. Bush appointed several Bonesmen to federal positions: George H. Pfau Jr. (1940), director of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation; Paul C. Lambert (1950), Ambassador to Ecuador; Victor H. Frank Jr. (1950), director of the Asian Development Bank; David George Ball (1960), Assistant Secretary of Labor; Richard Anthony Moore (1930), Ambassador to Ireland. Moore, a producer for
The McLaughlin Group
, was best known to the public in his capacity as special counsel to President Nixon, 1971–74; in 1973, he had testified for two and a half days before the Senate Watergate Committee and denied that John Dean had informed Nixon about criminal activities involved in the White House cover-up of Watergate. The witness who immediately followed Moore, Alexander Butterfield, revealed that Nixon had taped his conversations; when finally produced, the tapes supported John Dean’s version of his conversations with the President.
CHAPTER 7
Records:
Elizabeth Hyde Brownell, Prescott S. Bush Jr., Josephine Evaristo, Albert Morano, Charles A. Pirro Jr., John F. Sullivan, Albert F. Varner Jr., Bernard L. Yudain Oral History Interview transcripts, Greenwich Library Oral History Project, Greenwich Library, Greenwich, Conn.; Samuel P. Bush will and Martha Bell Bush will, Franklin County Probate Court, Columbus, Ohio; Prescott S. Bush Oral History, 1966, Columbia University Oral History Research Project, Eisenhower Administration Project; campaign material and newspaper clippings scrapbooks, Prescott S. Bush Papers, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut; telegram concerning UN, letter to Richard Nixon, Sept. 4, 1952, and other correspondence, Clare Boothe Luce Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room; Prescott S. Bush to Louis Carlisle Walker, June 19, 1950, Louis Carlisle Walker Papers, Bentley Library, University of Michigan; transcript of Drew Pearson radio broadcast, Nov. 5, 1950, and 1947 Planned Parenthood fund-raising letter, Drew Pearson Papers, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library; 1952 presidential campaign material, Brien McMahon Papers, Georgetown University Special Collections; Prescott Bush to Sam Bemiss, Samuel M. Bemiss Papers, Virginia Historical Society; Prescott Bush to A. Whitney Griswold, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University.