Frauds 'R' Us- The Bush Family

[Clara T]

Prescott Bush, granpa of Dubya The Nazi’s American Banker- Specialty: Bank Fraud


Neil- Specialty: Real Estate Fraud


Jeb- Specialty: Oil and Gas Fraud


George Snr- Specialty: All Manner of Fraud


Marvin- Specialty: Insurance Manipulation


George Jr- Specialty: Insurance and Security Fraud

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you have to focus on" – GW Bush

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil
The other really important question to ask is how can one family which has so many skeletons in the family closet, get away with such dirty dealings and over such a long period of time without being called to task? It’s as if the mass media goes deaf, dumb and blind when the name Bush comes up. For no matter what your politics are, left, right or indifferent, a family which has its fingers in so many dirty dealings has surely got to get you thinking about exactly what kind of country it is you live in (if you’re an American) and what kind of world is it that’s dominated by a country with a media (not to mention a legal system) that’s quite content not to challenge its president or his lying, thiefing family and their tenticular network of associations which includes: the Mafia, the Chinese Communist Party, Japanese Triads, the Vatican, Central American drug smugglers and gun runners, international arms dealers, the Ayotollah Khomeini (RIP), Cuban-American terrorists, money laundering, illegal arms sales, countless conflicts of interests, nepotism, coverups, tax avoidance, SEC fiddles and banking scams? A veritable ‘school for scoundrels’.

The fact that this litany of evil is effectively left unscrutinised and unquestioned by the dominant media, or, on the few occasions when it is mentioned, it’s only ‘in passing’, reveals the cynical, opportunistic attitude toward not only the concept of access to information, but acting on it. The system also makes a complete mockery of the so-called moral approach used by the leaders of the ‘free world’ when they accuse others of the same behaviour. Is it any wonder that we have populations who have ‘dropped out’ of the political process. Where is the accountability? Where indeed?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3308.htm

[CrazyOrangeCat]

1. All manner of fraud . . .

. . . I like it.

Poppy can do 'er all . . .

[Clara T]

2. Arbusto Oil and the bin Laden Connection

Arbusto Oil and the bin Laden Connection

By William Bowles


05/11/03: (Information Clearing House) Oh what a tangled Web we weave. Salem bin Laden, one of 57 children their father Mohammed sired with his 12 wives, and Bush were founders of the Arbusto Energy oil company in Texas (I assume not with the 12 wives as well).


He died in a plane crash -- like his father -- but not before the Arbusto Energy Oil Company, founded in 1978, had become hugely successful. Later, Spectrum 7 Corp bought out Arbusto (now called Bush Exploration Co). In 1986, with the company on the verge of bankruptcy, it was purchased by Harken (see Harken entry), and even though Bush Exploration Co had debts of $3 million, Harken paid Bush $2 million for his stock.

See also the BCCI (Bank of Credit & Commerce) connection, another murky international scandal involving drug money laundering etc which one of the original investors in Arbusto, James R. Bath, a Houston businessman and old friend of GWB was involved in.

"Time magazine described Bath in 1991 as "a deal broker whose alleged associations run from the CIA to a major shareholder and director of the Bank of Credit & Commerce." BCCI, as it was more commonly known, closed its doors in July 1991 amid charges of multibillion-dollar fraud and global news reports that the financial institution had been heavily involved in drug money laundering, arms brokering, covert intelligence work, bribery of government officials and–here's the kicker–aid to terrorists."


James Hatfield

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3332.htm

[CrazyOrangeCat]

3. Grandpa Prescott's photo . . .

. . . reminds me of a scary old Fuller Brush salesman that used to come around, when I was a kid. Maybe it WAS Prescott . . . deep, deep, undercover.

[Clara T]

4. Just Business as Usual in the Bush Household

BCCI (Bank of Credit & Commerce)

By William Bowles


05/11/03: (Information Clearing House) 


"BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in the '80s in what has been called the "largest bank fraud in world financial history" by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau."


Wayne Madsen


The BCCI-Bush connection is, it could be argued an ‘accidental’ one, but it’s highly unlikely even if it is difficult to track, But the seeds are all there, including GW Snr’s CIA connection (as head of it) in the 1970s and the links to BCCI (see below) as well as his long time association with James R. Bath an investor in Arbusto. Bath, was a Houston businessman and old friend was also an investor in BCCI. Essentially, BCCI was a convenient ‘channel’ for moving money through to fund the various illegal enterprises being undertaken at the time including, Iran-Contra, the Iranian arms sales, CIA money laundering operations, connections to powerful Middle Eastern businessmen, the Vatican and its right-wing connections through BNL.

Perhaps this extract from "Texas Connections" (http://www.thedubyareport.com/txconnect.html) gives you an idea of the reach:


"… Sheikh Abdullah Bahksh of Saudi Arabia, a 16% shareholder in Harken Energy at the time, was represented by a Palestinian-born Chicago investor named Talat Othman, who served with George W. Bush on the board of Harken Energy. Othman made at least three separate visits to the White House to discuss Middle East affairs with then President George Bush. At about the same time, and just prior to the Gulf War, Harken Energy, with no previous international or offshore drilling experience, was awarded a 35-year petroleum exploration contract with the emirate of Bahrain.

Sheikh Bahksh emerged as a co-investor in the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), a criminal enterprise since dissolved, that existed primarily as a mechanism for obtaining political influence using Middle Eastern oil money. Bahrain's prime minister, Sheik Khalifah bin-Sulman al-Khalifah, was a major investor in BCCI's parent company, BCCI Holdings, of Luxembourg. Through its commodities affiliate, Capcom, BCCI was used as a money laundering service by drug traffickers, arms dealers, etc. BCCI's front man in the U.S., and the person chiefly responsible for its takeover of First American Bank in the U.S., was Kamal Adham. Adham is referred to in the Kerry Committee report on BCCI as having been "the CIA's principal liaison for the entire Middle East from the mid-1960's through 1979." He was also the head of intelligence for Saudi Arabia during the time George Bush Sr. was Director of the CIA."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3333.htm

Hi COC. The Urban Garden Project in LA is Hanging on. That one really tears me up.

Peace and reciprocity to you.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

5. Yeah, that just breaks my heart.

Maybe you should post a link to that thread from last evening. Not enough people saw that.

To me, that crap is a metaphor for the least powerful people being absolutely crushed and devoured by unbridled capitalism.

If it was happening in the 1930's, there would be people like Woody Guthrie . . . FDR . . . in the vile bastard's faces, calling them out. I hope to god somebody is finding a legal way to stop this.

[leftchick]

6. I always forget Marvin

where the fuck is he? Has he reproduced future terrorists as well?

[CrazyOrangeCat]

7. Yeah, who know . . . he may be their secret weapon.

Georgie-Porgie sure came out of the woodwork in a hurry . . .

This bunch operates like the Mafia . . .

[Clara T]

9. The Mafia?- JEB LINKED TO SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES

JEB LINKED TO SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES

Jeb Bush has also been linked to Leonel Martinez, a Miami-based right-wing Cuban-American drug trafficker. Martinez, who was linked to Contra dissident Eden Pastora, was involved in efforts to smuggle more than 3,000 pounds of cocaine into Miami in 1985-86. He was arrested in 1989 and later convicted for bringing 300 kilos of cocaine into the U.S. He also reportedly arranged for the delivery of two helicopters, arms, ammunition, and clothing to Pasto- ra's Costa Rica-based Contras.
Federal prosecutors in Miami have a photograph of Jeb and Martinez shaking hands but won't release the photo to the public. Whether Jeb was aware of Martinez's drug trafficking activities is not known, but it is known that Leonel and his wife Margarita made a $2,200 contribution to the Dade County Republican Party four months after Jeb became the chair of the local GOP.
It is also known that Martinez wrote $5,000 checks to then Vice President Bush's Fund for America's Future in both December 1985 and July 1986 and made a $2,000 contribution to the Bush for President campaign in October 1987.
Martinez's construction company gave $6,000 in October 1986 to Bob Martinez (no relation), the GOP candidate for governor in Florida; he was governor from 1987 to 1991. At that time, Vice President Bush was serving as head of the South Florida Drug Task Force and later as chair of the National Narcotics Interdiction System, both set up to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S. While Bush was drug czar, the volume of cocaine smuggled into the U.S. tripled.
President Bush later appointed Bob Martinez in 1991 head of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy- the drug czar to succeed the controversial William Bennett.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3352.htm

[Clara T]

8. Meet Marvin Bush

Who is Marvin P. Bush?
The public rarely sees Marvin P. Bush, brother of President Bush II. 

Marvin P. Bush is the founder (1993) and Managing Partner of Winston Partners Group of Vienna, Virginia. It's a private investment company. He is also the Managing General Partner of Winston Growth Fund, LLP; Winston International Growth Fund, LP; Winston Small Cap Growth Fund, LP; all related companies.

Before this, he spent 12 years in the investment business with the firms of Mosley, Hallgarten, Estabrook and Weeden, Shearson Lehman Brothers, and John Stewart Darrel & Company.

In January, 1998, Marvin Bush was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Fresh Del Monte Produce company, the giant fruit company (major product bananas) that makes the canned goods we buy in our markets. Del Monte is owned by a very wealthy family from Kuwait, the Abu-Ghazaleh family. Mohammed Abu-Ghazaleh is the CEO and he has several family members on the Board alongside Marvin Bush. Another member of the Fresh Del Monte Board of Directors is Stephen Way, who is a major Bush fundraiser. Way is the head of the Houston-based HCC Insurance Holdings Company. In early 2000, Stephen Way acquired the appointment of Marvin Bush to the Board of Directors of HCC. In that transaction, Bush not only landed a very large salary, but a sweet stock option deal. He purchased about $130,000 worth of HCC stock which is now valued at close to $600,000, not even one year later.

Marvin Bush is also on the Board of Directors of something called the Kerrco Company.

Marvin also was named to the Board of Directors of the Stratesec Company, another large publicly-traded firm. This company is very secretive and you can find virtually nothing about it.  Their website does not allow entry to several links unless one has a password. Virginia-based Stratesec is a provider of high-tech security systems. Two of the major customers for which they provide security are the Dulles International Airport at Washington, D.C. and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Stratesec's revenues recently went up by 60%, due to what the company describes as "new customers" Prominent people at Stratesec also include former Reagan operatives including Barry McDaniel and Air Force General James A. Abrahamson (who was involved in the Reagan "Star Wars" project). Stratesec is a company is heavily inter-related with the Kuwam Corporation ("Kuw" = Kuwait; "am" = America). Kuwam is a major Kuwaiti Company into many, many activities including the aircraft business. Stratesec's Chief Executive is also the Managing Director of Kuwam Corporation and Kuwam's Chairman Mishal Yousef Saud Al Sabah sits on Stratesec's Board of Directors. Stratesec is providing the primary security for one of the most sensitive airports in the world. Dulles in D.C., has a heavy middle eastern airline connection.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3308.htm

"FIRST Brother"


Some background.

"He's the Lowest Profile of the Bush Boys, but His Business Career Is Probably the Most Successful. Meet Marvin Bush, the President's Youngest Brother, and His 300-Million-Dollar Money Management Firm." by Bryan Curtis

Marvin, on the other hand, has never left. But getting a handle on Marvin Bush the businessman isn't easy, either. For one thing, Winston Partners is a strictly low-key, slap-you-on-the-back operation. Says Bush, "Most asset management firms have a platoon of marketers. We rely on word of mouth." When asked to describe Marvin's professional style, his friends, family and business partners use words like compassionate, competitive and fiercely loyal - all commendable, but not particularly helpful, because those are the same adjectives commonly used to describe George W. What makes Marvin Bush stand out from the rest of his family and, for that matter, the rest of the Northern Virginia business community, is that he keeps his head down.

"I admire my BROTHERS, but I believe they're nuts. They're certifiably CRAZY individuals."

http://www.bizforward.com/wdc/issues/2001-04/firstbrother/

[Disturbed]

10. Bush Crime Family credo

"Above the Law and Unaccountable to Anyone."

[CrazyOrangeCat]

11. Certifiably CRAZY individuals . . .

Tremendous post.

"We rely on word of mouth." That there is an indication of the depth of their worldwide control. Since a lot of them are CIA, they know how to pull off this stuff very hush-hush.

It's hard to believe, by looking at him, that Poppy Bush is in a small handful of people that are running the whole show . . .

I'll bet they aren't too happy with Poppy's boy, though. He's bumbling, and obviously batshit-crazy. Not the best Skull and Bones material. Guess they thought he'd get by with a little help from his friends.

Sorry George, even the freeper friendlies are starting to look like Blue Meanies, aren't they?

[Clara T]

12. The Bush Family "Oiligarchy" The Early Years

The Bush Family "Oiligarchy"
Part One: The Early Years

By Sam Parry

The news media has made note of the curious ties between the oil business and three of the four major party candidates for president and vice president: George W. Bush, Richard Cheney and, to a lesser extent, Al Gore. In one column, David Ignatius referred to “the bizarre prospect of a presidential campaign in which three of the four candidates” have ties to oil.   But these stories have not detailed for the American people how strong – how fundamental – are the business and political connections between the Bush family and the oil industry, a relationship dating back at least 50 years and inextricably tied to the family’s wealth and power. Gore’s ties to Occidental Petroleum – through family stock ownership and his father’s work for the company – and even Cheney’s five years at the helm of Halliburton, the giant oil-service company, pale by comparison.

Also left unexplored in the press accounts is how a restored Bush family’s “oiligarchy’’ would deal with the environment and its defenders – at odds with oil drillers from Texas to Nigeria, from the Arctic Ocean to the Persian Gulf. Another untapped question is how an oil-friendly George W. Bush presidency would treat the New Economy, whose technologies cut demand for energy and thus pose a long-term threat to the oil industry, a pillar of the Old Economy.

An examination of these relationships finds that the Bush family network of close associates, business partners, political supporters and advisers are so intertwined with the oil industry that to understand the Bush family legacy – and its emerging political dynasty – you must start at its confluence where politics and oil meet. Those interconnections spread out like the countless rivulets of a fertile delta, one that has nurtured and sustained the Bush family’s power and influence for half a century.

Former President George H.W. Bush’s personal ties to the oil industry date back to 1950 when the Bush family encountered the first of many forks linking oil and politics. That fall, banker Prescott Bush, President Bush’s father, ran for the U.S. Senate from Connecticut, mounting a strong but unsuccessful challenge to a popular Democratic incumbent. At about the same time, his son, a decorated World War II veteran and newly minted Yale graduate, launched his first oil company in Midland, Texas. With financial backing from Wall Street connections cultivated by his uncle, Herbert Walker, the 26-year-old George H.W. Bush joined an associate, John Overbey, to establish the Bush-Overbey Oil Development Co.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/081400a1.html

[CrazyOrangeCat]

15. I wound up reading the whole thing!

I knew they were ruthless, polluting oilmen, but I never saw the pieces of the puzzle put together like that.

Amazing.

[Octafish]

13. World's Finest Crime Family™

Thanks, Clara T!

In the spirit of things:

The Bush Family: A Continuing Criminal Enterprise?

Gary W. Potter, PhD.
Professor, Criminal Justice
Eastern Kentucky University

The S&Ls, the Mob and the Bushs

During the 1980's hundred of Savings and Loan Banks failed. Those bank failures cost U.S. taxpayers over $500 billion to cover federally insured losses, and much more to investigate the bank failures (Pizzo, Fricker, and Muolo, 1989; Brewton, 1992; Johnston, 1990). More than 75% of the Savings and Loan insolvencies where directly linked to serious and often criminal misconduct by senior financial insiders (Pizzo, Fricker and Muolo, 1989: 305). In fact, less than 10 percent of bank failures are related to economic conditions, the rest are caused by mismanagement or criminal conduct (Pizzo, Fricker and Muolo, 1989: 305).

A good example of the Savings and Loan failures can be found in the activities of Mario Renda, a Savings and Loan insider who often worked in close collaboration with organized crime (Pizzo, Fricker and Muolo, 1989: 123-126;302). Renda served as a middle man in arranging about $5 billion a year in deposits into 130 Savings and Loans, all of which failed (Kwitny, 1992: 27). Many of these deposits were made contingent on an agreement that the Savings and Loan involved would lend money to borrowers recommended by Renda, many of whom were organized crime figures or people entirely unknown to the banking institution involved (Kwitny, 1992: 27).

Equally good examples of financial misconduct in the Savings and Loan scandal is found in the activities of the Bush family. In some cases Bush family members helped skim Savings and Loan funds which were delivered to outsiders as a part of deals involving lucrative payoffs to bank directors. In other cases, members of the Bush family intervened to influence decisions involving highly speculative and unsound investments involving loans that would not be repaid if the venture was not profitable. And finally, the Bush family’s political connection served to protect those guilty of misconduct in the Savings and Loan scandal (Kwitny, 1992: 24).

Neil Bush: Taking Down Silverado

In 1990 federal bank regulators filed a $200 million lawsuit against the officers of Silverado Banking, including Neil Bush, brother of the current President. The lawsuit accused them of gross negligence which resulted in a loss of $1 billion by Silverado and the bank’s ultimate collapse (Los Angeles Times, 1990). According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: “Our conclusion is that Silverado was the victim of sophisticated schemes and abuses by insiders and of gross negligence by its directors and outside professionals” (Johnston, 1990). Neil Bush was reprimanded by the Office of Thrift Supervision for pervasive conflicts of interest while serving as a paid director of the bank Of particular concern was his role in a serious of loans totaling $132 million from the bank to two businessmen, Bill Walters and Kenneth Good (Los Angeles Times, 1990: 1; Isikoff, 1992: A1). Walters and Good, after securing the loans from Silverado, lent Neil Bush $100,000 and later forgave the loan entirely. In addition, Walters and Good owned a company which paid $550,000 in salaries to Neil Bush (Los Angeles Times, 1990: 1; Isikoff, 1992: A1). In the end Walters and Good lost a total of $330 million loaned to them by Silverado. They also received instructions from a member of Silrverado’s board of directors on the establishment of family trusts to prevent the government from seizing the money they owed the bank (Kwitny, 1992: 32). The shutdown of Silverado was postponed from October to December 1988 so that it would happen after President Bush, Sr.’s election campaign had ended. Neil Bush had to pay only $50,000 to settle the federal lawsuit against him and he was able to avoid any legal costs because a senior banking industry lobbyist formed a legal defense fund to pay the legal costs (Fritz, 1992).

Neil Bush also profited enormously from another company on verge of bankruptcy. Apex Energy paid him over $2000,000 in salary and oil deed compensation payments while teetering on the edge of bankruptcy (Failing firm paid Neil Bush big salary, 1992).

Neil Bush’s small oil company also seemed to profit from its political connections when it was awarded a 1987 contract to drill for oil in Argentina (Bush 's Son Misses Deadline For Reporting “Inside” Sale,1991).

CONTINUED with a scholarly biblioography...

http://www.critcrim.org/critpapers/potter.htm

Love the image. Love the sinner. Right.

[Clara T]

14. Politics and Oil Meet

Politics and Oil Meet

Back in Connecticut, Prescott Bush had won a special election to gain a U.S. Senate seat on his second try in 1952. He had been in office two months when his son launched Zapata. Early on, Prescott Bush established himself as a moderate, somewhere between an Eisenhower and a Rockefeller Republican on issues such as labor and immigration. Prescott Bush’s positions on issues related to the oil industry were more complicated. In 1953, Sen. Lister Hill of Alabama promoted legislation that would federalize offshore resources, including oil, in order to raise revenue for the government. The money would go to increase funding for education.

Sen. Bush became a point man for denouncing Hill’s legislation. Bush wrote that the issue of funding for schools “should be an entirely separate question from that of submerged lands and warrants careful study because of the danger of federal control of education.” Sen. Bush’s leadership was central in defeating Hill’s legislation.

Whatever the merits of federalizing offshore deposits of natural resources and of federal aid to education, a backdrop for the Bush family was the coincidence that George H.W. Bush was moving into offshore oil drilling by establishing the Zapata Offshore Oil Co. The defeat of Hill’s legislation removed a potential obstacle to those plans.

While Prescott Bush was establishing himself in the Senate, his son was earning the grudging respect of West Texas oilmen. Oil tycoon Henry Hunt III wrote some years later that George H.W. Bush “wasn’t yet a full-fledged self-made millionaire, but for a 35-year-old Yalie who had learned the oil business from scratch, he was doing very well.”

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/081400a2.html

[Octafish]

16. ''The money would go to increase funding for education.''

Gee. We wouldn't want the oil revenues to be used to create a nation of intelligent people, now would we?



Hmmm. Worked closely with one young vice president...

From Eugenicist to anti-abortionist

Not content with digging up the ancestors, supporting Fascism,laundering Nazi money through a Dutch-based bank, selling weapons to the mullahs of Iran, trading guns for drugs, doing business deals with Osama bin Laden, the Bush family in the form of ol’ granpa Prescott was an early supporter of the Eugenics movement (or racial purity, to give it its real name). And a rather embarassing connection it is too, as Bush Snr discovered,

"…And the Birth Control League was there, which had long trumpeted the need for eugenical births--fewer births for parents with "inferior" bloodlines. Prescott partner Tighe was a Connecticut director of the league, and the Connecticut league's medical advisor was eugenics advocate Dr. Winternitz of Yale Medical School.

Now in 1950, people who knew something about Prescott Bush knew that he had very unsavory roots in the eugenics movement. There were then, just after the anti-Hitler war, few open advocates of sterilization of "unfit" or "unnecessary" people. (That would be revived later, with the help of General Draper and his friend George Bush

Then, very late in the 1950 senatorial campaign, Prescott Bush was publicly exposed for being an activist in that section of the old fascist eugenics movement. Prescott Bush lost the election by about 1,000 out of 862,000 votes

In his foreword to a population control propaganda book, George Bush wrote about that 1950 election: "My own first awareness of birth control as a public policy issue came with a jolt in 1950 when my father was running for United States Senate in Connecticut. Drew Pearson, on the Sunday before Election day, ‘revealed’ that my father was involved with Planned Parenthood.... Many political observers felt a sufficient number of voters were swayed by his alleged contacts with the birth controllers to cost him the election...."

Source: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/2412/eugenics/Bush.html

CONTINUED...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3255.htm

Thanks for a great thread, Clara T. Thank Gore for the internets!

[Clara T]

17. Business Networks Pay Off

Business Networks Pay Off

The Liedtke brothers and Bush steered Zapata through leaner years in the late 1950s while continuing to grow the company’s two businesses. By 1963, Hugh Liedtke was ready to expand Zapata Petroleum by merging it with the Penn Oil Company. The combined company took the name Pennzoil, with Hugh Liedtke at the helm as president and chief executive officer.

Liedtke’s instincts, his business know-how, and his aggressiveness would combine to help build Pennzoil into one of the world’s largest oil companies. In 1999, Pennzoil-Quaker State’s revenue was almost $3 billion and its market capitalization was almost $1 billion. Not bad for a company that started with less than $1 million from Bush’s Uncle Walker.

The Bush-Liedtke relationship also was destined to become a financial cornerstone for George H.W. Bush’s political career. The relationship attracted the well-connected and wealthy by the dozens. It was partly through this connection that Bush first came into contact with James Baker III.

Baker’s family had established itself in the Texas legal profession going back almost to the Civil War. Beginning in 1870, Baker’s grandfather helped build Baker & Botts, established four years earlier by two Confederate partisans, Judge Peter Gray and Walter Browne Botts. By the late 1800s, a major client was the railroad empire of E.H. Harriman, Union Pacific Railroad.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/081400a3.html

[Clara T]

18. The Oilman Politician

The Oilman Politician

Bush’s entrance on the political scene was a modest step. In 1963, Bush ran a successful campaign for chairman of the Republican Party of Harris County, winning a unanimous victory. Though he probably didn’t realize the full implications of it at the time, Bush was entering Texas politics at just the moment that the Democratic Party’s statewide political monopoly was showing serious cracks.

In 1961, John Tower became the first Republican senator from Texas since Reconstruction when he won a special election for the seat vacated by Lyndon Johnson. Throughout the 1960s, conservative Texas Democrats, feeling betrayed by Democratic support for civil rights and labor, began to shift to the Republican Party.

Over the next decade and a half, with Baker as a confidant and Liedtke tapping oil money to fund campaigns, Bush served two terms in the U.S. Congress, ran two unsuccessful but competitive bids for U.S. Senate, and became a recognized leader in the national Republican Party. He served as Ambassador to the United Nations and chaired the Republican National Committee under President Nixon. Under President Ford, he served as ambassador to China and director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

On the national scene, Bush continued to cash in on his many oil connections to help finance his political ambitions. Bush’s connections also became generous donors to the national Republican Party and its leaders. In addition to the Liedtke brothers, oil-money men at the center of the Bush political funding included: C. Fred Chambers, Bobby Holt, Earle Craig Jr., Robert Mosbacher, and Hugh Roy Cullen.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/081400a4.html