'POPPY,' HERO OF THE FAMILY, TAKES AIM AT '88

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201210001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 28, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Si Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201210001-8
ON PAGE L=CL,
WASHINGTON TIt'ES
28 October 1985
`Poppy,' hero
of the family,
takes aim at '88
By Barnard L. Collier
THE YWSHINGTON TIMES
When Jonathan Bush was 7 years old in 1938, he thrilled
with pride to see his baseball player brother, George, 14
- known to all as "Poppy" - marching around the dining
room table with his chums from Phillips Academy in
Andover, Mass., singing the school song.
In World War II in the Pacific theater, George was an
18-year-old flying officer in the Navy, the youngest fighter
pilot in the fleet.
He was lanky, blue-
eyed and dashing.
He took chances,
bombed and
strafed Japanese
targets, got shot
down at sea and
luckily. was saved
by a U.S. subma-
rine. He also reveled in something almost all Bush family
members prize: a good time.
At home in the rambling wooden house in Greenwich,
Conn., Jonathan, then 11, was overjoyed by George's occa-
sional letter from the war.
"I still see him - if I can get real corny but truthful -
as a hero:" said Jonathan, now a 54-year-old investment
broker, of George Herbert Walker Bush, 61, now the vice
president of the United States.
When Lt. j.g. Bush returned from the Pacific at
Christmas 1944, he married an 18-year-old knockout from
Rye, N.Y., named Barbara Pierce. Her father was the
publisher of McCall's magazine. Jonathan Bush recalls
her as "peculiarly beautiful, with
great big eyes and gorgeous hair"
Moreover, Jonathan realized,
"She was wild about him. And for
George, if anyone wants to be wild
about him, it's fine with him."
Today, four decades later, George
Bush, the second son of Prescott
Bush of Greenwich, Conn., and
Dorothy Walker : St. Louis, intends
to find out ho? many Americans
may be even mil _ly wild about him.
If Mr. Bush b- comes president of
the United State :, either by succes-
sion or by pc ular election, the
American peop ! will have a chief
executive officer who sought the job
with a barely concealed passion, and
who believes he can do it better than
anybody on the national scene.
Mr. Bush is aware that in a na-
tional election in 1988, provided he
wraps up the Republican nomina-
tion, he must beat big historical
odds: No vice president has become
president by election, unless he has
earlier succeeded to the Oval Office
because of the president's death, in
the last 37 presidential election cam-
paigns, the last one being Martin
Van Buren.
He must also limit the number of
his doubters and detractors, who in-
terpret Mr. Bush's ambition - which
he tends to emphasize by his zeal in
underplaying it - as unseemly and
perhaps dangerous in an American
political leader.
Some of the accusations against
Mr. Bush by sharpshooters on the
Republican right puzzle him and his
admirers. In addition to the venial
sins of ambition and naivete, he is
commonly charged with the mortal
sins of being a "wimp:' an elitist, too
easily influenced by moderate opin-
ions, too trusting of the communists
and their ilk, a preppie, a "good No.
2 man:' a blue blood and a man who
is "on the Right, but not of the Right."
From his political left, the barbs
are more snide. The snidest have
come from cartoonist Garry fl-u-
deau in his "Doonesbury " strip. One
episode suggested that by faithfully
representing and promoting the
policies and philosophies of Pres-
ident lieagan he had, willingly, "put
his manhood in trust."
But George Bush, it is often said
by his loved ones, kinfolk and
friends, "knows who and what he is."
Moreover, he resists and refuses to
be repackaged in ways political mar-
keters predict will be more palatable
to a larger public.
One thing Mr. Bush surely is: He
is a man who carefully is planning to
be the next president.
Before a large luncheon audience
recently in Los Angeles, he re-
sponded to a point-blank question
from the floor about his presidential
future by saying: "I'll try to give you
a serious non-answer."
What he answered, with a confi-
dential grin, was:
"I know what is beating in my
breast. And if you ask Mrs. Bush, she
does, too."
The listeners laughed, and his po-
etic message sank in.
For now, Mr. Bush's personal re-
spect for Ronald Reagan will keep
him working as diligently and unob-
trusively as possible in the back-
ground. He will neither contradict
nor question the president nor his
policies in front of anyone but Mr.
Reagan himself - they meet for half
an hour at 9 each morning. He rarely
will take credit for missions he has
accomplished or international deals
he has cut.
But then, after the 1986 congres-
sional elections, he intends to come
right out and shout what early-bird
campaign buttons are already say-
ing:
"Bush for President!"
The question of what makes
George Bush run is a significant
one.
President Lyndon Johnson used to
say, "If you want to know what moves
a man, find out what his father failed
at:'
In a recent interview, Mr. Bush
recalled his father.
"Yes, he did fail once. In 1950, he
failed to be elected to the United
States Senate from Connecticut. We
[his family] never looked at it that
way. But he set his sights to win. You
fail in a match if you lose it. If it's
important enough you do feel fail-
ure. If it's 'one more experience in
life: you don't."
Mr. Bush is widely known in and
out of political circles as a tenacious
competitor. He recalls that in the
past he was "goal oriented:' which
translated into unbridled energy and
raw determination to get where he
was going and to grasp what he
wanted.
After the Navy, he zipped through
Yale, making Phi Beta Kappa, in just
21h years. He tore into the world of
business with a similar ferocity.
"But now, as I get older," he said,
"I have become mellower. Just ask
any of my brothers. They'll agree to
that."
He has reluctantly begun to re-
veal more of himself and his per-
sonal life to some reporters. He
hopes this will serve to satisfy public
curiousity, although it violates a per-
sonal tenet, taught by his mother,
,,not to speak too much of one's self "
There are signs, too, that he is
watching Ronald Reagan's consum-
mate communication methods with
studious attention, and learning
something about speech making
that will be politically profitable to
him.
Tb some lengths, however, he will
not go.
Take his watchband, for example.
He wears a Timex watch with a
blue and red striped cloth watch-
band on his right wrist.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201210001-8