Prescott Bush, the president's grandfather. According to classified documents from Dutch intelligence and US government archives, President George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush made considerable profits off Auschwitz slave labor. In fact, President Bush himself is an heir to these profits from the holocaust which were placed in a blind trust in 1980 by his father, former president George Herbert Walker Bush. (2) On the 20th of October, the government commenced action against the company under the trading with the enemy act. (3) After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal. (4) In 1952, Prescott Bush was elected to the U.S. Senate, with no press accounts about his well-concealed Nazi past.(5)

George Herbert Walker Bush, the presidents father. Bush, as director of the CIA, had funneled enormous amounts of cash to drug runners including Manuel Noriega and helped in the destabilization of Argentina. Bush utilized his own connections to help fund drug runners from Laos to Panama. Most shocking was the so-called "cocaine coup" in Bolivia in June 1980, masterminded by fugitive Nazi Klaus Barbie, "The Butcher Of Lyons." Barbie, who had been previously secreted in Latin America by the CIA, began working closely with the Argentines and used drug money to finance a neo-Nazi cabal, one that succeeded in overthrowing the government. The troops swept through the capital wearing Nazi armbands, according to former DEA agent Mike Levine. George H.W. Bush later facilitated the Iran-contra affair, employing many of the same methods: secretly selling Central American cocaine in America and weapons to Iran while using the profits to fund the contras and to overthrow democratically elected socialists in Central America.(6) as the head of the CIA and later as Vice President, toppled democratically elected regimes in South and Central America and began propping up a dictator by the name of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Although forbidden by congress to do so, he continued to sell chemical and biological weapons to Saddam even after he used them on villages of innocent civilians. A decade later The United States had to go to war against him and the Bush family again, made millions from it.

This article on Nazis in the Republican party was originally published in Online Journal on 1/28/00. However, the following includes additional information regarding George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott, and his maternal grandfather, George Herbert (Bert) Walker, and the fact that the U. S. government investigated their financing of Adolf Hitler.

One book referenced here, Christopher Simpson's "Blowback," was praised by journalist Seymour Hersh as "the ultimate book about the worst kind of cold war thinking." Nora Levin, Director, Holocaust Archive, Gratz College, said "The full story of this country's shameful, cynical collaboration with Nazi criminals has not been told until now with the publication of Simpson's book." Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman said, 'Blowback' is a must read for anyone who wants to understand postwar policy on Nazi war criminals and the cold war."

In another Simpson book, "The Splendid Blonde Beast," the author wrote about George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott, and his maternal grandfather, George Herbert Walker. Both Bert Walker and Prescott Bush were powerful financial supporters of Adolf Hitler.

Walker was president of Union Banking Corporation, a firm that traded with Germany and helped German industrialists consolidate Hitler's political power. Simpson says Union Banking became a Nazi money-laundering machine.

Walker helped take over North American operations of Hamburg-Amerika Line, a shipping line and cover for I. G. Farben's Nazi espionage unit in the U. S. Hamburg-Amerika smuggled in German agents, and brought in money for bribing American politicians to support Hitler. A 1934 congressional investigation showed Hamburg-Amerika subsidized Nazi propaganda efforts in the U. S.

George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott, was a board member of Union Banking and a senior partner in a Union Banking affiliate,Äîthe investment firm Brown Brothers, Harriman. The U. S. government investigated both Bert Walker and Prescott Bush, and under the Trading with the Enemy Act seized all shares of Union Banking, including shares held by Prescott Bush. The government held that "huge sections of Prescott Bush's empire had been operated on behalf of Nazi Germany and had greatly assisted the German war effort."

Investigative reporter Christopher Simpson says in "Blowback" that after World War II, Nazi İmigrİs were given CIA subsidies to build a far-right-wing power base in the U. S. These Nazis assumed prominent positions in the Republican Party's "ethnic outreach committees." Simpson documents the fact that these Nazis did not come to America as individuals but as part of organized groups with fascist political agendas. The Nazi agenda did not die along with Adolf Hitler. It moved to America (or a part of it did) and joined the far right of the Republican Party.

Simpson shows how the State Department and the CIA put high-ranking Nazis on the intelligence payroll "for their expertise in propaganda and psychological warfare," among other purposes. The most important Nazi employed by the U.S. was Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's most senior eastern front military intelligence officer. After Germany's defeat became certain, Gehlen offered the U. S. certain concessions in exchange for his own protection. Gehlen promoted hyped up cold war propaganda on behalf of the political right in this country, and helped shape U.S. perceptions of the cold war.

Journalist Russ Bellant ("Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party") shows that Laszlo Pasztor, a convicted Nazi war collaborator, built the Republican İmigrİ network. Pasztor, who served as adviser to Republican Paul Weyrich, belonged to the Hungarian Arrow Cross, a group that helped liquidate Hungary's Jews. Pasztor was founding chairman of the Republican Heritage Groups Council.

Two months before the November 1988 presidential election, a small newspaper, Washington Jewish Week, disclosed that a coalition for the Bush campaign included a number of outspoken Nazis and anti-Semites. The article prompted six leaders of Bush's coalition to resign.

According to Russ Bellant, Nazi collaborators involved in the Republican Party included:

(1) Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council's executive director, and head of "Bulgarians for Bush." Slavoff was a member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust denier, Austin App.

(2) Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of "Romanians for Bush." Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa.

(3) Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer.

(4) Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime.

(5) Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP's Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi groups.

(6) Bohdan Fedorak, leader of "Ukranians for Bush." Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish wartime pogroms.

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article on the Bush team's inclusion of Nazis (David Lee Preston, "Fired Bush backer one of several with possible Nazi links," September 10, 1988.) The newspaper also ran an investigative series on Nazi members of the Bush coalition. The articles confirmed that the Bush team included members listed by Russ Bellant.

Journalist Martin A. Lee, has written for The Nation, Rolling Stone, The San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications. In "The Beast Reawakens," Lee confirms that during both the Reagan and Bush years, the Republican Party's ethnic outreach arm recruited members from the Nazi İmigrİ network.

Lee says that the Republican Party's ethnic outreach division had an outspoken hatred of President Jimmy Carter's Office of Special Investigations (OSI), an organization dedicated to tracking down and prosecuting Nazi war collaborators who entered this country illegally. Former Republican Pat Buchanan attacked Carter's OSI after it deported a few suspected Nazi war criminals.

According to Lee, public relations man Harold Keith Thompson was principal U.S. point man for the postwar Nazi support network known as die Spinne, or the Spider. In the late 40s and early 50s, Thompson worked as the chief North American representative for the remaining National Socialist German Worker's Party and the SS. Lee writes that the wealthy Thompson gave generously to Republican candidates Senator Jesse Helms and would-be senator Oliver North. Thompson's money gained him membership in the GOP's Presidential Legion of Merit. Lee says Thompson also "received numerous thank-you letters from the Republican National Committee." Those letters are now in the Hoover Institution Special Collections Library.

Christopher Simpson writes in "Blowback" that in 1983, Ronald Reagan presented a Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor, to CIA İmigrİ program consultant James Burnham. Burnham was a psychological warfare consultant who promoted something called "liberationism." Just before the 1952 election, the CIA worked up a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign aimed at selling Americans on expanding cold war activities in Europe. Part of the guiding theory (given the name "liberationism") was the idea that certain Nazi leaders from World War II should be brought in as "freedom fighters" against the USSR.

Reagan said that Burnham's ideas on liberation "profoundly affected the way America views itself and the world," adding, "I owe [Burnham] a personal debt, because throughout the years of traveling on the mashed-potato circuit I have quoted [him] widely." Reagan may not have known Burnham's theories were based on his work on projects that enlisted many Nazi collaborators, but it seems that Reagan's CIA Director Casey or former CIA Director, Vice President George Bush, would have informed him.

At a May 9, 1984 press conference, Simon Wiesenthal said, "Nazi criminals were the principal beneficiaries of the Cold War." The cold war mentality, hyped by Reinhard Gehlen and other Nazis, became the shelter for tens of thousands of Nazi criminals. Helping the far right in this country to promote cold war hysteria became the Nazi war criminals "reason for being." As Christopher Simpson says, the cold war became those criminals' means "to avoid responsibility for the murders they had committed."

Journalist Seymour Hersh says Christopher Simpson's "Blowback" is "the ultimate book about the worst kind of cold war thinking, in which some of our most respected statesmen made shameful decisions that they mistakenly believed to be justified." To this day, says Simpson, the U. S. intelligence agencies hide the scope of their post-World War II collaboration with Nazi criminals.

Are Republicans like George H. W. Bush, Oliver North, and Jesse Helms aware they have been assisted by Nazi collaborators? Bush once worked for the CIA and should have known about the nature of the Nazis in his '88 campaign. No doubt he knows the history of Nazi/CIA collaboration. Whether or not Bush knew of the fascists' involvement in his campaign, the Republican Party should have done a far better screening job. One thing is certain: The intelligence agencies know the scope and extent of Nazi involvement with the political right in this country. It is a shame they keep it hidden from the majority of the American people.

BUSH FAMILY MACHINATIONS, 1918-2000

1918 Prescott Bush Sr., leads a raid on a Indian tomb to secure Geronimo's skull for Skull & Bones.

1937 Prescott Bush's investment firm sets up deal for the Luftwaffe so it can obtain tetraethyl lead.

1942 Three firms with which Prescott Bush is associated are seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

1953 George Bush and the Liedtke brothers form Zapata Petroleum. Zapata's subsidiary, Zapata Offshore, later becomes known for its close ties to the CIA.

1954 The Bush family buys out the Liedtke brothers.

1955 George Bush sets up a Mexican drilling operation, Permago, with a frontman to obscure his ownership. The frontman later is convicted of defrauding the Mexican government of $58 million.

1959 Manuel Noriega recruited as an agent by the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

1960 Some investigators believe George Bush spent part of this year and the next in Miami on behalf of the CIA, organizing rightwing exiles for an invasion of Cuba. Is said to have worked with later Iran-Contra figure Felix Rodriguez.

1961 According to the Realist, CIA official Fletcher Prouty delivers three Navy ships to agents in Guatemala to be used in the Bay of Pigs invasion. Prouty claims he delivered the ships to a CIA agent named George Bush. Agent Bush named the ships the Barbara, Houston and Zapata. Bay of Pigs invasion fails. Right-wingers blame Kennedy for failure to provide air cover. CIA loses 15 men, another 1100 are imprisoned. George Bush invites Rep. TL. Ashley -- a fellow Skull & Boner -- down to Texas for a party in order to meet "an attractive girl." Bush writes that "she may be accompanied by an Austrian ski instructor but I think we can probably flush him at the local dance hall." Bush notes that he's had to unlist his phone because "Jane Morgan keeps calling me all the time." [From a letter in the Ashley archives uncovered by Spy magazine.] Zapata annual report boasts that the company has paid no taxes since it was founded.

1963 John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Internal FBI memo reports that on November 22 "reputable businessman" George H. W. Bush reported hearsay that a certain Young Republican "has been talking of killing the president when he comes to Houston." The Young Republican was nowhere near Dallas on that date. According to a 1988 story in The Nation, a memo from J. Edgar Hoover states that "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" had been briefed on November 23rd, 1963 about the reaction of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami to the assassination of President Kennedy. George says it ain't him, admits he was in Texas but can't remember where.

1964 George Bush runs as a Goldwater Republican for Congress. Campaigns against the Civil Rights Act.

1966 Bush, runs as a moderate Republican, gets elected to Congress. Robert Mosbacher chairs Oil Men for Bush. Apache leader Ned Anderson meets with the Skull & Bones lawyer and George Bush's brother Jonathan who attempt to return the skull Prescott Bush had looted in 1933. Anderson refuses the skull because he says it isn't Geronimo's.

1968 George W. Bush joins Skull & Bones at Yale

1970 Bush loses Senate race to Lloyd Bentsen, despite $112,000 in contributions from a White House slush fund. Jim Baker is campaign chair. Bush later claims to have reported correctly all but $6000 in cash --which he denies he got. A 1992 story in the New York Times says the $6000 was listed in records of Nixon's "townhouse operation" which was designed in part to make GOP congressional candidates vulnerable to blackmail.

1971 Bush is named UN Ambassador by Nixon. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs finds enough evidence of Noriega's involvement in drug dealing to indict him, but US Attorney's office in Miami considers grabbing Noriega in Panama for trial here to be impractical. State Department also urges BNDD to back off.

1972 Bill Liedtke gathers $700,000 in anonymous contributions for the Nixon campaign, delivering the money in cash, checks and securities to the Committee to Re-Elect the President (the infamous CREEP) one day before such contributions become illegal. Bill says he did it as a favor to George.

1973 Bush is named GOP national chair. Brings into the party the Heritage Groups Council, an organization with a number of Nazi sympathizers. Bush, according to Lowell Weicker, inquires as to whether records of the "townhouse operation" should be burned. Robert Mosbacher wins an offshore drilling concession from Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Watergate tapes indicate concern by Nixon and aide HR Haldeman that the investigation into Watergate might expose the "Bay of Pigs thing." Nixon also speaks of the "Texans" and the "Cubans." and mentions "Mosbacher." In another tape, Nixon decides following his re-election to get signed resignations from his whole government so he can centralize his power. Says Nixon to John Erlichman: "Eliminate everyone, except George Bush. Bush will do anything for our cause."

1974 Bush is named special envoy to China.

1975 DEA report notes Noreiga's involvement in drug trade.

George W. Bush graduates from Harvard Business School

1976 Jerry Ford names George Bush CIA director, his fourth political patronage job in a little over five years. Bush later claims this is the first time he ever worked for the CIA. At his confirmation hearings, Bush says, "I think we should tread very carefully on governments that are constitutionally elected." Bush holds first known meeting with Noriega. Noriega starts receiving $110,000 a year from the CIA. Noriega found to be working for Cubans as well, but keeps his CIA gig. Bush sets up Team B within the CIA, a group of neo-conservative outsiders and generals who proceed to double the agency's estimate of Soviet military spending. Senate committee headed by Frank Church proposes revealing size of the country's black budget -- intelligence spending that, in contradiction to the Constitution, is kept secret even from the Hill. According to journalist Tim Weiner, Bush argues that the revelation would be a disaster and would compromise the agency beyond repair. By a one vote margin the matter is referred to the Senate. It never reaches the floor. Chilean dissident Orlando Letelier is assassinated by Chilean secret police agents. CIA fails to inform FBI of pending plot and of assassins' arrival in US. CIA claims the hit was the work of left-wingers in search of a martyr. Bush writes internal CIA memo asking to see cable on Jack Ruby visiting Santos Trafficante in jail. In 1992, Bush will deny any interest in the JFK assassination while CIA head. Bush claims nuclear war is winnable.

1977 Philippine dictator Marcos buys back Robert Mosbacher's oil concession. Mosbacher claims he was swindled. Philippine officials say they never saw any expenditures by Mosbacher on the project.

1978 Bush, Mosbacher and Jim Baker become partners in an oil deal. From a Washington Post article by Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus: "According to those involved in Bush's first political action committee, there were several occasions in 1978-79, when Bush was living in Houston and traveling the country in his first run for the presidency, that he set aside periods of up to 24 hours and told aides that he had to fly to Washington for a secret meeting of former CIA directors. Bush told his aides that he could not divulge his whereabouts, and that he would not be available." Former CIA chief Stansfield Turner denies such meetings took place. George W. Bush declares his candidacy for the Midland Congressional district. He wins the Republican primary and loses in the general election. George W. Bush begins operations of his oil firm, Arbusto Energy. With the help of Jonathan Bush, he assembles several dozen investors in a limited partnership including Dorothy Bush, Lewis Lehrman, William Draper, and James Bath, a Houston aircraft broker

1980 Bush becomes Reagan's vice presidential candidate. Runs as a rightwinger again. Mosbacher becomes chief fundraiser for Bush's presidential campaign. Forms a millionaire's club of 250 contributors, each of whom cough up $100,000. William Casey forms a working group to prepare for possible Carter October political surprise. In early October, an Iranian official meets with three top Reagan campaign aides. All three deny memory of the meeting in subsequent proceedings. On October 21, Reagan hints he has a secret plan to release the hostages. This is right around the alleged date of a Paris meeting at which the so-called "October Surprise" was settled. Some allege that at this meeting it was agreed to end the arms embargo against Iran if Iran would release its hostages after the election. While Bush's presence at this meeting has been denied by the House committee investigating the October Surprise, Bush's whereabouts at this critical time remain in doubt. The White House, in fact, has leaked conflicting stories. Rep. Dan Quayle goes on a Florida golfing vacation with seven other men and Paula Parkinson -- an insurance lobbyist who later posed nude for Playboy. Parkinson describes Quayle as a husband on the make, but says she turned him down because she was already having an affair with another congressman. Marilyn Quayle says, "anybody who knows Dan Quayle knows he would rather play golf than have sex." The Reagan-Bush campaign receives stolen copies of Carter's briefing books. Bush's campaign manager, James Baker, forces the dismissal of Bush aide Jennifer Fitzgerald, described in a 1982 Time story as having "much to say about where Bush goes, what he does and whom he sees." Bush continues to pay Fitzgerald out of his own pocket.

1981 Reagan-Bush inaugurated. Hostages released moments before. Shortly thereafter, arms shipments to Iran resume from Israel and America. In July, an Argentinean plane chartered by Israel crashes in Soviet territory. It is found to have made three deliveries of American military supplies to Iran. In a 1991 story in Esquire, Craig Unger quotes Alexander Haig as saying "I have a sneaking suspicion that someone in the White House winked." Says Unger: "This secret and illegal sale of military equipment continued for years afterwards." James Baker named Reagan's chief of staff. SEC filings for Zapata Oil for 1960-66 are found to have been "inadvertently destroyed." Reagan authorizes CIA assistance to Contras.

1982 CIA director William Casey begins Operation Black Eagle to expand US role in Central America. Urges use of "selected Latin American and European governments, organizations and individuals" in the project. Inslaw, a computer software company, signs a $10 million contract to install a case-tracking program in 94 US Attorney's offices. Four months later, after obtaining a copy of Inslaw's proprietary version of the program, the government cancels the contract and begins an aggressive campaign to force the company into bankruptcy. Later sources claim that the program was installed by the CIA and sold to various foreign intelligence agencies. After $3 million is poured into Arbusto with little oil and no profits, just tax shelter George W. Bush changes the company name to Bush Exploration Oil Co. Subsequently he is kept afloat by an investment from Philip Uzielli, a Princeton friend of James Baker III. For the sum of $1 million, Uzielli bought 10% of the company at a time in 1982 when the entire enterprise was valued at less than $400,000. Subsequently, to save the company George W. Bush merges with Spectrum 7, a small oil firm owned by William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. DeWitt had graduated from Yale a few years earlier than Bush and was the son of the former owner of the Cincinnati Reds. Bush becomes president of Spectrum 7. He also gets 14% of the Spectrum's stock. Meanwhile, 50 original investors in Arbusto get paid off at about 20 cents on the dollar.

1983 Noriega meets again with George Bush. Bush presents an autographed photo to a WWII Ukrainian leader under the Nazis, whose regime killed 100,000 Jews. KAL 007 crashes under circumstances that remain suspicious to this day. Bush promotes Jennifer Fitzgerald from appointments secretary to executive assistant. Seven staffers resign in protest. Fitzgerald tells the New York Post: "Everyone keeps painting me as this old ogre. I really don't worry about it. All these bizarre things just simply aren't true." Neil Bush forms his first oil company. He puts in $100, his partners contribute $160,000 and Neil is named president of the firm, JNB Exploration. Jeb Bush's business partner, Alberto Duque, goes bankrupt, is eventually convicted of fraud and is sentenced to 15 years in prison.

1984 Jeb Bush lobbies the Department of Health & Human Services on behalf of Cuban--American businessman Miguel Recarey, Jr., whose medical firm later collapses. Recarey, who was close to mobster Santos Trafficante, later disappears with at least $12 million in federal funds. George Bush takes part in meetings to plan increased "third country" aid to the Contras.. CIA mines Nicaraguan harbors.

1985 Jennifer Fitzgerald is sent to work on Capitol Hill after stories arise linking her romantically with George Bush. Stuart Spencer's public relation firm starts receiving over $350,000 from Panama to improve Noriega's image. CIA starts using BCCI as a conduit. George Bush thanks Oliver North for "dedication and tireless work with the hostage thing, with Central America." Bush will later deny knowing about the Contra effort until late 1986. Neil Bush joins the board of Silverado S&L, serves until 1988. Silverado loans his partners in JNB $132 million which they never repay. Silverado will eventually collapse at a taxpayer cost of $1 billion. 408 TOW anti-tank missiles are shipped from Israel to Iran. A day later, US hostage Benjamin Weir is released.

1986 VP Bush goes to Honduras to promote support for the Contras. Takes along baseball players Nolan Ryan and Gary Carter. Contra figure Felix Rodriguez meets with Donald Gregg, Bush's national security advisor, to complain about Iran-Contra operatives skimming funds from the Contras. Bush may have made several secret visits to Damascus between 1986-88 according to a 1992 report in Time, which said two senior GOP senators were pressing for a probe. The allegation is that Bush went to negotiate the release of hostages in Lebanon but in fact stonewalled Syria, "playing for campaign timing. Republicans want to get to the bottom of intelligence-community suspicions that the US somehow blew a chance to free Terry Anderson and his fellow captives." Iranian arms runner Manucher Ghorbanifar proposes "diversion" of profits from Iran arms sales to Contras. George W. Bush and partners receive more than $2 million of Harken Energy stock in exchange for a failing oil well operation, which had lost $400,000 in the prior six months. After Bush joined Harken, the largest stock position and a seat on its board were acquired by Harvard Management Company. The Harken board gave Bush $600,000 worth of the company's publicly traded stock, plus a seat on the board plus a consultancy that paid him up to $120,000 a year. When Harken runs short of cash it hooks up with investment banker Jackson Stephens of Little Rock, Arkansas, who arranges a $25 million stock purchase by Union Bank of Switzerland. Sheik Abdullah Bakhsh, who joins the board as a part of the deal, is connected to the infamous BCCI.

1987 Bush's former chief of staff, Daniel Murphy, flies to Panama with South Korean influence peddler Tongsun Park on a private plane owned by arms dealer Sargis Soghnalian to meet with Noriega. Murphy later tells a Senate subcommittee that he informed Noriega that he need not resign before the 1988 election despite the Reagan administration public pressure to the contrary. Bill Casey dies. Lee Atwater accuses Robert Dole of spreading stories about Bush and Jennifer Fitzgerald. An agreement is worked out, as reported by Sidney Blumenthal in the Washington Post: "The Dole people didn't spread any rumors and promised not to do it again. And the Bush people haven't spread rumors about the Dole people spreading rumors and won't do it again." Harken Energy project gets rescued by aid from the BCCI-connected Union Bank of Switzerland in a deal brokered by Jackson Stephens, later to show up as a key supporter of Bill Clinton.

1988 Dan Quayle is named VP candidate. Stuart Spencer is assigned to improve Dan Quayle's image, the same job he handled for Noriega and Nixon. Quayle embarrasses campaign by such statements as "[The Holocaust] was an obscene period in our nation's history," adding that "I didn't live in this century." Prisoner who claimed he sold marijuana to Quayle is put into solitary confinement by the head of federal prisons, aborting a planned news conference shortly before the election. Silverado S&L goes under after receiving 126 cease & desist orders in past four years from the Topeka office of the Office of Thrift Supervision. These orders found conflict of interests, insider abuse and other violations. Dwight Chapin, ex-Nixon dirty trickster, gets job in Bush campaign. Rudi Slavoff becomes head of Bulgarians for Bush. In 1983, Slavoff organized an event honoring Austin App, promoter of the theory that the Holocaust was a hoax. Slavoff joins other GOP ethnic leaders in the Coalition of American Nationalities co-chaired by Edward Derwinski. Among them is a former member of an Hungarian pro-Nazi party. After press revelations, eight of the leaders accused of anti-semitism resign from the campaign. Bush says: "Nobody's giving in... These people left of their own account." GOP flier warns that "all the murderers, rapists and drug pushers and child molesters in Massachusetts vote for Michael Dukakis." Bush establishes Team 100, which will eventually grow to 249 individuals who contribute nearly $25 million in soft money to help the GOP cause. The contributions also apparently help the contributors, various of whom get ambassadorial appointments, legislative favors, and intervention on regulatory and criminal matters. Bush denies knowledge of Noriega's involvement in drug dealing. The Willie Horton ad is aired. Credit for similar tactics is given to campaign guru Lee Atwater, whose PR firm had represented drug-connected Bahamian prime minister Oscar Pinding and the Philippines' Marcos. Atwater himself had represented UNITA, the CIA-backed Africa rebel group. Fred Malek, ex-Nixon aide, resigns from the Bush campaign after it's revealed that he compiled a list of Jews in the Labor Dept. as part of a Nixon investigation of a "Jewish cabal." A few days before the supposedly surprise arrest of five BCCI officials, some of the world's most powerful drug dealers quietly withdraw millions of dollars from the bank. Some government investigators believe the dealers were tipped off by sources within the Bush administration. Although Felix Rodriguez, former leading cop under Batista, claims he left the CIA in 1976, Rolling Stone reports that he is still going to CIA headquarters monthly to receive assignments and get his bulletproof Cadillac serviced. Bankruptcy judge George Bason Jr. concludes that the government stole Inslaw's software through "trickery, fraud and deceit." Stock market drops 43 points on false rumor that Washington Post was about the publish the Bush-Fitzgerald story.

1989 Bush inaugurated. Aides tell the press that the new administration would rather "stay one step behind than be one step ahead." Bush authorizes CIA support to Noriega's opposition, giving Noriega an excuse to annul Panama's elections. Bush claims executive privilege to avoid testifying in the Oliver North trial, thus becoming first president to use this power to keep his acts as vice president under wraps. Dan Quayle declares changes in Soviet Union "just a public relations extravaganza." Bush brother Prescott flies to Shanghai after the Tiananmen Square massacre to close a deal for an $18 million resort there, despite his brother's ban on high-level Chinese contacts. Prescott says, "We aren't a bunch of carrion birds coming in to pick the carcass. But there are big opportunities in China, and America can't afford to be shut out." Prescott Bush also visits Japan, searching for consulting contracts just ten days before his brother arrives on a presidential tour. The Japanese firm that paid Prescott a quarter-million dollar consulting fee comes under investigation for exchange law violations and links to the Japanese mob. C. Boyden Gray, the president's top ethics official, corrects his 1985 and 1986 financial disclosure forms. He forgot to include $98,000 in income. George Bush signs the S&L bailout bill promising that "these problems will never happen again." The Chicago Tribune reports: "After 14 fishing outings, the President has failed to catch a single fish." At White House behest, the DEA lures drug dealer to Lafayette Park to make arrest in front of presidential home for the benefit of Bush's upcoming drug speech. At first, drug dealer is dubious, asks DEA agent, "Where the fuck is the White House?" Defense secretary nominee John Tower runs into confirmation troubles when it is revealed that he has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from defense contractors. Runs into more trouble with revelations of womanizing and drinking. His nomination is rejected. The sale of three communications satellites to China is announced. Prescott Bush is a $250,000 consultant in the deal. GOP memo is leaked implying that House Speaker Tom Foley is a homosexual. President Bush signs a top-secret directive ordering closer ties with Iraq, which opens the way for $1 billion in new aid just a little more than a year before Bush goes to war against that country. The agricultural credit allows Saddam Hussein to use his hard currency for a massive military buildup. A second judge concurs that the government stole Inslaw's software. The Statistical Abstract of the United States, published by the US government, reports that the GNP of East Germany during the 1980s was greater than that of West Germany. The figures come from the CIA. Bahrain officials suddenly break off offshore drilling negotiations with Amoco and decide to deal with Harken Energy, George Bush Jr.'s firm. Harken has had a series of failed ventures and no cash, so the Bass brothers are brought in to finance Harken's efforts at a cost of $50 million. Neil Bush bails out of JNB Exploration, the firm where he became president with a $100 ante, leaving his partners to worry about its debt. Days earlier he forms Apex Energy with a personal investment of $3000. The rest of the money -- $2.7 million -- comes from an SBA program designed to help "high risk start-up companies." Like JNB, it proves to be just that. Apex will later go belly-up with no assets. Two months after his father's inauguration, George W. Bush announces that he and a syndicate of investors have purchased the Texas Rangers. The investors are Edward "Rusty" Rose, Richard Rainwater, Bill DeWitt, Roland Betts (a former Yale frat brother) and Tom Bernstein (Bett's partner in a film investment concern). While Bush appears to lead the group, Rainwater makes clear that Rose is to control how the business is run. Bush's stake in the $86 million deal is 2%, financed with a $500,000 loan from a Midland Bank of which he had been a director and $106,000 from other sources. Rainwater and Rose put up 14.2 million, Betts and Bernstein invested about $6 million and the balance comes from smaller investors and loans. Bush will eventually sell his share for $15 million.

1990 Federal regulators give Bush son Neil the mildest possible penalty in the $1 billion failure of the Silverado S&L. The deal is so good that Bush drops his appeal. Among other things, Neil, as a Silverado director, voted to approve over $100 million in loans to his business partners. January: Bahrain awards exclusive offshore drilling rights to Harken Oil. This is a surprise as Harken is in very shaky financial condition, has never drilled outside of Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma and had never drilled undersea at all. The Bass brothers are brought in by Harken for sufficient equity to proceed with the effort. Harken's stock price increases from $4.50 to $5.50. George W. Bush sells two-thirds of his Harken Energy stock at the top of the market for $850,000, a 200% profit, but makes no report to the SEC until March 1991. Bush Jr. says later the SEC misplaced the report. An SEC representative responds: "nobody ever found the 'lost' filing." One week after Bush's sale, Harken reports an earnings plunge. Harken stock falls more than 60%. Bush uses most of the proceeds to pay off the bank loan he had taken a year earlier to finance his portion of the Texas Rangers deal. August: Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. Harken's stock price drops substantially. Two months after Bush sells his stock, Harken posts losses for the 2nd quarter of well over $20 million and is shares fall another 24 %, by year end Harken is trading at $1.25. Bush has insisted that he did not know about the firm's mounting losses and that his stock sell-off was approved by Harken's general counsel. George W. Bush is asked by Carlyle Group to serve on the board of directors of Caterair, one of the nation's largest airline catering services which it had acquired in 1989. The offer is arranged by Fred Malek, long time Bush associate who is then an advisor to Carlyle. October: Arlington, Texas Mayor Richard Greene signs a contract that guarantees $135 million toward the new Texas Ranger Stadium's estimate price of $190 million. The Rangers put up no cash but finance their share through a ticket surcharge. From the team's operating revenues, the city will earn a maximum of $5 million annually in rent, no matter how much the Rangers reap from ticket sales and television (a sum that will rise to $100 million a year). Another provision permitts the franchise to buy the stadium after the accumulated rental payments reached a mere $ 60 million. The property acquired so cheaply by the Rangers includes not just a fancy new stadium with a seating capacity of 49,000 but an additional 270 acres of newly valuable land. Legislation is passed and signed that authorizes the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority with power to issue bonds and exercise eminent domain over any obstinate landowners. Never before had a Texas municipal authority been given the license to seize the property of a private citizen for the benefit of other private citizens. A recalcitrant Arlington family refuses to sell a 13 acre parcel near the stadium site for half its appraised value. The jury awards more than $4 million to the family. Fred Malek returns to power with ambassador status to head up planning for the economic summit. S&L industry is losing money at the rate of $3 million a minute. Bailout chief estimates total cost at $325-500 billion. Some 200 young soccer players have their games canceled for security reasons because Bush wants to go fishing on the Potomac nearby. Says one seven-year-old player: "We had a tough soccer game and he's just going fishing. He could play somewhere else." Bush son Jeb gets the federal government to pay off the $4 million he owed to a failed Florida thrift. Bush brother Jonathan's east coast brokerage fined in two states for violating laws and Jonathan is barred from public trading in Massachusetts. Bush's attorney general, Richard Thornberg, is warned about BCCI but does nothing. Federal court of appeals throws out the Inslaw case on the grounds that it did not belong in bankruptcy court. Bush says, "The economy is headed in the right direction."

1991 Former top aide to White House Chief of Staff John Sununu goes to work for a prominent figure in the BCCI scandal less than a month after leaving the Bush administration. Edward Rogers Jr. signs a $600,000 contract to give legal advice to Sheik Kamal Adham, an ex-Saudi intelligence officer who is being investigated for his role in BCCI's takeover of First American Bancshares. The Miami acting US Attorney is allegedly rebuffed by the Justice Department in his efforts to indict BCCI and some of its principal officers on tax fraud charges. Justice Department later denies this occurred. Danny Casolaro, a reporter investigating the Inslaw story, is found dead in a motel room bathtub, the day after he met a key source. The death was ruled a suicide. Perhaps he is despondent over the loss of his briefcase, which is missing from the room. George Bush spends three nights in a Houston hotel so he can claim Texas residency. Texas has no income tax. Neil Bush bails out of Apex Energy after collecting $320,000 in salary plus expenses. Bill Daniels, cable-TV magnate who has been lobbying against regulation of the cable industry, offers Neil a job. According to a representative, he "thought Neil deserved a second chance."

1992 New York Times reports that three of Bush's top fundraisers are being sued in connection with bank failures and another pleaded guilty to mail fraud in connection with an S&L. These men include the GOP national finance chair, vice chair and two co-chairs of the President's Dinner, which raised $9 million for Republican causes. Former US Attorney General Elliot Richardson, representing the owners of Inslaw, tells Mother Jones, "I don't know any case where the government has stonewalled like this." First of Harken Energy's wells off Bahrain comes up dry. George W. Bush takes a leave of absence from the firm to work in his father's campaign, saying "I don't want to involve this company in any kind of allegations of conflicts or whatever may arise." Village Voice reports that President Bush has taken at least 76 partisan flights during his term, at a cost to the taxpayers of over $6 million. Nixon's Jew hunter Fred Malek is back as Bush's campaign manager. Campaign sells photo opportunities with the president at a fundraiser for $92,000 each. Washington, DC, loses $52,000 in taxes because Bush claims to be a Texas resident. Donald H. Alexander contributes $100,000 to Team 100; shortly thereafter he's named ambassador to the Netherlands. Bush says: "I will do what I have to do to be reelected."

1993 With the new Ranger stadium being readied to open the following spring, George W. Bush announces that he would be running for governor. He is says his campaign theme will be self-reliance and personal responsibility rather than dependence on government.

1994 George W. Bush is elected Governor of Texas, defeating Ann Richards 53 to 46 %.

1999 George W. Bush executes his 99th prisoner. George W. Bush celebrates the Martin Luther King holiday by staying inside the Governor's Mansion with the windows closed so he wouldn't hear the thousands of Martin Luther King celebrants listening to speeches right outside his window on the Texas capitol grounds [across the street]. Bush claims to be reading four serious books while campaigning for president. Total pages of the four books: 1,762 * "When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world and you knew exactly who they were. It was us versus them and it was clear who them was. Today we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there." -- Texas Gov. George W. Bush, presidential candidate. * "Food on the family." -- George W. Bush listing one of the priorities of his future administration. * "This is Preservation month. I appreciate preservation. This is what you do when you run for president. You've got to preserve." -- George W. Bush to several hundred children at an elementary school in Nashua that was celebrating what it called Perseverance Month (not Preservation Month). * "Is your children learning?" -- George W. Bush on education. * "Some people have too much freedom." -- George W. Bush * "The Grecians." -- George W. Bush on Greek people. * "What I'm against is quotas. I'm against hard quotas, quotas that basically delineate based upon whatever. However they delineate, quotas, I think, vulcanize society." -- George W. Bush, meaning to say "balkanize," not "vulcanize" -- we think -- and something about quotas (Austin American-Statesman 3/23/99). * "Sitting down and reading a 500-page book on public policy or philosophy or something." -- George W. Bush when asked to name something he isn't good at (Talk magazine, September 1999). * "Please! Don't kill me." -- George W. Bush to Larry King, mocking what Karla Faye Tucker said when asked "What would you say to Governor Bush?" prior to her execution by lethal injection (as reported by Talk magazine, September 1999). * "Tell them I have learned from mistakes I may or may not have made." -- George W. Bush

2000 "Jeb's the smart one" -- George Bush Sr. to dinner partner Former President George Bush tries to block Gen. Manuel Noriega's release from a US prison because he fears the Panamanian strongman wants to kill him. Noriega attorney Frank Rubino says the assertion was made by Assistant US Attorney Pat Sullivan, who represented the government at a parole hearing for Noriega.

Copyright 2000 The Progressive Review Also,'Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual' is published by WW Norton.

2000 (continued) Al Gore gets more popular votes than George W. Bush in the November presidential elections, but a winner is unable to be declared because the outcome depends upon a state of Florida recount that must made, according to Florida law, since the eventual winner will have a majority of less than 1% of the vote. Many of the counties do not do a recount, but simply re-report their first results. Other counties decide to accept late overseas ballots, contrary to Florida law. Bush enlists James Baker to oversee his post-campaign Florida campaign. Although Jeb, as Florida governor, recuses himself from official state participation in the recount, phone records later made public lead observers to question that statement. The Florida Supreme Court directs that the entire state must physically recount all of the votes, but the U.S. Supreme Court overrules, declaring George W. Bush the victor in order to protect our tradition of the smooth transition of power. The vote was 5-4. Although the court ruled that the decision could never be used as precedent in any future legal case, it was determined that allowing the State of Florida to recount its votes, even though it is legally required to do so, would not be in the best interest of George W. Bush's presidential aspirations. On the basis of the Supreme Court's decision, Bush was declared the victor in Florida, thus winning the majority of electoral votes and thus being elected the nation's 43rd president.

2001 Bush is sworn in as president and Dick Cheney, Sec. of Defense under Poppy, is sworn in as vice-president. Numerous key members of the Regan-Bush and Bush-Quayle administrations, including those who left under a Contra cloud, are brought back into the new administration. With Bush as front man and Cheney as the brains behind the throne, Bush begins to consolidate power with fast-track plans to weaken government regulations of corporations, begin drilling on previously out of bounds environmentally fragile sites, place greater world trade powers in the White House, establish formal governmental funding of religions, allow greater civil rights discrimination in the name of freedom, shift more of the nation's wealth away from the middle class and into the hands of the wealthy through changes in the tax laws, further establish military dominance in the world and in space through missile defense, and weaken international compacts protecting the environment and controlling small arms. 79 year old Andrew Marshall, a colleague of Herman "Dr. Strangelove" Kahn at the Rand think tank in the 50's appointed head of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment and major speechwriter of Bush's Missle Defense System speeches. Taking a cue from the Bush Administration, Japan deals with Iran to provide oil field studies, indicating that the Clinton Sanctions Act will no longer be enforced against Iran.

Published on Sunday, January 11, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times The Barreling Bushes Four generations of the dynasty have chased profits through cozy ties with Mideast leaders, spinning webs of conflicts of interest by Kevin Phillips

WASHINGTON - Dynasties in American politics are dangerous. We saw it with the Kennedys, we may well see it with the Clintons and we're certainly seeing it with the Bushes. Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president's family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links.

As early as 1964, George H.W. Bush, running for the U.S. Senate from Texas, was labeled by incumbent Democrat Ralph Yarborough as a hireling of the sheik of Kuwait, for whom Bush's company drilled offshore oil wells. Over the four decades since then, the ever-reaching Bushes have emerged as the first U.S. political clan to thoroughly entangle themselves with Middle Eastern royal families and oil money. The family even has links to the Bin Ladens - though not to family black sheep Osama bin Laden - going back to the 1970s.

How these unusual relationships helped bring about 9/11 and then distorted the U.S. response to Islamic terrorism requires thinking of the Bush family as a dynasty. The two Bush presidencies are inextricably linked by that dynasty.

The first family member lured by the Middle East's petroleum wealth was George W. Bush's great-grandfather, George H. Walker, a buccaneer who was president of Wall Street-based W.A. Harriman & Co. In the 1920s, Walker and his firm participated in rebuilding the Baku oil fields only a few hundred miles north of current-day Iraq. As senior director of Dresser Industries (now part of Halliburton), Walker's son-in-law Prescott Bush (George W. Bush's grandfather) became involved with the Middle East in the years after World War II. But it was George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, who forged the dynasty's strongest ties to the region.

George H.W. Bush was the first CIA director to come from the oil industry. He went on to became the first vice president - and then the first president - to have either an oil or CIA background. This helps to explain his persistent bent toward the Middle East, covert operations and rogue banks like the Abu Dhabi-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which came to be known by the nickname "Bank of Crooks and Criminals International." In each of the government offices he held, he encouraged CIA involvement in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries, and he pursued policies that helped make the Middle East into the world's primary destination for arms shipments.

Taking the CIA helm in January 1976, Bush cemented strong relations with the intelligence services of both Saudi Arabia and the shah of Iran. He worked closely with Kamal Adham, the head of Saudi intelligence, brother-in-law of King Faisal and an early BCCI insider. After leaving the CIA in January 1977, Bush became chairman of the executive committee of First International Bancshares and its British subsidiary, where, according to journalists Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin in their 1992 book "False Profits," Bush "traveled on the bank's behalf and sometimes marketed to international banks in London, including several Middle Eastern institutions."

Once in the White House, first as vice president to Ronald Reagan and later as president, George H.W. Bush was linked to at least two Middle East-centered scandals. It's never been entirely clear what Bush's connection was to the Iran-Contra affair, in which clandestine arms shipments to Iran, some BCCI-financed, helped illegally fund the operations of the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels in Nicaragua. But in 1992, special prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh asserted that Bush, despite his protestations, had indeed been "in the loop" on multiple illegal acts.

Much clearer was Bush's pivotal role, both as vice president and president, in "Iraqgate," the hidden aid provided by the U.S. and its military to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its high-stakes war with Iran during the 1980s. The U.S. is known to have provided both biological cultures that could have been used for weapons and nuclear know-how to the regime, as well as conventional weapons. As ABC-TV broadcaster Ted Koppel put it in a June 1992 "Nightline" program after the 1991 Persian Gulf War: "It is becoming increasingly clear that George [H.W.] Bush, operating largely behind the scenes through the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into the aggressive power that the United States ultimately had to destroy."

During these years, Bush's four sons - George W., Jeb, Neil and Marvin - were following in the family footsteps, lining up business deals with Saudi, Kuwaiti and Bahraini moneymen and cozying up to BCCI. The Middle East was becoming a convenient family money spigot.

Eldest son George W. Bush made his first Middle East connection in the late 1970s with James Bath, a Texas businessmen who served as the North American representative for two rich Saudis (and Osama bin Laden relatives) - billionaire Salem bin Laden and banker and BCCI insider Khalid bin Mahfouz. Bath put $50,000 into Bush's 1979 Arbusto oil partnership, probably using Bin Laden-Bin Mahfouz funds.

In the late 1980s, after several failed oil ventures, the future 43rd president let the ailing oil business in which he was a major stockholder and chairman be bought out by another foreign-influenced operation, Harken Energy. The Wall Street Journal commented in 1991, "The mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken Energy may prove nothing more than how ubiquitous the rogue bank's ties were. But the number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken - all since George W. Bush came on board - likewise raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son."

Other hints of cronyism came in 1990 when inexperienced Harken got a major contract to drill in the Persian Gulf for the government of Bahrain. Time magazine reporters Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne, in their book "The Outlaw Bank," concluded "that Mahfouz, or other BCCI players, must have had a hand in steering the oil-drilling contract to the president's son." The web entangling the Bush presidencies was already being spun.

Second son Jeb Bush, now the governor of Florida, spent most of his time in the early and mid-1980s hobnobbing with ex-Cuban intelligence officers, Nicaraguan Contras and others plugged into the lucrative orbit of Miami-area front groups for the CIA. But he too had some Middle East connections. Two of his business associates, Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya and Camilo Padreda, both indicted for financial dealings, were longtime associates of Middle Eastern arms dealer, BCCI investor and Iran-Contra figure Adnan Khashoggi. Prosecutors dropped the case against the two, and a federal judge ordered Padreda's name expunged from the record. But a few years later Padreda, a former Miami-Dade County GOP treasurer, was convicted of fraud over a federally insured housing development that Jeb Bush had helped to facilitate. Jeb Bush also socialized with Adbur Sakhia, the Miami BCCI branch chief and later its top U.S. official.

Neil Bush, most famous for the scandal surrounding the corrupt practices of Colorado's Silverado Savings & Loan, where he served as a director during the 1980s, also picked plums from Persian Gulf orchards. In 1993, after his father left the White House, Neil went to Kuwait with his parents, brother Marvin and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. When his father left, Neil stayed to lobby for business contracts, and after returning home evolved a set of lucrative relationships with Syrian-American businessman Jamal Daniel. One of their ventures, Ignite!, an educational software company, also included representatives of at least three ruling Persian Gulf families.

The Bush family's Middle Eastern commercial focus is further exemplified by Marvin, the youngest brother of the current president. From 1993 to 2000 he was a major shareholder, along with Mishal Youssef Saud al Sabah, a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, in the Kuwait-American Corp., which had holdings in several U.S. defense, aviation and industrial security companies.

George H.W. Bush's own Persian Gulf relationships kept expanding. While serving in the Reagan White House during the 1980s, he was known in the Middle East as "the Saudi vice president," and a New Yorker article last year described the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. as "almost a member of the [Bush] family." Indeed, many saw the 1991 Gulf War to expel Iraq from Kuwait as an outgrowth of Bush's close ties to the oil industry and to Persian Gulf royal families, who felt threatened by Saddam Hussein's expansionism.

After losing his bid for a second term as president, Bush joined up in 1993 with the Washington-based Carlyle Group. Under the leadership of ex-officials like Baker and former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, Carlyle developed a specialty in buying defense companies and doubling or quadrupling their value. The ex-president not only became an investor in Carlyle, but a member of the company's Asia Advisory Board and a rainmaker who drummed up investors. Twelve rich Saudi families, including the Bin Ladens, were among them. In 2002, the Washington Post reported, "Saudis close to Prince Sultan, the Saudi defense minister … were encouraged to put money into Carlyle as a favor to the elder Bush." Bush retired from the company last October, and Baker, who lobbied U.S. allies last month to forgive Iraq's debt, remains a Carlyle senior counselor.

If the 1991 war with Iraq and its aftermath cemented the Bush ties with oil elites and royalty in the Middle East, it angered Islamic true believers and radicals. By the late 1990s, many of the Islamic insurgents who had been mobilized by the CIA and others to chase the Soviets out of Afghanistan were becoming increasingly anti-American. They found a kinship with Osama bin Laden, the renegade of his billionaire Saudi family, who was outraged at the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia.

When the U.S. launched a second war against Iraq in 2003 but failed to find weapons of mass destruction that Hussein was purported to have, international polls, especially those by the Washington-based Pew Center, charted a massive growth in anti-Bush and anti-American sentiment in Muslim parts of the world - an obvious boon to terrorist recruitment. Even before the war, some cynics had argued that Iraq was targeted to divert attention from the administration's failure to catch Osama bin Laden and stop Al Qaeda terrorism.

Bolder critics hinted that George W. Bush had sought to shift attention away from how his family's ties to the Bin Ladens and to rogue elements in the Middle East had crippled U.S. investigations in the months leading up to 9/11. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained that even when Congress released the mid-2003 intelligence reports on the origins of the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration heavily redacted a 28-page section dealing with the Saudis and other foreign governments, leading him to conclude, "There seems to be a systematic strategy of coddling and cover-up when it comes to the Saudis."

There is no evidence to suggest that the events of Sept. 11 could have been prevented or discovered ahead of time had someone other than a Bush been president. But there is certainly enough to suggest that the Bush dynasty's many decades of entanglement and money-hunting in the Middle East have created a major conflict of interest that deserves to be part of the 2004 political debate. No previous presidency has had anything remotely similar. Not one.