Chapter 17

THE RIGHT THING

“George Herbert Walker Bush made the prosperity of the 1990s possible. Without the 1990 budget agreement, you would not have had the prosperity in the Clinton administration.”

—Newsweek editor Jon Meacham

In May 1989, an international panel of election observers led by former president Jimmy Carter and Vatican officials detected massive voter fraud by Manuel Noriega’s government in Panama during their national elections. The political and security situation there had steadily deteriorated to the point that, in October of that year, some members of the Latin American press had begun to ask Dad if the time for military action had come. Yet it wasn’t until a U.S. marine had been killed, his wife brutalized, and Noriega had declared war against America that—on December 20—Dad lost all patience with Noriega’s dangerous behavior.

As the situation escalated in December, however, General Scowcroft was worried how the operation was going to play in Latin America. He told me, “When we went into Panama, normally that would have caused an explosion in Latin America—big brother in the North is throwing his weight around again. But before we went in there, your dad had talked to virtually every head of state in Latin America. Not about Noriega and Panama necessarily, but just how they were doing. So while there were some complaints about our unilateral action, it went off without any serious eruption in Latin America. And that is almost unbelievable. That’s the way he operated. It was just instinctive for him.”

Operation Just Cause was the first time Dad put American troops into harm’s way. He has since commented frequently how that decision—which only the president can make—is the most difficult thing a president can do. But Dad knew it had to be done, after all other options were exhausted.

“When I went to him to say we should take out the whole Panamanian armed force,” Colin Powell recounted, “he listened carefully, some questions were asked, some issues were raised, and we went ahead and we did it. And he was very decisive.”

After seeking refuge in the Vatican embassy for several days, Noriega surrendered to American forces on January 3, 1990—just nineteen days after the Panamanian National Assembly had bestowed the title of “maximum leader” on him. Thereafter, Noriega was brought to Miami for trial on drug-trafficking charges, racketeering, and money laundering. He was subsequently convicted in July 1992 and sentenced to forty years in federal prison.

Two interesting postscripts on Panama: After Noriega’s personal possessions were searched, a cardboard gun target with the names Bush and Cisneros written on it was found with several bullet holes in the head region. (General Mark Cisneros was the army commander in Panama, and Noriega obviously hated him as much as he did Dad.) Dad hung the target in his office at Camp David, but it always made me uncomfortable to look at it.

Also, within weeks of the successful Operation Just Cause, Dad met a woman in Cincinnati named Sandra Rouse whose son, Private James Markwell, died on the first day of the battle. On December 18, before the operation, Markwell had written a poignant letter to his family:

I have never been afraid of death, but now he is waiting at the corner. For me, I don’t know. I may walk by; he may stop me. I have been trained to kill and to save, so has everyone else. I am frightened by what lies beyond the fog, yet intrigue and curiosity have brought me through my training this far—I must go through the fog whether the other side is a plane ride home for Christmas or the fog never ends. Do not mourn for me. Revel in the life that I have died to give you.

Dad wrote to my brothers and me after meeting Mrs. Rouse and reading Private Markwell’s words. In his letter, Dad said, “When I mourn our dead and wounded, when I think of their families and loved ones, I also think of the courage of our troops. I expect I’ll remember PFC James W. Markwell as long as I live. I’ll remember a loving mother’s grief but also her pride in one young, courageous and patriotic soldier.”

As Christmas 1989 approached, Dad wrote this entry in his private diary:

December 16, 1989

Ellie walked in about 4:00 am—she was sleeping in Bar’s little office off our bedroom—and I was aware of her presence. I held out the blanket (we didn’t say anything), pulled her in, and then rolled her over into the middle. Millie was already there, so in went Bar, Millie, Ellie and me. I said, “Be quiet, and go to sleep.” We really never did go back to sleep, but she didn’t say anything. She was a wiggly little thing, but she hugged me and it reminded me exactly of when Robin was sick. It was frightening, it was much the same—her little figure standing there, roughly the same age, equally as beautiful, just walking towards my bed, and standing there, just looking at me . . .

That first Christmas, our family converged on Camp David, as we did every Christmas that Dad was in the White House. Of course, the holidays are supposed to be a joyous time of the year—and we would be celebrating Dad’s first Christmas as president—but the truth is, all was not well for me and several others in our clan.

In fact, I was so distraught about my deteriorating marriage, one night I curled up in bed next to Dad and sobbed. Meanwhile, Mom’s eyes were still giving her problems because of the Graves’ disease; and Ganny’s health was not good—she was in the hospital. Then Aunt Nan’s husband, Sandy Ellis, passed away, which was hard on both of my parents—and indeed all of us who knew and loved him.

On the positive side, Neil was optimistic about a new business venture; George had just finished his first season as general manager for the Texas Rangers; and Marvin had a great year businesswise, and—best of all—he and Margaret applied to adopt a second child. Their son, Walker, arrived on December 30.

More than just a new decade was dawning as 1989 gave way to 1990. As we moved into the last decade of the millennium, the bloody Russian Revolution of 1917 was also starting to yield to the peaceful revolution of 1989. Everywhere you looked, it seemed, freedom was on the move. Nelson Mandela was soon to be freed in South Africa; and in Latin America, one dictatorship after another was yielding to democracy. Moreover, the formerly jailed dissident leader Lech Walesa would soon be elected president of Poland; while the jailed playwright Vaclav Havel was already president of Czechoslovakia.

In the Soviet Union, 1990 saw an end to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power and the birth of modern property rights—two fundamental reforms that would not have been possible even ten years earlier. While the march to freedom seems inevitable now, at the time it seemed anything but that. No one knew what was going to happen next.

The burning international question that Dad confronted in 1990 centered on Germany. The opening of the East German border in late 1989 had raised the possibility of reunification, but how—and when? After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day: it had taken forty-plus years for the Soviets and East Germans to establish the institutions and systems used to divide families and isolate East Germans from West Germans.

When the issue of reunification first came up, a critical catalyst in moving the process forward was a dinner that the president and Helmut Kohl had in December of 1989 right after the Malta Summit.

“For me, it was especially important that I be informed firsthand by President Bush about the Soviet-American summit meeting, which had taken place on warships off the coast of Malta,” Chancellor Kohl recalled. “George told me that Gorbachev had seemed tense with regard to the German question and thought that the Germans were proceeding too quickly, that I was in too much of a hurry. Bush contradicted the Soviet president and explained that he knew me and knew that I was cautious and would not jump the gun on this. Furthermore, he said that Gorbachev would also have to understand the German side and to accept the emotions the events had triggered in Germany.”

Chancellor Kohl continued: “George also shared my view that Gorbachev couldn’t manage the tremendous pace at which the developments were unfolding. At the NATO summit one day later, George Bush played a decisive role in assuring that, on the side of the West, a further important step was taken in the direction of German unity. The American president made it clear to our partners in NATO that the United States supported my policy. George Bush’s plan was to become an advocate for the German cause and in return to receive our assurance that we would strongly advocate for a united Germany’s membership in NATO. Both ideas had my support.”

Events moved quickly after that. “The unification of Germany . . . moved so fast that nobody was really in control of it,” General Scowcroft said afterward. “But the president, early on, said, ‘It’s going to happen, and if it’s going to happen, it ought to happen fast, and I’m going to put my faith in Helmut Kohl,’ and he did. At that time, the Russians were threatening force if there were any moves to unify Germany. The British and French were strongly opposed—nobody wanted Germany unified. President Bush thought it had to be done fast before all this opposition could coalesce and freeze the process or create instabilities which would be fatal for all of us.”

Chancellor Kohl could see what others couldn’t: he saw an opportunity ahead as the East German communists began to lose their hold, both politically and economically. Within four months of that December 1989 dinner with Dad—in March 1990—there would be free elections in East Germany. And four months after those elections, President Gorbachev—who faced his own grave political problems at home—decided to allow a unified Germany to move forward and join NATO.

On October 3, East Germany was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany. After forty-five years, Germany was at last united in freedom.

“The division of Germany was always unacceptable to George Bush,” Chancellor Kohl said, looking back at that historic time. “He saw it as a violation of human rights. Thus, he supported wholeheartedly the process of reunification from the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. From the beginning, George Bush stood at the forefront of all of those who supported and encouraged us on our way to unity. We Germans could not have won the unity of our fatherland freely—at least not in the span of one year—if George Bush as president of the United States of America, and with him the American people, hadn’t stood firmly at our side.”

After separating from my husband, Billy, for a year, I moved to Washington when our divorce became finalized. I wanted to be closer to Mom and Dad. The actual day the papers were filed, Jeb drove with me to the courthouse in Maine.

Not long after, I was renting a small home near Westmoreland Circle in Bethesda, Maryland, trying to decide where to live, when Marvin, who lived in Virginia, gave me a little brotherly advice. He said, “Whatever you do, don’t buy a house in Maryland. It’s one of the most Democratic states in the country.” As usual, I listened to my brother, weighed my options, but eventually bought a home in the Tulip Hill section of Bethesda, Maryland.

In the meantime, I started working at the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) in Washington—which remains one of the greatest experiences of my life. The hospital was built and founded by Ed Eckenhoff, who was paralyzed from the waist down at a very early age. Ed still runs the hospital and knows firsthand what it is like to receive care at a facility like NRH, and he is an inspiration to the staff and clientele alike. I launched my new career in the communications and development office and was working there when Dad signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, into law. Since then, I have witnessed the monumental effect that the ADA has had on the disabled community.

I loved working at NRH in no small part because Ed and the rest of the staff were very supportive and very discreet. They knew I wanted to avoid any kind of special attention. Despite my efforts, however, I quickly discovered that being the president’s daughter in Washington is quite a different story than in Maine. When people started to learn my family background in Washington, suddenly I became very popular—and started receiving invitations from people I had never met. (The second we lost the 1992 election, most of those people disappeared.)

My friend Honey Skinner swears that when I got to Washington, I was on a mission to meet someone—and she may be right. I suppose I wanted someone with whom I could share the excitement of Dad’s White House years, but by the same token I wasn’t looking to get married right away. In any case, I began to date.

I was lucky in that lots of people tried to set me up with eligible bachelors, but I quickly discovered that dating in college and dating as the mother of two children, one very rambunctious, was quite a different story. It helped that I had the “daughter of the president” thing going for me. In some cases, that got me in the door.

On other occasions, however, I found it necessary to use the revolving door—walking out almost as soon as I walked in. Such was the case in early 1990 when my cousin kindly set me up on a blind date. The prospect and I were to meet at the Old Ebbitt Grill very close to the White House, just across the street from the Treasury Building. It was convenient for me to park on the south side of the White House and walk over, so I breezed in to let Mom and Dad know what I was doing. Dad teased me a little, and Mom was encouraging.

Arriving at Old Ebbitt, I found the man by description, and we had a drink at the bar. It was awkward from the start. He only seemed interested in talking about current affairs and what was going on in Washington. I wanted to tell him about my children, but knew that might be a showstopper, so I engaged in the political and current affairs discussion.

That is, until he said to me, “You know, I think it’s ridiculous for your father and this administration to go to South America when the drug cartels are out to get him. Don’t you think that’s stupid and dangerous?” I was so mad at the rudeness of his question that I stood up, politely thanked him, and told him I had to go. I arrived back at the White House less than thirty minutes after I had departed. Mom and Dad were still there and naturally asked what happened. They laughed—Dad harder than anyone—as I gave a blow-by-blow recap of the failed encounter.

On February 14, before departing for the first-ever drug summit in Cartagena, Colombia, Mom and Dad went out to dinner at one of their favorite local restaurants, the Peking Gourmet Inn. There they enjoyed the house specialty, Peking duck, with George and Laura, Marvin and Margaret, and Dr. Burt Lee and his wife, Ann. Dr. Lee was a New York oncologist whom Dad had asked to be White House physician.

Nerves among the group were somewhat on edge that night, as they had been throughout our family since this particular trip had been announced. After all, in a very real sense, the next day Dad would stand at ground zero with respect to the drug war—not a very safe neighborhood for any president, American or Colombian. Here in the United States, when you mention “the war against drugs,” for the most part you are referring to policies—a political agenda. In Colombia, however, this war involves armed guerrillas fighting, killing, and dying on orders from drug lords and cocaine kingpins.

Dad had promised to make fighting the drug problem one of his top priorities, and President Virgilio Barco in Colombia had defied the drug lords and become a courageous ally. On those grounds alone, Dad had to attend this summit, he felt, but he was fully aware of the dangers involved. Just the day before, in fact, the Secret Service had picked up twelve shoulder-fired Stinger missiles near the airport where Air Force One would land in Baranquilla.

As dinner broke up, Dad put his arm around Ann Lee and told her not to worry about Burt. “He said he would make sure I was okay,” Burt recalled, “and I remember thinking, ‘Hey, I’m the one who is supposed to be worried about him!’” As they walked out of the restaurant, people from other tables expressed their support, saying things like, “Go safely” and “We’re praying for you.” By the time they got to the door, Dad was choked up by all the support he was receiving.

They returned to the White House after dinner, and when he heard the helicopter landing on the South Lawn, he gave Mom a hug and she told him how worried she was. Then Dad boarded the helicopter which took him to Andrews Air Force Base, where Air Force One was waiting.

The daylong conference on February 15 was held at the Colombian Naval Academy, which sat on a very exposed spit of land extending into Cartagena harbor. Hoping for the best but planning for the worst, Dr. Lee had worked with John Sununu to arrange for an aircraft carrier staffed with military and civilian trauma surgeons to be positioned offshore. At one point during the conference, all U.S. electronic communications went down for over an hour in the middle of the day due to a failure up in Atlanta—not due to some local problem in Colombia. The traveling party, however, never knew this was the cause—they only knew that the phones suddenly went down and never knew why.

Otherwise, the summit went off without a hitch—and the participants issued their “Declaration of Cartagena,” a comprehensive strategy to address the drug trade as well as the underlying economic and cultural issues. The day was long and nerve-racking but ultimately successful. (It was a success despite the fact that the final press conference was delayed because one Latin American leader’s zipper was stuck!)

“On return, when the F–16s peeled off from Air Force One as we entered U.S. airspace, I heaved one giant sigh of relief,” Dr. Lee remembered. “I believe I enjoyed a cocktail at that moment with Jimmy Baker. But did George Bush think about canceling that very important conference because of the danger? Never.”

Later, Dad told me, “Just think what a horrible signal it would have sent to all of Latin America if we had canceled out of this meeting.”

We were all worried, at various times, about the threats against Dad. Within months of taking office, in fact, the Secret Service had stopped a man who clearly intended to hurt Dad at a speech in Michigan. Such threats are without a doubt the most worrisome aspect of having a family member serving as president, yet it is part of the modern reality of the presidency.

Dad has returned to the Peking Gourmet Inn many times since that night before the drug summit. You could say he and Mom are regulars there—when they’re in Washington—and the walls are covered with photos of my parents’ various meals there. Wagshal’s Deli, near their old house in the Spring Valley section of Washington, D.C., and not far from the vice president’s residence, has many photos of Dad as well. Early in 1989, Dad and Mom visited a new Tex-Mex restaurant in D.C., the Austin Grill, and thrilled the young owners with all the publicity the presidential visit generated.

Dad’s ventures outside the White House bring me to a very special group of people not just in Dad’s life, but in the life of any president, as well as their family. Even to this day, Dad will sometimes jokingly refer to them as “the marshals,” but the rest of us know them as the United States Secret Service. Dad calls them marshals, incidentally, because back when he was vice president, they had a funny reporter on the plane who would get up and say, “Now all the marshals are going to do this, the marshals are going to do that.” No one can remember the reporter’s name, but everyone still remembers him calling the agents marshals.

Guarding the president has been the job of the Secret Service since President William McKinley was assassinated at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, in 1901.

For nearly a century after that, the Secret Service was a part of the Department of the Treasury. Since 9/11, however, the agents have reported to the Department of Homeland Security. Presidents have always received round-the-clock Secret Service protection, and recently, immediate members of the president’s family—including grandchildren—do as well.

Guarding grandchildren has caused quite a few unusual situations, many seeming like they are right out of the movie Kindergarten Cop. When Neil’s son Pierce was three years old, he had a miniature motorized jeep, which he was allowed to drive around his neighborhood in Colorado. The Secret Service would follow him in their big Suburban SUV, creeping along behind Pierce in his little jeep. His sisters, Lauren and Ashley, remember purposely taking a detour through the woods while skiing. “Most of the agents were big guys, and they’d get tangled in the branches—while we were little and could squeeze through the trees better than they could. That was fun,” said Lauren.

When he was little, my son Sam actually hid from the agents at first, constantly trying to give them the slip until they explained to him that they were not there to tell on him to his mom, only to protect his life. Once he realized they were not going to report his every move back to me, he was fine with it. Then, after 9/11, when he was not so little—a senior in high school—Sam viewed the Secret Service as a serious crimp in his style. The agents reminded him that they were only there to protect him, not babysit him. Over time, they became friends. One day, when Sam had come home late the night before, I asked the agents what had gone on. A resounding silence followed. Sam was happy because they kept his confidence and the agents were happy because he allowed them to do their job. And Sam was lucky he had Secret Service, because I was contemplating murder!

Having the Secret Service nearby gave me great peace of mind, but not everyone took solace from them. In fact, while Dad was president, a family in George P.’s class removed their child from the school because the presence of the Secret Service agents worried them.

Speaking from personal experience, the Secret Service agents I have known—those assigned to Dad, or to our respective families over the years—have always been as courteous as they are professional. For this reason, many of them have come to be like family. After all, you spend a great deal of time with them. In one extreme case, our nanny when I first moved back to Washington, Eileen, was so taken with one agent assigned to my children that she ended up marrying him! Sam and Ellie were the ring bearer and the flower girl in their wedding.

There is an undeniable glamour about the Secret Service Protective Division. It’s adventurous work; you are always around famous and powerful people; and you travel both extensively and frequently. But there is a harder, less glamorous side to the job that the public does not see: guarding an empty hotel hallway at 3:00 a.m., the endless planning, and the days and weeks spent away from home.

That’s exactly what makes the job a considerable burden and sacrifice over time—and Mom and Dad have always been sensitive to that. When they have been in Maine for extended periods of time, for example, they will have the families of the Secret Service agents over to Walker’s Point for barbecues, swimming, and boating, as a gesture of thanks.

Mom and Dad also took an extra step during the holiday season.

“During the vice presidency, they would stay in Washington until Christmas Day before they would go to Houston—and that was such a big deal,” recalled Special Agent Rich Miller, who headed Dad’s detail during part of his presidency. “That way, most everybody could spend Christmas Eve and part of Christmas Day with their families, and I know they did that because they didn’t want to take everybody away from their families during that time. Everybody appreciated that.”

After Dad became president, they would go to Camp David instead of staying in the White House on Christmas Eve. Since Camp David was guarded by military personnel, almost all of the Secret Service agents on Dad’s detail could enjoy at least part of the holiday season with their families.

“That’s unbelievable that the most powerful man in the world would think enough of other people to delay his vacation for twenty-four or forty-eight hours just so other people could be with their families,” Miller added. “That’s why people would do anything for the president and Mrs. Bush.”

On March 2, RNC Chairman Lee Atwater was speaking at a Washington fund-raiser for Texas Senator Phil Gramm when Lee had a seizure and collapsed to the floor. He was rushed to George Washington Hospital, where Dad’s White House physician, Dr. Burt Lee (the oncology specialist), met them.

After seeing Lee briefly, Dr. Lee immediately pulled Sally Atwater aside and told her he had a brain tumor—and had about a year to live. (Sadly, this initial diagnosis proved accurate.)

The news shocked Washington. Lee wasn’t even forty years old yet, his wife had just become pregnant, and he was at the top of his profession.

Part of his success, no doubt, was his charisma. For example, the event Lee had put together the day after Dad’s inauguration, the Celebration for Young Americans, featured the who’s who of rhythm and blues musicians—and had to be the most fun of all the inaugural events. Marvin had emceed that event, and when Dad arrived, he even strapped on a guitar and hammed it up with Lee onstage.

“When he first had the seizure—it was classic Atwater—he had everybody spin it that he was perfectly fine,” Ede Holiday, who became cabinet secretary, remembers. “He told everybody in his close-knit circle that he didn’t want it known how bad it was. And so everybody spun it for a long time trying to give Lee what he wanted, until it just got to be too hard, of course.”

Mary Matalin remembered filling in for Lee, representing the RNC at cabinet meetings: “At one of the first White House meetings I attended, your father sent a note across the cabinet table saying, ‘I know how hard this is for you and you’re doing a great job. Hang in there.’ Bear in mind: I wasn’t walking around moaning ‘woe is me.’ The fact that the president would even consider what my problems were shows how in sync he is with the real world.”

Dad continued to stay in regular touch with Lee, even though the progression of the cancer made Lee increasingly inaccessible. It was not just that he was incapacitated, but at times Lee didn’t know who he was. He came to the White House for a visit at one point, and Ede Holiday remembers, “I went up and gave him a hug and I honestly think he was so self-conscious that he didn’t want anyone to see him like that. And yet he so wanted to show that he could still connect.” Through it all, Dad and Dr. Lee kept in contact with him, Sally, and Lee’s mother, Toddy.

“What an impact it had on Lee’s mother and Lee’s wife, who was pregnant at the time, and Lee didn’t know,” Mary said. To those of us who were there outside the family support system, the president’s involvement was the kind of thing we’ll never forget.” Near the very end of Lee’s life, Dad and George went to the hospital together, to say farewell. Dad kissed him good-bye and choked back tears.

As he got sicker, Lee had apologized publicly to his former political opponents, including Michael Dukakis, in a Life magazine article. On the day Lee died, reporters asked Dad about Lee’s deathbed apology, and he said, “As he took stock of his life, he wanted to make things right, heal some wounds, and that was a very noble thing. And I salute him in death as I did in life.”

When I recently asked Dad about Lee’s death, now almost fifteen years ago, he replied, “I think his mortality brought it home to him. He knew he was going to die, and he changed and found the Lord. He was a changed man. He saw the light. He was an emotional fellow, but he calmed down at the end and I think he died a happy, contented man.”

On March 22, Dad was nearing the end of his forty-first news conference—mostly dealing with assistance for emerging democracies in Central America and Poland—when the media asked him for a statement on the subject of broccoli. Dad had recently instituted a total ban on broccoli on White House and Air Force One menus, prompting a series of humorous protests from growers across the country.

As long as I can remember, Dad has hated broccoli. I am not sure if he hates the smell or the taste more. I think it is just a total, complete aversion.

So the media had hit a nerve, and Dad could not contain himself:

This is the last statement I’m going to have on broccoli. There are truckloads of broccoli at this very minute descending on Washington. My family is divided. I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid, and my mother made me eat it. And I’m President of the United States, and I am not going to eat any more broccoli.

“This was one I felt strongly about, and I had to speak out,” Dad later told British journalist Sir David Frost. “In the process, I liberated many four-, five-, six-year-old kids all across this country who shared my hate for broccoli. The good news was the broccoli sales went up. Two huge broccoli trucks appeared on the South Lawn of the White House, along with the second largest concentration of press for any event when I was president. And Barbara dramatically went out because I refused. I thought it would be hypocritical to go out and greet these trucks, you couldn’t expect that. And so they said, ‘What are you going to do with all this broccoli?’ Barbara said, ‘We are going to give this to the homeless.’”

Dad’s public declaration generated a great deal of interest not only from growers but from other well-intended broccoli supporters as well. One such supporter, a Carlo Cacioppio of Chicago, even went so far as to send Mom a recipe for cream of broccoli that he created. Carlo assured Mom that “if you make broccoli this way, your husband will love it. Even if he doesn’t, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

Sadly, Carlo was wrong. Dad is still decidedly, virulently anti-broccoli; but like Mom, I am very much pro-broccoli and thought you might want to try Carlo’s recipe:

Carlo’s Cream of Broccoli

2 cups pre-cooked broccoli

3 cloves garlic, finely minced

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup chopped black olives

1 pound spaghetti

1/4 cup shredded provolone cheese

1/2 cup grated Romano or Parmesan cheese

1 cup cream

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Cut broccoli and sauté with garlic in olive oil. Cook and drain spaghetti, and toss with broccoli. Melt the cheeses with the cream and add parsley. Simmer until smooth and creamy. Combine all ingredients and serve.

In April 1989, my brother George had assembled a team of investors and bought the Texas Rangers from Fort Worth oilman Eddie Chiles. George became the general manager of the club and quickly became the public face of the team.

Early in 1990, shortly after visiting the troops that had been wounded in Panama, Dad called George and suggested he get one of the wounded soldiers from the Dallas area to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Rangers’ home opener. George thought this was a great idea and invited a Navy SEAL named Al Moreno, who had been wounded in the head and was still somewhat paralyzed.

In a note to Secretary Cheney and General Powell, Dad recounted how this moving moment unfolded: “Moreno strides the hill amidst cheers and plenty of tears and opens the game. George said he thanked the Rangers for letting him have the honor. Janie Fricke, country singer, was dissolved in tears and George said he had to choke ’em back too. The crowd gave a long standing ovation to this young hero. Patriotism was alive and well there at the ballpark.”

Just as our military’s actions in Panama and Kuwait helped to restore faith and confidence in America’s fighting men and women, so, too, did Dad want to strengthen the office of the president itself—the institution. He felt strongly that Congress had managed to erode some of the powers and prerogatives of the presidency, and he wanted to help reverse that trend.

That desire was evident when someone on Dad’s political team came up with the idea to veto some line items in the budget. Scholars even today disagree whether the president has “line-item veto” authority, but Dad’s advisers urged him to show he really was tough and unafraid to take on Congress on spending. That’s when they hit on the idea to veto specific projects in the budget.

“There was a lot of political pressure being put on the president from within his own party to assert that the Constitution gave the president the inherent line-item veto,” former attorney general Bill Barr, who was head of the Justice Department’s legal counsel office at the time, recalled. “One day Boyden Gray and I were sitting together at a ceremony in the East Room. After the program, the president walked over to Boyden and me and commented that he was being pushed hard on the line-item issue. He asked what Boyden and my preliminary views were. I said that, while an argument could be advanced, I did not think, at the end of the day, the position would be sustained, and that I personally was not persuaded this was the framers’ intent.”

The president replied, “You guys know my view that the presidency has been weakened since Watergate, and you know that I want to strengthen the office, leaving it stronger than when I came to it. But I think it will end up weakening the office to make claims of power that are not well grounded and then get rebuffed. So, as you look at this, remember—I am not inclined to go down this route, unless you guys tell me that you really believe that the Constitution gives me the power.”

Dad ultimately decided he did not have the constitutional standing to assert the line-item veto. In fact, after a Republican-controlled Congress gave President Clinton such authority in 1996, and after President Clinton had exercised that power on dozens of occasions, the line-item veto in that form was ruled unconstitutional in 1998.

It’s interesting: Dad is more of a risk-taker in terms of life choices than Mom, yet it was my mother who found herself having to defend the choices she’d made in life when she spoke to Wellesley College in June 1990. At the time, the undergraduate women were protesting that Mom had been invited as the commencement speaker because she was “the wife of” someone, rather than a leader in her own right. Others would have backed out of the invitation, but not Mom.

I was at Wellesley that day and can attest to the tension in the air. That strain eased, however, when Mom brought another famous “wife of”—Raisa Gorbachev—and talked about following one’s own dreams, not the stereotypes of yesterday and today. Then she said, “And who knows? Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the president’s spouse. I wish him well!” The crowd, protesters included, erupted in applause.

Mom also said something that stayed with me: “Whatever the era, whatever the times, one thing will never change: fathers and mothers, if you have children, they must come first. Your success as a family—our success as a society—depends not on what happens at the White House, but on what happens inside your house.”

Family first, she was saying, just like Dad always does.

During the summer of 1990, our Uncle Lou surfaced on the White House radar screen several times. In fact, two of his funnier antics warranted an actual memo from Jan Burmeister, who handled Dad’s personal mail at the White House, to his assistant, Patty Presock, seeking high-level guidance on how to handle one evolving situation:

July 24, 1990

Memorandum for Patty Presock

From: Jan Burmeister

Subject: Lou Walker

Patty, we need some guidance regarding phone calls that have been coming into my office and to Debbie Romash’s office regarding Lou Walker.

In June, we received a call from the Airlines saying that a Lou Walker had a last minute change in flight plans that would add a penalty to the total payment to his ticket. Mr. Walker told the Airlines that he was coming to visit the President of the United States and that he was the President’s Uncle. He asked that they not bill him the extra charge. The Airlines called us wanting to confirm this.

We told them that, yes, Lou Walker is indeed the President’s uncle, but that the President would NOT want any special handling. Just to handle the matter routinely. As a courtesy to the President, they did not bill the extra charge to Lou Walker.

Just last week, Debbie Romash received a phone call from a production company in New York saying they received a phone call from Mr. Lou Walker asking for tickets to “Miss Saigon.” Mr. Walker was told that the play would not be in New York for at least a year and that no commitments can be made. Mr. Walker told the production company that he was the “President’s Uncle” and that he wanted to have the tickets confirmed since he was bringing the President’s Mother to the performance.

Do you think someone is using Lou Walker’s name? Do you want to call Mr. Walker, or mention this to the President so he can discuss it with Mr. Walker.

In the future, we will refer all phone calls to you.

Thank you.

On July 26, 1990, Dad signed the Americans with Disabilities Act before an audience of invited guests on the radiant, sun-drenched South Lawn of the White House. With the single stroke of a pen, he extended fuller access to the American Dream to 43 million Americans with disabilities who had previously been essentially barred from buildings, transportation, and other means to opportunity. To be sure, that moment culminated years of work and dedication on behalf of so many who believed in this noble cause.

In 1986, Dad personally accepted a report from the National Council on Disability on behalf of President Reagan titled: “Toward Independence.” That report recommended the passage of national, comprehensive legislation that prohibited discrimination against Americans with disabilities—and the ADA was just that. Previous laws and regulations under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 had addressed discrimination against persons with disabilities by federal agencies and contractors who had business with the federal government, but had “left broad areas of American life untouched or inadequately addressed,” as Dad noted in his statement that accompanied that historic bill signing.

The beauty of the ADA is that it gave the business community a certain degree of flexibility to meet the requirements, but there is no doubt that there were indeed firm requirements required of both business and local governments that, today, we now take for granted. For example, municipal sidewalks must be “cut” to accommodate wheelchairs, and new businesses must provide ramps. Furthermore, many metropolitan bus systems today across the country also feature “lifts” to assist disabled individuals. The point is that in countless ways large and small, the bill Dad made law that hopeful day has helped to remake the face of American society—and has gone on to inspire numerous nations abroad.

A number of key leaders paved the way for the passage of such a landmark civil rights legislation: activists such as Evan Kemp, Justin Dart, and Sandy Parrino; legislators like Senators Bob Dole of Kansas and Tom Harkin of Iowa, and House members like California’s Tony Coehlo; and White House staffers such as Mike Deland, Boyden Gray, and Bill Roper. Of course, there were countless more who shared in this bipartisan triumph of the democratic process, but space limits prohibit mentioning them all here. Besides, they have already had their reward: seeing their selfless efforts bear legal, federal fruit.

For me, as a new member of the National Rehabilitation Hospital that day, I was truly humbled to witness that awesome moment when my father literally threw open a door of exclusion that had previously shut out so many people. As a staff member—and later, as a board member at NRH—I saw firsthand how the ADA would become a reality, how it would affect real lives, and how it would give hope where none had existed.

Candidly, some conservatives didn’t like Dad signing the ADA, but on a personal level—outside of his skillful efforts to end the Cold War without a shot being fired—I cannot think of another act that made me prouder of my father. The ADA was “kinder and gentler” in action. My dad is always willing to “walk the walk,” and the fact that the ADA has been so universally accepted today speaks to the vision and collective dedication behind it.

As an avid outdoorsman, Dad was also very committed to passage of the Clean Air Act, with his able general counsel, Boyden Gray, heavily involved. Like the ADA, Dad had promised his support for the Clean Air Act during the campaign; it, too, hit a logjam (this time in Congress), and Dad personally intervened to keep the legislation moving forward.

“That’s been a great success,” Boyden said, “but it’s never gotten the credit it deserves. It was the most sweeping environmental statute ever passed. The benefits from just one part of the bill alone—the acid rain title—are the greatest net benefits of any regulatory program ever in the history of the United States. It was the first use of emissions trading credits worldwide for achieving environmental compliance, and they are similar to what’s used in global warming now. It’s used in Europe and being studied in Asia. It was a huge, huge success.”

That desire to make things work in Washington, however, cost Dad politically when the time came to negotiate with congressional Democrats on the federal budget in 1990. Senator Alan Simpson, then the minority whip under Bob Dole, and one of Dad’s closest friends, remembers the negotiations held at a neutral site on the outskirts of Washington:

It was called the Andrews Air Force Base negotiations, and it lasted for days. Bob Dole would come back and report that we could get things we’ve never been able to get—things they’re still trying to get right now. Structural reform of the budget. Catastrophic health care. He had the full package together. It represented fifty years’ worth of different attitude on spending. But it needed a little sweetener in the form of a tax. The president said he knew he’d get cremated on it. Dole said, “But we’re going to go pass this package for you.”

Nobody understands that when President Bush agreed to that [budget deal], it was the biggest act of courage that any president had ever done. We had to do this for the good of the country, and the Senate backed President Bush by a huge vote—63 to 37. It was a great bipartisan vote in the Senate. Big vote.

It went to the House, and you ought to see the roll-call vote on that. It was every liberal Democrat and every conservative Republican sticking it in George Bush’s ear—liberal lefties, right-wing cuckoos. The Republicans didn’t like the fuel tax in the deal, and the Democrats wanted to see him break “Read my lips,” so down it went. That was a disaster. Those s.o.b.’s in the House—both sides—just cremated it.

After Republican defections and Democratic gamesmanship in the House had defeated the original budget deal, Dad followed through on his threat to veto the continuing resolution—which was only a temporary fix—and the lack of a federal budget subsequently shut the government down for three days in October. With half a million troops on their way overseas to the Persian Gulf region and Democratic majorities in both houses insisting on a tax increase, however, Dad felt pressured to get a deal done quickly and soon agreed to a new budget deal that raised taxes on the wealthiest Americans and also imposed new charges on tobacco and luxury items. In exchange, Dad got Congress to agree to significant caps on discretionary spending, as well as the single largest deficit reduction package ever enacted.

To announce the 1990 budget deal, Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater was told to post a two-sentence statement on the bulletin board and not say anything else.

“We weren’t able to frame the issue at all,” White House Communications Director David Demarest noted. Shortly after the agreement was announced, in fact, David was standing with Governor Sununu when they were approached by Bobbie Kilberg, Dad’s director of public liaison. Bobbie said, “Governor, the business groups are going crazy. What am I supposed to tell them?” Sununu reportedly said to her, “Don’t tell them anything.”

“And that was our communications,” David said.

Many of the agreement’s critics suggested that Dad had failed to appreciate the political consequences of breaking his “no new taxes” pledge. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Even before he was sworn in, Dad knew this would be the toughest domestic problem he would face, and there would be consequences for breaking that pledge. Later, in one crucial private meeting leading up to Dad’s decision to sign the budget deal, John Sununu said, half in jest, “Remember, there have been lots of great one-term presidents.” Dad responded in a half-facetious tone, “I can assure you that is not in any way on my mind.”

As Dick Darman, one of the chief architects of the agreement, noted, “We all appreciated that he knew very well that he was taking an enormous personal risk—and that, unlike most conventional politicians, he was willing to sacrifice his own political interest for what he took to be the public good.”

Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, who was involved in the budget negotiations, said, “Your dad has to be admired for making the decision that he did, after he made that asinine statement about no new taxes, because, in my opinion, he sacrificed himself when he realized that we were going to have to balance the budget and we were going to have to raise revenue. I used to argue with your dad, saying, ‘George, you’ve got to do this.’”

Senator Bob Dole agreed: “It wasn’t that the president wanted to raise taxes, he didn’t have any choice. It was either take what the Democrats were going to give us, because they had the majority, or we weren’t going to get a budget. We had to keep the country moving, and you get to a point where sometimes you have to accept what the opposition, particularly when they have the majority, give you. So it was a big campaign issue. I never thought it was fair, but some things aren’t fair in politics.”

Years later, Dad looked back at the tumultuous time. “Raising taxes was a tremendous political mistake for me because I shot a lot of credibility. People said, ‘Hey, he said he wasn’t going to do it and he did it.’ Even the biggest tax-raiser of all, my successor, Bill Clinton, used that to undermine my credibility. So that hurt me very much, my own going back on what I said.”

Dad actually handed the Clinton administration an economy that had resumed vigorous growth before he left the White House. During 1992, for example, the economy grew in excess of 3.2 percent, and the last quarter was even stronger at 5.8 percent.

“I wish I had never said, ‘Read my lips, no new taxes,’” Dad said to an interviewer years later, “because had I not made it so pronounced, people would say, ‘Well, you know, he has to do this.’ President Reagan raised taxes several times, but he just kept saying, ‘I’m against a tax increase.’ And he was very convincing about it, and for some reason, the right wing of our party that still criticizes me for a tax increase has nothing to say about the Reagan tax increase, which is good. I’m not trying to undermine his legacy. I just wish I’d been that good.”

Dad continued, “My failure was not being a good enough communicator at the end of my presidency to convince people that the economy had recovered. I needed a couple of quarts of Ronald Reagan to get through the quest for change and the very effective campaign of my opponent that said the economy is in the tank. Not to make the American people believe something that wasn’t true, but just to get them to understand the truth. I think I was maybe a couple of quarts low on charisma.”

As tough as those decisions were and as difficult as politics at that level can be, Dad had fun with the job. Mom had already given him a nickname within our family—Perle Mesta—after the 1950s socialite whose Washington parties drew so many international types that Harry Truman appointed her ambassador to Luxembourg. There was a Broadway show written about her, titled Call Me Madam, in which Ethel Merman plays the lead and actually sings an Irving Berlin song called “The Hostess with the Mostes’ on the Ball.” That would be Dad—the host with the most, always putting together guest lists, welcoming people and offering drinks, sending notes afterward.

“He just couldn’t bear not to have something going on morning, noon, and night,” added Laurie Firestone, Dad’s White House social secretary. “If there was an evening free, we were all thinking, ‘Oh, great, they finally have a night off.’ Not at all. He would call me first thing in the morning saying, ‘I see we have a free evening. We’ve got to do something. What movie can you get over and who can you invite? I’m thinking maybe you should invite X, Y, and Z to a little dinner, and watch the movie.’”

One of the perks of being president is getting to see the latest movie releases—in some cases, even before they are released in public. Helping matters in this regard is the fact that Dad and Jack Valenti, the former aide to Lyndon Johnson who used to be head of the Motion Picture Association, are good friends.

Dad was equally frenetic on the subject of state dinners, hosting a total of twenty-nine over four years—in addition to often having heads of state to the White House for what they called a “working visit.” I recently came across a letter from Dad to the guests at table 8 (filled with various governors, business leaders, and VIPs) on the morning after the state dinner for Queen Elizabeth. Apparently, they had passed him a funny note after dinner begging for more dessert:

Dear Table 8:

It was a pleasure having you at the Queen’s State Dinner. Taken as a whole, your table behaved fairly well. All the silver was accounted for!

But then, horrors! I received a note from Table 8 begging for the chocolate wheels off the dessert cart. Appalling!

I tried to be sure that Her Majesty did not see me reading this appeal you sent me. Down, Table 8, down!

Next time, though you all seem united, it is better you sit apart. Sincerely,

George Bush

One of the people at table 8 was Lenore Annenberg, the wife of Walter Annenberg. Mr. Annenberg was the founder of TV Guide and owned several television and radio stations, in addition to having served as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Mrs. Annenberg was President Reagan’s first chief of protocol. In the spring of 1990, the Annenbergs graciously agreed to host a last-minute summit between Dad and the Japanese prime minister at their home, Sunnylands, in Rancho Mirage, California—on only five days’ notice. There were bilateral meetings during the day at a nearby country club, and then a formal dinner that night in the Annenbergs’ dining room, which seated sixty. “The dinner was quite special because we had a receiving line and we did it just like a mini-White House,” Mrs. Annenberg told me. “Nothing like that had ever been done here before. It was exciting.”

In addition to state dinners, there were congressional barbecues and weekends at Camp David with guests. Dad liked bringing people together so much, in fact, that he even tried his hand as a matchmaker between eligible bachelors and bachelorettes. In October 1990, for example, he purposely seated my single cousin Grace Holden next to Justice David Souter, who was a bachelor, at a state dinner for the Hungarian prime minister. “The evening was magical and memorable, and Justice Souter was engaging and a delightful speaker,” Grace told me afterward. They wrote to each other briefly, and she attended some Supreme Court hearings as his guest, but not much happened after that.

That same month, Dad asked Marvin to “pinch-hit” for him at an event honoring Princess Diana, who was in the United States raising money for one of her charitable causes at the National Museum Building. Dad explained to Marvin that he would sit next to Princess Diana, and they would brief him on all the protocol issues. “It will be a lot of fun,” Dad reassured Marvin. “Margaret can go and Doro will be there and you’ll just really have a great time.”

Marvin agreed. “I was a little nervous because I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be the host, but got a quick education when we showed up at the event itself.”

After Marvin cleared through security, someone approached him and said the British ambassador, Anthony Acland, and his wife, Jenny, needed to speak with him urgently. The ambassador’s wife, it turned out, wanted to make Marvin aware of a few things.

“First, she briefed me on some of the protocol, which I really appreciated,” Marvin remembered. “And then beyond that, she said, ‘Her Highness really likes to dance. Just after the dessert is being picked up, you’ll hear the orchestra begin to play and at that time that will be your cue that you should ask Her Royal Highness to get up and dance with her on the dance floor.’”

Marvin looked over her shoulder at the dance floor, which was a fairly large space surrounded by many tables.

“I began to feel queasy in my stomach,” he continued. “I really didn’t quite know how to cope with this except to tell her that I was not going to do that.”

Undeterred, Mrs. Acland suggested that dancing with the princess was part of Marvin’s responsibility as the substitute host for Dad. Marvin told her he wasn’t a very good dancer except for “freestyle dancing,” then he asked what kind of dancing Princess Diana was interested in.

“She said, ‘It’s ballroom dancing,’” Marvin said, “and all I could think back to was the time when Mom and Dad made me go to Mrs. Simpson’s dance class on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington. I wasn’t very good then, and certainly very little had occurred between the time I was twelve and that particular evening to give me more confidence. And so, the long and short of it, I just ultimately told her that I couldn’t do it.”

During dinner, Marvin was seated to Princess Diana’s left, but she spent the first forty minutes talking to somebody else—fully engaged in conversation. Margaret and I, meanwhile, kept jerking our heads and pointing toward the princess as if to say, “You need to start talking to her.” The problem was that the protocol stated that you’re not allowed to touch the person. So there was no way for him to get her attention.

“So I waited patiently and had a nice conversation with the person to my left but was ready to expand my horizons a little bit,” Marv said. “She finally turned around and asked how I was, and we had a really nice conversation about her young children and about my young children and her life and what her interests were. It was really fun, but as I was speaking to her I started getting a little more nervous about the dance situation, because I wanted to make sure that my message had gotten across clearly to the ambassador’s wife.”

Just before the dessert course arrived, Ambassador Acland approached Marvin and whispered in his ear that Marvin was off the hook. Somebody else had volunteered to do it.

“Much to my surprise, it was [Transportation Secretary] Sam Skinner,” Marvin added. “When the princess came back, she said, ‘I understand you didn’t want to dance with me.’ And I said, ‘Whoa. Let’s get this story straight. I’m not a very good dancer.’”

The next day, Princess Diana visited Mom and Dad at the White House over tea. When Mom and Dad asked, “How were our kids last night?” Princess Diana responded, “I really enjoyed your daughter-in-law, but your son was quite naughty and would not dance with me.”

A month later, Marvin received a beautiful photograph instigated by Dad and signed by the princess. The inscription read “To my reluctant dancing partner. From Diana.”

That December of 1990, Dad invited me to accompany him on a five-country swing through Latin America—to Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela. It was wonderful for several reasons, most of all because I would be able to spend seven solid days with Dad. Adding to the excitement: we traveled on the new Air Force One that had been commissioned by President Reagan.

There can be only one word to describe that new plane: amazing.

Air Force One is the name of any U.S. aircraft carrying the president on board, but since 1990 the presidential fleet has been comprised of two Boeing 747s and a 707. Each is highly customized—with medical facilities, sleeping quarters, and a real kitchen—and can fly one-third of the way around the world without refueling. It can accommodate about seventy people, including the president and his staff, Secret Service agents, and the press. The president’s private suite is in the front of the plane and includes a bathroom with a shower and an office. Whenever Air Force One finishes taxiing on the tarmac, the plane comes to a stop with the onlookers gathered on the left side of the plane, away from the president’s side and closer to the stairway from the door.

Air Force One is equipped with fax machines, copiers, eighty-five phones, and nineteen televisions, which enable people on the plane to watch the president on CNN in the back of the plane as he waves to the crowd and descends the stairs in the front of the plane. The fun part of Air Force One is that you can walk around freely, talk on the phone, or make a copy on the copier—I suppose because it’s the safest airplane in the world. I remember one time the stewards prepared grilled beef for a meal in the kitchen, and how odd it was to smell grilled food on an airplane.

It was fun being on Air Force One. Dad and I slept overnight in the front cabin, which has two very comfortable twin beds. It was surreal to tuck in for the night, sleep well, and wake up arriving on another continent. I remember taking a shower the next morning and feeling the plane tilt forward. It suddenly occurred to me that we were getting ready to land, and I was in the shower. You never saw anyone move as quickly as I did at that moment to dry off and dress just in time to arrive in Brazil. I have seen so many pictures of presidents and First Ladies on the top of the staircase on Air Force One, and there I was with Dad that day waving to those who were waiting to meet the American president.

At each stop, we had formal dinners and toasted the presidents of each country. I was often seated next to the host presidents, and found myself clinking glasses with them. As I think back on it, it seems unreal. Somehow it was normal for my dad to be president, but to be in the company of another president seemed incredible. I remember a fun evening with President and Mrs. Luis Lacalle of Uruguay in the coastal resort of their country—in Punta del Este—and I recall jogging with Dad for a couple of miles and then jumping into the ocean together. Dad was managing the Gulf War effort throughout the trip, but one of the most tense moments came when we flew into Buenos Aires for a visit with President Carlos Menem of Argentina.

“The day before George Bush was due to arrive in Argentina, a serious military coup attempt was quickly neutralized by forces loyal to my government,” President Menem told me. “In such a critical situation, U.S. security officials suggested that the president’s visit be suspended, considering the high risks involved. In spite of this, President Bush—in a gesture that speaks highly of him—made the decision to go ahead with the planned visit, arriving in Argentina as scheduled. That was the first time that I met personally with the president of the United States. From that moment on, an exceptional relationship was born, not only at a personal level but also between our two countries.”

Dad invited me to play tennis with him and President Menem, and in a triumph of diplomacy I am very happy to report that the U.S.-Argentina relationship survived my nervous, terrible performance! Aside from the tennis, I loved playing First Lady for a week and came to appreciate even further the demands that go with the position. It gave me a unique perspective on both Mom’s and Dad’s roles. Suffice it to say my respect for my parents—and all presidents and First Ladies—only increased as a result of this rare experience.