For the record – I have never voted for a Bush in my life. When George Herbert Walker Bush ran for president, I instinctively knew that “Bush” was a bad name in American politics. Little did I know how bad.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but you can’t avoid them when researching the Bush Family legacy. There’s quite a bit of filtering needed. I filtered out the truly “superbolic” and focused on what could be corroborated by third-party sources. At best, you can call this an aggregate of many sources. It’s not perfect, but for the purpose of conversation, it’s more than adequate.
The big headline is that the Bush Family men did indeed profit from American war. The story starts back when the phrase “World War” was just entering the global vernacular.
An unholy partnership was established with the formation of the ‘War Industries Board’ (WIB). Historians and many pundits have labeled the WIB as “unholy” on account of its intent: a civilian omnibus to assist and coordinate the Federal government’s purchase of war material. Is it any surprise that it quickly morphed into an exclusive lobby group that rewarded its participants and supporters with lucrative contracts under the cloak of patriotic duty? I share the prevailing opinion that the WIB is the forerunner of what Eisenhower called the ‘military-industrial complex’. More on that later.
Before war broke in Europe, Samuel P. Bush, paternal grandfather of GHW Bush, had already made a name for himself as a successful businessman and industrialist. In 1918, Samuel was tapped by business associate and banker Bernard Baruch to sit on the board of directors of the WIB as “Chief of Ordnance” (for the procurement of small arms, rifles and ammunition).
Bush funneled much of this business to family members and associates. America became an open market for war material with millions of rifles sold to Czarist Russia and about half of all of the small arms and rifles used by the U.S. and its allies – all under due to Samuel Bush’s influence. Baruch was also active financing war; to ensure that all participants could afford to buy weapons. In one reported instance, U.S. financiers loaned Germany $27M while at the same time loaning the UK and its allies $2.3B. Together with other board members, the men of the WIB profited in excess of $200M.
Not everyone was blind to what was going on. Retired Major General Smedley D. Butler, U.S.M.C., wrote and published a book titled “War is a Racket” in 1935 wherein he detailed how business interests commercially benefited from warfare.
War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
Enter U.S. Senator Gerald Nye. Nye and others were appalled by General Butler’s blunt expository, made all the sharper because of his rank in the military and the high esteem he held among the military culture (he was a two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor). Nye chaired The Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry to investigate wartime profiteering activities of many commercial and industrial participants. The investigation, often known as the “Nye Committee”, uncovered many things about WIB activities and pretty much confirmed General Butler’s claims that there were many deep connections between wartime profits, banking, and munitions industries. The results of these investigations never found criminal culpability, but the members of the WIB were ultimately labeled “Merchants of Death.†Senator Nye’s investigation may have also contributed to the American “non-interventionist movement” of the 1930s.
The German Connection
In 1922, there was a man named George Herbert Walker, patriarch of the Walker family and Governor Scott Walker’s grandfather who is also the maternal grandfather to George HW Bush. Walker had a friend named W. Averell Harriman. Walker was well-known and successful banker. Harriman was the son of E.H. Harriman who made a fortune as a railroad baron. Walker and Harriman linked their fortunes together to form W.A. Harriman & Co., an investment bank and brokerage firm.
One of the first significant business transactions, Walker set up a branch office in Berlin, Germany and met with Fritz Thyssen, an early financial sponsor of Adolph Hitler. Of course, no one knew what was about to happen with the nascent Hitler, but it was the beginning of what Walker called, “the Hitler Project.” Through Harriman & Co., Walker helped Thyssen establish a new German bank in downtown New York called Union Banking Corporation so that Thyssen could purchase of American commodities like steel, copper, and coal.
By 1926, Prescott Bush, father of George WH Bush (and a fellow Yale “Bonesman” to Harriman and son-in-law to George Walker), had joined the firm as its Senior Vice President. At this point, we have Prescott, George Walker, Prescott’s father (the aforementioned Samuel P. Bush), and Samuel’s fellow WIB member, Clarence Dillon, all working together at the same firm when it receives $70M from Fritz Thyssen. Several sources speculate that this money funded a new company called United Steel Works Corporation for German Steel Trust, which was at the time Germany’s largest industrial corporation. Note that several sources also name Prescott Bush and W. Averell Harriman as among seven board members of Union Banking Corp.
Were the Bush men Nazis as some theories claim? I don’t believe so. Financial opportunism makes for a poor substitute for socio-ideology. From the Bush perspective, their entire raison d’etre was economic. No one knew the future; what horrible things that the Nazis would do and what terrible things the names would come to represent: holocaust, murder, genocide. The images that these words bring are anathema to economic profit. That Hitler and his Nazis were also opportunistic is agreed, but only at this one intersection of history.
Based on available factual evidence, it is highly likely that some (if not all) of the account activities for Union Banking and United Steel Works ran through the Walker-Bush financial apparatus. Since the detailed records are lost, we’ll just leave it at that. As a footnote, there are enough surviving records that shows Union Bank holding more than half ownership of Germany’s pig iron, about 40% of universal steel plate and heavy plate, plus 35% of Germany’s explosives.
On October 20, 1942, the entire scheme comes to a screeching halt. By Executive Order 9095 (under the “Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917”), the Federal Government seized all banking operations under Union Banking. By then, Bush, Inc. had already made their fortunes financing and arming Hitler. As a postscript, after World War II ended, Union Banking assets were released and Prescott Bush sold his holdings for $1.5M.
Nazi conspiracists love this web of intrigue, but I believe that it is a mistake to take this link too far. There are many kinds of opportunists. In this case, we have fervent believers of a perverse and weird social ideology (the Nazis) mixing up with fervent believers of the almighty profit. Is it possible that the ideologies cross-pollenate – but nothing I have read about Samuel or Prescott suggests that they were interested in anything but the holy dollar.
The Legacy of Blood Continues
To be honest, from this point the factoids presented by Bush conspiracy theorists are difficult to verify. However, how interesting it is that the men of Bush and their close friends keep popping up at the most opportune moments.
Consider the Dulles brothers: Allan and John were both attorneys and both were deployed at various times as diplomats. They and their law firm were involved with defending Fritz Thyssen and the holdings of Union Banking and United Steel Works. Roll forward a few years and you find the Dulles involved in the weirdest U.S. diplomatic foreign flip-flop.
John Foster Dulles is said to have told South Korean President Rhee Syng-man that if his country was ready to attack the communist North, the U.S. would come to its aid. In nearly the same beat, then U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson (who was close friend of Harriman) pledged to Russia and North Korean leaders that the U.S. would not defend South Korea if attacked.
The result was a massive collision of forces and a huge loss of life. You might expect that this would have been career-ending crisis for at least one of the men, but not more than a few years later, Harriman was appointed by Truman as the Mutual Security Agency director and the chief military alliance adviser of overseas national security affairs. Then in 1953, Eisenhower appointed John Dulles as Secretary of State and Allen Dulles as Director of the CIA.
Eisenhower may have been aware of at least some of these events. He at least harbored some ill will to what was happening to his America. On his departure, he brushed over these ill feelings in his farewell address of 1961 (excerpt):
…three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Of Pigs, Loops and WMDs
It was around that time that Prescott Bush brought his son, George Herbert Walker Bush, into the CIA. Here are the relevant details about GHW’s early career at the CIA:
- April 12, 1961 – Up to this point, CIA Agent GHW Bush had spent the prior year recruiting and training right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami for the invasion. He worked for 2 years with Felix Rodriguez, the CIA operative who had hunted down and murdered Che Guevara. Allen Dulles clears the operation to deliver ships to Bush for use in the invasion.
- April 14, 1961 – Merchant ships carrying a paramilitary force of 1,400 Cuban Florida exiles arrived at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The landing went badly and two ships carrying most of the equipment and supplies had sunk. When two planes providing air cover were shot down, CIA agents pleaded with President Kennedy to authorize more planes and military reinforcements. Kennedy refused and the invasion ended as tragic defeat. The CIA lost 15 agents and more than 1,100 Cuban exiles were captured and imprisoned.
Kennedy stopped an unauthorized conflict and probably prevented a raging war which could have dragged the U.S. and Soviet Russia into another world war. However, CIA operatives and extremist hawks were bitterly angry with Kennedy. GHW Bush, who stood at the epicenter of the disaster, brewed his own bitter hatred of Kennedy.
Fast forward past Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia (because there’s only so much I can cover), and you run smack into GHW Bush’s short stint as Director of Central Intelligence (1976) under President Ford, then as Vice President of the U.S. with Ronald Reagan. And here’s where we find the Iran-Contra affair.
Iran-Contra was a big scandal during Reagan’s second term. The story broke in 1986 about secret arrangements to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels from profits gained by selling arms to Iran. The press and critics of Ronald Reagan’s administration claim that Iran-contra affair was the product of three distinct initiatives. One was a commitment to aid the contras who were conducting a guerrilla war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The other was an effort to placate “moderates” within the Iranian government so that Reagan could secure the release of American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups. A third initiative was to bypass the Boland Amendments which prohibited military aid to the contras.
When the story broke to the press, Bush famously said he was “out of the loop” and unaware of the operation, which seems incredible given his background. Then, rather infamously, he later revealed, “I’m one of the few people that know fully the details.”
That leaves us to George W Bush’s rationale for the Iraq War. This history is still pretty fresh. Conservatives may spin recent discoveries about the WMD issue, but the fact remains – the Iraq engagement was ill-timed and badly conceived. Just as many Middle East experts (e.g., people FROM Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel) predicted, the Iraqi war was so badly managed that the worse has happened. Iraq is a broken country – barely able to manage areas that it controls let alone combat insurgencies like ISIS. There’s even doubt that Iraq will ever recover as a country. Whose fault is this?
I’ve heard conservatives suggest that GW Bush’s successor is chiefly to blame for the present situation in Iraq. Jeb Bush even went so far as to say that Obama is responsible for creating ISIS. That’s like the man who knocked down a glass doll, blaming the guy who had to sweep up the debris. Moreover, we should remember that Obama had to withdraw troops because the terms of withdraw were already set by the Bush Administration. Could Obama have changed the terms of withdraw? Sure. But were Americans willing? Were the Iraqis willing? We need only to re-read the news reports and senate testimony from 2005 to 2007 to find these answers. And for all intents and purposes, Bush had lied about Saddam Hussein, WMDs and the potential for success in Iraq. The result: a great great many people died. Seems par for the course, doesn’t it?
Parting Shots
You can draw your own conclusions about how angry and opportunistic men can sometimes be driven to do terrible things. Some of the conspiracy theories seem terrible and implausible. But like some folktales – there’s just enough truth embroidered into the yarn to make you wonder.
Repeated investigations into Bush/Walker family dealings have uncovered little actionable evidence of actual wrong-doing. While I was poking around, I wasn’t at all surprised to read that many records including reports and correspondence relating to the WIB and Samuel Bush’s arms dealings were disposed and burned, “to save space†in the National Archives. Many key records concerning the Bush-Walker link to Union Banking Corporation and United Steel Works have also been lost. Losing and destroying records relating to the People’s business should alarm all citizens, but doesn’t this reveal something deeper about our real problem? While there are a great many people who are willing to hide, obfuscate, and spin in favor of the Bush-Walker legacy, there’s just enough evidence left to make you want to worry about what you’ll never know.
I reread Eisenhower’s farewell message to the American people:
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
For those of us with independent minds, we must resist natural cynicism from taking over our ability to think clearly. I have long since joined the ranks of those who reject the notion that only the powerful are qualified to govern. We can do what the powerful hate most: read for ourselves and think hard when it comes time to vote.
Final note. I tried to avoid making this yet another conspiracy tome. It was difficult to stay that course on account of the time span covered (nearly 100 years) and the relevant information uncovered. The spotty nature of the resources made it doubly difficult to verify certain parts of the story, but I did the best I could. To anyone who is interested in carrying on, I used the obvious conspiracy sites to point the way, but I used Wikipedia and other sources to light the path:
- Members of the War Industries Board Organization, U.S. War Industries Board, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1919
- Dwight D Eisenhower, Farewell Speech Transcripts, Eisenhower Archives.
- Bernard M. Baruch, My Own Story (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1957), pp. 138-39.
- Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2013).
- Alden Hatch, Remington Arms: An American History, 1956, copyright by the Remington Arms Co., pp. 224-25