George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography --- by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin

Chapter -XI- United Nations Ambassador, Kissinger Clone

At this point in his career, George Bush entered into a phase of close association with both Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. As we will see, Bush was a member of the Nixon cabinet from the spring of 1971 until the day that Nixon resigned. We will see Bush on a number of important occasions literally acting as Nixon's speaking tube, especially in international crisis situations. During these years, Nixon was Bush's patron, providing him with appointments and urging him to look forward to bigger things in the future. On certain occasions, however, Bush was upstaged by others in his quest for Nixon's favor. Then there was Kissinger, far and away the most powerful figure in the Washington regime of those days, who became Bush's boss when the latter became the US Ambassador to the United Nations in New York City. Later, on the campaign trail in 1980, Bush would offer to make Kissinger Secretary of State in his administration.

Bush was now listing a net worth of over $1.3 million [fn 1], but the fact is that he was now unemployed, but anxious to assume the next official post, to take the next step of what in the career of a Roman Senator was called the cursus honorum, the patrician career, for this is what he felt the world owed him.

Nixon had promised Bush an attractive and prestigious political plum in the Executive branch, and it was now time for Nixon to deliver. Bush's problem was that in late 1970 Nixon was more interested in what another Texan could contribute to his Administration. That other Texan was John Connally, who had played the role of Bush's nemesis in the elections just concluded by virtue of the encouragement and decisive support which Connally had given to the Bentsen candidacy. Nixon was now fascinated by the prospect of including the right-wing Democrat Connally in his cabinet in order to provide himself with a patina of bi-partisanship, while emphasizing the dissension among the Democrats, strengthening Tricky Dick's chances of successfully executing his Southern Strategy a second time during the 1972 elections.

The word among Nixon's inner circle of this period was "The Boss is in love," and the object of his affections was Big Jawn. Nixon claimed that he was not happy with the stature of his current cabinet, telling his domestic policy advisor John Ehrlichmann in the fall of 1970 that "Every cabinet should have at least one potential President in it. Mine doesn't." Nixon had tried to recruit leading Democrats before, asking Senator Henry Jackson to be Secretary of Defense and offering the post of United Nations Ambassador to Hubert Humphrey.

Within hours after the polls had closed in the Texas senate race, Bush was received a call from Charles Bartlett, a Washington columnist who was part of the Prescott Bush network. Bartlett tipped Bush to the fact that Treasury Secretary David Kennedy was leaving, and urged him to make a grab for the job. Bush called Nixon and put in his request. After that, he waited by the telephone. But it soon became clear that Tricky Dick was about to recruit John Connally and with him, perhaps, the important Texas electoral votes in 1972. Secretary of the Treasury! One of the three or four top posts in the cabinet! And that before Bush had been given anything for all of his useless slogging through the 1970 campaign! But the job was about to go to Connally. Over two decades, one can almost hear Bush's whining complaint.

This move was not totally unprepared. During the fall of 1970, when Connally was campaigning for Bentsen against Bush, Connally had been invited to participate in the Ash Commission, a study group on government re-organization chaired by Roy Ash. "This White House access was dangerously undermining George Bush," complained Texas GOP chairman O'Donnell. A personal friend of Bush on the White House staff named Peter Flanigan, generated a memo to White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman with the notation: "Connally is an implacable enemy to the Republican party in Texas, and, therefore, attractive as he may be to the President, we should avoid using him again." Nixon found Connally an attractive political property, and had soon appointed him to the main Wite House panel for intelligence evaluations: "On November 30, when Connally's appointment to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was announced, the senior senator from Texas, John Tower, and George Bush were instantly in touch with the White House to express their 'extreme' distress over the appointment. [fn 2] Tower was indignant because he had been promised by Ehrlichman some time before that Connally was not going to receive an important post. Bush's personal plight was even more poignant: "He was out of work, and he wanted a job. As a defeated senatorial candidate, he hoped and fully expected to get a major job in the administration. Yet the administration seemed to be paying more attention to the very Democrat who had put him on the job market What gives? Bush was justified in asking." [fn 3]

The appointment of Connally to replace David Kennedy as Secretary of the Treasury was concluded during the first week of December, 1970. But it could not be announced without causing an upheaval among the Texas Republicans until something had been done for lame duck George. On December 7, Nixon retainer H.R. Haldemann was writing memos to himself in the White House. The first was: "Connally set." Then came: "Have to do something for Bush right away." Could Bush become the Director of NASA? How about the Small Business Administration? Or the Republican National Committee? Or then again, he might like to be White House Congressional liaison, or perhaps undersecretary of commerce. As one account puts it, "since no job immediately came to mind, Bush was assured that he would come to the White House as a top presidential adviser on something or other, until another fitting job opened up." Bush was called to the White House on December 9, 1970 to meet with Nixon and talk about a post as Assistant to the President "with a wide range of unspecified general responsibilities," according to a White House memo initialed by H.R. Haldemann. Bush accepted such a post at one point in his haggling with the Nixon White House. But Bush also sought the UN job, arguing that there "was a dirth [sic] of Nixon advocacy in New York City and the general New York area that he could fill that need in the New York social circles he would be moving in as Ambassador. [fn 4] Nixon's UN Ambassador had been Charles Yost, a Democrat who was now leaving. But the White House had already offered that job to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had accepted. But, apparently a few hours after the Bush-Nixon meeting, word came in that Moynihan was not interested.

But then Moynihan decided that he did not want the UN ambassador post after all, and, with a sigh of relief, the White House offered it to Bush. Bush's appointment was announced on December 11, Connally's on December 14." [fn 5] In offering the post to Bush, Haldemann had been brutally frank, telling him that the job, although of cabinet rank, would have no power attached to it. Bush, stressed Haldemann, would be taking orders directly from Kissinger. "I commented that even if somebody who took the job didn't understand that, Henry Kissinger would give him a twenty-four hour crash course on the subject," Bush says he replied. [fn 6]

Nixon told his cabinet and the Republican Congressional leadership on December 14, 1970 what had been in the works for some time, that Connally was "coming not only as a Democrat but as Secretary of the Treasury for the next two full years." [fn 7] Even more humiliating for Bush was the fact that our hero had been on the receiving end of Connally's assistance. As Nixon told the cabinet: "Connally said he wouldn't take it until George Bush got whatever he was entitled to. I don't know why George wanted the UN appointment, but he wanted it so he got it." Only this precondition from Connally, by implication, had finally prompted Nixon to take care of poor George. Nixon turned to Senator Tower, who was in the meeting: "This is hard for you. I am for every Republican running. We need John Tower back in 1972." Tower replied: "I'm a pragmatic man. John Connally is philosophically attuned to you. He is articulate and persuasive. I for one will defend him against those in our own party who may not like him." [fn 8]

There is evidence that Nixon considered Connally to be a possible successor in the presidency. Connally's approach to the international monetary crisis then unfolding was that "all foreigners are out to screw us and it's our job to screw them first," as he told C. Fred Bergsten of Kissinger's NSC staff. Nixon's bumbling management of the international monetary crisis was one of the reasons why he was Watergated, and Big Jawn was certainly seen by the financiers as a big part of the problem. Bush was humiliated in this episode, but that is nothing compared to what later happened to both Connally and Nixon. Connally would be indicted while Bush was in Peking, and later he would face the further humiliation of personal bankruptcy. In the view of James Reston, Jr., "George Bush was to maintain a smoldering, visceral dislike of Connally, one that lasted well into the 1980's." [fn 9] As others discovered during the Gulf war, Bush is vindictive.

Bush appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his pro forma and perfunctory confirmation hearings on February 8, 1971. It was a free ride. Many of the senators had known Prescott Bush, and several were still Prescott's friends. Acting like friends of the family, they gave Bush friendly advice with a tone that was congratulatory and warm, and avoided any tough questions. Stuart Symington warned Bush that he would have to deal with the "duality of authority" between his nominal boss, Secretary of State William Rogers, and his real boss, NSC chief Kissinger. There was only passing reference to Bush's service of the oil cartel during his time in the House, and Bush vehemently denied that he had ever tried to "placate" the "oil interests." Claiborne Pell said that Bush would enhance the luster of the UN post.

On policy matters, Bush said that it would "make sense" for the UN Security Council to conduct a debate on the wars in Laos and Cambodia, which was something that the US had been attempting to procure for some time. Bush thought that such a debate could be used as a forum to expose the aggressive activities of the North Vietnamese. No senator asked Bush about China, but Bush told journalists waiting in the hall that the question of China was now under intensive study. The Washington Post was impressed by Bush's "lithe and youthful good looks." Bush was easily confirmed.

At Bush's swearing in later in February Nixon, probably anxious to calm Bush down after the strains of the Connally affair, had recalled that President William McKinley had lost an election in Ohio, but nevertheless gone on to become President. "But I'm not suggesting what office you should seek and at what time," said Nixon. The day before, Senator Adlai Stevenson III of Illinois had told the press that Bush was "totally unqualified" and that his appointment had been "an insult" to the UN. Bush presented his credentials on March 1.

Then Bush, "handsome and trim" at 47, moved into a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, and settled into his usual hyperkinetic, thyroid-driven life style. The Washington Post marveled at his "whirlwind schedule" which seemed more suitable for a "political aspirant than one usually associated with a diplomat." He rose every morning at 7 AM, and then mounted his exercycle for a twelve minute workout while taking in a television news program that also lasted exactly twelve minutes. He ate a small breakfast and left the Waldorf at 8, to be driven to the US mission to the UN at Turtle Bay where he generally arrived at 8:10. Then he would get the overnight cable traffic from his secretary, Mrs. Aleene Smith, and then went into a conference with his executive assistant, Tom Lais. Later there would be meetings with his two deputies, Ambassadors Christopher Phillips and W. Tapley Bennett of the State Department. Pete Roussel was also still with him as publicity man.

For Bush, a 16-hour work day was more the rule than the exception. His days were packed with one appointment after another, luncheon engagements, receptions, formal dinners-- at least one reception and one dinner per day. Sometimes there were three receptions per day-- quite an opportunity for networking with like-minded freemasons from all over the world. Bush also traveled to Washington for cabinet meetings, and still did speaking engagements around the country, especially for Republican candidates. "I try to get to bed by 11:30 if possible, " said Bush in 1971, "but often my calendar is so filled that I fall behind in my work and have to take it home with me." Bush bragged that he was still a "pretty tough" doubles player in tennis, good enough to team up with the pros. But he claimed to love baseball most. He joked about questions on his ping pong skills, since these were the months of ping pong diplomacy, when the invitation for a US ping pong team to visit Peking became a part of the preparation for Kissinger's China card. Mainly Bush came on as an ultra-orthodox Nixon loyalist. Was he a liberal conservative?, asked a reporter. "People in Texas used to ask me that in the campaigns," replied Bush. "Some even called me a right-wing reactionary. I like to think of myself as a pragmatist, but I have learned to defy being labeled...What I can say is that I am a strong supporter of the President. If you can tell me what he is, I can tell you what I am." Barbara liked the Waldorf suite, and the enthusiastic host and hostess soon laid on a demanding schedule of receptions, dinners, and entertainments.

Soon after taking up his UN posting, Bush received a phone call from Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs Joseph Sisco, one of Kissinger's principal henchmen. Sisco had been angered by some comments Bush had made about the Middle East situation in a press conference after presenting his credentials. Despite the fact that Bush, as a cabinet officer, ranked several levels above Sisco, Sisco was in effect the voice of Kissinger. Sisco told Bush that it was Sisco who spoke for the United States government on the Middle East, and that he would do both the on-the-record talking and the leaking about that area. Bush knunckled under, for these were the realities of the Kissinger years.

Henry Kissinger was now Bush's boss even more than Nixon was, and later, as the Watergate scandal progressed into 1973, the dominion of Kissinger would become even more absolute. During these years Bush, serving his apprenticeship in diplomacy and world strategy under Kissinger, became a virtual Kissinger clone in two senses. First, to a significant degree, Kissinger's networks and connections merged together with Bush's own, foreshadowing a 1989 administration in which the NSC director and the number two man in the State Department were both Kissinger's business partners from his consulting and influence-peddling firm, Kissinger associates. Secondly, Bush assimilated Kissinger's characteristic British-style geopolitical mentality and approach to problems, and this is now the epistemology that dictates Bush's own dealing with the main questions of world politics.

The Kissinger networks in question can be summed up here under four headings. Kissinger was at once British imperialist, Zionist, Soviet, and Red Chinese in his orientation, all wrapped up in a parcel of greed, megalomania, and perversion. [fn 9] Kissinger was one of the few persons in the world who still had anything to teach George Bush in any of these categories.

The most essential level of Kissinger was the British one. This meant that US foreign policy was to be guided by British imperial geoplitics, in particular the notion of the balance of power: the United States must always ally with the second strongest land power in the world (Red China) against the strongest land power (the USSR) in order to preserve the balance of power. This was expressed in the 1971 -72 Nixon-Kissinger opening to Peking, to which Bush would contribute from his UN post. The balance of power, since it rules out a positive engagement for the economic progress of the international community as a whole, has always been a recipe for new wars. Kissinger was in constant contact with British foreign policy operatives like Sir Eric Roll of S.G. Warburg in London, Lord Trend, Lord Victor Rothschild, the Barings bank, and others.

On May 10, 1982, in a speech entitled "Reflections on a Partnership" given at the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in London, Henry Kissinger openly expounded his role and philosophy as a British agent of influence within the US government during the Nixon and Ford years:

"The British were so matter-of-factly helpful that they became a participant in internal American deliberations, to a degree probably never before practiced between sovereign nations. In my period in office, the British played a seminal part in certain American bilateral negotiations with the Soviet Union--indeed, they helped draft the key document. In my White House incarnation then, I kept the British Foreign Office better informed and more closely engaged than I did the American State Department.... In my negotiations over Rhodesia I worked from a British draft with British spelling even when I did not fully grasp the distinction between a working paper and a Cabinet- approved document."

Kissinger was also careful to point out that the United States must support colonial and neo-colonial strategies against the developing sector:

"Americans from Franklin Roosevelt onward believed that the United States, with its `revolutionary' heritage, was the natural ally of people struggling against colonialism; we could win the allegiance of these new nations by opposing and occasionally undermining our European allies in the areas of their colonial dominance. Churchill, of course, resisted these American pressures.... In this context, the experience of Suez is instructive.... Our humiliation of Britain and France over Suez was a shattering blow to these countries' role as world powers. It accelerated their shedding of international responsibilities, some of the consequences of which we saw in succeeding decades when reality forced us to step into their shoes--in the Persian Gulf, to take one notable example. Suez thus added enormously to America's burdens."

Kissinger was the high priest of imperialism and neocolonialism, animated by an instinctive hatred for Indira Gandhi, Aldo Moro, Ali Bhutto, and other nationalist world leaders. Kissinger's British geopolitics simply accentuated Bush's own fanatically Anglophile point of view which he had acquired from father Prescott and imbibed from the atmosphere of the family firm, Brown Brothers Harriman, originally the US branch of a British counting house.

Kissinger was also dedicated to economic, diplomatic, and military support of Israeli aggression and expansionism to keep the Middle East in turmoil so as to prevent Arab unity and Arab economic development while using the region to mount challenges to the Soviets. Kissinger's soul-mates were figures like Gen. Ariel Sharon, the harbinger of endless wars in the Middle East. In this he was a follower of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Balfour. In the 1973 Middle East war which he had connived to unleash, Kissinger would mastermind the US re-supply of Israel and would declare a US-world wide thermonuclear alert. In later years Kissinger would enrich himself through speculative real estate purchases on the West bank of the Jordan, buying up land and buildings that had been virtually confiscated from defenseless Palestinian Arabs.

Kissinger was also pro-Soviet in a sense that went far beyond his sponsorship of the 1970's detente, SALT I, and the ABM treaty with Moscow. Polish KGB agent Michael Goleniewski is widely reported to have told the British government in 1972 that he had seen KGB documents in Poland before his 1959 defection which established that Kissinger was a Soviet asset. According to Goleniewski, Kissinger had been recruited by the Soviets during his Army service in Germany after the end of World War II, when he had worked as a humble chauffeur. Kissinger had allegedly been recruited to an espionage cell called ODRA, where he received the code name of "BOR" or "COLONEL BOR." Some versions of this story also specify that this cell had been largely composed of homosexuals, and that homosexuality had been an important part of the way that Kissinger had been picked up by the KGB. These reports were reportedly partly supported by Golitsyn, another Soviet defector. The late James Jesus Angleton, the CIA counter-intelligence director for twenty years up to 1973 was said to have been the US official who was handed Goleniewski's report by the British. Angleton later talked a lot about Kissinger being "objectively a Soviet agent," but that was a throw-away line by that time. It has not been established that Angleton ever ordered an active investigation of Kissinger or ever assigned his case a codename.

Kissinger's Chinese side was very much in evidence during 1971-73 and beyond; during these years he was obsessed with anything remotely connected with China and sought to monopolize decisions and contacts with the highest levels of the Chinese leadership. This attitude was dictated most of all by the British mentality and geopolitical considerations indicated above, but it is also unquestionable that Kissinger felt a strong personal affinity for Chou En-Lai, Mao tse-tung, and their group of Chinese leaders, who had been responsible for the genocide of 100,000,000 million of their own people after 1949.

Kissinger possessed other dimensions in addition to these, including close links to the Meyer Lansky underworld. These will also loom large in George Bush's career.

For all of these Kissingerian enormities, Bush now became the principal spokesman. In the process, he was to become a Kissinger clone.

The defining events in the first year of Bush's UN tenure reflected Kissinger's geopolitical obsession with his China card. Remember that in his 1964 campaign, Bush had stated that Red China must never be admitted to the UN and that if Peking ever obtained the Chinese seat on the Security Council, the US must depart forthwith from the world body. This statement came back to haunt him once or twice. His stock answer went like this: "that was 1964, a long time ago. There's been an awful lot changed since...A person who is unwilling to admit that changes have taken place is out of things these days. President Nixon is not being naive in his China policy. He is recognizing the realities of today, not the realities of seven years ago." One of the realities of 1971 was that the bankrupt British had declared themselves to be financially unable to maintain their military presence in the Indian Ocean and the Far East, in the area "East of Suez." Part of the timing of the Kissinger China card was dictated by the British desire to acquire China as a counterweight to Russia and India in this vast area of the world, and also to insure a US military presence in the Indian Ocean, as seen later in the US development of an important base on the island of Diego Garcia.

On a world tour during 1969, Nixon had told President Yahya Khan, the dictator of Pakistan, that his administration wanted to normalize relations with Red China and wanted the help of the Pakistani government in exchanging messages. Regular meetings between the US and Peking had gone on for many years in Warsaw, but what Nixon was talking about was a total reversal of US China policy. Up until 1971, the US had recognized the government of the Republic of China on Taiwan as the sole sovereign and legitimate authority over China. The US, unlike Britain, France, and many other western countries, had no diplomatic relations with the Peking Communist regime. The Chinese seat among the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council was held by the government in Taipei. Every year in the early autumn there was an attempt by the non-aligned bloc to oust Taipei from the Security Council and replace them with Peking, but so far this vote had always failed because of US arm-twisting in Latin America and the rest of the third world. One of the reasons that this arrangement had endured so long was the immense prestige of ROC President Chiang Kai-Shek and the sentimental popularity of the Kuomintang in the United States electorate. There still was a very powerful China lobby, which was especially strong among right-wing Republicans of what had been the Taft and Knowland factions of the party, and which Goldwater continued. Now, in the midst of the Vietnam war, with US strategic and economic power in decline, the Anglo-American elite decided in favor of a geopolitical alliance with China against the Soviets for the foreseeable future. This meant that the honor of US commitments to the ROC had to be dumped overboard as so much useless ballast, whatever the domestic political consequences might be. This was the task given to Kissinger, Nixon, and George Bush.

The maneuver on the agenda for 1971 was to oust the ROC from the UN Security and assign their seat there to Peking. Kissinger and Nixon calculated that duplicity would insulate them from domestic political damage: while they were opening to Peking, they would call for a "two Chinas" policy, under which both Peking and Taipei would be represented at the UN, at least in the General Assembly, despite the fact that this was an alternative that both Chinese governments vehemently rejected. The US would pretend to be fighting to keep Taipei in the UN, with George Bush leading the fake charge, but this effort would be defeated. Then the Nixon Administration could claim that the vote in the UN was beyond its control, comfortably resign itself to Peking in the Security Council, and pursue the China card. What was called for was a cynical, duplicitous diplomatic charade in which Bush would have the leading part.

This scenario was complicated by the rivalry between Secretary of State Rogers and NSC boss Kissinger. Rogers was an old friend of Nixon, but it was of course Kissinger who made foreign policy for Nixon and the rest of the government, and Kissinger who was incomparably the greater evil. Between Rogers and Kissinger, Bush was unhesitatingly on the side of Kissinger. In later Congressional testimony Ray Cline, a wheelhorse of the Bush faction of the CIA, has tried to argue that Rogers and Bush were kept in the dark by Nixon and Kissinger about the real nature of the US China policy. The implication is that Bush's efforts to keep Taiwan at the UN were in good faith. According to Cline's fantastic account, "Nixon and Kissinger actually 'undermined' the department's efforts in 1971 to save Taiwan." [fn 10] Rogers may have believed that helping Taiwan was US policy, but Bush did not. Cline's version of these events is an insult to the intelligence of any serious person.

The Nixon era China card took shape during July, 1971 with Kissinger's "Operation Marco Polo I," his secret first trip to Peking. Kissinger says in his memoirs that Bush was considered a candidate to make this journey, along with David Bruce, Elloit Richardson, Nelson Rockefeller, and Al Haig. [fn 11] Kissinger first journeyed to India, and then to Pakistan. From there, with the help of Yahya Khan, Kissinger went on to Beijing for meetings with Chou En-Lai and other Chinese officials. He returned by way of Paris, where he met with North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho at the Paris talks on Indo-China. Returning to Washington, Kissinger briefed Nixon on his understanding with Chou. On July 15, 1971 Nixon announced to a huge television and radio audience that he had accepted "with pleasure" an invitation to visit China at some occasion before May of 1972. He lamely assured "old friends" (meaning Chiang Kai-Shek and the ROC government on Taiwan) that their interests would not be sacrificed. Later in he same year, between October 16th and 26th, Kissinger undertook operation "Polo II," a second, public visit with Chou in Peking to decide the details of Nixon's visit and hammer out what was to become the US-PRC Shanghai Communiqué, the joint statement issued during Nixon's stay. During this visit Chou cautioned Kissinger not to be disoriented by the hostile Peking propaganda line against the US, manifestations of which were everywhere to be seen. Anti-US slogans on the walls, said Chou, were meaningless, like "firing an empty cannon." Nixon and Kissinger eventually journeyed to Peking in February, 1972.

It was before this backdrop that Bush waged his farcical campaign to keep Taiwan in the UN. The State Department had stated through the mouth of Rogers on August 2 that the US would support the admission of Red China to the UN, but would oppose the expulsion of Taiwan. This was the so-called "two Chinas" policy. In an August 12 interview, Bush told the Washington Post that he was working hard to line up the votes to keep Taiwan as a UN member when the time to vote came in the fall. Responding to the obvious impression that this was a fraud for domestic political purposes only, Bush pledged his honor on Nixon's commitment to "two Chinas." "I know for a fact that the President wants to see the policy implemented," said Bush, apparently with a straight face, adding that he had discussed the matter with Nixon and Kissinger at the White House only a few days before. Bush said that he and other members of his mission had lobbied 66 countries so far, and that this figure was likely to rise to 80 by the following week. Ultimately Bush would claim to have talked personally with 94 delegations to get them to let Taiwan stay, which a fellow diplomat called "a quantitative track record."

Diplomatic observers noted that the US activity was entirely confined to the high-profile "glass palace" of the UN, and that virtually nothing was being done by US ambassadors in capitals around the world. But Bush countered that if it were just a question of going through the motions as a gesture for Taiwan, he would not be devoting so much of his time and energy to the cause. The main effort was at the UN because "this is what the UN is for," he commented. Bush said that his optimism about keeping the Taiwan membership had increased over the past three weeks. [fn 12]

By late September, Bush was saying that he saw a better than 50-50 chance that the UN General Assembly would seat both Chinese governments. By this time, the official US position as enunciated by Bush was that the Security Council seat should go to Peking, but that Taipei ought to be allowed to remain in the General Assembly. Since 1961, the US strategy for blocking the admission of Peking had depended on a procedural defense, obtaining a simple majority of the General Assembly for a resolution defining the seating of Peking as an Important Question, which required a two-thirds majority in order to be implemented. Thus, if the US could get a simple majority on the procedural vote, one third plus one would suffice to defeat Peking on the second vote.

The General Assembly convened on September 21. Bush and his aides were running a ludicrous all-court press on scores of delegations. Twice a day there was a State Department briefing on the vote tally. "Yes, Burundi is with us...About Argentina we're not sure," etc.) All this attention got Bush an appearance on "Face the Nation", where he said that the two-China policy should be approved regardless of the fact that both Peking and Taipei rejected it. "I don't think we have to go through the agony of whether the Republic of China will accept or whether Peking will accept," Bush told the interviewers. "Let the United Nations for a change do something that really does face up to reality and then let that decision be made by the parties involved," said Bush with his usual inimitable rhetorical flair.

The UN debate on the China seat was scheduled to open on October 18; on October 12 Nixon gave a press conference in which he totally ignored the subject, and made no appeal for support for Taiwan. On October 16, Kissinger departed with great fanfare for China. Kissinger says in his memoirs that he had been encouraged to go to China by Bush, who assured him that a highly publicized Kissinger trip to Peking would have no impact whatever on the UN vote. On October 25, the General Assembly defeated the US resolution to make the China seat an Important Question by a vote of 59 to 54, with 15 abstentions. Ninety minutes later came the vote on the Albanian resolution to seat Peking and expel Taipei, which passed by a vote of 76 to 35. Bush then cast the US vote to seat Peking, and then hurried to escort the ROC delegate, Liu Chieh, out of the hall for the last time. The General Assembly was the scene of a jubilant demonstration led by third world delegates over the fact that Red China had been admitted, and even more so that the US had been defeated. The Tanzanian delegate danced a jig in the aisle. Henry Kissinger, flying back from Peking, got the news on his teletype and praised Bush's "valiant efforts."

Having connived in selling Taiwan down the river, it was now an easy matter for the Nixon regime to fake a great deal of indignation for domestic political consumption about what had happened. Nixon's spokesman Ron Ziegler declared that Nixon had been outraged by the "spectacle" of the "cheering, handclapping, and dancing" delegates after the vote, which Nixon had seen as a "shocking demonstration" of undisguised glee" and "personal animosity." Notice that Ziegler had nothing to say against the vote, or against Peking, but concentrated the fire on the third world delegates, who were also threatened with a cutoff of US foreign aid.

This was the line that Bush would slavishly follow. On the last day of October the papers quoted him saying that the demonstration after the vote was "something ugly, something harsh that transcended normal disappointment or elation." "I really thought we were going to win," said Bush, still with a straight face. "I'm so...disappointed." "There wasn't just clapping and enthusiasm "after the vote, he whined. "When I went up to speak I was hissed and booed. I don't think it's good for the United Nations and that's the point I feel very strongly about." In the view of a Washington Post staff writer, "the boyish looking US ambassador to the United Nations looked considerably the worse for wear. But he still conveys the impression of an earnest fellow trying to be the class valedictorian, as he once was described." [ fn 13] Bush expected the Peking delegation to arrive in new York soon, because they probably wanted to take over the presidency of the Security Council, which rotated on a monthly basis. "But why anybody would want an early case of chicken pox, I don't know," said Bush.

When the Peking delegation did arrive, Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Ch'aio Kuan-hua delivered a maiden speech full of ideological bombast along the lines of passages Kissinger had convinced Chou to cut out of the draft text of the Shanghai communiqué some days before. Kissinger then telephoned Bush to say in his own speech that the US regretted that the Chinese had elected to inaugurate their participation in the UN by "firing these empty cannons of rhetoric." Bush, like a ventriloquist's dummy, obediently mouthed Kissinger's one-liner as a kind of coded message to Peking that all the public bluster meant nothing between the two secret and increasingly public allies.

The farce of Bush's pantomime in support of the Kissinger China card very nearly turned into the tragedy of general war later in 1971. This involved the December, 1971 war between India and Pakistan which led to the creation of an independent state of Bangladesh, and which must be counted as one of the least-known thermonuclear confrontations of the US and the USSR. For Kissinger and Bush, what was at stake in this crisis was the consolidation of the China card.

In 1970, Yahya Khan, the British-connected, Sandhurst-educated dictator of Pakistan, was forced to announce that elections would be held in the entire country. It will be recalled that Pakistan was at that time two separate regions, east and west, with India in between. In East Pakistan or Bengal, the Awami League of Sheik Mujibur Rahman campaigned on a platform of autonomy for Bengal, accusing the central government in far-off Islamabad of ineptitude and exploitation. The resentment in East Pakistan was made more acute by the fact that Bengal had just been hit by a typhoon, which had caused extensive flooding and devastation, and by the failure of the government in west Pakistan to organize and effective relief effort. In the elections, the Awami league won 167 out of 169 seats in the east. Yahya Khan delayed the seating of the new national assembly and on the evening of March 25 ordered the Pakistani army to arrest Mujibur and to wipe out his organization in East Pakistan. The army proceeded to launch a campaign of political genocide in East Pakistan. Estimates of the number of victims range from 500,000 to three million dead. All members of the Awami League, all Hindus, all students and intellectuals were in danger of execution by roving army patrols. A senior US Foreign Service officer sent home a depatch in which he told of West Pakistani soldiers setting fire to a women's dormitory at the University of Dacca and then machine-gunning the women when they were forced by the flames to run out. This campaign of killing went on until December, and it generated an estimated 10 million refugees, most of whom fled across the nearby borders to India, which had territory all around East Pakistan. The arrival of ten million refugees caused indescribable chaos in India, whose government was unable to prevent untold numbers from starving to death. [fn 14]

From the very beginning of this monumental genocide, Kissinger and Nixon made it clear that they would not condemn Yahya Khan, whom Nixon considered a personal friend. Kissinger referred merely to the "strong -arm tactics of the Pakistani military," and Nixon circulated a memo in his own handwriting saying "To all hands. Don't squeeze Yahya at this time. RN" Nixon stressed repeatedly that he wanted to "tilt" in favor of Pakistan in the crisis.

One level of explanation for this active complicity in genocide was that Kissinger and Nixon regarded Yahya Khan as their indispensable back channel to Peking. But Kissinger could soon go to Peking anytime he wanted, and soon he could talk to the Chinese UN delegate in one of the CIA's New York safe houses. The essence of the support for the butcher Yahya Khan was this: in 1962 India and China had engaged in a brief border war, and the Peking leaders regarded India as their geopolitical enemy. In order to ingratiate himself with Chou and Mao, Kissinger wanted to take a position in favor of Pakistan, and therefore of Pakistan's ally China, and against India and against India's ally, the USSR. (Shortly after Kissinger's trip to China had taken place and Nixon had announced his intention to go to Peking, India and the USSR had signed a twenty year friendship treaty.

In Kissinger's view, the Indo-Pakistani conflict over Bengal was sure to become a Sino-Soviet clash by proxy, and he wanted the United States aligned with China in order to impress Peking with the vast benefits to be derived from the US-PRC strategic alliance under the heading of the "China card."

Kissinger and Nixon were isolated within the Washington bureaucracy on this issue. Secretary of State Rogers was very reluctant to go on supporting Pakistan, and this was the prevalent view in Foggy Bottom and in the embassies around the world. Tricky Dick and Fat Henry were isolated from the vast majority of Congressional opinion, which expressed horror and outrage over the extent of the carnage being carried out week after week, month after month, by Yahya Khan's armed forces. Even the media and US public opinion could not find any reason for the friendly "tilt" in favor of Yahya Khan. On July 31, Kissinger exploded at a meeting of the Senior Review Group when a proposal was made that the Pakistani army could be removed from Bengal. "Why is it our business how they govern themselves," Kissinger raged. "The President always says to tilt to Pakistan, but every proposal I get [from inside the US government] is in the opposite direction. Sometimes I think I am in a nut house." This went on for months. On December 3, at a meeting of Kissinger's Washington Special Action Group, Kissinger exploded again, exclaiming "I've been catching unshirted hell every half-hour from the president who says we're not tough enough. He really doesn't believe we're carrying out his wishes. He wants to tilt towards Pakistan and he believes that every briefing or statement is going the other way." [fn 15]

But no matter what Rogers, the State Department and the rest of the Washington bureaucracy might do, Kissinger knew that George Bush at the UN would play along with the pro-Pakistan tilt. "And I knew that George Bush, our able UN ambassador, would carry out the President's policy," wrote Kissinger in his memoirs in describing his decision to drop US opposition to a Security Council debate on the subcontinent. This made Bush one of the most degraded and servile US officials of the era.

Indira Gandhi had come to Washington in November to attempt a peaceful settlement to the crisis, but was crudely snubbed by Nixon and Kissinger. The chronology of the acute final phase of the crisis can be summed up as follows:

December 3-- Yahya Khan ordered the Pakistani Air Force to carry out a series of surprise air raids on Indian air bases in the north and west of India. These raids were not effective in destroying the Indian air force on the ground, which had been Yahya Khan's intent, but Yahya Khan's aggression did precipitate the feared Indo-Pakistani war. The Indian Army made rapid advances against the Pakistani forces in Bengal, while the Indian navy blockaded Pakistan's ports. At this time, the biggest-ever buildup in the Soviet naval forces in the Indian Ocean also began.

Dec. 4-- At the UN Security Council, George Bush delivered a speech in which his main thrust was to accuse India of repeated incursions into East Pakistan, and challenging the legitimacy of India's resort to arms, in spite of the plain evidence that Pakistan had struck first. Bush introduced a draft resolution which called on India and Pakistan immediately to cease all hostilities. Bush's resolution also mandated the immediate withdrawal of all Indian and Pakistani armed forces back to their own territory, meaning in effect that India should pull back from East Pakistan and let Yahya Khan's forces there get back to their mission of genocide against the local population. Observers were to be placed along the Indo-Pakistani borders by the UN Secretary General. Bush's resolution also contained a grotesque call on India and Pakistan to "exert their best efforts towards the creation of a climate conducive to the voluntary return of refugees to East Pakistan." This resolution was out of touch with the two realities: that Yahya Khan had started the genocide in East Pakistan back in March, and that Yahya had now launched aggression against India with his air raids. Bush's resolution was vetoed by the Soviet representative, Yakov Malik.

December 6- The Indian Government extended diplomatic recognition to the independent state of Bengladesh. Indian troops made continued progress against the Pakistani army in Bengal.

On the same day, an NBC camera team filmed much of Nixon's day inside the White House. Part of what was recorded, and later broadcast, was a telephone call from Nixon to George Bush at the United Nations, giving Bush his instructions on how to handle the India-Pakistan crisis. "Some, all over the world, will try to make this basically a political issue," said Nixon to Bush. "You've got to do what you can. More important than anything else now is to get the facts out with regard to what we have done, that we have worked for a political settlement, what we have done for the refugees and so forth and so on. If you see that some here in the Senate and House, for whatever reason, get out and misrepresent our opinions, I want you to hit it frontally, strongly, and toughly; is that clear? Just take the gloves off and crack it, because you know exactly what we have done, OK?" [fn 16]

December 7- George Bush at the UN made a further step forward towards global confrontation by branding India as the aggressor in the crisis, as Kissinger approvingly notes in his memoirs. Bush's draft resolution described above, which had been vetoed by Malik the in Security Council, was approved by the General assembly by a non-binding vote of 104 to 11, which Kissinger considered a triumph for Bush. But on the same day Yahya Khan informed the government in Washington that his military forces in east Pakistan were rapidly disintegrating. Kissinger and Nixon seized on a dubious report from an alleged CIA agent at a high level in the Indian Government which purported to summarize recent remarks of Indira Gandhi to her cabinet. According to this report, which may have come from the later Prime Minister Moraji Desai, Mrs. Gandhi had pledged to conquer the southern part of Pakistani-held Kashmir. If the Chinese "rattled the sword," the report quoted Mrs. Gandhi as saying, the Soviets would respond. This unreliable report became one of the pillars for further actions by Nixon, Kissinger, and Bush.

December 8- By this time the Soviet navy had some 21 ships either in or approaching the Indian Ocean, in contrast to a pre-crisis level of 3 ships. At this point, with the Vietnam war raging unabated, the US had a total of three ships in the Indian Ocean- two old destroyers and a seaplane tender. The last squadron of the British navy was departing from the region in the framework of the British pullout from east of Suez.

In the evening, Nixon suggested to Kissinger that the scheduled Moscow summit might be cancelled. Kissinger raved that India wanted to detach not just Bengal, but Kashmir also, leading to the further secession of Baluchistan and the total dismemberment of Pakistan. "Fundamentally," wrote Kissinger of this moment, "our only card left was to raise the risks for the Soviets to a level where Moscow would see larger interests jeopardized" by its support of India, which had been lukewarm so far.

December 9-- The State Department and other agencies were showing signs of being almost human, seeking to undermine the Nixon-Kissinger- Bush policy through damaging leaks and bureaucratic obstructionism. Nixon, "beside himself" over the damaging leaks, called in the principal officers of the Washington Special Action Group and told them that while he did not insist on their being loyal to the President, they ought at least to be loyal to the United States. Among those Nixon insulted was Undersecretary of State U. Alexis Johnson. But the leaks only increased.

December 10--Kissinger ordered the US navy to create Task Force 74, consisting of the nuclear aircraft carrier Enterprise with escort and supply ships, and to have these ships proceed from their post at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam to Singapore. [fn 17]

In Dacca, East Pakistan, Major General Rao Farman Ali Khan, the commander of Pakistani forces in Bengal asked the United Nations representative to help arrange a cease-fire, followed by the transfer in of power in East Pakistan to the elected representatives of the Awami League and the "repatriation with honor" of his forces back to West Pakistan. At first it appeared that this de facto surrender had been approved by Yahya Khan. But when Yahya Khan heard that the US fleet had been ordered into the Indian Ocean, he was so encouraged that he junked the idea of a surrender and ordered Gen. Ali Khan to resume fighting, which he did.

Colonel Melvin Holst, the US military attache in Katmandu, Nepal, a small country sandwiched between India and China in the Himalayas, received a call from the Indian military attache, who asked whether the American had any knowledge of a Chinese military buildup in Tibet. "The Indian high command had some sort of information that military action was increasing in Tibet," said Holst in his cable to Washington. The same evening from the Soviet military attaché, Loginov, who also asked about Chinese military activity. Loginov said that he had spoken over the last day or two with the Chinese military attaché, Chao Kuang-chih "advising Chao that the PRC should not get too serious about intervention because USSR would react, had many missiles, etc." [fn 18] At the moment the Himalaya mountain passes, the corridor for any Chinese troop movement, were all open and free from snow. The CIA had noted "war preparations" in Tibet over the months since the Bengal crisis had begun. Nikolai Pegov, the Soviet Ambassador to New Dehli, had assured the Indian government that in the eventuality of a Chinese attack on India, the Soviets would mount a "diversionary action in Sinkiang."

December 11- Kissinger had been in town the previous day, meeting the Chinese UN delegate. Today Kissinger would meet with the Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister, Ali Bhutto, in Bush's suit at the Waldorf- Astoria. Huang Hua, the Chinese delegate, made remarks which Kissinger chose to interpret as meaning that the "Chinese might intervene militarily even at this late stage."

December 12- Nixon, Kissinger, and Haig met in the Oval Office early Sunday morning in a council of war. Kissinger later described this as a crucial meeting, where, as it turned out, "the first decision to risk war in the triangular Soviet-Chinese-American" relation was taken. [fn 19]

During Nixon's 1975 secret grand jury testimony to the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, the former President insisted that the United States had come "close to nuclear war" during the Indo- Pakistani conflict. According to one attorney who heard Nixon's testimony in 1975, Nixon had stated that "we had threatened to go to nuclear war with the Russians." [fn 20] These remarks most probably refer to this December 12 meeting, and the actions it set into motion.

Navy Task Force 74 was ordered to proceed through the Straits of Malacca and into the Indian Ocean, and it attracted the attention of the world media in so doing the following day. Task Force 74 was now on wartime alert.

At 11:30 AM local time, Kissinger and Haid sent the Kremlin a message over the Hot Line. This was the first use of the Hot Line during the Nixon administration, and apparently the only time it was used during the Nixon years with the exception of the October 1973 Middle East War. According to Kissinger, this Hot Line message contained the ultimatum that the Soviets respond to earlier American demands; otherwise Nixon would order Bush to "set in train certain moves " in the UN Security Council that would be irreversible. But is this all the message said? Kissinger comments in his memoirs a few pages later: "Our fleet passed through the Strait of Malacca into the Bay of Bengal and attracted much media attention. Were we threatening India? Were we seeking to defend East Pakistan? Had we lost our minds? It was in fact sober calculation. We had some seventy-two hours to bring the war to a conclusion before West Pakistan would be swept into the maelstrom. It would take India that long to shift its forces and mount an assault. Once Pakistan's air force and army were destroyed, its impotence would guarantee the country's eventual disintegration... We had to give the Soviets a warning that matters might get out of control on our side too. We had to be ready to back up the Chinese if at the last moment they came in after all, our UN initiative having failed. [...] However unlikely an American military move against India, the other side could not be sure; it might not be willing to accept even the minor risk that we might act irrationally." [fn 21]

These comments by Kissinger lead to the conclusion that the Hot Line message of December 12 was part of a calculated exercise in thermonuclear blackmail and brinksmanship. Kissinger's reference to acting irrationally recalls the infamous RAND Corporation theories of thermonuclear confrontations as chicken games in which it is useful to hint to the opposition that one is insane. If your adversary thinks you are crazy, then he is more likely to back down, the argument goes. Whatever threats were made by Kissinger and Haig that day in their Hot Line message are likely to have been of that variety. All evidence points to the conclusion that on December 12, 1971, the world was indeed close to the brink of thermonuclear confrontation.

And where was George? He was acting as the willing mouthpiece for madmen. Late in the evening December 12, Bush delivered the following remarks to the Security Council, which are recorded in Kissinger's memoirs:

"The question now arises as to India's further intentions. For example, does India intend to use the present situation to destroy the Pakistan army in the West? Does India intend to use as a pretext the Pakistani counterattacks in the West to annex territory in West Pakistan? Is its aim to take parts of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir contrary to the Security Council resolutions of 1948, 1949, and 1950? If this is not India's intention, then a prompt disavowal is required. The world has a right to know: What are India's intentions? Pakistan's aims have become clear: It has accepted the General Assembly's resolution passed by a vote of 104 to 11. My government has asked this question of the Indian Government several times in the last week. I regret to inform the Council that India's replies have been unsatisfactory and not reassuring."

"In view of India's defiance of world opinion expressed by such an overwhelming majority, the United States is now returning the issue to the Security Council. With East Pakistan virtually occupied by Indian troops, a continuation of the war would take on increasingly the character of armed attack on the very existence of a Member State of the United Nations." [fn 22]

Bush introduced another draft resolution of pro-Pakistan tilt which called on the governments of India and Pakistan to take measures for an immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of troops, and for measures to help the refugees. This resolution was also vetoed by the USSR.

December 14-- Kissinger shocked US public opinion by stating off the record to journalists in a plane returning from a meeting with French President Georges Pompidou in the Azores that if Soviet conduct continued in the present mode, the US was "prepared to reevaluate our entire relationship, including the summit."

December 15--The Pakistani commander in East Pakistan, after five additional days of pointless killing, again offered a cease-fire. Kissinger claimed that the five intervening days had allowed the US to increase the pressure on India and prevent the Indian forces from turning on West Pakistan.

December 16- Mrs, Gandhi offered an unconditional cease-fire in the west, which Pakistan immedaitely accepted. Kissinger opined that this decision to end all fighting had been "reluctant" on the part of India, and had been made possible through Soviet pressure generated by US threats. Chou En-lai also said later that the US had saved West Pakistan. Kissinger praised Nixon's "courage and patriotism" and his committment to "preserve the balance of power for the ultimate safety of all free people." Apprentice geopolitician George Bush had carried out yeoman service in that immoral cause.

After a self-serving and false description of the Indo-Pakistani crisis of 1971, Kissinger pontificates in his memoirs about the necessary priority of geopolitical machinations: "There is in America an idealistic tradition that sees foreign policy as a context between evil and good. There is a pragmatic tradition that seeks to solve 'problems' as they arise. There is a legalistic tradition that treats international issues as juridical cases. There is no geopolitical tradition." In their stubborn pursuit of an alliance with the second strongest land power at the expense of all other considerations, Kissinger, Nixon, and Bush were following the dictates of classic geopolitics. This is the school in which Bush was trained, and this is how he has reacted to every international crisis down through the Gulf war, which was originally conceived in London as a "geopolitical" adjustment in favor of the Anglo-Saxons against Germany, Japan, the Arabs, the developing sector, and the rest of the world.

1972 was the second year of Bush's UN tenure, and it was during this time that he distinguished himself as a shameless apologist for the genocidal and vindictive Kissinger policy of prolonging and escalating the war in Vietnam. During most of his first term, Nixon pursued a policy he called the "Vietnamization" of the war. This meant that US land forces were progressively withdrawn while the South Vietnamese Army was ostensibly built up so that it could bear the battle against the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese regulars. This policy went into crisis in March, 1972 when the North Vietnamese launched a twelve- division assault across the Demilitarized Zone against the south. On May 8, 1972, Nixon announced that the full-scale bombing of the north, which had been suspended since the spring of 1968, would be resumed with a vengeance: Nixon ordered the bombing of Hanoi and the mining of Haiphong harbor, and the savaging of transportation lines and military installations all over the country. This mining had always been rejected as a tactic during the previous conduct of the war because of the possibility that bombing and mining the harbors might hit Soviet, Chinese, and other foreign ships, killing the crews and creating the risk of retaliation by these countries against the US. Now, before the 1972 elections, Kissinger and Nixon were determined to "go ape," discarding their previous limits on offensive action and risking whatever China and the USSR might do. It was another gesture of reckless confrontation, fraught with incalculable consequences. Later in the same year, in December, Nixon would respond to a breakdown in the Paris talks with the Hanoi government by ordering the infamous Christmastide B-52 attacks on the north.

It was George Bush who officially informed the international diplomatic community of Nixon's March decisions. Bush addressed a letter to the Presidency of the UN Security Council in which he outlined what Nixon had set into motion:

"The President directed that the entrances to the ports of North Vietnam be mined and that the delivery of seaborne supplies to North Vietnam be prevented. These measures of collective self-defense are hereby being reported to the United Nations Security Council as required by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter."

Bush went on to characterize the North Vietnamese actions. He spoke of "the massive invasion across the demilitarized zone and international boundaries by the forces of North Vietnam and the continuing aggression" of Hanoi. He accused the north of "blatant violation of the understandings negotiated in 1968 in connection with the cessation of the bombing of the territory of North Vietnam." "The extent of this renewed aggression and the manner in which it has been directed and supported demonstrate with great clarity that North Vietnam has embarked on an all-out attempt to take over South Vietnam by military force and to disrupt the orderly withdrawal of United States forces." Bush further accused the north of refusing to negotiate in good faith to end the war.

The guts of Bush's message, the part that was read with greatest attention in Moscow, Peking, and elsewhere, was contained in the following summary of the way in which Haiphong and the other harbors had been mined:

"Accordingly, as the minimum actions necessary to meet this threat, the Republic of Vietnam and the United States of America have jointly decided to take the following measures of collective self-defense: The entrances to the ports of North Vietnam are being mined, commencing 0900 Saigon time May 9, and the mines are set to activate automatically beginning 1900 hours Saigon time May 11. This will permit vessels of other countries presently in North Vietnamese ports three daylight periods to depart safely." In a long circumlocution, Bush also conveyed that all shipping might also be the target of indiscriminate bombing. Bush called these measures "restricted in extent and purpose." The US was willing to sign a cease-fire ending all acts of war in Indochina (thus including Cambodia, which had been invaded in 1970, and Laos, which had been invaded in 1971) within four months, as well as the Vietnams) and bring all US troops home within four months.

There was no bipartisan support for the bombing and mining policy Bush announced. Senator Mike Mansfield pointed out that the decision would only protract the war. Senator Proxmire called it "reckless and wrong." Four Soviet ships were damaged by these US actions. There was a lively debate within the Soviet Politburo on how to respond to this, with a faction around Shelest demanding that Nixon's invitation to the upcoming Moscow superpower summit be rescinded. But Shelest was ousted by Brezhnev, and the summit went forward at the end of May. The "China card" theoreticians congratulated themselves that the Soviets had been paralyzed by fear what Peking might do if Moscow became embroiled with Peking's new de facto ally, the US.

In July, 1972, reports emerged in the international press of charges by Hanoi that the US had been deliberately bombing the dams and dikes, which were the irrigation and flood control system around Vietnam's Red River. Once again it was Bush who came forward as the apologist for Nixon's "mad bomber" foreign policy. Bush appeared on the NBC Television "Today" show to assure the US public that the US bombing had created only "the most incidental and minor impact" on North Viet Nam's dike system. This, of course, amounted to a backhanded conformation that such bombing had been done, and damage wrought in the process. Bush was in his typical whining mode in defending the US policy against worldwide criticism of war measures that seemed designed to inflict widespread flooding and death on North Vietnamese civilians. According to North Vietnamese statistics, more than half of the north's 20 million people lived in areas near the Red River that would be flooded if the dike system were breached. An article which appeared in a Hanoi publication had stated that at flood crest many rivers rise to "six or seven meters above the surrounding fields" and that because of this situation "any dike break, especially in the Red River delta, is a disaster with incalculable consequences."

Bush had never seen an opportunity for genocide he did not like. "I believe we are being set up by a massive propaganda campaign by the North Vietnamese in the event that there is the same kind of flooding this year--to attribute it to bombs whereas last year it happened just out of lack of maintenance," Bush argued. "There's been a study made that I hope will be released shortly that will clarify this whole question," he went on. The study "would be very helpful because I think it will show what the North Vietnamese are up to in where they place strategic targets." What Bush was driving at here was an allegation that Hanoi customarily placed strategic assets near the dikes in order to be able to accuse the US of genocide if air attacks breached the dikes and caused flooding. Bush's military spokesmen used similar arguments diring the Gulf war, when Iraq was accused of placing military equipment in the midst of civilian residential areas.

"I think you would have to recognize," retorted Bush, "that if there was any intention" of breaching the dikes, "it would be very, very simple to do exactly what we are accused of-- and that is what we are not doing." [fn 23]

The bombing of the north continued, and reached a final paroxysm at Christmas, when B-52s made unrestricted terror bombing raids against Hanoi and other cities. The Christmas bombing was widely condemned, even by the US press: "New Madness in Vietnam" was the headline of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch On Dec. 19; "Terror from the Skies" that of the New York Times Dec. 22; "Terror Bombing in the Name of Peace" of the Washington Post Dec. 28; and "Beyond All Reason" of the Los Angeles Times of Dec. 28.

Bush' activity at the UN also coincided with Kissinger's preparation of the October, 1973 Middle East war. During the 1980's, Bush attempted to cultivate a public image as a US politician who, although oriented towards close relations with Israel, would not slavishly appease every demand of the Israelis and the Zionist lobby in the United States, but would take an independent position designed to foster US national interests. From time to time, Bush snubbed the Israelis by hinting that they held hostages of their own, and that the Israeli annexation of Jerusalem would not be accepted by the United States. For some, these delusions have survived even a refutation so categoric as the events of the Kuwait crisis of 1990-91. Bush, whose differences with an Israeli leader like Shamir are less significant than the differences between Shamir and other Israeli politicians. Bush's pedigree is the reflex of a neo-conservative network and a fanatically pro-Israeli ideological-political track record which was already massive during the UN years.

In September 1972 Palestinian terrorists describing themselves as the "Black September" organization attacked the quarters of the Israeli Olympic team present in Munich for the Olympic games of that year, killing a number of the Israeli athletes. The Israeli government seized on these events as carte blanche to launch a series of air attacks against Syria and Lebanon, arguing that these countries could be held responsible for what had happened in Munich. Somalia, Greece, and Guinea came forward with a resolution in the Security Council which simply called for the immediate cessation of "all military operations". The Arab states argued that the Israeli air attacks were totally without provocation or justification, and killed numerous civilians who had nothing whatever to do with the terrorist actions in Munich.

The Nixon regime, with one eye on the autumn 1972 elections and the need to mobilize the Zionist lobby in support of Tricky Dick's second term, wanted to find a way to oppose this resolution, since it did not sufficiently acknowledge the unique righteousness of the Israeli cause and Israel's inherent right to commit acts of war against its neighbors. It was Bush who authored a competing resolution which called on all interested parties "to take all measures for the immediate cessation and prevention of all military operations and terrorist activities." It was Bush who dished up the rationalizations for US rejection of the first resolution. That resolution was no good because it did not reflect the fact that "the fabric of violence in the Middle East in inextricably interwoven with the massacre in Munich," Bush argued. 'By our silence on the terror in Munich are we indeed inviting more Munich's?," he asked. Justifying the Israeli air raids on Syria and Lebanon, Bush maintained that certain governments "cannot be absolved of responsibility for the cycle of violence" because of their words and deeds, or because of their tacit acquiescence. Slightly later, after the vote had taken place, Bush argued that "by adopting this resolution, the council would have ignored reality, would have spoken to one form of violence but not another, would have looked to the effect but not the cause."

When the resolution was put to a vote, Bush made front-page headlines around the world by casting the US veto, a veto that had been cast only once before in the entire history of the UN. The vote was 13 to 1, with the US casting the sole negative vote. Panama was the lone abstention. The only other time the US veto had been used had been in 1970, on a resolution involving Rhodesia.

The Israeli UN ambassador Yosef Tekoah did not attend the debate because of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah. But Israel's cause was well defended--by Bush. According to an Israeli journalist observing the proceedings who was quoted by the Washington Post, "Bush sounds more pro-Israeli than Tekoah would have." [fn 24]

Later in 1972, attempts were made by non-aligned states and the UN Secretariat to arrange the indispensable basis for a Middle East peace settlement-- the withdrawal of Israel from the territories occupied during the 1967 war. Once again, Bush was more Zionist than the Israelis.

In February of 1972, the UN's Middle East mediator, Gunnar Jarring of Norway, had asked that the Security Council reaffirm the original contents of resolution 242 of 1967 by reiterating that Israel should surrender Arab territory seized in 1967. "Land for peace" was anathema to the Israeli government then as now. Bush undertook to blunt this non-aligned peace bid.

Late in 1972 the non-aligned group proposed a resolution in the General Assembly which called for "immediate and unconditional" Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories while inviting other countries to withhold assistance that would help Israel to sustain its occupation of the Arab land. Bush quickly rose to assail this text.

In a speech to the General Assembly in December 1972, Bush warned the assembly that the original text of resolution 242 was "the essential agreed basis for UN peace efforts and this body and all its members should be mindful of the need to preserve the negotiating asset that it represents." "The assembly," Bush went on, "cannot seek to impose courses of action on the countries directly concerned, either by making new demands or favoring the proposals or positions of one side over the other." Never, never would George Bush ever take sides or accept a double standard of this type. Bush did claim that the US continued to support 242 and the Jarring mission. But Bush was suggesting that Israel and Egypt begin talks under US mediation for an interim, bilateral deal to re-open the Suez canal. Here we can observe the policy thrust which culminated in Camp David not so many years later, after the 1973 war had been fought..

An interesting document of this period is the text of secret conversations between Bush and the Egyptian Foreign Minister and the between Bush and the Israeli Foreign Minister. These conversations were part of secret State Department cables that were leaked to the columnist Jack Anderson, who published their contents.

The first conversation is between Bush and Mahmoud Riad, the Foreign Minister of Egypt. "Ambassador Bush...sought out Formin Riad in UN Indonesian Lounge to discuss Egyptian draft res re Middle East... Noting that Egyptian draft res appeared from initial reading to be generally satisfactory,, Bush stated that major stumbling block for USG [ie, the Nixon regime] was placing of language re Jarring mission in operative paragraph section...Bush asked if Riad willing to consider removal of this language from operative section to preamble."

What Bush was clearly trying to do was to weaken the references to Jarring, who was identified with the idea that the Israelis must quit the occupied territories in order to make peace possible. The cable continues:

"Riad replied in negative but not before he stressed that for Egyptians inclusion of this language in operative section not repeat not merely semantic exercise, on contrary, Egypt convinced that Israel trying to get out of giving favorable reply to Jarring and that only way to force Israel is by means of explicit UN resolution."

Bush responded to this by making several proposal for minor changes, but then submitted these to Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban. A cable marked "Eyes Only-Specat Exclusive" describes the Bush-Eban conversation: "Bush...had meeting the Formin Abba Eban this afternoon...Eban said Israel could not repeat not accept USG proposal...He noted ...that Jarring has not been too helpful and characterized him as 'negativistic individual.' On the other hand he opined that if Jarring would would make move toward Israel 'We'll see what we can do to help him.'" At another meeting between Eban and Bush, Eban "observed...that on political grounds Israel not have any reference [sic] to Jarring but appreciated that parliamentary reasons may dictate need for some thing. Both Eban and Tekoah summed up that from Israel point of view, best course would be to limit resolution language to 'complimentary reference to Jarring.'"

What all these machinations finally yielded was a resolution that passed with the United States abstaining and Israel opposed. At the same time, the US promised Israel a continuing supply of Phantom jets, and there was war in the Middle East before the year was out, just as Kissinger had planned.

Bush himself has always been reluctant about flaunting his own impeccable Zionist credentials, probably because of his desire to maintain close ties to the money and power centers of the Arab world. In his campaign autobiography, Bush seeks repeatedly to profile himself as a target of the extremists of the Jewish Defense League. On one occasion, Bush recounts, he was accosted at the entrance to the US mission to the United Nations by Rabbi Meir Kahane, the leader of the JDL. "Why won't you talk to me? All I want is a dialogue," said Kahane, according to Bush's account. Bush says he refused to stop, but told Kahane in passing: "Because I've seen your idea of a dialogue-those shots fired into the Soviet Embassy, and I don't condone your group's violence any more than violence directed at Jews by Arab terrorists," which was a marvel of even-handed rhetoric in full career. Another Bush anecdote of unconfirmed veracity is attributed by Fitzhugh Green to New York East Side restauranteur Walter J. Ganzi, who recounted after the 1988 election that Bush had pacified and dispersed a menacing crowd of several thousand angry JDL demonstrators one day by making an impromptu speech suffused with leadership charisma. Bush's admirers claim that he was responsible for Nixon's creation of a new police force, the Executive Protective Service, which is assigned to guard foreign officials visiting the US. [fn 25]

From January 28 through February 4, 1972, the Security Council held its first meeting in twenty years outside of New York City. The venue chosen was Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Bush made this the occasion for a trip through the Sudan, Kenya, Zambia, Zaire, Gabon, Nigeria, Chad, and Botswana. Bush later told a House subcommittee hearing that this was his second trip to Africa, with the preceding one having been a junket to Egypt and Libya "in 1963 or 1964." [fn 26] During this trip Bush met with seven chiefs of state, including President Mobutu of Zaire, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, President Tombalbaye of Chad, and President Nimeiri of the Sudan.

At the meeting in Addis Ababa, Bush was blind-sided by a speech delivered by the delegate of Panama, one of the rotating members of the Security Council. The Panamian representative, Aquilino Boyd, vigorously attacked the US "occupation" of the Panama Canal Zone. Bush was forced into parliamentary maneuvering to avoid further discussion of the Panamanian complaint, claiming that Boyd was out of order in that the Canal Zone matter was not on the agenda, which was supposed to be oriented towards African matters. This marks one of Bush's earliest public encounters with the Panama issue, which was destined to become his bloody obsession during the first year of his presidency. [fn 27]

Bush in Addis Ababa voted in favor of two resolutions on Namibia, one of which set up the machinery under which the UN Secretary General was empowered to contact the South African government about the status of the trusteeship territory usurped by Pretoria. Bush thought that this first Namibia resolution had been "the most positive thing that came out." Bush also voted for a further resolution on apartheid, and abstained on the resolutions concerning Portuguese colonies and on Rhodesia. Bush's vote on the Rhodesian resolution amounted to a vote of confidence in a mission led by the British Lord Pearce on the Rhodesian question, a mission which many African states opposed.

At a press conference in Addis Ababa, African journalists destabilized Bush with aggressive questions about the US policy of ignoring mandatory UN economic sanctions against the racist, white supremacist Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia. The Security Council had imposed the mandatory sanctions, but later the US Congress had passed, and Nixon had signed into law, legislation incorporating the so-called Byrd amendment, which allowed the US president to import chrome from Rhodesia in the event of shortages of that strategic raw material. Chrome was readily available on the world market, especially from the USSR, although the Soviet chrome was more expensive than the Rhodesian chrome. In his Congressional testimony, Bush whined at length about the extensive criticism of this declared US policy of breaching the Rhodesian sanctions on the part of "those who are just using this to really hammer us from a propaganda standpoint." "We have taken the rap on this thing," complained Bush. "We have taken the heat on it." "We have taken a great deal of abuse from those who wanted to embarrass us in Africa, to emphasize the negative and not the positive in the United Nations." Bush talked of his own efforts at damage control on the issue of US support for the racist Rhodesian regime: "...what we are trying to do is to restrict any hypocrisy we are accused of." "I certainly don't think the US position should be that the Congress was trying to further colonialism and racism in this action it took," Bush told the Congressmen. "In the UN, I get the feeling we are categorized as imperialists and colonialists, and I make clear this is not what America stands for, but nevertheless it is repeated over and over and over again," he whined. [fn 28]

During the hearings, Bush was confronted by Congressman Diggs with an account published in the Los Angeles Times of February 26, 1972, according to which the US had threatened to use the veto against a draft resolution stating that all sanctions against Rhodesia should remain fully in force until the people of Rhodesia had freely and equally exercised their right to self-determination. Rep. Diggs referred to a report in this article that the African and third world sponsors of this resolution had been forced to water it down in order to avoid a veto to be cast by Bush. Bush ducked any direct answer on this behind-the-scenes veto threat. "...we simply cannot, given the restrictions placed on us by law, appear to be two-faced on these things," Bush told Diggs.

Some weeks later, Bush gave a lecture to students at Tulane University in New Orleans, where he announced that the US was now using the provisions of the Byrd amendment actually to purchase Rhodesian chrome, and conceded that this was indeed a violation of the UN economic sanctions. Noting that the policy was causing the Nixon regime "considerable embarrassment," Bush nevertheless defended the chrome purchases, saying that the US was acting "not in support of colonialism or totalitarianism but it seemed the realistic solution," more desirable than paying "twice the price" for Russian chrome. Bush lamely pointed out that many other countries were violating the sanctions covertly, whereas the US was doing so overtly, which he suggested was less reprehensible. [fn 29]

On the problems of Africa in general, Bush, ever true to Malthusian form, stressed above all the overpopulation of the continent. As he told the Congressmen: "Population was one of the things I worked on when I was in the Congress with many people here in this room. It is something that the UN should do. It is something where we are better served to use a multilateral channel, but it has got to be done efficiently and effectively. There has to be some delivery systems. It should not be studied to death if the American people are going to see that we are better off to use a multilateral channel and I am convinced we are. We don't want to be imposing American standards of rate of growth on some country, but we are saying that if an international community decides it is worth while to have these programs and education, we want to strongly support it." [fn 30]

On individual African countries, Bush asked the Congressmen to increase US aid to Chad, making it obliquely clear that his interest in Chad came from the country's "fierce independence" in a "pressure area vis-a-vis the north," meaning Qaddafi's Libya. Bush discussed the Middle East crisis at length with Nimeiri of the Sudan, with whom the US had no diplomatic relations. Bush thought that Nimieri was interested in restoring and improving relations with the US. These exchanges are historically ironic in the light of Bush's later role in the coup that overthrew Nimieri in the mid-1980's. By contrast, Bush said that Somalia, where the US had recently cut off aid, had shown no interest in improving ties with the US. In Botswana, Bush says he was impressed by the ministers he met. In Zambia, the big emphasis was on the problems of the front-line states. In all of the African capitals on his itinerary, Bush was struck by the intensity of the commitment of governments to progress and to sovereignty: "...in whatever part of Africa and however diverse Africa is, there was always a large amount of time devoted to development, economics, and, again, independence, nationhood, this kind of thing." It was clear that Bush would never have much sympathy for the "nationhood thing." But he was aware that Africa had 42 votes out of 132 UN member states in the General Assembly.

Two aspects of Bush's testimony on his African trip throw light on the permanent axioms of his thinking process. In one such revealing incident, Bush describes his "not hostile" but "very frank" dialogue with "a bunch of the intellectuals in Nigeria." Bush told the Congressmen that these intellectuals "were inclined to equate our quest for peaceful change with the status quo, no change at all, and they would state, 'Look, your own Revolution was a non-peaceful change.'" This exchange became a way for Bush to state that the principles of natural law in the struggle against colonialism which were expressed in the American Revolution had now been superseded by the super-national principle of the United Nations as a world government which must validate all political change. Here is the way Bush expressed this idea: "And my answer to that was, one, we mean both peaceful and change, and two, the United Nations Charter was not in existence at the time of the US Revolution. We are not going to give up on the United Nations, which commits itself to peaceful change." [fn 31]

The second revealing exchange involved Bush's relation to the policies that he was carrying out. Asked by Congressman Diggs to pinpoint where decisions on Rhodesian policy and related issues were made, Bush replied: "That is something you can never do in the State Department." He then went on to describe his relations to machinery of policy making: "I would be happy to take responsibility for it [the Rhodesian vote], if you are looking for somebody to do that, because I am the President's representative to the United Nations, and the buck stops with some of these things with me. But I don't profess to be that big a deal that I can say this is the way it is going to be, and that is the way it happens. But in terms of responsibility for this position, I would be happy to accept it." Then Bush added: "I do think that there is room for some criticism about the kind of facelessness of the process, but I would say for these resolutions, or anything that we have done in terms of policy, whether it is subcontinent, or Middle East, or China, I have been in accord with these major decisions, and I take the responsibility for them as the presidentially appointed representative to the United Nations. Yet I sometimes am frustrated by the machinery, I must say."

One senses that this is Bush's pledge of personal allegiance to the Kissinger policies that dominated in the areas he mentions, and that his frustration is reserved for the passive resistance that still from time to time merged from the Rogers State Department. Among other things, Bush was endorsing the Nixon-Kissinger regime's support for the military junta of the Greek colonels, a matter which became a minor issue in the 1988 presidential campaign.

As the former Guyana Foreign Minister Fred Wills has pointed out in several speaking engagements for the Schiller Institute over recent years, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations presides over an immense covert apparatus of espionage, arm-twisting, intimidation, entrapment, and blackmail, all directed against foreign delegates whom the US is seeking to compromise, bribe, or turn. The gambits habitually employed in this brutal and squalid game range from baskets of fruit delivered to the hotel rooms and residences of ambassadors and ministers, to the deployment of a stable of male and female sex operatives to entrap unwary foreign diplomats, to black-bag operations and occasional wetwork. It may also be relevant that the Mayor of New York City during these years was John V. Lindsay, a Yale graduate and Skull and Bones member, with whom Bush had dealings on matters of police and security policy affecting the UN diplomatic community.

In the course of the many Congressional investigations of domestic covert operations during the Watergate period, attention was called to a number of mysterious and unsolved break-ins related to United Nations functions which took place in the New York area during the approximate time that George Bush was UN ambassador, which was from February 1971 until January 1973. These included a break-in at the home of Victor Rioseco, an economic counselor for the Chilean mission to the United Nations, on February 10, 1971; a break-in at the home of Humberto Diaz-Casaneuva, the Chilean Ambassador to the United Nations, on April 5, 1971, and another burglary at the New York apartment of Javier Urrutia, the chief of the Chilean Development Corporation, on April 11, 1971. It will be noted that one common denominator of these break-ins was a targeting of Chilean representatives; the Chilean government at this time was that of President Salvador Allende Gossens, later toppled by a US-directed coup in September, 1973. The Chilean Embassy in Washington was the scene of yet another break-in on May 13-14, 1972.

Naturally, Bush's authorized biography and campaign autobiography say nothing about any of these interesting events. Fitzhugh Green describes the "gracious, professional teamwork" of Barbara and George at diplomatic receptions, with Bush's personal assistant Rudolph "Foxy" Carter fingering diplomats and wives to be buttonholed by Mrs. Bush and then taken over to meet George. It was also during these UN years that Bush consolidated his habit of writing large quantities of short personal longhand notes and cards to friends and acquaintances. Bush's habit was to personally sit though the long speeches of diplomats representing US allies and others whom Bush wished to propitiate. But in order to use the time, Foxy Carter would make sure that he had a sufficient supply of small note cards to be able to turn out a continuous flow of bread and butter notes, greetings, and working communications, some of which could be delivered to diplomats present in the room where Bush was sitting. In this way, Bush succeeded in ingratiating himself with many delegates. This practice foreshadows his later "speed-dialing mode" of contacts with world leaders during crises such as the Gulf adventure. [fn 32]

Bush spent just less than two years at the UN. His tenure coincided with some of the most monstruous crimes against humanity of the Nixon- Kissinger duo, for whom Bush functioned as an international spokesman to whom no Kissinger policy was too odious to be enthusiatically proclaimed before the international community and world public opinion. Through this doggedly loyal service, Bush forged a link with Nixon that would be ephemeral but vital for his career while it lasted, and a link with Kissinger that would be decisive in shaping Bush's own administration in 1988-89. The way in which Bush set about organizing the anti-Iraq coalition of 1990-91 was decisively shaped by his United Nations experience. His initial approach to the Security Council, the types of resolutions that were put forward by the US, and the alternation of military escalation with consultations among the five permanent members of the Security Council- all this harkened back to the experience Bush acquired as Kissinger's envoy to the world body.

Towards the close of Bush's posting to the UN, his father, Prescott Bush, died at the Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York City. It was October 8, 1972. Prescott Bush had been diagnosed as suffering from lung cancer.

NOTES:

1. In 1970, Bush's portfolio included 29 companies in which he had an interest of more than $4000. He had 10,000 shares of American general Insurance Co., 5,500 shares of American Standard, 200 shares of AT&T, 832 shares of CBS, and 581 shares of Industries Exchange Fund. He also held stock in the Kroger Compny, Simplex Wire and Cale Co. (25,000 shares), IBM, and Allied Chemical. In addition, he had created a trust fund for his children.

2. James Reston, Jr., The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally (New York, 1989), p. 380.

3 Safire, Before the Fall, p. 646.

4. Walter Pincus and Bob Woodward, "Presidential Posts and Dashed Hopes," Washington Post, August 9, 1988.

5. Reston, p. 382.

6. Bush and Gold, Looking Forward, p. 110.

7. For the Nixon side of the Bush UN appointment, see William Safire, Before the Fall (New York, 1977), especially "The President Falls in Love," pp. 642 ff.

8. Reston, p. 382. Reston (pp. 586-587) tells the story of how, years later in the 1980 Iowa caucuses campaign when both Bush and Connally were in the race, Bush was enraged by Connally's denigration of his manhood in remarks to Texans that Bush was 'all hat and no cattle.' Bush was walking by a television set in the Hotel Fort Des Moines when Connally came on the screen. Bush reached out toward Connally's image on the screen as if to shake hands. Then Bush screamed, "Thank you, sir, for all the kind things you and your friends have been saying about me!" Then Bush slammed his fist on the top of the set, yelling "That prick!"

9. On Kissinger, see Scott Thompson and Joseph Brewda, "Kissinger Associates: Two Birds in the Bush," Executive Intelligence Review, March 3, 1989.

10. See Tad Szulc, The Illusion of Peace (New York, 1978), p. 498.

11. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston, 1979), p. 715.

12. Szulc, p. 500, and Washington Post, August 12, 1971.

13. Washington Post, October 31, 1971.

14. See Seymour M. Hersh, The Price of Power (New York, 1983), pp. 444 ff.

15. Henry Kissinger, White House Years, p. 897. The general outlines of these reamrks were first published in the Jack Anderson column, and reprinted in Jack Anderson, The Anderson Papers ( New York, 1973).

16. Kissinger, p. 896.

17. Jack Anderson, The Anderson Papers, p. 226.

18. Elmo Zumwalt, On Watch (New York, 1976), p. 367.

19. Anderson, p. 260-1.

20. Kissinger, p. 909.

21. Hersh, The Price of Power, p. 457.

22. Kissinger, pp. 911-912.

23. See R.C. Gupta, US Policy Towards India and Pakistan (Delhi, 1977) , p. 84 ff.

24. Washington Post, July 27, 1972.

25. Washington Post, September 11, 1972.

26. Bush and Gold, p. 114; Green, p. 122.

27. US House of Representatives, Joint Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Africa and the Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Ninety-Second Congress, Second Session, March 1, 1972, (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1972), p. 12.

28. In March, 1973, the US veto was used to block a resolution in the Security Council which called for the "full respect for Panama's effective sovereignty over all its territory." This resolution otherwise received 13 positive votes, and there was one abstention. See Casting Out Panama's Demon, Panama City, 1990, p. 22.

29. House of Representatives, Joint Hearing, pp. 10-11, 7.

30. Washington Post, April 23, 1972.

31. House of Representatives, Joint Hearing, pp. 7-8.

32. Ibid, p. 15.

33. Green, pp. 118, 125.

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