Book Review: Destiny and Power, The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush

By John Meacham

Destiny and Power is Pulitzer Prize winning writer Jon Meacham´s splendidly detailed and thoroughly researched account of a life that spanned most of the pivotal events of the twentieth century. Having previously written a biography about Andrew Jackson, American Lion, as well as several other best sellers, Meacham was in all likelihood the perfect man for the job.

From 1988 to 1992 George Herbert Walker Bush served as the 41^st president of the United States. Unlike the slew of freshman senators who threw their hats in the ring for the GOP nomination this election cycle, Bush 41 had an impressive résumé of both business success and public service before he ascended to the presidency.

As a millennial I peruse the pages of Meacham´s biography with a sense of mild wonder. The fact that Bush the elder is somewhat perplexed by the tone and substance of this election cycle is not difficult to imagine. A republican who was willing to compromise, he raised taxes on the wealthy, legislated to protect the nation’s waterways from pollution and the disabled from deprivation, while calmly managing the end of the cold war without a single nuclear bomb going off. It seems like fiction, but I assure you that this is a biography, and one that is well worth reading at that.

It goes without saying that Bush got off to the very best start imaginable, he came from a wealthy family and his father was a senator as well as Eisenhower´s golfing companion. With kindness to others, ambition, confidence and intelligence, however, Bush consistently managed to make the most out of the favorable hand he was dealt.

As a young man George Bush was horrified by the attack on Pearl Harbor and out of a genuine sense of duty and patriotism he decided to do something about it. At the tender age of 18 he served as a naval aviator flying bombers in the pacific, and was awarded the distinguished flying cross, among other accolades, for his bravery. During a mission over the Japanese held Island of Chichi Jima, his plane was shot down by an anti-aircraft battery and Bush was the only survivor. After clambering out of the wreckage he was eventually rescued by a lifeguard submarine, the USS Finback, and later returned to active duty. All in all he flew 58 combat missions during the war. The contrast is stark when you look at his son´s military record, who never fought in Viet Nam and was satisfied with a spell in the Texas Air National Guard.

Returning home after the war, the elder Bush married the raven haired Barbara Pierce after a whirlwind romance, and the two of them remain together to this day. He also studied at Yale University, where he made it into the prestigious skull and bones secret society, just like his father did. Bush’s future, should he so wish, could be a very safe and comfortable one from here on out. With his many connections he could have worked as a New York banker until he retired, a career that would have involved the occasional spot of banking before drinking a couple of martinis over lunch and then heading off to the golf course. Instead, he chose to set out on his own and take a risk, albeit with the family treasury and overflowing rolodex at his back. Drawn to the excitement of the oil industry in Texas, Bush moved south together with his small family and eventually started Zapata Oil. The name came out of the need to be either first or last in the phonebook directory.

The business was profitable and grew steadily, but Bush never made it into the top echelon in the oil industry. This may be because his thoughts seems to have strayed to politics from the nineteen sixties and onwards. With a record of business success he became involved in the local Republican Party and won a congress seat in 1966. He served to the best of his ability, but with his ambition he was never going to be a congressman until retirement.

After losing a senate race in 1970, Bush´s political career seemed over. He contemplated returning to Texas and resuming his business career, but rumors of his political demise proved premature, and he was soon back in the thick of it. Bush held a plethora of important jobs throughout the nineteen seventies, including ambassador to the UN, Chairman of the RNC and director of the CIA. When nineteen eighty rolled around he was ready to make a run for the presidency, and squared off with the former governor of California, Ronald Reagan, in the primaries. Reagan was the darling of the party´s far right, and Bush was seen as a moderate, despite the fact that he was to the right of his father, a good Eisenhower Republican. Bush eventually lost the nomination to Reagan, but was offered the vice presidency over his longtime rival Donald Rumsfeld. Even though he had given it all and lost, Bush´s sense of service and loyalty made him a fine vice president. He had previously disagreed with many of Reagan´s policies, and had even gone so far as to call his economic plan “Voodoo economics” during a heated debate, but he supported the administration and never questioned him in public. Meacham makes the interesting case that Bush was willing to compromise on his own views and principles in order to gain power, since he could then then exercise his authority in the interest of the public good. For him, the end justified the means, and that would be a very handy way of viewing things for any politician.

Running against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 general election, Bush´s staff, which included Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox News, wasn´t afraid to fight it out in the gutter. Portraying Dukakis as soft on crime in the now infamous Willie Horton ad, which has since been criticized for racist undertones, Bush was dirtying his hands in the hope of giving them a thorough wash once the election was in the bag. He prevailed against Dukakis, but found himself the steward of an ailing economy and hobbled by his promise to not raise any taxes. Luckily his talent for diplomacy meant that he got on well with the democratic opposition and the moderates in his party, even though he privately muttering about the antics of the “right wing”.

Historians tend to regard the fall of the Berlin Wall and the invasion of Kuwait as the defining moments of Bush´s presidency.  The former was a complex and possibly volatile situation many years in the making. I don´t have time to fully delve into the situation, but Bush contributed to a peaceful German reunification and developed a god working relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev. His hand on the tiller was a steady one, even though many will rightly point out that it would have been best if NATO was disbanded once it had served its purpose. Gorbachev went out of his way to give the nod to a reunification of Germany on the condition that NATO wasn´t expanded one inch eastwards. That promise was later broken by Bill Clinton and by Bush´s own son.

Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm was widely hailed as a great success, and it was said that the US had shaken off its Vietnam syndrome. On the face of it, Bush successfully brought together a large coalition which managed to drive Saddam out of Kuwait with much fewer casualties than expected. The clean exit after the successful campaign stands in stark contrast to the later Bush president´s invasion of Iraq, the consequences of which still affect us today. As so often in life, however, nothing is black or white. Bush´s rhetoric implied that Saddam was a new Hitler and that appeasement was not an option. Stone and Kuznick´s The Untold History of the United States (previously reviewed on this blog), paints a slightly different picture. Iraq’s economy was hurting badly from a UN embargo and its oil exports had nearly dried up. Seeing as they didn´t invade Kuwait for the sunshine, continued sanctions could have prevented the need for war end ensured and Iraqi withdrawal. Former secretary of defense Robert McNamara thought so at the time, and former Carter advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski cautioned that an invasion could turn the Arab world against the United States. Indeed, Usama Bin Laden later said his indignation when US troops were posted on Saudi Arabian soil was a contributing factor behind his hatred of America.  

After his victory against Saddam, Bush enjoyed a surge in popularity that he himself was all too aware could not last forever. He eventually reached a compromise with democrats over the budget, but the right wing of his party, who had always thought him a poor successor to Reagan, weren´t pleased. Meacham writes that it was clear Bush was never as enthusiastic about domestic affairs as he was about foreign policy. This showed, especially because Bush was at his best when he was genuinely interested in whatever was on his plate. Given this admission, one might wonder if Secretary of State would have been Bush’s ideal job, if his great ambition could have stomached it. As things were, Bush could never quite shake off his lord of the manor approach to dealing with his subjects, and in one televised debate during the 1992 election he fouled badly when he looked at his watch and couldn´t answer a young woman´s question about how the economic downturn had affected him personally. Bill Clinton seized the moment and gave a convincing reply about how he could feel her pain all too well as the governor of a small state. Bush wasn´t indifferent to the suffering of others, but Bubba was much more adept at getting his message through on television and appearing relatable.

When Bush lost the election he was cut adrift, a statesman in the autumn of his prime who instantly came to miss carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. His legacy was initially not that highly praised by pundits, but as the GOP has gone further and further to the right, history has begun to view his presidency in a much more favorable light.

It is certainly the case that Bush was, and still is, a very interesting man, seemingly full of complexities and contradictions. In public life, he was wise and kind, yet capable of great cunning and not above compromising his ideals in order to get ahead. He was humble and down to earth, yet never managed to shake off his patrician air and behind all the civility he was ruthless about achieving his goals. Yet he was undoubtedly also a statesman, who wanted to govern and realized that compromise didn´t always have to mean a betrayal of what he stood for. His party would do well to learn from Bush, not as the milquetoast inferior to Ronald Reagan, the great communicator, but as an equally accomplished leader in his own right.

Meacham´s biography tells you all you could possibly want to know about Bush´s life and by extension the times he lived in. Even though Meacham seems to be a great admirer of Bush and his appreciation of the man and his presidency shows, he is also reasonably critical and honest about his deeds. I would strongly recommend Destiny and Power to anyone interested in politics or history.