Dec. 1, 2018 - Steve Pieczenik
04:47
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Hi, I'm Dr. | |
| Buchanek and today I want to talk about the death of George W. Bush Sr. | |
| I worked with him in several different administrations, but the first time I had heard of Bush or encountered him was in the Ford administration when I worked for President Ford and prior to that President Nixon. | |
| And at that time, President Ford appointed George Bush as director of the CIA. For the most part, most people thought that was an approval and that was a sign That he was really quite competent. | |
| In fact, the reality was Bush did not like Cheney. | |
| He did not like Rumsfeld. | |
| And what was happening was a power play in the Republican administration where Cheney and Rumsfeld wanted to get rid of Bush. | |
| And the best way to do that was to become director of the CIA. Because normally when you become director, you rarely become president. | |
| Then I had an encounter with General Antonio Noriega when Bush was Vice President to Reagan. | |
| Noriega said to me something interesting. | |
| He said that Bush had been involved in the Iran-Contra deal and had been far more resilient and tough than anybody had thought. | |
| Subsequent to that, I had a meeting with Pat Robertson, the head of the Evangelical Christian Union, and he was talking to me and said something very interesting. | |
| Here, Noriega talks about Bush as a very tough, resilient individual. | |
| And then I asked Pat, why did you ask me down there? | |
| And he told me that he was interested, he, Pat Robertson, was interested in running for President of the United States. | |
| And I said, why? | |
| He said, because he found that Bush Sr. | |
| was very weak. | |
| I paused and I looked up at him and I said, I'm | |
| going to go. | |
| Create a multilateral peace treaty where Cambodia could come back and be part of a multilateral democratic association. | |
| I did that. | |
| It was not easy. | |
| It took me two years. | |
| And in effect, Baker approved what I had done. | |
| And Baker and I worked together quite effectively to make Cambodia what is now really a peaceful nation with no more killings and no more oral genocide. | |
| That was the positive part of the Bush administration and Baker. | |
| There were other people who I had encountered under the Bush administration who I felt great respect for. | |
| One was Don Greg who called me back from Panama. | |
| He was the former station chief in South Korea. | |
| Another one was Jim Lilly who was the former station chief in China. | |
| And then of course the most important Besides Baker, it was Brent Scowcroft, who was National Security Advisor and one of the closest friends of Bush, an honorable, distinguished military man. | |
| One of the things that I can say for in the two administrations, under the Reagan and the Bush Senior Administration, is that we had a very tight organization. | |
| There was no... | |
| Loose ends. | |
| Everything had to be formalized. | |
| Everything was done quietly. | |
| And James Baker really was the one who controlled what was going on. | |
| In fact, Baker was so close to Bush Senior that we were really talking to Bush when we were talking to Baker. | |
| In turn, one of the things that I understood was that James Baker would eventually and hopefully become President of the United States. | |
| And I said to him, do you know why? | |
| Why don't you run for President? | |
| And he looked at me and said, why did you not support me? | |
| I said, I was working for you, Mr. | |
| Baker. | |
| Anyway, let me just say, well, President Bush should rest in peace. | |
| And let me quote something he said. | |
| I have always hated eating broccoli. | |
| As a kid, I hated eating broccoli. | |
| As a teenager, I hated eating broccoli. | |
| And now, as the President of the United States, I refuse to eat broccoli. |
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