Question for the experts at DU

[malaise]

Brady's recent death has me wondering - where was poppy Bush when Reagan and Brady were shot?

[Cirque du So-What]

1. I'm sure that if you asked him

he wouldn't remember.

[Laelth]

7. +1. n/t

-Laelth

[blm]

2. Keeping distance from Hinckley, the troubled youth he had programmed.

MISTER CIA and his inner circle of fascist cronies.

Anyone really still believe that Reagan was fully in charge back then? Oh yeah - the dumbed down GOP voter base.

[malaise]

6. The biggest mystery re American politics for me is

how the head of CIA became Reagan's VP after that mess in Iran where they tried to discredit Carter, and then became President of the US.

[nilesobek]

19. Senior Bush was our Putin, head of an intelligence agency for 30 years.

[blm]

24. The poodle press always give him a pass, playing up the benign, nice guy image he

has been carefully crafting for himself since the 50s.

[monmouth3]

3. I've seen pics of him in Dallas when JFK was shot...n/t

[malaise]

8. He was kid of ubiquitous

wasn't he?

[Octafish]

46. Poppy Bush told FBI that's where he was and reported treasonous ''hearsay'' AFTER the fact.

Details: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1946852



Presidential historian Michael Beschloss told radio guy Don Imus that Mrs. Bar Bush said she and Junior "watched the parade" in Dallas that day.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Here's an interesting blog entry on the topic:

John Judge reveals some incredible information which brings back November 22 all over again and blows holes into the censored version of the murder attempt. As with JFK, the Secret Service took the lead in framing Reagan for the assassin, who was not John Hinckley, Jr. though certainly he was present at the scene of the crime.

The Secret Service (SS) started the day by telling the president that he did not need his protective vest in a move similar to its removal of Kennedy’s protective bubble in Dallas.

Reagan’s limousine did not stop at the Hilton Hotel entrance as it should have. Instead the driver pulled forward 40-50 feet, forcing Reagan to walk in the open. According to security protocol, the SS would form a diamond around the president, yet in this case, they formed a file to the right leaving Reagan and his party exposed.

The original story was that the assailant used a .38 caliber weapon, which accords well with the physical reactions of the victims. However, about 3-4 hours after the assault, the weapon became a .22 caliber – a change most redolent of the alleged Oswald weapon. In this case, Judge notes that ABC film footage shows a DC cop swapping the .38 for a .22.

NBC correspondent Judy Woodruff reported that a shot had come from overhead where SS agents were located, further implicating the agency, or allied impersonators, in the murder scheme.

The presidential limousine driver was supposed to take Reagan to George Washington University Hospital since it was the closest, but instead made its way to Bethesda Naval Hospital (BNH) which was much farther away. After some time, the driver finally decided to go to GWUH where Reagan walked in on his own accord which explains his ability to make his famous quip, “I forgot to duck.”

http://theamericanchronicle.blogspot.com/2012/02/did-bush-assassinate-reagan.html

[malaise]

9. Freaking wow

Never read that before.

[2banon]

11. Problem for me, is WHY would the SS want to eliminate TPTB greatest puppet?

what's the motive? so that Poppy could be prez? really?

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Competing factions or interests among TPTB?

Ever read Kirkpatrick Sale's old '70's book Power Shift? He posits the notion of Yankees (old New England money) versus Cowboys (oil-fueled nouveau riche Southwest types). I don't know that his model is exactly correct, but there is no reason to assume homogeneity of interests among the ruling powers. Even the Gods feud.

[Jackpine Radical]

15. Here is another possible answer for you.

Bush started his takeover of government when he orchestrated a key reorganization of Reagan’s national security apparatus via a document known as National Security Decision Directive. Originally a product of Al Haig’s work, a second version not to his liking was formulated by the Bush camp which placed the vice president – rather than the Secretary of State - as the chairman of the Special Situation Group (SSG).

When Bush took the helm of the SSG, and after taking an initial report concerning the state of affairs domestically and internationally, he declared that there had been no conspiracy, on the authority of fragmentary FBI reports asserting that there was no such thing. This obstruction of justice followed exactly the tactic used by Nicholas Katzenbach when he wrote a memo within 3 days of the Kennedy assassination that Oswald must be found guilty as the lone assassin.

The arrogance of Bush is breathtaking. In less than 5 hours after the attempted assassination, a group of men in the SSG declared that there was no conspiracy. It took an 8th grade student at Alice Deal Junior High School to properly summarize the episode thusly: “It is a plot by Vice President Bush to get into power. If Bush becomes President, the CIA would be in charge of the country.”

[malaise]

44. And that last sentence is precisely the reason for my question

Is the CIA the unofficial government - the politburo as it were?

[JackRiddler]

51. The metastasized CIA.

The mob around Bush back then, evolved into who knows exactly what configuration today.

[2banon]

49. Wow. That's breathtaking.

I was vaguely aware of Poppy's machinations in a number of nefarious activities, but this one missed my radar. thanks for further enlightenment..

[blm]

18. Bush ran against Reagan in primary as TPTB chosen one. Reagan was always in the way.

Reagan didn't want Bush as VP, either. I always find it interesting that there are always some DUers who jump in willing to blow smoke around Poppy Bush.

[2banon]

48. That's interesting, I don't remember this factoid. Who did Reagan want for VP, I wonder?

[tritsofme]

5. There's been a lot written about it over the years. This is same incident that Alexander Haig

made his famous "I'm in charge" declaration, as mixed reports of the incident delayed Bush's return to Washington. Definitely a fascinating story.

[bigtree]

10. probably 'trying to get out of harm's way'

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/may/22/nation/na-bush22

[malaise]

16. You mean like father like son??

[bigtree]

17. it's a family affair

[SidDithers]

13. ...

Sid

[REP]

14. Hinckley was vaccinated!!11!

[Octafish]

28. Hilarious!

[SidDithers]

33. Yes, you are...nt

Sid

[Octafish]

34. Yeah. And I showed where you're wrong.

So, there's that, too. What bothers me is your defense of the BFEE helps cover up what Poppy Bush did as veep with presidential power:

George Bush Takes Charge

The Uses of "Counter-Terrorism"

By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58

A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan‑Bush era yields valuable information on how counter‑terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.

During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter‑terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.

Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran‑Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.

The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.

SNIP...

Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.

CONTINUED...

CovertAction Quarterly no 58 Fall 1996 pp31-40.

Ha ha. It is to laugh.

[Jackpine Radical]

47. Sid serves a gloriously useful function around here,

in that he provokes such informative rebuttals.

[Octafish]

50. More from Christopher Simpson on Poppy Bush, Secret Government Big Shot...

George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of ‘Counter-Terrorism’

By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58

EXCERPT...

NSDD 159. MANAGEMENT OF U.S. COVERT OPERATIONS, (TOP SECRET/VEIL‑SENSITIVE), JAN. 18,1985

The Reagan administration's commitment to significantly expand covert operations had been clear since before the 1980 election. How such operations were actually to be managed from day to day, however, was considerably less certain. The management problem became particularly knotty owing to legal requirements to notify congressional intelligence oversight committees of covert operations, on the one hand, and the tacitly accepted presidential mandate to deceive those same committees concerning sensitive operations such as the Contra war in Nicaragua, on the other.

The solution attempted in NSDD 159 was to establish a small coordinating committee headed by Vice President George Bush through which all information concerning US covert operations was to be funneled. The order also established a category of top secret information known as Veil, to be used exclusively for managing records pertaining to covert operations.

[font color="red"]The system was designed to keep circulation of written records to an absolute minimum while at the same time ensuring that the vice president retained the ability to coordinate US covert operations with the administration's overt diplomacy and propaganda.

Only eight copies of NSDD 159 were created. The existence of the vice president's committee was itself highly classified.[/font color] The directive became public as a result of the criminal prosecutions of Oliver North, John Poindexter, and others involved in the Iran‑Contra affair, hence the designation "Exhibit A" running up the left side of the document.

CONTINUED...

PS: Thank you, Jackpine Radical. Sometimes I think SidDithers tries to assassinate my character on purpose.

:ROFL:

[malaise]

52. And Cheney sure used that power

Is that why Poppy wanted him to be Dumbya VP? Dumbya as puppet - Cheney as Poppy!

[Octafish]

53. Worked for Poppy while minding Pruneface.

So, it would seem likely, given Dim Son's ten-gallon ego and half-pint head.



In the system, Smirko gets the glory and draws enough idiots who want to have a beer with him to the polls to give election-stealing some plausibility. Meanwhile, Cheney does the dirty work and the thinkin'. It's a matter of record they both are cashing in the checks from Halliburton, Carlyle Group, UBS, etc., Big Time.

More from CAQ:

George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of ‘Counter-Terrorism’

By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58

EXCERPT...

NSDD 207. NATIONAL PROGRAM FOR COMBATTING TERRORISM, (TOP SECRET), JAN. 20,1986

This nine‑page directive was the "comprehensive presidential statement of US counter-terrorism policy" in effect during both the Reagan and Bush administrations, according to an NSC deposition filed in US District Court. It formalized the recommendations of Vice President Bush's Task Force on Combatting Terrorism (NSDD 179). Washington's announced policy, both in public forums and in classified orders such as this one, was that the US government would make "no concessions (to guerrillas) ... pay no ransoms, nor permit release of prisoners or agree to other conditions that could serve to encourage additional terrorism."

In fact, of course, President Reagan, VP Bush, and others had already engineered a series of concessions to secure release of hostages in what would come to be called the Iran‑Contra affair.

From the standpoint of broad policy, this directive covered much of the same ground as NSDD 138, signed the previous April. In addition to the "no concessions" pledge, the US government asserted that it would "take measures to protect our citizens" (preemptive action); "make every legal effort to ... prosecute terrorists" (later acknowledged to include seizure of foreign nationals abroad for prosecution in the US); pay substantial rewards for information concerning guerrilla activity; and ensure that states that support anti‑US guerrillas "will not be allowed to do so without consequence."

NSDD 207'S innovation lay in its new administrative measures to implement the broad policies. It created an Anti‑Terrorism Assistance Program within the government, ordered new restrictions on the Freedom of Information Act, and renewed efforts to pass new emergency powers legislation developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which would authorize declaration of martial law in the US during "emergencies" announced by the president.

The directive authorized creation of a "proposed organization" within the US government specializing in anti‑guerrilla intelligence gathering, paramilitary operations, and rescue techniques. The existence, budget, tactics, leaders, and personnel of the group were intended to remain classified. Other measures included: authorization of an FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service campaign to review the immigration status of political suspects in the US; preparation of legal arguments designed to justify various US responses to guerrillas, including use of deadly force and unilateral military operations abroad; and creation of specialized tactics, equipment, and squads of trained paramilitary operatives useful for striking at guerrilla targets.

CONTINUED...

[onenote]

20. I don't believe anyone has actually given you the factual answer:

He was on Air Force 2 flying over Texas en route to make a speech (which he did end up making).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/crime-scene/post/long-sought-piece-of-presidential-history-finally-emerges/2012/03/29/gIQAbXqJjS_blog.html

[malaise]

21. Thanks onenote

Very interesting. I remember Haig claiming to be in charge

[Octafish]

22. Conveniently out of town. Remember Sec State Haig, ''I'm in control here'' from the White House

Poppy was airborne deep over the heart of Texas, again, when a President was shot. Seems Air Force 2 had bad radios that day, so Haig told him to "just turn around" and return to DC.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-day-reagan-was-shot/

His son Neil was slated to have dinner with Hinckley's brother, Scott, that very evening. I guess there was a change in plans.

THE BUSH FAMILY IN THE 90S

Issue 1, December 1991

NEIL BUSH (AND HIS FAMILY)—I

In the millions of words written in the national news media about Neil Bush and his part in the Silverado Savings & Loan scandal, no reference has been made to an extremely significant fact of his life.

Neil Bush, son of the then vice president of the United States, was scheduled to have dinner on March 31, 1981, with Scott Hinckley, brother of John Hinckley, the day after a bullet came within an inch of making Neil Bush's father the new president of the United States.

Even though John Chancellor had let slip out this most remarkable assassination coincidence shortly after John Hinckley tried to kill President Reagan, it was censored by NBC News and the other organs of the national news media during the subsequent 10 years. And even in the several months of extensive coverage of Neil Bush's part in the massive savings and loan fraud, no mention was made of his role in the continuing coverup of the most significant story in the 1980s.

Back in 1981, I thought the dinner engagement was so extraordinary that I looked everywhere for it in the days following Chancellor's raised-eyebrow report in the hours after the shooting. One magazine laughed at it and a few smaller papers carried a story by United Press International, but the Associated Press and the other major news outlets, in response to my numerous protests, made clear to me that they had no intention of letting the American people learn of Neil Bush's connection to the Hinckleys or, for that matter, the many other astonishing unanswered questions in the wake of the Bush-Hinckley coverup.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nathanielblumberg.com/neil.htm

[malaise]

23. WTF?????

His son Neil was slated to have dinner with Hinckley's brother, Scott, that very evening. I guess there was a change in plans.

[Octafish]

25. BFEE at work. John Chancellor of NBC reported it...

DailyKos has more details...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/06/09/32836/-Bush-Knew-Hinckley#

DU talked about it decades later...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Octafish/12

[malaise]

26. This part is very interesting

On that day the Post said Neil Bush admitted to being personally acquainted with Scott Hinckley, having met him on one occasion in the recent past. He also said he knew the family and was aware of its large contributions to the Bush campaign for president in 1980. Both were oil men based in Denver. Scott Hinckley was vice president of Vanderbilt Energy of Vanderbilt Energy Corporation and Neil Bush worked for Standard Oil of Indiana. John Hinckley Jr., the shooter, lived off and on with his parents in Evergreen, Colorado, near Denver.

Neil Bush told the Post he didn't know if he knew John Jr. or not. His wife Sharon said, "From what I know and have heard, [the Hinckleys] are a very nice family ... and have given a lot of money to the Bush campaign. I understand he [John Jr.] was just the renegade brother in the family. They must feel awful."

[Octafish]

29. Thank Moon for the Internets

My good friend Russ Baker goes over this in his excellent "Family of Secrets."

[Ichingcarpenter]

27. There was a FEMA planned exercise the next day

Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger's memoir of that afternoon reminds us of
two highly relevant facts.

The first is that a "NORAD [North American Air Defense Command] exercise with a simulated incoming missle attack had been
planned for the next day."

Weinberger agreed with General David Jones, the chiarman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that this exercise should be
cancelled. [fn 12]

Weinberger also recalls that the group in the Situation Room was informed by James Baker that "there had been a FEMA [Federal Emergency Management
Administration] exercise scheduled for the next day on presidential
succession, with the general title 'Nine Lives.' By an immediate consensus, it was agreed that exercise should also be cancelled." [fn 13]

As Weinberger further recalls, "at almost exactly 7:00, the Vice President came to the Situation Room and very calmly assumed the chair at the head of the table."

[fn 14] According to Weinberger, the first item discussed was
the need for someonme to sign the Dairy Price Support Bill the next day so as to reassure the public. Bush asked Weinberger for a report on the status of US forces, which Weinberger furnished.

Another eyewitness of these transactions was Don Regan, whom the Tower Board later made the fall-guy for Bush's Iran-contra escapades. Regan records that
"the Vice President arrived with Ed Meese, who had met him when he landed to fill him in on the details. George asked for a condition report: 1) on thePresident; 2) on the other wounded; 3) on the assailant; 4) on the international scene. [...] After the reports were given and it was
determined that there were no international complications and no domestic conspiracy, it was decided that the US government would carry on business as usual. The Vice President would go on TV from the White House to reassure
the nation

http://www.voxfux.com/articles(closed)/00000013.htm

Nobody had really investigated the crime yet

[Octafish]

30. CBS reported Weinberger ordered SAC on Alert...

The Day Reagan Was Shot

Fears Of A Soviet Plot

CBS, April 23, 2001

EXCERPT...

Haig was wrong to say “constitutionally.” The constitution mentions the secretary of state only in an actual transfer of power and then it places him fourth in line.

“I wasn’t talking about transition,” Haig says now. “I was talking about the executive branch, who is running the government. That was the question asked. It was not, ‘who is in line should the President die?’”

Haig says he knew the order of succession better than anyone. In 1974 he was chief-of-staff when Nixon resigned. Haig insists the briefing room appearance was meant to reassure the world and ease the pressure on the nuclear trigger.

“There are absolutely no alert measures that are necessary at this time or contemplated,” Haig told reporters.

But in the Situation Room, they were making a liar out of Haig. Defense Secretary Cap Weinberger was ordering an alert. American pilots were, at that moment, climbing into their nuclear bombers. Weinberger wanted to save time if this was all part of a Soviet plot.

“It's based on the idea that until we know a little bit more about it, it’s better to be in the plane than …which saves three and a half to four minutes than it is to stay in their quarters,” Weinberger said in the Situation Room.

“I said up there, Cap, I am not a liar. I said there had been no increased alert,” Haig responded.

“Well, I didn’t know you were going up Al,” Weinberger said.

Weinberger then told the room he was calling the shots for the military.

“You’d better read the constitution,” Haig said to him. “We can get the vice president any time we want.”

But the men in the situation room couldn’t make the decision to launch the nuclear weapons without secret codes that are kept in a case called the football - usually at the president’s side.

“I had the football brought to me and I held it in my hand, it was under my sheaf of papers and stayed right there all afternoon,” Allen says now. “It didn’t pass into the hands of anyone ese.”

It didn’t make him feel safe, he says now: “There’s no security in holding a document like that in your hand. But in the interest of prudence, you wanted to have everything there that you might need in the worst case.”

In time. it became clear the gunman was a deranged loner. Mr. Reagan and the others would all survive. Four hours after the first shots, the vice president arrived and shut down the situation room.

Allen’s tapes have been in a drawer all these years and surfaced now to the surprise and annoyance of some who were there.

CONTINUED...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-day-reagan-was-shot/

PS: Thanks for the heads-up, Ichingcarpenter. That article has tons of stuff to digest -- missed by Corporate McPravda and McAkademia.

[libodem]

31. Undisclosed location

Juggling joysticks.

[malaise]

32. LOL

There were no joysticks back then

[awoke_in_2003]

36. Depends on your definition of "joystick"

[Takket]

35. forgive this possibly ignorant question... but...

Why does Bush's location matter?

[sammythecat]

45. Clueless here too

If any of this is true where would one expect him to be? One block up with a fake mustache and binoculars?

[jwirr]

37. I need to ask one of those stupid questions: What does BFEE stand for. I know who it stands for

not what the initials stand for.

[Octafish]

39. Bush Family Evil Empire

BFEE Scorecard



Bartcop coined the term "Bush Family Evil Empire" to denote the 60-year pre-eminence of one family in the formation of the political philosophy in the United States, that of the War Party. The first to do so to my knowledge on the World Wide Web, Bartcop chronicled their ascension to the top of the national security state by hook and by crook. At least three generations have held high national office, while also making big money off war and looting the public Treasury. The last president of the United States, a man who wasn't elected fair and square by any stretch of the imagination, actually said: "Money trumps peace" at a press conference. For some reason, not a single "journalist" had the guts to ask him what he meant by that.

Bartcop did. And We and Democracy are better for it.

[jwirr]

43. I had the bush family figured out but did not know the ee. Thank you. Made me smile before I hit

the hay. Good night everyone.

[elias49]

38. Beginning to sound like a Reynolds Wrap night!

[MrMickeysMom]

40. Is that another way of saying that you were not presented with these facts?

You can digest them, or discard them in fish wrap. The information will have been so, regardless.

[nilesobek]

41. Haig's comments raised eyebrows in the media,

who were instantly alert trying to scoop each other. The media narrative, at the time as I recall it, was that President Reagan had been shot by a lone gunman. But later, in the day, as it became apparent that Reagan was in good spirits and not injured too badly the media changed from what they were doing before, and began idol worship.

The Bush connections with Hinkley are weird. How did Hinkley know where Reagan was going to be that day?

[pinboy3niner]

42. Hinckley saw President Reagan's schedule in the newspaper that morning

Hinckley arrived in Washington on March 29, on a Greyhound Lines bus[12] and checked into the Park Central Hotel.[4] While eating breakfast at McDonald's the next morning, he noticed Reagan's schedule on page A4 of the Washington Star, and decided it was time to act. ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Ronald_Reagan#Speaking_engagement_at_the_Washington_Hilton_Hotel