Main Justice
Edited by: Mary Jacoby
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/09/02/allison/
George W. Bush’s missing year
The widow of a Bush family confidant says her husband gave the future president an Alabama Senate campaign job as a favor to his worried father. Did they see him do any National Guard service? “Good lord, no.”
By Mary Jacoby
Sep 2, 2004 | Before there was Karl Rove, Lee Atwater or even James Baker, the Bush family’s political guru was a gregarious newspaper owner and campaign consultant from Midland, Texas, named Jimmy Allison. In the spring of 1972, George H.W. Bush phoned his friend and asked a favor: Could Allison find a place on the Senate campaign he was managing in Alabama for his troublesome eldest son, the 25-year-old George W. Bush?
“The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy’s wing,” Allison’s widow, Linda, told me. “And Jimmy said, ‘Sure.’ He was so loyal.”
Linda Allison’s story, never before published, contradicts the Bush campaign’s assertion that George W. Bush transferred from the Texas Air National Guard to the Alabama National Guard in 1972 because he received an irresistible offer to gain high-level experience on the campaign of Bush family friend Winton “Red” Blount. In fact, according to what Allison says her late husband told her, the younger Bush had become a political liability for his father, who was then the United States ambassador to the United Nations, and the family wanted him out of Texas. “I think they wanted someone they trusted to keep an eye on him,” Linda Allison said.
After more than three decades of silence, Allison spoke with Salon over several days before and during the Republican National Convention this week — motivated, as she acknowledged, by a complex mixture of emotions. They include pride in her late husband’s accomplishments, a desire to see him remembered, and concern about the apparent double standard in Bush surrogates attacking John Kerry’s Vietnam War record while ignoring the president’s irresponsible conduct during the war. She also admits to bewilderment and hurt over the rupture her husband experienced in his friendship with George and Barbara Bush. To this day, Allison is unsure what caused the break, though she suspects it had something to do with her husband’s opposition to the elder Bush becoming chairman of the Republican National Committee under President Nixon.
“Something happened that I don’t know about. But I do know that Jimmy didn’t expect it, and it broke his heart,” she said, describing a ruthless side to the genial Bush clan of which few outsiders are aware.
Personal history aside, Allison’s recollections of the young George Bush in Alabama in 1972 are relevant as a contrast to the medals for valor and bravery that Kerry won in Vietnam in the same era. An apparent front group for the Bush campaign, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, has attacked Kerry in television ads as a liar and traitor to veterans for later opposing a war that cost 58,000 American lives. Bush, who has resisted calls from former Vietnam War POW John McCain, R-Ariz., to repudiate the Swift Boat ads, has said he served honorably in the National Guard.
Allison’s account corroborates a Washington Post investigation in February that found no credible witnesses to the service in the Alabama National Guard that Bush maintains he performed, despite a lack of documentary evidence. Asked if she’d ever seen Bush in a uniform, Allison said: “Good lord, no. I had no idea that the National Guard was involved in his life in any way.” Allison also confirmed previously published accounts that Bush often showed up in the Blount campaign offices around noon, boasting about how much alcohol he had consumed the night before. (Bush has admitted that he was a heavy drinker in those years, but he has refused to say whether he also used drugs).
“After about a month I asked Jimmy what was Georgie’s job, because I couldn’t figure it out. I never saw him do anything. He told me it basically consisted of him contacting people who were impressed by his name and asking for contributions and support,” Allison said.
C. Murphy Archibald, a nephew of Red Blount by marriage and a Vietnam veteran who volunteered on the campaign from September 1972 until election night, corroborated Allison’s recollections, though he doesn’t recall that the Bush name carried much cachet in Alabama at the time. “I say that because the scuttlebutt on the campaign was that Allison was very sharp and might actually be able to pull off this difficult race” against the incumbent Democrat, Sen. John Sparkman, Archibald said. “But then no one understood why he brought this young guy from Texas along. It was like, ‘Who was this guy who comes in late and leaves early? And why would Jimmy Allison, who was so impressive, bring him on?’”
Bush, who had a paid slot as Allison’s deputy in a campaign staffed largely by volunteers, sat in a little office next to Allison’s, said Archibald, a workers compensation lawyer in Charlotte, N.C. Indeed, when Bush was actually there, he did make phone calls to county chairmen. But he neglected his other duty: the mundane but important task of mailing out campaign materials to the county campaign chairs. Archibald took up the slack, at Allison’s request. “Jimmy didn’t say anything about George. He just said, ‘These materials are not getting out. It’s causing the candidate problems. Will you take it over?’”
While Kerry earned a Silver Star and a Bronze Star after saving a crewmate’s life under fire on the Mekong River in Vietnam, by contrast, the Georgie that Allison knew was a young man whose parents did not allow him to live with the consequences of his own mistakes. His powerful father — whom the son seemed to both idolize and resent — was a lifeline for Bush out of predicaments. After Bush graduated from Yale in 1968, his slot in the Texas Air National Guard allowed him to avoid active duty service in Vietnam. The former speaker of the Texas state House, Democrat Ben Barnes, now admits he pulled strings to get Bush his coveted guard slot, and says he’s “ashamed” of the deed. “60 Minutes” will air an interview with Barnes next Wednesday, but George H.W. Bush denounced Barnes’ claims in an interview aired on CBS. “They keep saying that and it’s a lie, a total lie. Nobody’s come up with any evidence, and yet it’s repeated all the time,” the former president said, in what could just as well describe the playbook for the Swift Boat Veterans ads.
Yet, after receiving unusual permission to transfer to the Alabama Guard from Texas, Bush has produced no evidence he showed up for service for anything other than a dental exam. Later, Bush would trade on his father’s connections to enter the oil business, and when his ventures failed, trade on more connections to find investors to bail him out. Linda Allison’s story fills in the details about a missing chapter in the story of how George Bush Sr.’s friends helped his wastrel son. The Bush campaign, decamped to New York for the convention, did not return a phone call by late Wednesday.
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And published by:
Kenny Day
Who is Kenny Day
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kennyday
Kenny DayDirector of Business Development at Main Justice
Washington D.C. Metro Area
Current Publisher at Main Justice
Past Director of Advertising at Legal Times
Associate Publisher at The Politico, Allbritton Communications
Publisher - Washington Flyer Magazine at The Magazine Group
Director Marketing, Stategy & Communications at Roll Call
Head of Commerce at European Voice
Advertising Director at Regardie’s Power Magazine
May 2009 — Present (1 year 3 months)
“Main Justice” is the informal name for Department of Justice headquarters at 9th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. It is also Washington short-hand for the leadership and top prosecutors and lawyers at the Justice Department.
In April, 2009 Main Justice was launched and quickly achieved “must-read” status among a high-influence community of law enforcers, lawyers, corporate counsel, the judiciary and Capitol Hill policy staff. We also are reaching officials of the FBI, DEA, ATF, think tanks and general readers interested in Justice Department issues. We are often quoted by mainstream media.
Main Justice covers the legal community in and around the Department of Justice. Our goal is to provide insider information about the nation’s top federal law enforcers, lawyers and legal policy makers. We also follow developments on Capitol Hill and the inner workings of the 94 U.S. Attorney offices around the country.
Main Justice is the only news site which focuses on the upper echelon of the nation’s legal world, from the Attorney General to US Attorneys.
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Allbritton Communications Company
You might say this company knows the ABC’s of television broadcasting. Allbritton Communications is a leading TV station operator and a top affiliate of Walt Disney’s ABC broadcast network. It has a portfolio of about 10 stations that serve markets in Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia, as well as Washington, DC. The company also owns and operates a 24-hour cable news channel (NewsChannel 8) that serves the nation’s capitol, and it operates Politico.com, a Web site and companion newspaper offering political news and opinion. Joe Allbritton started the family-owned business in 1975
THIS will knock your socks off....
We should know him, but we don’t. I will now...
http://www.nndb.com/people/777/000051624/
Joe L. Allbritton
Born: 29-Dec-1924
Birthplace: D’Lo, MS
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Business
Party Affiliation: Republican
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Well-connected Washington **billionaire
Military service: US Navy (1943-46)
In addition to Riggs Bank, Allbritton owns nine ABC affiliates; the callsign of Washington, D.C. station WJLA-TV contains his initials. He used to own The Washington Star. Still owns a number of other papers. Personal friend of the Reagans and Bushes. Owns racehorses. Major player at the Alfalfa Club.
Allbritton developed a business relationship with brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the mid-1990s, and traveled to Chile on multiple occasions during that time period. Apparently, Riggs bank opened 8 private accounts for the despot, which held between $4 and $8 million.
Father: Lewis A. Allbritton
Mother: Ada Carpenter
Wife: Barbara Jean Balfanz (m. 23-Feb-1967, one son)
Son: Robert Lewis Allbritton (b. 1969)
Law School: LLB, Baylor University (1949)
Administrator: Regent, Baylor University (1997-)
Allbritton Communications
Riggs National CEO
Member of the Board of Riggs National
The Washington Star Publisher (1974-78)
George Bush Presidential Library Trustee
Alfalfa Club 1977
Council on Foreign Relations
Freemasonry
Kennedy Center Trustee Emeritus
Wedding: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver (1986)
And then there is this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15462-2005Mar7.html
Robert Allbritton Resigns as CEO of Riggs Ahead of Merger
Allbritton is the 35-year-old son and only child of Joe L. Allbritton, who gained control of the company and its Riggs Bank subsidiary in 1981. Though the family still controls nearly 40 percent of the outstanding stock, no family members will remain on the board or in the executive suite. Joe, who was chief executive until 2001, and his wife, Barbara, announced last April they would resign as directors as a money-laundering scandal engulfed the company.
In stepping down from Riggs, Robert Allbritton cited a desire to devote time to Allbritton Communications Co., his family-owned chain of television stations, where he is chief executive.
His decision to leave comes as several independent directors at Riggs have been conducting a review of his and his father’s personal use of a former company jet. The Department of Justice is also conducting an inquiry into the use of corporate assets at Riggs.
Paul Clark, a spokesman for the Allbritton family, said the inquiries into the father’s and son’s use of the plane and a company-provided apartment played no role in Robert Allbritton’s decision to resign.
Robert became chief executive and chairman after his father retired in 2001. Current and former associates at the bank said he was a likable if aloof executive who spent much of his time at Allbritton Communications, which has offices adjacent to Riggs’s downtown Washington headquarters.
Much of the day-to-day management of Riggs was left to Lawrence I. Hebert, a longtime Allbritton family lieutenant who is chief executive of Riggs Bank, the company’s main subsidiary.
Under Robert, Riggs began investing significantly in improving the bank’s inefficient back-office systems and focusing on growing the Washington area retail banking network.
But those efforts did not improve Riggs’s financial performance, perennially poor compared with its peers, and the institution began to run into trouble in the middle of 2003, when regulators cited Riggs for its lack of anti-money-laundering controls. By the spring and summer of last year, the problem had mushroomed into a full-blown Washington scandal, complete with congressional investigations and Capitol Hill hearings.
Evidence of a divergence of interests between the Allbrittons and the company they controlled and ran for 24 years has been growing in recent months. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, along with several independent directors, has expressed annoyance at Robert Allbritton’s absence from the company’s affairs, given he was the chief executive, according to sources familiar with the directors’ thinking but who spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
Hebert, not Allbritton, appeared as the senior executive in U.S. District Court last month when Riggs Bank entered a felony guilty plea for failing to prevent possible money laundering by former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and officials of the West African oil state of Equatorial Guinea. Riggs paid a $16 million fine in that action, on top of an earlier $25 million regulatory fine.
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And it keeps getting better.....