Date: Mon Jan  4 03:48:21 est 1993
From: "John Covici" <covici@ccs.covici.com>
Message-Id: <2b47f9dd.ccs@ccs.covici.com>
Reply-To: "John Covici" <covici@ccs.covici.com>
Organization: Covici Computer Systems
To: uunet!css.itd.umich.edu!pauls@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: Unauthorized Biography of George Bush: Part 29
Status: O
{XXI: The Phony War on
Drugs} 

An indispensable component of the
mythical media profile which George
Bush has built up over the years to
buttress his electoral aspirations has
been his role as an antidrug fighter.
His first formally scheduled prime time
presidential television address to the
nation, in September 1989, was devoted
to announcing his plans for measures to
combat the illegal narcotics that
continued to inundate the streets of
the United States. During his 1988
election campaign, Bush had pointed
with astounding complacency to his
record as President Reagan's designated
point man in the administration's war on
drugs. 
   In his acceptance speech to the
Republican National Convention in 1988,
Bush stated: ``I want a drug-free
America. Tonight, I challenge the young
people of our country to shut down the
drug dealers around the world.... My
administration will be telling the
dealers, `Whatever we have to do, we'll
do, but your day is over. You're
history.'|'' 
   Indeed, Bush has an impressive
resume@aa of bureaucratic titles to
back up his claim to be America's top
antidrug fighter. On January 28, 1982,
Reagan created the South Florida Task
Force under Bush's high-profile
leadership, to coordinate the efforts
of the various federal agencies to stem
the tide of narcotics into Bush's old
family bailiwick. On March 23, 1983,
Bush was placed in charge of the
National Narcotics Border Interdiction
System, which was supposed to staunch
the drug flow over all U.S. borders. In
August 1986, U.S. officials presented
to their Mexican counterparts a scheme
called Operation Alliance, a new border
enforcement initiative that was
allegedly to do for the U.S.-Mexican
border area what the South Florida Task
Force had allegedly already done for
the southeastern states. George Bush
was appointed chief of Operation
Alliance, which involved 20 federal
agencies, 500 additional federal
officers, and a budget of $266 million. 
   The drug plague is an area in
which the national interest requires
results. Illegal narcotics are one of
the most important causes of the
dissolution of American society at the
present time. To interdict the drug
flows and to prosecute the drug money
launderers at the top of the banking
community would have represented a real
public service. But Bush had no
intention of seriously pursuing such
goals. For him, the war on drugs was,
and is, a cruel hoax, a cynical
exercise in demagogic self-promotion,
designed in large part to camouflage
activities by himself and his networks
that promoted drug trafficking. A
further shocking episode that has come
to light in this regard involves Bush's
14-year friendship with a member of
Meyer Lansky's Miami circles who sold
Bush his prized trophy, the Cigarette
boat {Fidelity}. 
   Bush's war on drugs was a
rhetorical and public relations success
for a time. On February 16, 1982, in a
speech on his own turf in Miami,
Florida, Bush promised to use
sophisticated military aircraft to
track the airplanes used by smugglers.
Several days later, Bush ordered the
U.S. Navy to send in its E-2C
surveillance aircraft for this purpose.
If these were not available in
sufficient numbers, said Bush, he was
determined to bring in the larger and
more sophisticated AWACS early warning
aircraft to do the job. But Bush's
skills as an interagency expediter left
something to be desired: By May, two of
the four E-2C aircraft that originally
had been in Florida were transferred
out of the state. By June, airborne
surveillance time was running a mere 40
hours per month, not the 360 hours
promised by Bush, prompting Rep. Glenn
English (D-Ok.) to call hearings on
this topic. By October 1982, the
General Accounting Office issued an
opinion in which it found ``it is
doubtful whether the [south Florida]
task force can have any substantial
long-term impact on drug
availability.'' But the headlines were
grabbed by Bush, who stated in 1984
that the efforts of his task force had
eliminated the marijuana trade in south
Florida. That was an absurd claim, but
it sounded very good. When Francis
Mullen, Jr., the administrator of the
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),
criticized Bush for making this wildly
inaccurate statement, he was soon
ousted from his post at the DEA. 
   In 1988, Democratic Congressman
Glenn English concluded that Bush's
``war on drugs'' had been fought with
``little more than lip service and
press releases.'' English wrote:
``There has been very little substance
behind the rhetoric, and some of the
major interdiction problems have yet to
be resolved. The President assigned ...
Bush to coordinate and direct federal
antidrug-abuse programs among the
various law enforcement agencies.
However, eight years later it is
apparent that the task has not been
accomplished.''@s1

   Bush and Organized Crime

   But the whole truth is much
uglier. We have indicated how the
Iran-Contra drug-running and
gun-running operations run out of
Bush's own office played their role in
increasing the cocaine and marijuana
brought into this country. We have
reviewed Bush's relations with his
close supporters in the Wall Street LBO
gang, much of whose liquidity is
derived from narcotics payments which
the banking system is eager to recycle
and launder. We recall Bush's 1990
meeting with Syrian President Hafez al
Assad, who is personally one of the
most prolific drug pushers on the
planet, and whom Bush embraced as an
ally during the Gulf war. 
   But there is an even more flagrant
aspect of Bush's conduct which can be
said to demolish once and for all the
myth of the ``war on drugs'' and
replace it with a reality so sinister
that it goes beyond the imagination of
most citizens. 
   Those who follow Bush's frenetic
sports activities on television are
doubtless familiar with Bush's
speedboat, in which he is accustomed to
cavort in the waters off his estate at
Walker's Point in Kennebunkport,
Maine.@s2 The craft in question is the
{Fidelity,} a powerboat capable of
operating on the high seas. {Fidelity}
is a class of boat marketed under the
brand name of ``Cigarette,'' a
high-priced speedboat dubbed ``the
Ferrari of the high seas.'' This detail
should awaken our interest, since
Bush's profile as an Anglo-Saxon
aristocrat would normally include a
genteel predilection for sailing,
rather than a preference for a vulgar
hot-rod like {Fidelity,} which evokes
the ethos of rum-runners and smugglers. 
   The Cigarette boat {Fidelity} was
purchased by George Bush from a certain
Don Aronow. Bush reportedly met Aronow
at a boat show in 1974, and decided to
buy one of the Cigarette boats Aronow
manufactured. Aronow was one of the
most celebrated and successful
powerboat racers of the 1960s, and had
then turned his hand to designing and
building these boats. But, according to
at least one published account, there
is compelling evidence to conclude that
Aronow was a drug smuggler and
suspected drug-money launderer, linked
to the Genovese family of New York and
New Jersey within the more general
framework of the Meyer Lansky organized
crime syndicate. Aronow's role in
marijuana smuggling was reportedly
confirmed by Bill Norris, head of the
Major Narcotics Unit at the Miami U.S.
Attorney's office, and thus the top
federal drug prosecution official in
south Florida.@s3 
   Aronow numbered among his friends
and acquaintances not just Bush, but
many international public figures and
celebrities, many of whom had purchased
the boats he built. In May of 1986,
Aronow received a letter from Nicolas
Iliopoulos, the royal boat captain to
King Hussein of Jordan, expressing on
behalf of the King the latter's
satisfaction with a powerboat purchased
from Aronow, and conveying the
compliments of King Juan Carlos of
Spain and President Hosni Mubarak of
Egypt, who had recently been the
Jordanian sovereign's guests on board.
Aronow sent a copy of this letter to
Bush, from whom he received a reply
dated June 6, 1986, in which Bush
thanked him ``with warm regards'' for
forwarding the royal note and added:
``I can repeat that my old Cigarette,
the `Fidelity' is running well too.
I've had her out a couple of weekends
and the engines have been humming. I
hope our paths cross soon, my
friend.''@s4 
   Aronow was reportedly a close
friend of George Bush. Over the years,
Bush had apparently consulted with
Aronow concerning the servicing and
upkeep of his Cigarette boat. During
1983, Bush began to seek out Aronow's
company for fishing trips. The original
engines on Bush's Cigarette boat needed
replacement, and this was the
ostensible occasion for renewing
contact with Aronow. Aronow told Bush
of a new model of boat that he had
designed, supposedly a high-performance
catamaran. Bush planned to come to
Florida during the New Year's holiday
for a short vacation during which he
would go bonefishing with his crony
Nick Brady. During this time he would
also arrange to deliver an antidrug
pep-talk. 
   On January 4, 1984, George Bush
rendezvoused with Don Aronow at
Islamorada in the Florida Keys. Earlier
in the day, Bush had delivered one of
his ``war on drugs'' speeches at the
Omni International Hotel in Miami. Bush
and Brady then proceeded by motorcade
to Islamorada, where Aronow was waiting
with his catamaran. Accompanied by a
flotilla of Secret Service and Customs
agents in Cigarette boats that had been
seized from drug smugglers, Bush,
Brady, Aronow and one of the latter's
retainers proceeded aboard the
catamaran through moderate swells to
Miami, with White House photographers
eternalizing the photo opportunity at
every moment. Bush, who had donned
designer racing goggles for the
occasion, was allowed to take the wheel
of the catamaran and seemed very
thrilled and very happy. Nick Brady,
sporting his own wraparound shades,
found the seas too rough for his taste. 
   After the trip was over, Bush
personally typed the following letter
to Don Aronow on his vice-presidential
stationery, which he sent accompanied
by some photographs of Bush, Aronow,
Brady, and the others on board the
catamaran: ``January 14, 1984
   ``Dear Don, 
   ``... Again Don this day was one of
the greatest of my life. I love boats,
always have. But ever since knowing you
that private side of my life has become
ever more exciting and fulfilling.
Incidentally, I didn't get to tell you
but my reliable 28 footer Cigarette
that is still doing just fine ... no
trouble at all and the new last year
engines. 
   ``All the best to you and all your
exciting ventures. May all your boats
bee [sic] number one and may the hosres
[sic] be not far behind.''
   At the end of this message,
before his signature, Bush wrote in by
hand, ``My typing stinks.''@s5 
   As a result of this outing, Bush
is said to have used his influence to
see to it that Aronow received a
lucrative contract to build the ``Blue
Thunder'' catamarans at $150,000 apiece
for the U.S. Customs Service. This
contract was announced with great
fanfare in Miami on February 4, 1985,
and was celebrated a week later in a
public ceremony in which Florida
Senator Paula Hawkins and U.S. Customs
Commissioner William von Raab mugged
for photographers together with Aronow.
The government purchase was hyped as
the first time that Customs would
receive boats especially designed and
built to intercept drug-runners on the
high seas, a big step forward in the
war on drugs. 
   This was the same George Bush who
in March 1988 had stated: ``I will
never bargain with drug dealers on U.S.
or foreign soil.'' 
   As one local resident recalled of
that time, ``everyone in Miami knew
that if you needed a favor from Bush,
you spoke to Aronow.''@s6 It was
proverbial among Florida pols and
powerbrokers that Aronow had the vice
president's ear. 
   The Customs Service soon found
that the Blue Thunder catamarans were
highly unseaworthy and highly
unsuitable for the task of chasing down
other speedboats, including, above all,
Aronow's earlier model Cigarette boats,
which were now produced by a company
not controlled by Aronow. Blue Thunder
was a relatively slow class, capable of
a top speed of only 56 miles per hour,
despite the presence of twin
440-horsepower marine engines. The
design of the catamaran hulls lacked
any hydrodynamic advantages, and the
boats were too heavy to attain
sufficient lift. The stern drives were
too weak for the powerful engines,
leading to the problem of
``grenading.'' This meant that the
boats had to be kept well below their
maximum speed. Most Blue Thunders spent
more time undergoing repairs than
chasing drug-runners in the coastal
waters of Florida. 
   Documents found by Thomas Burdick
in the Dade County land records office
show that U.S.A. Racing, the company
operated by Aronow which built the Blue
Thunder catamarans for the Customs
Service, was not owned by Aronow, but
rather by a one Jack J. Kramer in his
capacity as president of Super Chief
South Corporation. Jack Kramer had
married a niece of Meyer Lansky. Jack
Kramer's son, Ben Kramer, was thus the
great-nephew and one of the putative
heirs of the top boss of the U.S. crime
syndicate, Meyer Lansky. Ben Kramer was
also a notorious organized crime figure
in his own right. On March 28, 1990
Jack Kramer and Ben Kramer were found
guilty of 23 and 28 counts
(respectively) of federal money
laundering charges. In the previous
year, Ben Kramer had also been
sentenced to life imprisonment without
parole for having imported half a
million pounds of marijuana. Bush had
thus given a prime contract in waging
the war on drugs to one of the leading
drug-smuggling and money-laundering
crime families in the U.S.     

   Aronow Is Murdered

   Don Aronow was murdered by
Mafia-style professional killers on
February 3, 1987. During the last days
of his life, Aronow is reported to have
made numerous personal telephone calls
to Bush. Aronow had been aware that his
life was in danger, and he had left a
list of instructions to tell his wife
what to do if anything should happen to
him. The first point on the list was
``#1. CALL GEORGE BUSH.''@s7 Lillian
Aronow did call Bush, who reportedly
responded by placing a personal call to
the Metro-Dade Police Department
homicide division to express his
concern and to request an expeditious
handling of the case. Bush did not
attend Aronow's funeral, but a month
later he sent a letter to Aronow's son
Gavin in which he called the late Don
Aronow ``a hero.'' 
   When Lillian Aronow suspected that
her telephone was being tapped, she
called Bush, who urged her to be calm
and promised to order an investigation
of the matter. Shortly after that, the
suspicious noises in Mrs. Aronow's
telephone ceased. When Lillian Aronow
received reports that her husband might
have been murdered by rogue CIA
operatives or other wayward federal
agents, and that she herself and her
children were still in danger, she
shared her fears in a telephone call to
Bush. Bush reportedly later called Mrs.
Aronow and, as she recalled, ``He said
to me, `Lillian, you're fine.' He said
that `ex-CIA people are really off.'
That's the truth.''@s8 
   In the summer of 1987, Bush
snubbed Mrs. Aronow by pointedly
avoiding her at a Miami dinner party.
But during this same period, Bush
frequently went fishing with former
Aronow employee Willie Meyers.
According to Thomas Burdick's sources,
Willie Meyers was also a friend of
Secretary of State George Shultz, and
often expressed concern about damaging
publicity for Bush and Shultz that
might derive from the Aronow case. 
   According to Thomas Burdick,
Meyers says that Bush talked to him
about how the vice president's staff
was monitoring the Aronow story. Bush
lamented that he did not have grounds
to get federal agencies involved. ``I
just wish,'' said Bush to Meyers,
``that there was some federal aspect to
the murder. If the killers crossed
state lines, then I could get the FBI
involved.''@s9 The form of the argument
is reminiscent of the views expressed
by Bush and Tony Lapham during the
Orlando Letelier case. 
   In May or June of 1987, several
months after Aronow had been killed,
Mike Brittain, who owned a company
called Aluminum Marine Products,
located on ``Thunderboat Alley'' in the
northern part of Miami (the same street
where Aronow had worked), was
approached by two FBI special agents,
Joseph Usher and John Donovan, both of
the Miami FBI field office. They were
accompanied by a third FBI man, whom
they presented as a member of George
Bush's staff at the National Drug Task
Force in Washington, D.C. The third
agent, reportedly named William Temple,
had, according to the other two, come
to Miami on a special mission ordered
by the vice president of the United
States. 
   As Brittain told his story to
Burdick, Special Agent Temple ``didn't
ask about the murder or anything like
that. All he wanted to know about was
the merger.''@s1@s0 The merger in
question was the assumption of control
over Aronow's company, U.S.A. Racing,
by the Kramers' Super Chief South,
which meant that a key contract in the
Bush ``war on drugs'' had been awarded
to a company controlled by persons who
would later be convicted for marijuana
smuggling and money laundering. Many of
the FBI questions focused on this
connection between Aronow and Kramer.
Later, after Bush's victory in the 1988
presidential election, the FBI again
questioned Brittain, and again the
central issue was the Aronow-Kramer
connection, plus additional questions
of whether Brittain had divulged any of
his knowledge of these matters to other
persons. A possible conclusion was that
a damage control operation in favor of
Bush was in progress. 
   Tommy Teagle, an ex-convict
interviewed by Burdick, said he feared
that George Bush would have him killed
because information in his possession
would implicate Jeb Bush in cocaine
smuggling. Teagle's story was that
Aronow and Jeb Bush had been partners
in cocaine trafficking and were $2.5
million in debt to their Colombian
suppliers. Dr. Robert Magoon, a friend
of Aronow, is quoted in the same
location as having heard a similar
report. But Teagle rapidly changed his
story.@s1@s1 Ultimately, an imprisoned
convict was indicted for the murder of
Aronow. 
   But the circumstances of the
murder remain highly suspect. Starting
in 1985, and with special intensity
during 1987-88, more than two dozen
persons involved in various aspects of
the Iran-Contra gun-running and
drug-running operation met their
deaths. Above and beyond the
details of each particular case, the
overall pattern of these deaths
strongly suggests that they are
coherent with a damage control
operation by the networks involved,
that has concentrated on liquidating
those individuals whose testimony might
prove to be most damning to the leading
personalities of these networks. The
death of Don Aronow occurred within the
time frame of this general process of
amputation and cauterization of the
Iran-Contra and related networks. Many
aspects of Aronow's life suggest that
his assassination may have been a
product of the same ``damage control''
logic. 

insert Chapter 22 head box here

   On the morning of June 29, 1989,
pandemonium erupted in the corridors of
power in the nation's capital.
``Homosexual Prostitution Probe
Ensnares Official of Bush, Reagan,''
screamed the front-page headline of the
{Washington Times} with the kicker
``Call Boys Took Midnight Tour of White
House.'' 
   The {Times} reported, ``A
homosexual prostitution ring is under
investigation by federal and District
authorities and includes among its
clients key officials of the Reagan and
Bush administrations, military
officers, congressional aides and U.S.
and foreign businessmen with close ties
to Washington's political elite.'' 
   The expose@aa centered on the role
of one Craig Spence, a Republican
powerbroker known for his lavish
``power cocktail'' parties. Spence was
well connected. He celebrated
Independence Day 1988 by conducting a
midnight tour of the White House in the
company of two teenage male prostitutes
among others in his party. 
   Rumors circulated that a list
existed of some 200 Washington
prominents who had used the call boy
service. The Number Two in charge of
personnel affairs at the White House,
who was responsible for filling all the
top civil service posts in the federal
bureaucracy, and Secretary of Labor
Elizabeth Dole's chief of staff, were
two individuals publicly identified as
patrons of the call boy ring. 
   Two of the ring's call boys were
allegedly KGB operatives, according to
a retired general from the Defense
Intelligence Agency interviewed by the
press. But the evidence seemed to point
to a CIA sexual blackmail operation,
instead. Spence's entire mansion was
covered with hidden microphones,
two-way mirrors and video cameras, ever
ready to capture the indiscretions of
Washington's high, mighty and perverse.
The political criteria for proper
sexual comportment had long been
established in Washington: Any
kinkiness goes, so long as you don't
get caught. The popular proverb was
that the only way a politician could
hurt his career was if he were ``caught
with a dead woman or a live boy'' in
his bed. 
   Months after the scandal had died
down, and a few weeks before he
allegedly committed suicide, Spence was
asked who had given him the ``key'' to
the White House. The {Washington Times}
reported that ``Mr. Spence hinted the
tours were arranged by `top level'
persons, including Donald Gregg,
national security advisor to Vice
President Bush''@s1 and later U.S.
ambassador to South Korea. 
   We have already had occasion to
examine Don Gregg's role in
Iran-Contra, and have observed his
curious performance when testifying
under oath before congressional
committees. Gregg indignantly denied
any connection to Spence, yet it is
public record that Spence had sponsored
a dinner in Gregg's honor in the spring
of 1989 at Washington's posh Four
Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. 
   George Bush was less than pleased
with the media coverage of the
prostitution charges and kept abreast
of the scandal as it mushroomed. The
{Washington Times} reported in an
article titled ``White House Mute on
Call Boy Scandal,'' that ``White House
sources confirmed that President Bush
has followed the story of the late
night visit and Mr. Spence's links to a
homosexual prostitution ring under
investigation by federal authorities
since they were disclosed June 29 in
the {Washington Times}. But top
officials will not discuss the story's
substance, reportedly even among
themselves. 
   ``Press officers have rebuffed
repeated requests to obtain Mr. Bush's
reaction and decline to discuss
investigations or fall out from the
disclosures.''@s2 By midsummer, the
scandal had been buried. The President
had managed to avoid giving a single
press conference where he would surely
have been asked to comment. 

   Scandal in Nebraska

   As the call boy ring affair
dominated the cocktail gossip circuit
in Washington, another scandal, halfway
across the country in the state of
Nebraska, peaked. Again this scandal
knocked on the President's door. 
   A black Republican who had been a
leader in organizing minority support
for the President's 1988 campaign and
who proudly displayed a photo of
himself and the President, arm in arm,
in his Omaha home, was at the center of
a sex and money scandal that continues
to rock the Cornhusker state. 
   The scandal originated with the
collapse of the minority-oriented
Franklin Community Credit Union in
Omaha, directed by Lawrence E. King,
Jr., a nationally influential black
Republican who sang the national anthem
at both the 1984 and 1988 Republican
conventions. King became the subject of
the Nebraska Senate's investigation
conducted by the specially created
``Franklin Committee'' to probe charges
of embezzlement. In November 1988,
King's offices were raided by the FBI
and $40 million was discovered missing.
Within weeks, the Nebraska Senate,
which initially opened the inquiry to
find out where the money had gone,
instead found itself questioning young
adults and teenagers who said that they
had been child prostitutes. Social
workers and state child-care
administrators accused King of running
a child prostitution ring. The charges
grew, with the former police chief of
Omaha, the publisher of the state's
largest daily newspaper, and several
other political associates of King,
finding themselves accused of
patronizing the child prostitution
ring. 
   King is now serving a 15-year
federal prison sentence for defrauding
the Omaha-based credit union. But the
magazines {Avvenimenti} of Italy and
{Pronto} of Spain, among others, have
charged that King's crimes were more
serious: that he ran a national child
prostitution ring that serviced the
political and business elite of both
Republican and Democratic parties.
Child victims of King's operations
charged him with participation in at
least one satanic ritual murder of a
child several years ago. The
{Washington Post}, {New York Times},
{Village Voice} and {National Law
Journal} covered the full range of
accusations after the story broke in
November of 1988. King's money
machinations were also linked to the
Iran-Contra affair, and some say that
King provided the CIA with information
garnered from his alleged activities as
a ``pimp'' for the high and mighty. 
   {Pronto}, the Barcelona-based,
largest circulation weekly in Spain
with 4.5 million readers, reported that
the Lawrence E. King child prostitution
scandal ``appears to directly implicate
politicos of the state of Nebraska and
Washington, D.C. who are very close to
the White House and George Bush
himself.'' 
   The weekly stated that Roy
Stephens, a private investigator who
has worked on the case and heads the
Missing Youth Foundation, ``says there
is reason to believe that the CIA is
directly implicated,'' and that the
``FBI refuses to help in the
investigation and has sabotaged any
efforts'' to get to the bottom of the
story. Stephens says that ``Paul
Bonacci directly accused President
Bush of being implicated'' in the
affair when he testified before the
Franklin Committee.@s3 Bonacci, who
had been one of the child prostitutes,
is identified by leading child-abuse
experts as a well-informed, credible
witness. 
   Lawrence King was no stranger to
President Bush. And Lawrence King was
no stranger to Craig Spence. Several of
the Omaha child prostitutes testified
that they had traveled to Washington,
D.C. with King in private planes to
attend political events which were
followed by sex parties. King and
Spence had much in common. Not only
were they both Republican Party
activists but they had gone into
business together procuring prostitutes
for Washington's elite. 
   Bush's name had repeatedly
surfaced in the Nebraska scandal. But
his name was first put into print in
July 1989, a little less than a month
after the Washington call boy affair
had first made headlines. Omaha's
leading daily newspaper reported, ``One
child, who has been under psychiatric
care, is said to believe she saw George
Bush at one of King's parties.''@s4 
   A full three years after the
scandal had first made headlines,
Bush's name again appeared in print.
{Gentleman's Quarterly (GQ)} carried a
lengthy article, viewed by many
political observers in Nebraska as an
attempt to refute the charges, which
would not die, despite the termination
of all official inquiries. The {GQ}
piece disputed the allegations as a
conspiracy theory that went out of
control and resonated because of some
mystical sociological phenomena
allegedly unique to Nebraskan rural
folk who will believe anything and burn
``with the mistrust of city life that
once inflamed the prairie with populist
passion.'' Numerous polls over the last
few years have recorded over 90% saying
they believe there has been a ``cover
up'' of the truth. 
   {GQ} reported that yes, there was
theft, corruption and homosexuality in
this story, ``but no children were ever
involved in this case.'' In fact, ``the
only child even mentioned was a
9-year-old boy, whom the least reliable
of [Senate Committee investigator
Gary] Caradori's witnesses claimed to have
seen in the company of George Bush at
one of Larry King's Washington
parties.'' 
   Gary Caradori was a retired state
police investigator who had been hired
by the Nebraska Senate to investigate
the case, and who had died mysteriously
during the course of his
investigations.@s5 
   Sound crazy? Not to Steve Bowman,
an Omaha businessman who is compiling a
book about the Franklin money and sex
scandal. ``We do have some credible
witnesses who say that `Yes, George
Bush does have a problem.'... Child
abuse has become one of the epidemics
of the 1990s,'' Bowman told {GQ}.
Allegedly, one of Bowman's sources is a
retired psychiatrist who worked for the
CIA. He added that cocaine trafficking
and political corruption were the other
principal themes of his book.@s6 
   It didn't sound crazy to Peter
Sawyer either. An Australian
conservative activist who publishes a
controversial newsletter, {Inside
News}, with a circulation of 200,000,
dedicated his November 1991 issue
entirely to the Nebraska scandal,
focusing on President Bush's links to
the affair. In a section captioned,
``The Original Allegations: Bush First
Named in 1985,'' Sawyer writes, ``Stories about child sex
and pornography first became public
knowledge in 1989, following the
collapse of the Franklin Credit Union.
That is not when the allegations
started, however. Indeed, given the
political flavor of the subsequent
investigations, it would be easy to
dismiss claims that George Bush had
been involved. He was by then a very
public figure.... 
   ``If the first allegations about a
massive child exploitation ring,
centered around Larry King and leading
all the way to the White House, had
been made in 1989, and had all come
from the same source, some shenanigans
and mischievous collusion could be
suspected. However, the allegations
arising out of the Franklin Credit
Union collapse were not the first. 
   ``Way back in 1985, a young girl,
Eulice (Lisa) Washington, was the
center of an investigation by Andrea L.
Carener, of the Nebraska Department of
Social Services. The investigation was
instigated because Lisa and her sister
Tracey continually ran away from their
foster parents, Jarrett and Barbara
Webb. Initially reluctant to disclose
information for fear of being further
punished, the two girls eventually
recounted a remarkable story, later
backed up by other children who had
been fostered out to the Webb's [sic]. 
   ``These debriefings were conducted
by Mrs. Julie Walters, another welfare
officer, who worked for Boys Town at
the time, and who had been called in
because of the constant reference by
the Webb children and others, to that
institution. 
   ``Lisa, supported by her sister,
detailed a massive child sex,
homosexual, and pornography industry,
run in Nebraska by Larry King. She
described how she was regularly taken
to Washington by plane, with other
youths, to attend parties hosted by
King and involving many prominent
people, including businessmen and
politicians. Lisa specifically named
George Bush as being in attendance on
at least two separate occasions. 
   ``Remember, this was in 1985,''
emphasized the Australian newsletter. 
   The newsletter reproduces several
documents on Lisa's case, including a
Nebraska State Police report, a State
of Nebraska Foster Care Review Board
letter to the Attorney General, an
investigative report prepared for the
Franklin Committee of the Nebraska
Senate, and a portion of the
handwritten debriefing by Mrs. Julie
Walters. Peter Sawyer says that he
obtained the documents from sympathetic
Australian law enforcement officers who
had helped Australian Channel Ten
produce an expose@aa of a national
child prostitution ring, Down Under. The
Australian cops seem to have been in
communication with American law
enforcement officers who apparently
agreed that there had been a coverup on
the Nebraska scandal. Subsequent
investigations by the authors
established that all four documents
were authentic. 
   Mrs. Julie Walters, now a
housewife in the Midwest, confirmed
that in 1986 she had interviewed the
alleged child prostitute, Lisa, who
told her about Mr. Bush. Lisa and her
sister Tracey were temporarily living
at the time in the home of Kathleen
Sorenson, another foster parent. Mrs.
Walters explained that at first she was
very surprised. But Lisa, who came from
a very underprivileged background with
no knowledge of political affairs, gave
minute details of her attendance at
political meetings around the country. 
   From Julie Walters' 50-page
handwritten report: ``3/25/86. Met with
Kathleen [Sorenson] and Lisa for about
2 hours in Blair [Neb.] questioning
Lisa for more details about sexual
abuse.... Lisa admitted to being used
as a prostitute by Larry King when she
was on trips with his family. She
started going on trips when she was in
10th grade. Besides herself and Larry
there was also Mrs. King, their son,
Prince, and 2-3 other couples. They
traveled in Larry's private plane, Lisa
said that at these trip parties, which
Larry hosted, she sat naked `looking
pretty and innocent' and guests could
engage in any sexual activity they
wanted (but penetration was not
allowed) with her.... Lisa said she
first met V.P. George Bush at the
Republican Convention (that Larry King
sang the national anthem at) and saw
him again at a Washington, D.C. party
that Larry hosted. At that party, Lisa
saw no women (`make-up was
perfect--you had to check their legs to
make sure they weren't a woman'). 
   ``The polygraph test which Lisa took
only centered around sexual abuse
committed by Jarrett Webb. At that
time, she had said only general things
about Larry's trips (i.e. where they
went, etc.). She only began talking
about her involvement in prostitution
during those trips on 3/25/86.... 
   ``Lisa also accompanied Mr. and Mrs.
King and Prince on trips to Chicago,
N.Y. and Washington, D.C. beginning
when she was 15 years old. She missed
twenty-two days of school almost
totally due to these trips. Lisa was
taken along on the pretense of being
Prince's babysitter. Last year she met
V.P. George Bush and saw him again at
one of the parties Larry gave while on
a Washington, D.C. trip. At some of the
parties there are just men (as was the
case at the party George Bush
attended)--older men and younger men in
their early twenties. Lisa said she has
seen sodomy committed at those
parties.... 
   ``At these parties, Lisa said every
guest had a bodyguard and she saw some
of the men wearing guns. All guests had
to produce a card which was run through
a machine to verify who the guest was,
in fact, who they said they were. And
then each guest was frisked down before
entering the party.''@s7 
   The details of the accusations
against Mr. Bush are known to be in the
hands of the FBI. A Franklin Committee
report stated: ``Apparently she [Lisa] was
contacted on December 19 [1988] and
voluntarily came to the FBI offices on
December 30, 1988. She was interviewed
by Brady, Tucker and Phillips. 
   ``She indicates that in September or
October 1984, when [Lisa] Washington
was fourteen or fifteen years of age,
she went on a trip to Chicago with
Larry King and fifteen to twenty boys
from Omaha. She flew to Chicago on a
private plane. 
   ``The plane was large and had rows
of two seats apiece on either side of
the interior middle aisle. 
   ``She indicates that King got the
boys from Boys Town and the boys worked
for him. She stated that Rod Evans and
two other boys with the last name of
Evans were on the plane. Could not
recall the names of the other boys. 
   ``The boys who flew to Chicago with
Washington and King were between the
ages of fifteen and eighteen. Most of
the boys were black but some were
white. She was shown a color photograph
of a boy and identified that boy as
being one of the boys on the plane. She
could not recall his name. 
   ``She indicates that she was coerced
to going on the trip by Barbara Webb. 
   ``She indicates that she attended a
party in Chicago with King and the male
youths. She indicated George Bush was
present. 
   ``She indicates that she set [sic]
at a table at the party while wearing
nothing but a negligee. She stated that
George Bush saw her on the table. She
stated she saw George Bush pay King
money, and that Bush left the party
with a nineteen year old black boy
named Brent.''
   Lisa said the party George Bush
attended was in Chicago in September or
October 1984. According to the {Chicago
Tribune} of October 31, 1984, Bush was
in Illinois campaigning for
congressional candidates at the end of
October. 
   Lisa added more details on the
Chicago trip, and told why she was sure
it was George Bush she had seen.
According to a May 8, 1989 report by
investigator Jerry Lowe, ``Eulice
[Lisa] indicated that she recognized
George Bush as coming to the party and
that Bush had two large white males
with him. Eulice indicated Bush came to
the party approximately 45 minutes
after it started and that he was
greeted by Larry King. Eulice indicated
that she knew George Bush due to the
fact that he had been in political
campaigns and also she had observed a
picture of Bush with Larry King at
Larry King's house in Omaha.'' 
   There is no question that Lisa and
Tracey Webb were abused in the way they
claimed. But, in keeping with the
alleged pattern of coverup, a
Washington County, Nebraska judge in
December 1990 dismissed all charges
against their abusers, Jarrett and
Barbara Webb. The judge ignored
presented testimony of the 1986 report
by Boys Town official Julie Walters.
The report stated: ``Lisa was given
four polygraph tests administered by a
state trooper at the State Patrol
office on Center Street in Omaha. The
state trooper, after Lisa's testing was
completed, told [another foster parent]
he tried to `break Lisa down,' but he
was convinced she was telling the
truth.''@s8 
   Furthermore, numbers of foster
care officials and youth workers
debriefed the sisters. All of them
fully believed not only their general
story of abuse, but specifically their
account of Bush's involvement. The
March 1986 report on Bush was
incorporated into the Foster Care
Review Board's official report
presented to the Senate Franklin
Committee and to law enforcement. As
Kathleen Sorenson wrote in a report
dated May 1, 1989, ``This was long
before he [Bush] was President. It
seems like there were more exciting
people to `lie' about if that's what
they were doing.''@s9 

   Notes for Chapter XXI
 
   1.
 For Bush's ``war on drugs,''
see Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta,
``How Bush Commanded the War on
Drugs,'' {Washington Post,} June 20,
1988; Lawrence Lifschultz, ``Bush,
Drugs and Pakistan: Inside the Kingdom
of Heroin,'' {The Nation,} Nov. 14,
1988; ``Drug Czars We Have Known,''
{The Nation,} Feb. 27, 1989; and Robert
A. Pastor and Jorge Castaneda, {Limits
to Friendship: The United States and
Mexico} (New York: Knopf, dist. by
Random House), p. 271. 14, 1988.
 
   2.
 See the cover of {Newsweek,}
Oct. 19, 1987, ``Fighting the `Wimp
Factor,'|'' which portrays Bush at the
controls of {Fidelity.} A similar photo
appears facing p. 223 in George Bush
and Victor Gold, {Looking Forward} (New
York: Doubleday, 1987).
 
   3.
 See Thomas Burdick and Charlene
Mitchell, {Blue Thunder} (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1990), p. 229. The
following account of the relations
between Bush and Aronow relies upon
this remarkable study.
 
   4.
 {Ibid.,} p. 182.
 
   5.
 {Ibid.,} p. 18.
 
   6.
 {Ibid.,} p. 34.
 
   7.
 {Ibid.,} p. 71.
 
   8.
 {Ibid.,} p. 95.
 
   9.
 {Ibid.,} p. 103.
 
   10.
 {Ibid.,} pp. 326-27.
 
   11.
 {Ibid.,} pp. 351, 357.
 
       

Notes for Chapter XXII
 

   1.
 {Washington Times,} Aug. 9,
1989.
 
   2.
 {Washington Times,} July 7,
1989.
 
   3.
 {Pronto} (Barcelona, Spain),
Aug. 3, 1991 and Aug. 10, 1991.
 
   4.
 {Omaha World-Herald,} July 23,
1989.
 
   5.
  On July 11, 1990, during the
course of his investigations, Gary
Caradori, 41, died in the crash of his
small plane, together with his
8-year-old son, after a mid-air
explosion whose cause has not yet been
discovered. A skilled and cautious
pilot, Caradori told friends repeatedly
in the weeks before his death that he
feared his plane would be sabotaged.
 
   6.
 {Gentleman's Quarterly,}
December 1991.
 
   7.
 Report, written on March 25,
1986 by Julie Walters and authenticated
by her in an interview in 1990.
 
   8.
 Report, early 1989, compiled by
Jerry Lowe, the first investigator for
the Franklin Committee of the Nebraska
State Senate.
 
   9.
 A book recently published on
the Nebraska affair by a former
Republican state senator and decorated
Vietnam veteran, John W. De Camp, {The
Franklin Cover-Up: Child Abuse,
Satanism and Murder in Nebraska}
(Lincoln, Nebraska: AWT, Inc., 1992)
tells the whole story.
 

----         John Covici
          covici@ccs.covici.com