Thread by @DavidPriess

A personal and professional remembrance of George H. W. Bush, in 15 parts:

1/15

I was politically precocious kid, but not aware enough to really appreciate the nature of leadership until the late 1980s. Then, I liked George H.W. Bush enough to assist his campaign visit to central Illinois, well before I could actually vote in a presidential election.

2/15

We didn’t even meet at the time, but I felt connected to Bush’s message of public service, of compromise over obstruction, and of treating political opponents as friends to be won over—not enemies to be destroyed. @MaxBoot captures that spirit here:

3/15
washingtonpost.com/opinions/georg…

After he’d served as president and I’d joined CIA, my managers sent me to brief 41 before he traveled to the Middle East (as an ex-president). His warm welcome and deep engagement left me impressed and honored—and gave me one of the highlights of my my Agency career.

4/15

Many years after I’d left CIA, he agreed both to offer his recollections of the President’s Daily Brief (which had become difficult for him to do) and to write a foreword for my book. 41 used the latter not to pat himself on the back, but instead to laud others:

5/15

As that book came out in 2016, Bush kindly hosted me and my family, allowing me the honor of reading healthy excerpts to him and enjoying conversation with Barbara.

6/15

41 generously invited me back in late 2016 to chat privately with him and Barbara, before my public event at his presidential library. The warmth from them during our conversation was exceeded only by the audience’s warmth for both of them soon after.

7/15

What stood out in such interactions with 42—and in his public stewardship—were (1) his interest in people and their stories; and (2) his dignified restraint, captured well by @TimNaftali here:

slate.com/news-and-polit…

8/15

Bush’s presidential legacy is great. His CIA legacy may be greater.

Leading the nation’s intel community was not something he sought. “When President Ford asked me to head up the CIA,” he told me for my book, “I did not want to do it for two very specific reasons...”

9/15

”I was happily serving as our country’s envoy to China and was not ready to leave that post; I was still interested in politics, and heading up the CIA would likely derail those ambitions.”

No CIA director had ever gone on to win an election.

Bush took the job anyway.

10/15

Only in the job a year, Bush handled well the delicate job of informing policy without making it—attending cabinet meetings, for example, only when the agenda included national security items and leaving the room when conversations drifted away from the topic at hand.

11/15

His tenure as DCI affected him deeply. Bush wrote to a friend in early 1976 that he’d never had a more interesting position, one allowing him to dive into “intriguing subject matter alongside superb people.” He restored public confidence in the Agency after troubled times.

12/15

During my time at CIA and long after, 41 always received rapturous receptions when he came to the headquarters named for him. Barbara later told me that she and her husband were both awestruck by the thunderous applause through the halls during his final visit, in 2016.

13/15

My own final visit with 41, last summer, was again affirming and rewarding. True to form, he wanted to chat most about two things: (2) the people of the CIA; and (2) his love for the laws, institutions, and norms of the country he’d fought for and served in so many ways.

14/15

I miss 41 more than words can say. But I also cherish the memories. And he will continue to inspire me and many others to live out the values that he championed, in order to honor his legacy as an intelligence and political leader and as a wonderful human being.

/end

*41