What was the connection between the Bushes and Nixon?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

It has been reported that Bush, at the time a one-term Congressman, had been briefly considered for the Vice Presidency by Nixon at the '68 Republican National Convention. I have heard another account that he was part of a list of names of recently elected Republican officeholders in Southern states; these men could on their own be seen as some stripe of moderate or another, but all had been able to beat Democrats as recently as two years prior; Nixon was not looking at Strom Thurmond or any other Goldwater Democrat, but rather at Baker, Bush, and Agnew. So you can see a general geographic and ideological trend of "New South" Republicans.

Aside from that, I know very little of the two interacting prior to Bush's appointment as Ambassador to the United Nations. Nevertheless, it is easy to see that Bush was viewed as a rising star within the party--though perhaps ironically in hindsight. He had been elected in the South and had sacrificed his career in a second attempt at winning Ralph Yarborough's Senate seat. The UN Ambassadorship could at least give a lease on life to a potential political asset. Moreover, 1970 as a whole was a year where the White House pushed hard to make Congressional gains that did not materialize. Bush was one such example. A number of other Republican officeholders who found themselves out of office in the early 1970s made their way to the Nixon and Ford administrations, though with less latter-day notoriety. Nixon even, per rumors(?), offered Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker a chance to become a Supreme Court Justice.

It should be noted that, in light of Bush's ambitions, the offices he served in under Nixon and Ford were a relative disappointment. If you count 1968, Ford and Nixon combined snubbed him for the Vice Presidency four times--1968, 1973, 1974, and 1976.

Oddly enough, it was Bush and a crew of two other Nixon administration members that floated on the periphery that would come to have a heavy hand in Republican administrations for the next three decades or so--Donald Rumsfeld went on to serve as Chief of Staff and twice as Defense Secretary, while Dick Cheney became the House Minority Whip, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President. The first Republican Governor of Texas since Reconstruction, Bill Clements, served as Deputy Secretary of Defense for Nixon and Ford.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Oddly enough, it was Bush and a crew of two other Nixon administration members that floated on the periphery that would come to have a heavy hand in Republican administrations for the next three decades or so--Donald Rumsfeld went on to serve as Chief of Staff and twice as Defense Secretary, while Dick Cheney became the House Minority Whip, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President. The first Republican Governor of Texas since Reconstruction, Bill Clements, served as Deputy Secretary of Defense for Nixon and Ford.

Maybe the bigger players in the Nixon administration were brought down by Watergate, leaving these figures to fill the vaccuum?

In general, not many people usually run for office after membership in a presidential cabinet (outside of the Vice Presidency). Aside from Hillary Clinton and George H.W. Bush, how many non-Vice Presidential members of Presidential administrations since... 1960 have been on a ticket? Sargent Shriver, Dick Cheney... I wouldn't attribute the rise of Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney to some overall trend rather than to serendipity. If you are overly deterministic, you could say that Bush's victory in Iowa gave him the presidency, which gave Cheney the Vice Presidency, which made Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense, but that was largely dumb luck. John Tower was supposed to be George H.W. Bush's Defense Secretary, which would have eliminated Cheney's time in the cabinet, and George W. Bush, I believe, originally wanted the CEO of Federal Express to have the Pentagon job (and I can imagine Tom Ridge definitely being on the table as well). I think it just so happens that these three men were particularly canny and fortuitous during a time when the Republicans were more often in the White House than out of it. A President's son seeking the office is unique in its own right.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

It should be noted that, in light of Bush's ambitions, the offices he served in under Nixon and Ford were a relative disappointment. If you count 1968, Ford and Nixon combined snubbed him for the Vice Presidency four times--1968, 1973, 1974, and 1976.

I've read that Bush felt that Rumsfeld cheated him out of the Vice Presidency in 1974, and as a result he hated Rumsfeld and was disappointed by his son's decision to appoint Rumsfeld.

This was at least believed to be the case. During the first days of Ford's administration, Bush had hoped it would finally be his turn, but such was not to be, and he felt cheated that he was shunted off to Langley to head the CIA and he blamed Rumsfeld for that fact. That said, I wouldn't be able to tell you as God's honest truth that it was Rumsfeld who engineered that. In Rumsfeld's autobiography, he makes clear his own distaste with Rockefeller's hand in the administration. In the end, ironically or not, it was Bush who was made Vice President on a far more successful ticket than Ford could have hoped for. Rumsfeld, meanwhile, has Abu Ghraib as his legacy.