Remember "The Wild Bunch"? Then you might recall this, as well!

[TradeTheBeal!]

The beginning of our decline or sheer coincidence? You decide. Two things are plainly true...One, the Bin Laden family had/has many connections to the Bush family and, Two, Neil Bush - GW's younger brother - was scheduled to have dinner with Scott Hinckley, brother of would-be Reagan assassin John Hinckley Jr., the night after the attempt on Reagan's life.

This article is posted unabridged and it is a bit long...If interested, please take the time to read it through. Especially if you are too young to remember the Reagan shooting as well as I do!

Bush Family Involvement in Reagan Assassination Attempt

The Unsolved Mystery of the Bush/Hinckley Dinner Date

What was the truth of the matter? The Roman common sense of Lucius Annaeus Seneca (who had seen so many of Nero's intrigues, and who would eventually fall victim to one of them) would have dictated that the person who would have profited most from Reagan's death be scrutinized as the prime suspect. That was obviously Bush, since Bush would have assumed the presidency if Reagan had succumbed to his wounds. The same idea was summed up by an eighth grade student at the Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC who told teachers on March 31: "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." The pupils at this school had been asked for their views of the Hinckley assassination attempt of the previous day. [fn 17]

Back at the White House, the principal cabinet officers had assembled in the

situation room and had been running a crisis management committee during the

afternoon. Haig says he was at first adamant that a conspiracy, if

discovered, should be ruthlessly exposed: "It was essential that we get the

facts and publish them quickly. Rumor must not be allowed to breed on this

tragedy. Remembering the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, I said to

Woody Goldberg, 'No matter what the truth is about this shooting, the

American people must know it." [fn 11] But the truth has never been

established.

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 the

President; 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 and to demonstrate that he was in charge." [fn 15]

As Weinberger recounts the same moments: "[Attorney General Bill French

Smith] then reported that all FBI reports concurred with the information I

had received; that the shooting was a completely isolated incident and that

the assassin, John Hinckley, with a previous record in Nashville, seemed to

be a 'Bremmer' type, a reference to the attempted assassin of George

Wallace." [fn 16]

Those who were not watching carefully here may have missed the fact that

just a few minutes after George Bush had walked into the room, he had

presided over the sweeping under the rug of the decisive question regarding

Hinckley and his actions: was Hinckley a part of a conspiracy, domestic or

international? Not more than five hours after the attempt to kill Reagan, on

the basis of the most fragmentary early reports, before Hinckley had been

properly questioned, and before a full investigation had been carried out, a

group of cabinet officers chaired by George Bush had ruled out a priori any

conspiracy. Haig, whose memoirs talk most about the possibility of a

conspiracy, does not seem to have objected to this incredible decision.

From that moment on, "no conspiracy" became the official doctrine of the US

regime, for the moment a Bush regime, and the most massivew efforts were

undertaken to stifle any suggestion to the contrary. The iron curtain came

down on the truth about Hinckley.

What was the truth of the matter? The Roman common sense of Lucius Annaeus

Seneca (who had seen so many of Nero's intrigues, and who would eventually

fall victim to one of them) would have dictated that the person who would

have profited most from Reagan's death be scrutinized as the prime suspect.

That was obviously Bush, since Bush would have assumed the presidency if

Reagan had succumbed to his wounds. The same idea was summed up by an eighth

grade student at the Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC who told

teachers on March 31: "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." The pupils at this school had been asked for their views of the

Hinckley assassination attempt of the previous day. [fn 17]

Curiously enough, press accounts emerging over the next few days provided a

compelling prima facie case that there had been a conspiracy around the

Hinckley attentat, and that the conspiracy had included members of Bush's

immediate family. Most of the overt facts were not disputed, but were

actually confirmed by Bush and his son Neil.

On Tuesday, March 31 the Houston Post published a copyrighted story under

the headline: "BUSH'S SON WAS TO DINE WITH SUSPECT'S BROTHER, by Arthur

Wiese and Margarte Downing." The lead paragraph read as follows:

Scott Hinckley, the brother of John Hinckley Jr., who is charged with

shooting President Reagan and three others, was to have been a dinner guest

Tuesday night at the home of Neil Bush, son of Vice President George Bush,

The Houston Post has learned.

According to the article, Neil Bush had admitted on Monday, March 30 that he

was personally acquainted with Scott Hinckley, having met with him on one

occasion in the recent past. Neil Bush also stated that he knew the Hinckley

family, and referred to large monetary contributions made by the Hinckleys

to the Bush 1980 presidential campaign. Neil Bush and Scott Hinckley both

lived in Denver at this time. Scott Hinckley was the vice president of

Vanderbilt Energy Corporation, and Neil Bush was employed as a land man for

Standard Oil of Indiana. John W. Hinckley Jr., the would-be assassin, lived

on and off with his parents in Evergreen, Colorado, not far from Denver.

Neil Bush was reached for comment on Monday, March 30, and was asked if, in

addition to Scott Hinckley, he also knew John W. Hinckley Jr., the would-be

killer. "I have no idea," said Neil Bush. "I don't recognize any pictures of

him. I just wish I could see a better picture of him."

Sharon Bush, Neil's wife, was also asked about her acquaintance with the

Hinckley family. "I don't even know the brother," she replied, suggesting

that Scott Hinckley was coming to dinner as the date of a woman whom Sharon

did know. "From what I know and have heard, they [the Hinckleys] are a very

nice family...and have given a lot of money to the Bush campaign. I

understand he [John W. Hinckley Jr.] was just the renegade brother in the

family. They must feel awful."

It also proved necessary for Bush's office to deny that the vice-president

was familiar with the "Hinckley-Bush connection." Bush's press secretary,

the British-born Peter Teeley, said when asked to comment: "I don't know a

damn thing about it. I was talking to someone earlier tonight, and I

couldn't even remember his [Hinckley's] name. All I know is what you're

telling me." Teeley denied that Bush had revealed that he knew Hinckley or

the Hinckley family when he first heard the assassin's name; the vice

president "made no mention of it whatsoever." Bush, repeated Teeley,

"certainly didn't indicate anything like that."

Chase Untermeyer of Bush's staff, who had been with him throughout the day,

put in that in his recollection Bush had not been told the assailant's name

through the time that Bush reached the Naval Observatory in Washington on

his way to the White House.

On April 1, 1981, the Rocky Mountain News of Denver carried an account of a

press conference given the previous day in Denver by Neil Bush. During most

of the day on March 31, Neil Bush had refused to answer phone calls from the

media, referring them to the vice presidential press office in Washington.

But then he appeared in front of the Amoco Building at East 17th Avenue and

Braodway in Denver, saying that he was willing to meet the media once, but

then wanted to "leave it at that." As it turned out, his wishes were to be

scrupulously respected, at least until the Silverado Savings and Loan

scandal got out of hand some years later.

The Rocky Mountain News article signed by Charles Roos carried Neil Bush's

confirmation that if the assassination had not happened, Scott Hinckley

would have been present at a dinner party at Neil Bush's home that very same

night. According to Neil, Scott Hinckley had come to the home of Neil and

Sharon Bush on January 23, 1981 to be present along with about 30 other

guests at a surprise birthday party for Neil, who had turned 26 one day

earlier. Scott Hinckley had come "through a close friend who brought him,"

according to this version, and this same close female friend was scheduled

to come to dinner along with Scott Hinckley on that last night of March,

1981.

"My wife set up a surprise party for me, and it truly was a surprise, and it

was an honor for me at that time to meet Scott Hinckley," said Neil Bush to

reporters. "He is a good and decent man. I have no regrets whatsoever in

saying Scott Hinckley can be considered a friend of mine. To have had one

meeting doesn't make the best of friends, but I have no regrets in saying I

do know him."

Neil Bush told the reporters that he had never met John W. Hinckley, Jr.,

the gunman, nor his father, John W. Hinckley, president and chairman of the

board of Vanderbilt Energy Corporation of Denver. But Neil Bush also added

that he would be interested in meeting the elder Hinckley: "I would like [to

meet him]. I'm trying to learn the oil business, and he's in the oil

business. I probably could learn something from Mr. Hinckley.

Neil Bush then announced that he wanted to "set straight" certain

inaccuracies that had appeared the previous day in the Houston Post about

the relations betyween the Bush and Hinbckley families. The first was his

own wife Sharon's reference to the large contributions from the Hinckleys to

the Bush campaign. Neil asserted that the 1980 Bush campaign records showed

no money whatever coming in from any of the Hinckleys. All that could be

found, he argued, was a contribution to that "great Republican," John

Connally.

The other issue the Houston Post had raised regarded the 1978 period, when

George W. Bush of Midland, Texas, Neil's oldest brother, had run for

Congress in Texas' 19th Congressional district. At that time Neil Bush had

worked for George W. Bush as his campaign manager, and in this connection

Neil had lived in Lubbock, Texas during most of the year. This raised the

question of whether Neil might have been in touch with gunman John W.

Hinckley during that year of 1978, since gunman Hinckley had lived in

Lubbock from 1974 through 1980, when he was an intermittent student at Texas

Tech University there. Neil Bush ruled out any contact between the Bush

family and gunman John W. Hinckley in Lubbock during that time.

The previous day, elder son George W. Bush had been far less categorical

about never having met gunman Hinckley. He had stated to the press: "It's

certainly conceivable that I met him or might have been introduced to him."

"I don't recognize his face from the brief, kind of distorted thing they had

on TV, and the name doesn't ring any bells. I know he wasn't on our staff. I

could check our volunteer rolls." But now Neil was adamant: there had been

no contact.

Neil was a chip off the old block, and could not resist some hypocritical

posturing at the end of the press conference: "Let me say that my heart goes

out--as does the heart of every American--to the people suffering in this

tragedy." He mentioned Reagan, Brady, the wounded Secret Service agent and

District of Columbia policeman. "And the Hinckley family, for the tremendous

pain thbey must be suffering now." And finally: "I only ask now that we can

try to put this behind us and move forward in dealing with the problems."

Neil Bush's confirmation of his relations with Scott Hinckley was matched by

a parallel confirmation from the Executive Office of the Vice President.

This appeared in The Houston Post, April 1, 1981 under the headline "VICE

PRESIDENT CONFIRMS HIS SON WAS TO HAVE HOSTED HINCKLEY BROTHER" by Post

Washington Bureau Chief Arthur Wiese. Here the second-string press

secretary, Shirley Green, was doing the talking. "I've spoken to Neil," she

said, "and he says they never saw [scott] Hinckley again [after the birthday

party]. They kept saying 'we've got to get together,' but they never made

any plans until tonight." Contradicting Neil Bush's remarks, Ms. Green

asserted that Neil Bush knew Scott Hinckley "only slightly."

Shirley Green described the Tuesday night dinner appointment as "a bizarre

happenstance, a weird occurence."

Later in the day Bush spokesman Peter Teeley surfaced to deny any campaign

donations from the Hinckley clan to the Bush campaign. When asked why Sharon

Bush and Neil Bush had made reference to large political contributions from

the Hinckleys to the Bush campaign, Teeley responded, "I don't have the

vaguest idea." "We've gone through our files," said Teeley, "and we have

absolutely no information that he [John W. Hinckley Sr.] or anybody in the

family were contributors, supporters, anything."

A summary of this material was made generally available through the

Associated Press, which published the following short note on March 31:

The family of the man charged with trying to assassinate President Reagan is

acquainted with the family of Vice President George Bush and had made large

contributions to his political campaign....Scott Hinckley, brother of John

W. Hinckley Jr. who allegedly shot at Reagan, was to have dined tonight in

Denver at the home of Neil Bush, one of the Vice President's sons....The

Houston Post said it was unable to reach Scott Hinckley, vice president of

his father's Denver-based firm, Vanderbilt Energy Corp., for comment. Neil

Bush lives in Denver, where he works for Standard Oil Co. of Indiana. In

1978, Neil Bush served as campaign manager for his brother, George W. Bush,

the Vice President's eldest son, who made an unsuccessful bid for Congress.

Neil lived in Lubbock, Texas, throughout much of 1978, where John Hinckley

lived from 1974 through 1980.

It is not known how many newspapers chose to print this AP despatch; it

would appear that the Washington Post for one did not do so. The electronic

media also do not appear to have devoted much attention to this story. Once

the cabinet had decided that there had been no conspiracy, all such facts

were irrelevant anyway. There is no record of Neil Bush, George W. Bush, or

Vice President George H.W. Bush ever having been questioned by the FBI in

regard to the contacts described. They never appeared before a grand jury or

a Congressional investigating committee. No special prosecutor was ever

appointed. Which is another way of saying that by March, 1981, the United

States government had degenerated into total lawlessness, with special

exemptions for the now ruling Bush family. Government by laws had dissolved.

The media were not interested in the dinner date of Neil Bush and Scott

Hinckley, but they were very interested indeed in the soap opera of what had

gone on in the Situation Room in the White House during the afternoon of

March 30. Since the media had been looking for ways to go after Haig for

weeks, they simply continued this line into their coverage of the White

House scene that afternoon. Haig had appeared before the television cameras

to say:

Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the President, the Vice President, and

the Secretary of State, in that order, and should the President decide that

he wants to transfer the helm he will do so. He has not done that. As of

now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending the return of the

Vice President and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would

check with him, of course.

This led to an immense hue and cry, mightily stoked by the Bush networks, on

the theme that Haig wanted to usurp the presidential succession. More than

this garbled statement by Haig, Bush was certain to have been disturbed by

Haig's refusal a few seconds later to rule out conspiracy a priori :

Q: Any additional measures being taken --was this a conspiracy or was this

a....

Haig: We have no indication of anything like that now, and we are not going

to say a word on that subject until the situation clarifies itself. [fn 18 ]

But when Bush returned, the cabinet soon decided otherwise.

The "I'm in control here" story on Haig was made into the Leitmotif for his

sacking, which was still a year in the future. Reagan's own ghostwritten

biography published the year after he left office gives some idea what Baker

and Deaver fed the confused and wounded president about what had gone during

his absence:

On the day I was shot, George Bush was out of town and Haig immediately came

to the White House and claimed he was in charge of the country. Even after

the vice-president was back in Washington, I was told he maintained that he,

not George, should be in charge. I didn't know about this when it was going

on. But I heard later that the rest of the cabinet was furious. They said he

acted as if he thought he had the right to sit in the Oval office and

believed it was his constitutional right to take over-- a position without

any legal basis. [fn 19]

This fantastic account finds no support in the Regan or Weinberger memoirs,

but is a fair sample of the Bushman line.

What did interest the media very much was the story of John W. Hinckley

Jr.'s obsession with the actress Jodie Foster, who had played the role of a

teenage prostitute in the 1976 movie Taxi Driver. The prostitute is

befriended by a taxi driver, Travis Bickle, who threatens to kill a senator

who is running for president in order to win the love of the girl. Young

John Hinckley had imitated the habits and mannerisms of Travis Bickle.

When John Hinckley Jr. had left his hotel room in Washington DC on his way

to shoot Reagan, he had left behind a letter to Jodie Foster:

Dear Jodie,

There is a definite possibility that I will be killed in my attempt to get

Reagan. It is for this reason that I am writing you this letter now. As you

well know by now, I love you very much. The past seven months I have left

you dozens of poems, letters, and messages in the faint hope you would

develop an interest in me. [...] Jodie, I'm asking you to please look into

your heart and at least give me the chance with this historical deed to gain

your respect and love.

I love you forever.

[signed] John Hinckley [fn 20]

Why? Apparently, as a result of considerable campaign funding on the part of John Hinckley Sr. I know it's ancient history but it's interesting to note that Neil Bush now works as a lobbyist for Crest Investment Corp. - an investment group that operates out of DC and secures contracts for companies interested in opportunities in the middle east.