Interview: George H.W. Bush
41st President of the United States

What person inspired you as a young person?

George H.W. Bush: Abraham Lincoln truly inspired me. It wasn't just the freeing of the slaves, he kept the Union together. Some people even forget that today. What I think inspired me was the fact that in spite of being the President of the United States he retained a certain down-to-earth quality. He never got to be a big shot, and he cared about people.

Was there a book that inspired you?

George H.W. Bush: One of the historians here in Williamsburg talked about War and Peace. I had to read that in school. It was an inspiring, lengthy treatise. I read it twice. It taught me a lot about life. There was a marvelous book by Salinger called Catcher in the Rye. There was a book about discrimination called Gentleman's Agreement. These books I think helped shape my life. But to be honest with you, not one book stands out as the defining book for me.

Was there an experience that changed your life?

George H.W. Bush: I think the major event that shaped my life was being a Naval aviator. I got my commission and wings at 18 years old, and then I went into combat at 19. And I think, as I look back on it, that whole experience probably shaped my life more than any incident, or any event. Although I remember when I was shot down in that war. I remember how terrified I was. And it made me feel close to my family, and to God, and to life, and I was scared.

Then we lost a child, there was that incident, a four year-old little girl. It had a profound effect on me and on Barbara. You know, when you lose a child some families go apart. There's a common wisdom that the loss of a loved one for parents divides them later on. People cite divorce statistics. In our case it was just the other way around. And our family has been close, close, close. And Barbara and I have been married for over 50 years, and I think that horrible incident drew us even closer together.

If you had a tip to share with young people, what would that be?

George H.W. Bush: If I were to give advice to young people, high-achieving young people for example, I'd have to say, don't neglect your family. Politics is important, sitting at the head table is glamorous. Traveling around the world, trying to do something for world peace was wonderful. But...

Family and friends and faith are what are really matters in life. And I know that. I see it so clearly now. And so, as they climb the ladder of achievement, I'd simply say, remember what Barbara Bush told those girls at Wellesley: "What happens in your house is more important than what happens in the White House." And it's true. It's so 100 percent true. And that means we -- each of these achievers -- must find some way, not only stay in touch with family, but to help others who might not be blessed with family. To strengthen the American family.

It's family, and it's faith, and it's friends, and it's not the glamour of the Presidency, or the wonder of going to receive the Nobel Prize. All those are important, of course. But maybe it's just that I'm 71 years old now. It's family, and it's faith, and it's friends. I would tell them that. Don't forget that. In your brilliance, don't turn your back on your friends. Don't think you're entitled to something, because you're smarter than the next guy.

What does the American Dream to you?

George H.W. Bush: The American Dream means being what you want to be. Achieving something. Giving it your all to achieve. But it means helping others. It means understanding that we are the kindest and most generous nation on the face of the earth. We've got huge social problems, I'm afraid that some bright young people today, and older people, don't really appreciate the blessings of living in the most decent, strongest, fairest, most generous country on the face of the earth. And I say that with some historical perspective. The American Dream means giving it your all, trying your hardest, accomplishing something. And then I'd add to that, giving something back. No definition of a successful life can do anything but include serving others.

How important is passion to achievement?

George H.W. Bush: Passion is terribly important. You've got to feel something strongly. If you don't feel something strongly you're not going to achieve. You're not going to go the extra mile. Passion is important in relationships. It's important in a man/woman relationship. Letting the other person know that you really love her and that you care. And so, it's a powerful word, but without passion, without really believing something, it's hard to achieve.

How does vision affect performance, particularly in public service work?

George H.W. Bush: Vision is an interesting word. I'm the President that the national press corps felt had no vision, and yet I worked for a more peaceful world. And we did something to say to a totalitarian dictator in Iraq, you're not going to take over your neighboring country. There's a vision there, which was peace. So, I'm a little defensive in the use of the word. Because I think the pundits had it down that I had no vision, but I did. You need a vision, you need a central core. You need to say, "Here's what I'm going to try to do to make life better for others."

It doesn't have to be proclaimed in the fanciest prose. It doesn't have to be done with the most rhetorical flourish. It has to be your inner self. It's got to drive you. It can be a personal thing. It can be your set of values. Your vision can be, "I want to live to this code of behavior." It can be so many different things for one person or another. But I think you need it. I think you need to have an idea of where you want to be the next day, and ten years from now.

I've got a vision now. I've been President of the United States, and my vision is being the best grandfather in the entire world. It's a good vision. You let all these kids talk about all these marvelous books they're going to write, Nobel Prizes they're going to win, political mountains they're going to climb, but I can tell them, having been there, it's family that's important. My vision is to stay the hell out of the press and to be a good father and a good grandfather. That's a good vision, because there are families under great stress these days.

How do you see the importance of preparation for high achievement?

George H.W. Bush: Know what you're talking about. Get out there and do enough homework, have enough background, understand enough history so that you're prepared for what you face today, and prepared to achieve your objectives. So, preparation is important. And it could be erudition, studying, so that you're bright. It could be being schooled in values, so you can be kind and gentle, it could be a lot things. But preparation - particularly for the younger people who haven't really experienced the real business of living -- it means work and it means broadening yourself so that you can better perform, better achieve objectives.

What role do you think courage plays?

George H.W. Bush: Courage is a terribly important value. It means you don't run away when things are tough. It means you don't turn away from a friend when he or she is in trouble. It means standing up against the majority opinion. In a fundamental sense it means: are you willing to give your life so somebody else can save his or hers? Courage is terribly important. There's a lot of people who won't wear it on their sleeve, or display it through some heroic act. But courage is having the strength to do what's honorable and decent.

How do you define integrity?

George H.W. Bush: The word integrity to me means being honest. It means that your word is good for something. I was in business years ago out in west Texas in the late '40s, and early '50s. You didn't need escrow agreements and 25 lawyers. Your word was your bond. You shook hands with a person and the deal was kept, it was made. Nobody would run away from a handshake. Integrity is having your word of honor so sacrosanct that others trust you.

Is there integrity in world politics today?

George H.W. Bush: Much more than you'd believe from the current wisdom: that everybody in politics is selfish, everybody is in there to glorify himself, or herself, that all politicians are corrupt.

I'm disturbed by the attack on political figures. The assumption that everyone is guilty until proven innocent, is just 180 degrees different than the justice systems ought to be. And I don't know what it takes to change that. I think the attacks that hurt me the most were not those that differed with me on abortion, or guns, or prayer in school, or on balanced budgets, or on taxes. The ones that hurt the most were those that challenged my character. Didn't trust my word. And I think there's an adversarial feeling in the press that "All politicians are going to lie to me, and therefore it's my obligation to get to the truth." It's a very unhealthy view. And some political people do lie all the time, and step over their friend to achieve the objective themselves. But I'm one who believes that one's word of honor is about one of the most fundamentally important things there is.

How about perseverance?

George H.W. Bush: To achieve, you're going to have to persevere. And by that I mean that you can't let a roadblock turn you around. You can't expect life's path to be totally smooth. You're going to have to overcome adversity.

Perseverance means having the strength to prevail, to achieve your objective. I think if I were a high-achieving high school kid, privileged to attend meetings like the one I'm attending now in Williamsburg, Virginia, I would say, "You've come a long way. You're better than your peers, but you're just beginning."

If you really want to make a difference, whether it's in helping other people, or whether it's in fighting for your country, or whether it's in the political arena, or journalism, or physics, you've got to persevere. You've got to understand that there are going to be some enormous bumps in the road. They can be personal. You can get hurt badly. You can lose a friend, or a child, or a wife, or a husband. But you've got to persevere, you've got to be guided by certain principles and stay the course. If you quit, if you run away when the going gets tough, you won't really understand what a full life is all about.

What was the proudest moment of your career?

George H.W. Bush: This may sound like a cliche, but I'll put it this way. The proudest thing in my life is that my children come home. The proudest moment of my Presidency, domestically, was when I signed a piece of civil rights legislation known as the ADA, doing something for the disabled. A massive piece of civil rights legislation that put disabled people, 50 million of them, into the mainstream, or at least removed legal obstacles to their being in the mainstream.

The proudest moment internationally was when we prevailed over a brutal dictator. Formed a coalition that overcame public opinion in this country, cynicism in the press, reluctance in the Congress to do what was right, to say that a country -- in this instance Iraq -- with the fourth largest army in the world was not going to brutalize its neighbor, take over its neighbor by force. It was proud for me because I was privileged to be the Commander in Chief, but I'm not quite egotistical enough to feel that it was anything but a team effort. A classic victory of young soldiers working together, of sound diplomats doing their best. And of a country coming together to make a profound moral statement: aggression will not stand.

What were the biggest disappointments in your career?

George H.W. Bush: Nobody likes to lose. I used to call home when I was a 14 year-old soccer player away at school and tell my mother, "I got three goals today." And she'd shake me off over the long distance phone and say, "It doesn't matter, how did the team do?"

When I lost a race for the United States Senate, I thought the world was going to end for me politically, and 18 years later I was elected President of the United States.

The biggest disappointment was that I wasn't able to communicate properly to the American people -- with the proper conviction and the proper ability -- where the country really stood. The pessimists, the naysayers, the change-wanters overwhelmed me, and I wasn't good enough. I wasn't articulate enough to have the country understand that we weren't in a recession, that we were in a rather booming economy in the last half of my Presidency. That was a personal shortcoming, a failure on my path. My predecessor could handle it pretty well, Ronald Reagan.

Let me say this, and I don't want to put a bitter note on the press, but there's an unaccountability. The charge that got me the most was against my character. It was alleged that I went to Paris to meet with Iranians in 1988, to talk them into holding Americans hostage until after the Presidential election. I fought for my country. The fact that this charge could be given credence by the press got right to my soul. The fact that it caused the Congress to spend $2 million running down this outrageous charge against my very soul really, really affected me. It still does, and it will 'til the day I die. I fought for my country, and to suggest that I would make an insidious deal like that with the Iranians so that Ronald Reagan and I could win an election was horrible. I fault the press for that. I fault them for unaccountable charges that were subsequently shown to be totally false. I fought the Congress from pursuing this outrageous allegation against my character. Good friends on the Democratic side, insisted on the hearing. In a sense, I'm glad they did, because there was total vindication and these charges were shown to be totally erroneous, but it hurt, because it transcended politics for me. It got to what I am. Would I do that?

I went to a Missing In Action POW meeting just before the election. Some idiot got up and started yelling at me that I knew there were live Americans in Vietnam, and I was unwilling to bring them home. That had nothing to do with Vietnam prisoners. What it had to do with was character.

Would an American President, would I, who fought for my country and did my level best, leave an American incarcerated, knowing that we could do something about it? And the answer was, no. It's the attack on character, it's the attack on your very fiber, your being, that hurts. And who's guilty? Well, I think to some degree the press is much more unaccountable and ferociously adversarial. And I think there's some that have accepted the view that, well, this might well be true, the man doesn't have the character. And I did. I made mistakes, screwed things up real bad on a lot of things. Couldn't get things done the way I wanted, but it wasn't because I was a couple of quarts low on character.

All public figures are subect to criticism attacks. How do you respond to attacks?

George H.W. Bush: If you're attacked personally you have to basically ignore it. You've got to go back in history and recognize that there's nothing new here. It's more vindictive, more outrageous, more unaccountable.

The way that Franklin Roosevelt was treated in the Presidency by the press is entirely different than the way President Clinton, or me, or President Reagan were treated. There's been an evolution of incivility. But that isn't to say that there weren't, in our history, ferociously nasty editorials and charges and counter-charges that weren't true.

You have to have a really thick skin, you've got to turn the other cheek. You've got to try to do what your little kids in high schools do, make friends, and go the extra mile to see that the critic knows where you're coming from. But it can be ugly. There's a pack mentality today. And one hound gets out in front and the rest of the pack are baying at the heels of whoever it is that's being pursued. That's not a good thing. And so, what do you do when you're under fire? Try to tell the truth. Try to give it your best shot. Don't take it too personally, and get on with your life.

It helps if you believe in the vision.

George H.W. Bush: I think it helps.

I don't want to be called a senior citizen, I feel like a spring colt. I don't want to be called a has-been, because there's things I want to do in life. But, I've been there and I'd say, "Don't let the bastards get you down." And they don't anymore, I don't talk to them anymore, so they don't get me down. I've got my family, and I've got so many blessings that I don't think I've earned, that I'm a very happy man. I can't wait for the next day.

Some people say that President Roosevelt allowed the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor.

George H.W. Bush: I think that's absurd. I don't believe it for a minute, that he would have on his conscience the death of those people, and the battleship that you can see today, some bodies still in it, out there at Pearl Harbor, that he would have that guilt on his hands. I don't believe it for a minute. I think there have been cases in history where the disclosure of information would cost more lives than the price for not disclosing. I think Commanders in Chief face dilemmas, but I don't think Roosevelt would ever be guilty of permitting a Pearl Harbor, so as he could mobilize public opinion to bring the United States into the war on the side of our allies against fascism, and on the side of our allies against imperialism. An allegation can be made against a public figure, or a private figure, or a neighbor. Say it once loudly and get enough coverage, or spread enough disinformation, and the person can be severely damaged.

I'll give you a personal example. It was alleged that I was out of touch. "Bush is a President that's out of touch. He came from a privileged background, doesn't understand the hurt around this country." I went down to see a technology show and one of the items in the show was a brand new technology for check-out counters. It showed a machine that had never been invented before and, if my recollection is correct, wasn't even on the market at this point. The guy brought in a crumpled milk carton and ran it across this scanner and it did something that no other scanner could possibly do. I made some comment. "Amazing, this is a wonderful thing." And the people that produced this were saying, "This is the state-of-the-art, and we've got more to come." It was wonderful. A lazy little journalist with a famous name working for The New York Times, the son of a decent and honorable father, but a lazy little journalist, was sitting in another room. He didn't see this. He wrote that, "Here is Bush, he's out of touch. He saw a scanner. He didn't even know that at supermarkets you can scan something." It played right into the hands of the press that wanted to show I was out of touch and it was picked up. We pointed out to the press afterwards that, one, the guy wasn't there; two, this was brand new technology. CBS, not my favorite, came and defended me. Another one of the wire service reporters said that I got a bum rap, but the people don't remember that. What they remember is that I was out of touch, that I didn't even know what a grocery scanner was. You can't fight back against that kind of thing. You can do a better job in communicating. I plead guilty to not being the world's greatest communicator. But that was a myth, that was a lie, that was bad for me. And yet it lives on, people remember it. The fact that Bush was out of touch, he didn't even know there was a grocery counter scanner. Now, what's the equity, what's the fairness in that kind of reporting, that kind of cynical attack? But the answer is, you can't let them get you down, you've got to keep on trying to do your best.

It gets back to what my mother said, "Do your best, try your hardest, be honest." Those high achieving kids -- I hope they're listening to that advice. Because if they get to be President, if they get to win the Nobel Peace Prize, it's those kind of values that are going to matter.

Communication is very important.

George H.W. Bush: It is. Nobody has ever accused me of being a superior communicator. If I could have conveyed to the American people the concerns I had, and my heartbeat, a little more clearly, maybe I would not be unemployed and retired. And I might not be this happy, either.

I learned a lot from Ronald Reagan about communication. Never got to be in his league in terms of it, but he could say something and the American people might not agree with the issue, but they could empathize with him. He could communicate in a marvelous way, with humor, and conviction.

I suppose it's a skill you can learn, but I always figured, if I do my best and try my hardest, there will be some good things, there will be some failures, the American people will judge me on all of that. And they will. It takes time. I'm not going to write a memoir. Let somebody else figure out my shortcomings and my possible successes.

Thank you, Mr. President. It's been a privilege.