STILL UNREPORTED: THE PAY-OFF IN BUSH AIR GUARD FIX
/Saturday, August 28, 2004
by Greg Palast
In 1968, former Congressman George Herbert Walker Bush of Texas, fresh
from voting to send other men's sons to Vietnam, enlisted his own son
in a very special affirmative action program, the 'champagne' unit of
the Texas Air National Guard. There, Top Gun fighter pilot George
Dubya was assigned the dangerous job of protecting Houston from
Vietcong air attack.
This week, former Lt. Governor Ben Barnes of Texas 'fessed up to
pulling the strings to keep Little George out of the jungle. "I got a
young man named George W. Bush into the Texas Air Guard - and I'm
ashamed."
THE PAY-OFF
That's far from the end of the story. In 1994, George W. Bush was
elected governor of Texas by a whisker. By that time, Barnes had left
office to become a big time corporate lobbyist. To an influence peddler
like Barnes, having damning information on a sitting governor is worth
its weight in gold or, more precisely, there's a value in keeping the
info secret.
Barnes appears to have made lucrative use of his knowledge of our
President's slithering out of the draft as a lever to protect a
multi-billion dollar contract for a client. That's the
information in a confidential letter buried deep in the files of the US
Justice Department that fell into my hands at BBC television.
Here's what happened. Just after Bush's election, Barnes' client GTech
Corp., due to allegations of corruption, was about to lose its license
to print money: its contract to run the Texas state lottery. Barnes,
says the Justice Department document, made a call to the newly elected
governor's office and saved GTech's state contract.
The letter said, "Governor Bush ... made a deal with Ben Barnes not to
rebid [the GTech lottery contract] because Barnes could confirm that
Bush had lied during the '94 campaign."
In that close race, Bush denied the fix was in to keep him out of 'Nam,
and the US media stopped asking questions. What did the victorious
Governor Bush's office do for Barnes? According to the tipster, "Barnes
agreed never to confirm the story [of the draft dodging] and the
governor talked to the chair of the lottery two days later and she then
agreed to support letting GTech keep the contract without a bid."
And so it came to pass that the governor's commission reversed itself and gave GTech the billion dollar deal without a bid.
The happy client paid Barnes, the keeper of Governor Bush's secret, a
fee of over $23 million. Barnes, not surprisingly, denies that Bush
took care of his client in return for Barnes' silence. However,
confronted with the evidence, the former Lt. Governor now admits to
helping the young George stay out of Vietnam.
Take a look at the letter yourself - with information we confirmed with other sources - [here 
]
Frankly, I don't care if President Bush cowered and ran from
Vietnam. I sure as hell didn't volunteer ... but then, my daddy
didn't send someone else in my place. And I don't march around
aircraft carriers with parachute clips around my gonads talking about
war and sacrifice.
More important, I haven't made any pay-offs to silence those who could change my image from war hero to war zero.
"TIME WARNER WON'T LET US AIR THIS"
By the way: I first reported this story in 1999, including the evidence
of payback, in The Observer of London. US media closed its eyes. Then I
put the story on British television last year in the one-hour report,
"Bush Family Fortunes." American networks turned down BBC's offer to
run it in the USA. "Wonderful film," one executive told me, "but Time
Warner is not going to let us put this on the air." However, US
networks will take cash for advertisements calling Kerry a Vietnam
coward.
The good news is, until Patriot Act 3 kicks in, they can't stop us
selling the film to you directly. The updated version of "Bush Family
Fortunes," with the full story you still can't see on your boob tube,
will be released next month in DVD. See a preview at
http://www.gregpalast.com/bff-dvd.htm
For more on our president's war years and the $23 million
payment, read this excerpt from the New York Times bestseller, The Best
Democracy Money Can Buy.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=233&row=1
