George H.W. Bush
President George H. W. Bush famously declared in opposition to carbon emission cuts at the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: “The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period.” [1][2][3]
At the dawn of U.S. Hegemony in 1991, Bush launched the first U.S. Invasion of Iraq declaring that it was the beginning of a "new world order" in which the "rule of law" would triumph over the "law of the jungle."
Halliburton
After graduating from Yale (where he was in Skull and Bones like his father, Prescott Bush), H.W. was recruited by his father's business partners and fellow bonesmen Roland and W. Averrell Harriman to work for Dresser industries (now Halliburton) in the oil and military industries.[4]
Zapata Petroleum
In 1953, George H. W. Bush and John Overbey formed a new business with Hugh Liedtke and Bill Liedtke named Zapata Petroleum Corporation (after the 1952 film Viva Zapata! in which Marlin Brando portrayed Mexican rebel Emiliano Zapata). [5]
The corporation was based in Midland, Texas. Hugh Liedtke became president, and George Bush became vice president of the new business venture. In 1954, the parent company formed Zapata Off-Shore Company, of which Bush was named president. In 1959, the company was split, leaving the Liedtkes with control of Zapata Petroleum Corporation and establishing Bush as the head of Zapata Off-Shore. In 1963 the Liedtkes merged several oil companies, including Zapata Petroleum and South Penn Oil, to form the Pennzoil Company. Hugh Liedtke was the first president of Pennzoil, now a brand of Shell Oil.[6]
During the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Zapata allowed its oil rigs to be used as listening posts. In 1988, Barron's reported Zapata was "a part time purchasing front for the Central Intelligence Agency."[7]
Over 1,000 boxes of Zapata's records were destroyed during Bush's vice presidency regarding this time period (from 1960-1966), including those regarding his secret business partnership with the oil company of Edwin Pauley, the University of California Regent working closely with the CIA and FBI to suppress protests across University of California campuses.[8] This anti-subversive campaign culminated in the election of Ronald Reagan as Governor of California in 1967, building momentum for the Reagan/Bush presidential administration of 1980-1988.
Sources
- ↑ The Disinformation Age, p. 110
- ↑ https://phys.org/news/2017-05-climate-america.html
- ↑ https://theconversation.com/george-bush-sr-could-have-got-in-on-the-ground-floor-of-climate-action-history-would-have-thanked-him-108050
- ↑ Russ Baker, Family of Secrets (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) pp. 23–28.
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/obituaries/george-bushs-life-in-13-objects.html; Amy Schoenfeld Walker + Amy Marsh, Dec 1 2018, The New York Times
- ↑ National Archives Catalog #10480871, "Zapata Petroleum Corporation" https://catalog.archives.gov/id/10480871
- ↑ Ann Louise Bardach (2009). Ch: "The Island and the Empire" in "Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington." p. 60
- ↑ Jonathan Kwitny, "The Mexican Connection: A look at an old George Bush business venture", Barron's September 19, 1988. Cited with further discussion by Russ Baker, Family of Secrets (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) pp. 37 and 503.