The Republicans

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Bush went to meet the President with a request for a preferred office -- Deputy Secretary of State. He suggested himself as one who "can tiptoe between Henry Kissinger and William Rogers." But Nixon wanted to keep that role to himself. He tested Bush by asking for the names of loyalists and disloyalists in the U.N. and related agencies. Bush, according to notes that Journalist Nicholas Lemann has unearthed from the Nixon archives, complied. Then Nixon gave Bush the job he least desired, the one Barbara had warned him against, sweetening his offer with the promise of a Cabinet post after the 1974 elections. Bush told his disappointed wife, "Boy, you just can't turn ( down a President." The notes tell a grimmer story. He left the sessions with Nixon, saying, "Let me think about it. I'll do what you tell me. Not all that enthralled with R.N.C. but I'll do it."

What he was taking on, without realizing it, was defense of the party during the worst days of Watergate. Bush was the ultimate loyalist, out around the country raising morale, defending the President, blaming everything on Democrats and the press. He assured all doubters that the President had told him there was no cover-up. I asked him if he felt betrayed when he found out that was not true: "I felt thoroughly disillusioned, to have been told that there was nothing to this, there were no more, you know, smoking guns or whatever these horrible things were. And, uh, I felt very much -- betrayal is a word I don't particularly use, but this wasn't right, and I've so stated many times."

As a reward for his service under fire, Bush hoped that President Ford would give him the job dangled as part of Nixon's original wooing process, the vice presidency. But that went to Nelson Rockefeller, and Bush -- ironically, given his denunciation of the People's Republic when he was at the U.N. -- became America's envoy to China.