RIP Mr. President, but we can never forget your dark side too

By Álvaro Fernández

Rest in peace George H.W. Bush. The 41st president of the United States has been in the news since his passing last Friday (Nov. 30). He was 94-years-old. A patrician, as he is being referred to in the news channels, we’ve heard of what a wonderful human being he was; that he was a kind and gentle man. He was a father, grandfather and mentor to many. He guided the country, we are reminded, during a monumental paradigm shift in the history of the world — the collapse of the Soviet Union.

All things that are true. But for days, now, I have wrestled with the idea of the death of a president who was also destructive and caused pain to many around the world. That destruction and pain seem to have been forgotten, whitewashed from the history books — at least this week while the country honors Mr. Bush, as his body lay in state in the Capitol.

And if truth be told, one cannot be president, at least of this country, without directly or indirectly causing destruction and pain elsewhere on the globe. It is the way of empire. And it has always been that way with powerful players on the world stage. 

“Respect for the dead must coexist with respect for the historical record.”

So as the country honors him, and for the next few days distracts us from Mr. Bush’s many warts, I will try and be as kind as possible, but… As historian David Greenberg writes, “Respect for the dead must coexist with respect for the historical record.” It is why I can not forget that President Bush, also as vice president, head of the CIA, and member of Congress, was responsible for things such as: 

  • His opportunistic criticism of the 1964 Civil Right Act, to his 1980 election season embrace of supply-side economics and anti-abortion politics, to his last act as president—pardoning many of the Iran Contra crew in order to protect himself. His was a recurring tendency to place short-term gain above longstanding values.
  • Many have mentioned the former president’s grace and magnanimity, but his campaigns showed a less attractive side of his personality. Bush’s 1988 presidential bid has been widely deemed the ugliest in modern times. Bush impugned the Americanism of his opponent, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, the son of Greek immigrants. Then came the “Willie Horton” ads that hyped the scare-story of an African-American criminal, released on furlough from a Massachusetts prison, who raped a woman and assaulted her husband. 
  • There’s also the question of Bush’s ties to international terrorism: Mr. Bush, for example, presided over the CIA in 1976 when Luis Posada Carriles and Orland Bosch helped blow up a Cuban airliner, killing 73 people. Later reports show that the CIA was aware of the operation and did nothing about it.
  • Mr. Bush was vice president when Luis Posada Carriles, also known as Ramon Medina, served as the chief logistics aide for Felix Rodriquez, who from 1985 to 1986 managed a secret White House operation based at Ilopango Airbase in San Salvador to ferry weapons to the Contras during the illegal Iran-Contra affair. 
  • President Bush, through the lobbying of his son Jeb, who would later become governor of Florida, and a newly elected congresswoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, helped to obtain a pardon for Orlando Bosch, who former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh called an “unrepentant terrorist,” in 1990.
  • There’s also the case of George H.W. Bush, the member of Congress, who tried to influence the prosecutor working on the case of Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew, who investigations prove was taking bribes before and during his vice presidency. Money, in envelopes, delivered to the vice president’s office… Mr. Bush attempted to talk the prosecutor into looking the other way. Imagine, we would have had a President Agnew in the White House…

So as you can see, Mr. Bush, like all of us, was not a perfect man. He had warts. In fact, more than most. And yes, he served his country — good or bad, I will leave that for you to decide.

But I can never, and especially as a Cuban, forget the dark side of George Herbert Walker Bush. Again, may he rest in peace, if possible.