Forget Politics

George Bush, 52, former Texas oil operator, Congressman, Republican national chairman and U.S. envoy to Peking who in 1975 became CIA director:

I leave the job with a sense of unfulfillment. I've been dealing with an organization that's so much better than the public perception of it that one of my frustrations has been my inability totally to get across to people how good it is. This agency has undergone a lot of changes. I'm convinced that we're living within the [presidential] guidelines and within the law, within the spirit of the times and the spirit of change. I wish I'd been able to do more to convey to the people what a tremendous asset [the CIA] is to this country.

I think it's right that I leave. The agency must have a director who has the full confidence and support of and access to the President. That's the rationale for my leaving. I can well understand how somebody looking at me, with my varied past, which included partisan politics, would be less than certain at the outset that I would perform exactly the way a new Administration wanted. I was accused of [politicizing the agency] by some of the Senators when I came here, but I'd hope that my severest critics would concede that I've stayed the hell out of politics and been objective, as I said I'd do.

Some people have ruminated with me about [how he might have been Ford's Vice President]. But, when I accepted this job, it never occurred to me that I would be anything but dead, lying with my feet straight up in the air in regard to politics in the near future.

So the nail in the coffin--the President's letter [to the Senate] that he wouldn't consider me--was no problem. This job was well worth a year of my life. There's a certain luxury to beginning again. I don't know for sure [what he will do next], but it's likely that I'll save some time for politics.

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