FOR PRIDE OF SERVICE

By Hugh Sidey

The call came at midnight. it was Bill Clinton in Kiev. "Shouldn't you be in bed?" asked George Bush, who was in the serenity of his beloved Kennebunkport and knew a thing or two about the exigencies of summiteering. But Clinton, like hundreds of others, wanted to take the time to thank the former President for his defense of public servants and his denunciation of the outrageous language in a fund-raising letter by the National Rifle Association. In a now famous letter, Bush excoriated the N.R.A. for railing against federal agents as "jackbooted thugs ... wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm-trooper uniforms." Bush then resigned his life membership.

As the week progressed, Bush grew even more determined in his defense of the people who served their nation. "I care -- I've always cared -- about service to this country, particularly about those who are in law enforcement," he told TIME. "These people lay their lives on the line every day for the United States. This broad-based attack should not go unchallenged. It is just wrong. It totally slandered decent law-enforcement public servants."

Bush first heard of the N.R.A.'s letter in news reports, and brooded about it for several days, his outrage rising. He then acted on his own, choosing not to confer with friends, only sending them copies of the letter once it was completed. Bush pointed out that he had not changed his position on the right to own guns nor had he budged in his beliefs that government is too big and too intrusive. But the N.R.A. had, in his eyes, veered from policy arguments into focusing hate against people who were trying to make an often clumsy government system designed by politicians work for the good of the American people.

On April 19, Bush was in Houston reminiscing with a friend about his former White House staff members and how he used to play horseshoes with them. It was then that the news came out of Oklahoma City. Bush flipped the television coverage off and on, called his Secret Service detail chief for word from the disaster area. As it turned out, one victim had once been part of the Bush entourage: Al Whicher, a Secret Service man. Bush wrote in his letter, "He was no Nazi. He was a kind man, a loving parent, a man dedicated to serving his country -- and serve it well he did."

Throughout his public life, Bush has swept aides and Cabinet officers into a kind of professional family, constantly praising them for their skills and loyalty. He reveres the people who have taken the public journey with him through his tours at the United Nations, China, the CIA and the White House. Retired Marine General P.X. Kelly, former press aide Peter Roussel, former domestic-policy chief Roger Porter and others are in his phone network, slipping into the Bush cantonments in Texas and Maine for fishing, tennis and camaraderie.

Now Bush is bemused by a few of the people cheering him. He is a little uncomfortable with praise from the New York Times, and he distances himself from House Democrats ardent for gun restrictions. "I've got to be careful about who I get in bed with," he said last week, chuckling. "I got a call telling me that the Democratic Senate Conference had given me a round of applause."