My Father, My President by Doro Bush Koch

Author:Doro Bush Koch [KOCH, DORO BUSH]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780759569096
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

GREASING THE SKIDS

“I don’t think the Oval Office was ever occupied by someone with a deeper and more nuanced understanding of foreign policy than President George Herbert Walker Bush.”

—Brian Mulroney

In late February 1989, Mom and Dad made their first major foreign trip together, going to Japan for the funeral of Emperor Hirohito, followed by a return visit to China, then Korea. The presidency is an institution steeped in symbolism, and this particular trip made Dad the first president to travel to Asia before Europe. Whether it was intentional or not, this trip set a new tone reflecting Dad’s long-held view of Asia in general and China in particular as emerging world powers.

As it turns out, neither the trip to Japan nor the one to China was free of controversy. For example, when the White House announced Dad would attend the Hirohito funeral, veterans’ groups around the country were outraged, citing the emperor’s actions in World War II. Of course, Dad was also a veteran; and like the fervent anticommunist Nixon going to China in the early 1970s, my father similarly had the moral standing to go to Tokyo in 1989. Dad argued that it was the right thing to do. He wrote in his diary the night of the funeral:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.