Bush 41 and the Rumsfeld-Gates Swap at the Pentagon: 'His Fingerprints Are
All Over This,' Says Friend
Baker-Bush 41 Adviser and Co-Chair of Iraq Study Group-Cautions New Defense
Leadership Will Not Bring Quick Fix: 'This is Not a Precooked Deal ... and
There is no Magic Bullet'
NEW YORK, Nov. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- While George H.W. Bush denies helping
orchestrate the replacement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with
Robert M. Gates -- an adviser from his own administration, a Bush friend
tells Newsweek, "his fingerprints are all over this." The friend, a veteran
of previous GOP administrations, explains further: "This would have been
done by nuance and indirection. Forty-one would have said to 43, 'One of
the people who I've been talking to who might be helpful is Bob Gates'." In
Newsweek's November 20 cover package, "Father Knows Best," (on newsstands
Monday, November 13), a team of editors and correspondents-including Editor
Jon Meacham, Editor-at-Large Evan Thomas, Senior White House Correspondent
Richard Wolffe, Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff, National
Security Correspondent John Barry and Political Correspondent Jonathan
Darman -- reports on the president's decision to bring in members of his
father's administration to chart a new course in Iraq, analyzes the complex
histories of those involved and looks at other figures that will take on
new prominence in Washington in the wake of the Congressional elections.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20061112/NYSU004 )
It has been widely speculated that James A. Baker III, the elder Bush's
secretary of State, now co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, may also have
been instrumental in making the Rumsfeld-Gates switch. He was spotted with
both Bush father and son, as well as Gates, in early October at the
launching of the new aircraft carrier, USS George H.W. Bush. But Baker,
like Bush, is not likely to have been plotting in public. "For a meeting
like that," says a former Baker aide, "the maximum number of people
involved is two." When asked whether he played a part, Baker tells
Newsweek, "You don't have a virgin here," meaning he wasn't about to spill
any secrets. (The White House says that Baker had nothing to do with the
Pentagon swap.) Baker also warned against getting too optimistic about some
sudden deliverance from the agonies of Iraq. "Look," he protested. "This is
not a precooked deal. And there is no magic bullet."
For his part, the president was said to be indifferent to the press
chatter about the decision to bring in his father's team members. "I don't
care," he told his advisers when they asked him, the morning after the
elections, how he wanted to deal publicly with the suggestion that he was
picking one of his father's advisers. "He doesn't think the neocons ran him
over a cliff and now he has to go to Dad," says a senior Bush aide. "It's
not the way he sees this. He wants the best and brightest."
The meeting where President Bush decided to bring in Gates was itself a
well-guarded secret. On the Sunday before the elections, Gates, the
president of Texas A&M University and the deputy national-security adviser
and CIA director in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, drove
two hours from College Station, Texas, to the small town of McGregor, where
he switched from his own car to one driven by White House chief of staff
Josh Bolten. Gates was quietly taken to President George W. Bush's office
on his ranch at Crawford, where the two talked long enough to convince Bush
that Gates was the man to replace Rumsfeld. Guests at the presidential
ranch, assembled for the 60th birthday of First Lady Laura Bush and the
First Couple's 29th wedding anniversary, didn't even notice Gates's coming
and going.
Once he assumes his new post, Gates is likely to welcome the Iraq Study
Group recommendations as if they were his own, while Rumsfeld would have
been a surefire obstacle to whatever Baker and the team proposed, reports
Newsweek. Baker signed on to the study group only after getting Bush 43's
personal assurance that the White House wanted him to take the job.
(According to a source knowledgeable about the study group who requested
anonymity discussing sensitive negotiations, Baker also received a
backstage promise that Rumsfeld would stay out of the way as the
commissioners interviewed generals and diplomats.) "There are going to be
some things in this report that the administration is not going to be
excited about," Baker tells Newsweek, choosing his words carefully.
Elsewhere in the cover package, Darman reports on how Democrat Nancy
Pelosi, soon to be the first female Speaker of the House, developed her
strategy for claiming the Speaker's gavel by consulting corporate
America-not your typical liberal play. After the party's disastrous defeat
in the 2004 elections, she began casting around for fresh ideas on how the
Democrats could reintroduce themselves to the American people. "I decided
to go to the private sector," she tells Newsweek, "and ask them how to
become No. 1." Through her staff, Pelosi found her way to a group of
corporate-image consultants including high-tech entrepreneur Richard
Yanowitch, computer-software marketer John Cullinane and Jack Trout, a
marketing strategist who'd worked with big corporate clients like Merck and
IBM. "I specialize in differentiation," Trout says. "I told her, 'That's
your problem-you haven't found a way to differentiate the party from the
Republican Party in a clear, simple way'." Trout encouraged Pelosi to take
advantage of the weak points in Karl Rove's base-driven Republican
strategy. "You've got to go the opposite way," he told her. "It's Marketing
101. Say 'We're about good governing for all, not a privileged few ... '
Bring back the big-tent idea."
(Read entire cover package at http://www.Newsweek.com.)
The Prodigal Returns: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15674912/site/newsweek/
The Rescue Squad: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15675316/site/newsweek/
The Democrats' Challenge:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15675859/site/newsweek/
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