In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Chapter 12 The Air Force 2 Coup Thursday, 1 October 1981 We landed at San Francisco International Airport at : and were driven into the heart of the city to the elegant old St. Francis Hotel on Union Square. At noon, GB addressed the Commonwealth Club, perhaps the most prestigious forum in the state. I sat next to Ron Smith, a political consultant handling the reelection campaign of Sen. S. I. (Sam) Hayakawa. (The Admiral kept calling him “Hiawatha.”) GB gave perhaps the best speech of the year, a highly informative, reasoned, and hard-hitting appeal for Congress not to block the sale of AWACS [airborne warning and control system] radar planes to Saudi Arabia. He made a direct plea for his audience to contact their members of Congress, which is quite unusual for him. But the prime target, uncommitted on AWACS, was snoozing away on the dais. Alarmed at the devastating “visual,” Ron rose and went to the head table, pretending to give Hayakawa a message. The senator stirred, accepted Ron’s business card, and went right back to sleep. Meanwhile, the larger audience was all in GB’s corner. Asked, “Will there be any Bushes in the Rose Garden ?” GB laughed and stepped up to the microphone. “I have always believed in hitting a tough question straight on: thank you, ladies and gentlemen!” Thursday, 6 October 1981 While GB met in the West Wing office with former Nixon press aide Herb Klein, now publisher of the San Diego Union, Barbara Hayward arrived and . Hayakawa was a recognized semanticist who gained national fame as the tough president of San Francisco State College in a time of student protest. This propelled him into the Senate as a Republican in . Then in his seventies, Hayakawa became known as “Sleepy Sam,” notorious for nodding off during Senate hearings and public events. He retired rather than run again in . 98 chapter 12 asked me if I had heard anything about an assassination attempt on President Sadat of Egypt. We turned on the radio to hear the first sketchy reports of a bizarre scene in Cairo in which Sadat and others were shot by commando units in a big military parade they were reviewing. Nancy Bearg Dyke and the [regular] CIA briefer came in with the same small information . I knocked on the door and interrupted the VP with the news. As the story grew and worsened during the day, I wondered why the VP wasn’t notified much earlier by the Situation Room or CIA or whoever does such things. At :, Bob Thompson and I left with the VP in the limo for Capitol Hill and his regular Tuesday visitation there. It was raining—“crisis weather,” I used to call it. Tipped off that reporters were waiting for him in the Capitol, GB phoned the Sit Room for confirmation of network reports that Sadat had died; they couldn’t give it. Later, Admiral Murphy phoned the VP with word from the Sit Room confirming the news, and GB gave Senate majority leader Baker the go-ahead to announce it on the Senate floor. But the Admiral’s information was faulty; the death still hadn’t been officially confirmed by the Egyptian government, and Jennifer reported that unnamed White House officials were “furious” that the VP would in effect make an announcement before the President did. GB returned to the White House for a previously scheduled luncheon with Henry Kissinger. Jennifer and I chatted with a depressed VP as the TV droned mournfully on. The CIA finally called to confirm the news that had been known for hours. Kissinger arrived, and GB introduced us. I mentioned that I had been his student in Government  in . (“Oh, vere you?”) I went to the Mess for a meal with [presidential speechwriter] Tony Dolan, but he was in and out working on the statement the President would soon deliver. When I got back to the VP’s office, I beheld a poignant scene: Bush sitting with Kissinger and Haig, all mutely staring at a TV giving the Egyptian government’s official announcement of President Sadat’s demise. Their silence and drawn looks spoke pages of newsprint about the possible unraveling of US policy toward and position in the Middle East, going back to Kissinger’s days of shuttling between Cairo and Jerusalem. No one knows yet how stable the regime of VP [Hosni] Mubarak will be. A...

Share