Bush rediscovered his 1974 Alaska roots today! Did he really 'live' there?

[stevedeshazer]

He doesn't remember where he was May 1972-May 1973 serving in the National Guard. (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7372-2004Feb2?language=printer )



(I have it on good authority that his teeth were in Alabama on January 6, 1973. see: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/12/elec04.prez.bush.military/ )

But apparently, he knows EXACTLY his whereabouts in the summer of 1974... Fairbanks, Alaska!

<snip>

Published: November 14, 2005
Last Modified: November 14, 2005 at 02:57 PM

ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE -- In his first address in Alaska in almost four years, President Bush on Monday reminded a cheering, flag-waving audience at Elmendorf Air Force Base of his close ties to the state.

"This is a homecoming for me," Bush told military personnel and their families during a brief stop en route to Asia. "I believe that I am the only President to have ever lived in Alaska. I worked in Fairbanks in the summer of 1974."

source: http://www.adn.com/front/story/7205765p-7117512c.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Now granted, I'm just some cynical guy with an internet connection, but I can't find any evidence at all that the current occupant of the Monkey Mansion ever lived in Alaska, fittingly the future home of the Bridge to Nowhere (see: http://www.blueoregon.com/2005/11/subsidizing_ala.html with apologies to progressive Alaskans).

It's really fitting that Bush would fire a cowardly shot at us through the rear window of Air Force One today on his way out of Dodge, but can anyone verify that he actually "worked in Fairbanks"?

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Too bad he didn't stay there

He might have froze to death.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

2. Something About Alaska Really Disturbs Me

The highway transportation bill had wayyyyyy too much allocated to Alaska in it, and not just for the bridge to nowhere. I can't help thinking there is some plot underway with roots in Alaska, and those funds are diverted payoffs of some kind. I know, tin foil time. But even his visit there today to me seems as if behind the scenes it was more than a photo op. Like he had to take care of some other things while he was there.

Now, I am talking a bit out of ignorance, as I haven't researched much on this, but dammit, something about Alaska makes me uneasy.

[mitchtv]

7. aerial hunting of wolves

makes me more than uneasy.

[stevedeshazer]

8. The main disturbing thing about Alaska is

Ted Fucking Stevens.

[Blue_In_AK]

22. Boy, you've got THAT right...

Closely followed by Frank Fucking Murkowski.

[roguevalley]

33. It was a staged event. We want to give the bridge money back

but Uncle Satan won't let it happen. Wait until next year's elections and he's out on his ear from his cushy offices. Then we'll see. As for Dubya, I will have to go check the bathroom wall at Chilkoot Charlie's to see if he was there.

Ah, here it is: "For a terrible time, call me. My old man is head of the CIA. BR-459. As for Shortie."

[acmavm]

44. Hey there, does Chilkoot Charlie's still have the raft regatta every

summer?

Sorry about changing the subject there for a minute. Anyway, about Alaska. It always helps to have a powerful senate member ready, willing and able to do your bidding at the drop of a hat, or whatever bush** drops when he wants Stevens to do his bidding.

[roguevalley]

51. Probably. :) Shows you how much I pay attention to another town

in the summer. LOL! They do kill a patron every few years and handcuff the body to the bar. Same old Chilkoots.

[stevedeshazer]

53. Will Alaskans really vote out Stevens? He's not up until 2008, age 85

[Bru]

35. It's more just Don Young's greediness

The EXTRA earmarks are what gave Alaska way too much. We got $1 billion of them, which is 3rd most of any state, behind Illinois and California.

Recall that there's not just one bridge to nowhere (Gravina Bridge in Ketchikan) but also the Knik Arm bridge in Anchorage, which sucked up another $231 million (some of which are ADDITIVE earmarks).

We also got $15 million for the ridiculous Juneau road, which will cost us well over $200 million.

Don Young (the chair of the House Transportation Committee) even got himself $3 million for a documentary bragging about Alaska's infrastructure, which, thanks to Don Young, will deteriorate while these bridges are built, if they are built.

I don't think there's a larger plot at work here. It may be that Bush tried to find a place where people still like him, and Northern Alaska was one of the only places.

[Toots]

43. Alaska is very big

Imagine twenty percent of the Continental USA in size and worse weather for road maintenance than most other states. There is no way Alaska received twenty percent of the highway bill allocation but yet is twenty percent of the land mass. Per Capita alaska receives more highway funding but certainly not per area. Also because Alaska has very few people it has very few tax resources. New York has a lot of people to help pay for their roads and infrastructure, Alaska does not. It is about being Progressive and not Regressive. If America wanted to be completely Regressive like Republicans say they want then Alaska would go completely without. Maybe that is a good thing I don't know but I do know that I enjoyed my visits there because of highway access to remote areas which all Americans should visit. The majesty is overwhelming.

[alittlelark]

3. I actually DO feel sorry for these 'supporters'

ignorance is our flag. Those who would wave that flag are beyond ignorance.

[Generic Other]

4. We KNOW the work part was a lie

Who knows whether he spent the night there. Probably while he was cutting MBA classes at Hahvard.

[stevedeshazer]

5. It's this quote that bugs me, because I've never heard this claim before

"I believe that I am the only President to have ever lived in Alaska. I worked in Fairbanks in the summer of 1974."

I can find NO reference to this ever, yet from May 1972 to May 1973, there is all this obfuscation about where he was and what he was doing.

[NYC Liberal]

9. OK, I found ONE reference to this:

Use bugmenot.com for a username/password.

http://peninsulaclarion.com/stories/101800/ala_101800ala0030001.shtml

Early in his campaign he won the support of Alaska's congressional delegation. Add to that the fact that Bush lived in Fairbanks briefly in the early 1970s, where he worked for an air cargo carrier and many Alaskans are ready to claim him as one of their own.

Hmmmm....I am curious now, though. I'll try to find more. Hopefully this will help you if you are looking too.

[stevedeshazer]

13. Thanks...that is the ONLY reference I've found for his whereabouts in '74

I'm interested in whether this story of his is more BUllSHit or not.

[NYC Liberal]

14. Check my post #12 for VERY interesting info.

I found more.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

11. 1972-1973 The only president who ever lived in Colombia?

:shrug: :tinfoilhat: :shrug:

[NYC Liberal]

12. HELLO! LOOK AT THIS:

http://www.shout.net/~bigred/BushII.htm

North To Alaska

"During the summer of 1974 George W Bush flew for a CIA-connected airline in Alaska later suspected by the Iran Contra Commission of being involved in CIA drug trafficking in support of the Contras," writes Hopsicker.

"The Times reported that a number of onetime employees say they found themselves doing contract work for the CIA."

Tellingly, "W" Bush's autobiography does not mention this time spent in Alaska, working for Alaska International Air, nor does Bush talk about it.

"Far from confirming the conventional wisdom that Bush spent the more poorly-documented stretches of time in his biography with his cowboy boots up on a desk somewhere, pulling the tab on another 'tall cold one,' the new evidence uncovered points instead to the far more sinister conclusion that during his supposed 'lost years' Bush was being initiated into a national-security oligarchy, a secret and invisible state within the public state, composed of multiple generations of certain 'blue-blood' Eastern families like Bush's, who appear to have been running America's intelligence agencies as if they were a 'family business.'"

[stevedeshazer]

15. Whoa!

:wow:

The deeper you dig.

A full twelve years before Iran-Contra became a Reagan scandal.

Jesus, these swine are involved in EVERYTHING.

I'd love to see someone ask him what he was doing. Maybe that's where he learned torture and the Hula-Jaw.

:tinfoilhat:

[NYC Liberal]

16. I especially noted the drug trafficking part, GW being an avid

drug user himself. Hmmmmmm...I'll keep looking.

[InkAddict]

19. Are you saying he was once a "mule."

LOL - :kick:

GRAB IT OCTAFISH!!!! Let's learn more about the BFEE's little horticulturist scout!

[salin]

37. 1974... about the time Poppy leaves the CIA to become RNC chair?

son still reeling in a drug haze, perhaps gets given a job by Poppy's former underlings? Now that would fit the pattern...

[Dora]

42. SPLENDID CATCH!!! n/t

:applause:

[starroute]

45. This is oddly reminiscent of Ted Stevens' own history

What's fascinating about the quote below is that the Flying Tigers flights for the OSS during World War II were the exact precursor of all the later CIA contract airlines. (According to my notes, the line led directly from the Flying Tigers to Civil Air Transport to Air America.)

K'un-ming, where Stevens' squadron was based, was also the base for a slew of OSS (and later CIA) heavyweights, notably Paul Helliwell and E. Howard Hunt. Helliwell, in particular, was the person who set up the whole drugs-and-arms trafficking operation with the Chinese Nationalists that would later be replicated in Vietnam, in Iran-Contra, and in Afghanistan.

I have no idea if this is just an intriguing coincidence or if Stevens had any relationship to the operation that Bush joined in 1974. But there is certainly something that smells funny about the whole Alaska setup. Stevens is, after all, both one of the Torture Nine and someone with the personal power to command bridges to nowhere.


http://www.veteranstoday.com/article692.html

Lt. Ted Stevens, 20, was flying Douglas C-47’s and Curtiss C-46’s for General Claire Chennault deep in the mainland of China. Chennault, who began fighting the Japanese invaders to China with his famous Flying Tigers commanded the 14th Air Force. Stevens, who is Alaska’s senior senator, recalls those flights at the close of World War Two in 1944-45. . . .

“I flew 47’s for about five months in 1944 -- then we went into 46’s in about September,” he said. From the squadron’s primary base at K’un-ming flights ranged from inland China, to Indochina (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam), and up into Mongolia. “We were flying Chinese troops and supplies around the country, as well as supplies to our small fighter bases throughout China.

“We then set up a series of small bases between (Southern) China and areas where American forces still held out. We flew from places such as K’un-ming, Chiki-yang, or Lo-ping which were across the other side Japanese lines. We kept our own people in the OSS (Office of Strategic Service) supplied as well as the Chinese Nationalists.” Both the Americans and the Chinese were operating covertly along the China coast and fighting the Japanese from behind. . . .

”After the war Stevens completed his flight training for a commercial pilot rating, and signed up with Chennault to fly for the new Flying Tigers Line. “But I changed my mind,” he said, “and came back and went to college and studied law.”

[stevedeshazer]

46. Very interesting addtion to the story

Thanks for the link.

Something's always been not right with Ted Stevens.

[Wilms]

6. He mistook all the snow for cocaine. n/t

[madrchsod]

10. there is a george -p-bush...

he lives in anchorage alaska. maybe george is thinking he`s this guy??

[burythehatchet]

17. He ended up there after chasing

the Vietcong around the planet

[stevedeshazer]

18. No doubt saving Alaska from the Communist threat

Everyone knows Alaska would have been the next domino to fall behind the Iron Curtain.

[yellowcanine]

20. He "worked" in Fairbanks? The man hasn't worked a day in his life.

[stevedeshazer]

21. These two women claim to have dated him back then.

<snip>

In both cases, it was a blind date. And the women never looked back.

Two Juneau women who dated George W. Bush in the mid-1970s say they aren't second-guessing themselves as Bush runs for the White House.

Asked if she has ever thought she could have been First Lady, Sally Smith said emphatically: "It does not cross my mind."

<snip>

"This was a man who tried to get me married," said Smith, who has remained single. "Alex thought, 'Aha, single guy needs to be connected in the community, and Sally isn't dating anyone. This might work.' "

After the date, "I called back and said, 'What were you thinking?' "

http://www.geocities.com/votepatty/dubya.html :rofl:

[cmd]

40. Go, Sally, go

Smith doesn't recall exactly what she and the future governor of Texas did on their date, although she assumes they went to a local pub. But she vividly remembers a scene in her apartment involving a box of gourmet chocolates her mother had brought her from Illinois.

"George was, like, popping them in his mouth and swallowing them whole. I remember taking the box from him and saying, 'I don't remember anyone offering these to you.' "

[Toots]

47. Is this the same Sally Smith that was Mayor of Juneau for awhile?

Politicians all do seem to run in the same circles but the Sally Smith that was Mayor was/is a Democrat.

[stevedeshazer]

48. It looks that way

That article is dated 9/3/2000, and contains this passage:

"Smith, a former aide to Democratic Gov. Bill Egan and now a candidate for mayor of Juneau, and Brenneman, a longtime broadcast and print journalist before becoming a full-time mother, met Bush under different circumstances."

She must have won the election.

[Zen Democrat]

23. Village Voice story re: Bush in Alaska

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0443,barrett,57857,1.html

Scroll down to the heading "A Mysterious Alaska Summer" --

Neil Bergt, The New York Times' "richest man in Alaska" in the '80s, gave W a summer job in 1974, when he was in between years at Harvard Business School. Bergt says he doesn't know why the young Bush—still living, by his own account, the "wild and woolly days"—wanted to come to Fairbanks, where the company was based. But a Houston construction executive contacted him and asked him to hire Bush, who has been described by professors and friends as an out-to-lunch business student. Bush's father was then the chairman of the Republican National Committee, installed by President Nixon, and Bush Sr. would wind up that summer appearing on the White House lawn when Nixon resigned, waved farewell, and climbed aboard the presidential helicopter for the last time. Bergt concedes that the Bush job was "a political hire."

In several wide-ranging interviews, Bergt oscillated between demands that the Voice pay him $250,000 for "the real story" that "only I can tell" about Bush and insisting that there was "no story here" and that Bush spent a quiet summer preparing a business plan for him. Asked why Bush preferred a summer in Alaska to Wall Street or Houston, Bergt suggested that the motive was nefarious, and that a full account could affect the election, adding: "I'm not talking without money."

Bergt's company, Alaska International Air, certainly has a checkered history. In 1979, it sold a coveted military cargo plane, a Hercules C-130, to Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, despite a U.S. ban that specifically barred the delivery of that particular plane. Bergt contends he was tricked by the middleman on the $8.6 million transaction —none other than Sarkis Soghanalian. Soghanalian, who claims to have never done an arms deal that wasn't covertly sanctioned by the CIA, says Bergt, who also has a plethora of CIA ties, was fully aware that Qaddafi was getting the plane and participated "voluntarily."

Ironically, the Bergt plane and two others illicitly sold to Libya were soon used to invade neighboring Chad and to fly enriched uranium from Niger for Qaddafi's fledgling nuclear development program. Bush has claimed credit recently for convincing Qaddafi to abandon his nuclear program, and once claimed that Saddam Hussein had received uranium from Niger as a justification for the war. While another top AIA executive, Gary White, says he met Soghanalian in Geneva on a couple occasions and even stayed in his Florida mansion, Bergt just had lunch with him in San Diego.

--more at link--

[roguevalley]

34. Neil Bergt. Well, that explains everything.

[Blue_In_AK]

52. That's what I thought, too, when I read this article... n/t

[LSK]

24. look here:

When Mr. Bush arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska International Industries was a fledgling business whose holdings included Alaska International Air, an air cargo company that was loading its giant Lockheed-382 Hercules airplanes, the civilian version of C-130's, with construction equipment and supplies and flying them to pipeline workers 24 hours a day.

The Times reported that a number of onetime employees say they found themselves doing contract work for the CIA. And the company’s President seemed to confirm their reports.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/21/politics/21ALAS.html?ex=1080104400&en=c504dc06855a497d&ei=5070


http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/Alaska_International_Industries

[catzies]

25. Paging Octafish & H20Man. What does this have to do with the Octopus?

Anything?

[Hissyspit]

26. Send to Greatest page...

I hope he wasn't there in summer of '74. That's when I moved there for three years.

[XemaSab]

27. Probably thought he was in Canada

n/t

[Sydnie]

28. This needs to make greatest page - need two more please n/t

[XemaSab]

29. The thing about this that's ridiculous:

I lived in Anchorage for three months when I was 4.

I lived for three months in South Carolina on a summer job in 2001.

Do I consider myself as having *lived* in either place?

No!

I'm a Californian; I've lived in California my whole life.

Going somewhere for a few months doesn't make you any better than a tourist.

But claiming prior residency????

I dunno why we should be surprised; he's been saying this whole time that he's a Texan, and I've yet to see it.

[Bluebear]

30. "I lived there"...what, for 2 months?

A summer job doesn't exactly constitute one "living" somewhere.

[Neil Lisst]

31. it's a deeply buried chapter ...

The story is kind of hazy in mind, but the speculation was he had to leave Texas for a while, probably a suspended license and such. As I recall, that is where he hooked up with former Montana Governor Marc Racicot.

Some have speculated a CIA front connection, maybe a place daddy stored Junior in 1974. As I recall they were running small airplanes, and some felt it was a CIA storefront related to Vietnam.

[argyl]

32. I'd heard he was up there working on the pipeline. Always thought

it was strange that someone so desperate to puff up his phoney macho image would have nothing to say about working in Alaska.

So maybe he was flying in the service of another pipeline. Nothing surprises me about this gang anymore.

[SoCalDem]

36. His information was scrubbed before he ran for office

and apparently pretty well too..most of the really shifty stuff has been removed:(

[blm]

39. I think the key to Bush is to track James Bath. If Bath was with him, then

it probably was drugrunning for CIA.

[stevedeshazer]

38. kick

:kick:

[Catchawave]

41. Another tidbit here:

not sure about the source, but the puzzle pieces are starting to fit together :)

From: http://americanassembler.com/almanac/almanac.html

Alaska construction: At age 27 and halfway through two years at Harvard Business School, Dubya spent the summer of 1974 in Alaska working for a small airline-and-construction business. The company, Alaska International Industries, had received a letter from an executive at a Houston construction company asking about a job for Bush. The aviation arm of Alaska International had an unusual list of clients that just happened to include the shah of Iran and the Central Intelligence Agency. Dubya's father would be appointed CIA director the following year.

[burrowowl]

54. Very interesting if true! eom

[crispini]

49. Damn! Kicked, recommended, and bookmarked.

Great thread, all!

[stevedeshazer]

50. .

.