Brent Scowcroft Did Not Speak For George Herbert Walker Bush



(image via cia)

Former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and former President Bush were so close ideologically that they co-authored the 41st President's memoirs. So when Scowcroft turned against the administration of his son and its neoconservatism, it was widely assumed that those thoughts were shared by Bush the Elder.

They weren't. In an interview on Fareed Zakaria's brilliant "GPS" on CNN, the former National Security Advisor reveals that the conventional wisdom that Bush, 41 secretly agreed with Scowcroft's criticisms of neoconservatism was incorrect. From GPS:

"ZAKARIA: You were a skeptic all along. You wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal before the Iraq War, warning against it, saying you thought it was a bad idea.

"There is a scene in the new movie, the Oliver Stone movie, W -- I don't know if you've seen it...

"SCOWCROFT: I haven't seen that.

"ZAKARIA: ... where the president reads this op-ed and flings it across the table and says, 'I can't believe Brent would do this. He must have talked to my father.' Is that true? Did you talk to the senior Bush...

"SCOWCROFT: No, I did not.

"ZAKARIA: ...before writing that piece?

"SCOWCROFT: One of my problems in the last eight years has been speaking out -- and on some occasions, I failed to speak out. But as soon as I do, some of the members of your profession say, 'He wouldn't do this if the old man didn't agree.'

"So, I have scrupulously, when I was going to do something like that, not talked to the father. And on this occasion, I did not.

"I felt we were moving hastily in a direction which was filled with peril. And I couldn't seem to get anybody to pay attention, which is the reason I went public.

"But Bush senior knew about it, the time that I submitted it to the Wall Street Journal. I sent him a copy, and that was all."

There you have it. More Zakaria here.