A few days later, I talked to another person about the pardon process. On the ride up Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day, I told Barack Obama about my frustrations with the pardon system. I gave him a suggestion: announce a pardon policy early on, and stick to it.
After President Obama’s Inauguration, Laura and I choppered to Andrews Air Force Base. Our final event before boarding the plane home to Texas was a farewell ceremony in front of three thousand friends, family, and former staff. Dick had agreed to introduce me. He had injured his back moving boxes, so Lynne had to push him onto the stage in a wheelchair. Dick grabbed the microphone. I had no idea what he would say. I hoped he would be able to get past the disappointment he felt. His words were heartfelt and kind: “Eight and a half years ago, I began a partnership with George Bush that has truly been a special honor. … If I have one regret, it is only that these days have ended and that all the members of this fine team, now, must go their own way.”
The man I picked that hot day in July remained steady to the end. Our friendship had survived.
*Arguably, my home state provided an exception in 1960, when John F. Kennedy chose Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. There was no similar benefit in 1988, when Michael Dukakis tapped Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen.
**I later heard that General Shinseki’s staff had not invited Don to attend. I think he should have gone anyway.
***In 2004, the nonpartisan Butler Report concluded that the statement was “well-founded.”
n the heart of central London sat a thirty-four-story gray building. One floor contained a large, open space known as the Fertilizing Room. Inside, technicians meticulously mixed eggs and sperm in test tubes to produce the next generation. The hatchery served as the lifeblood of a new world government, which had mastered the formula for engineering a productive and stable society.
That scene was not the creation of Jay Lefkowitz, the bright lawyer reading aloud to me in the Oval Office in 2001. It came from Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel, Brave New World. With the recent breakthroughs in biotechnology and genetics, the book now seemed chillingly relevant. So did its lesson: For all its efficiency, Huxley’s utopian world seemed sterile, joyless, and empty of meaning. The quest to perfect humanity ended in the loss of humanity.
In April of that same year, another piece of writing turned up in the Oval Office. Describing what she called a “wrenching family journey,” the author urged me to support the “miracle possibilities” of embryonic stem cell research to provide cures for people like her husband, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s. She closed, “Mr. President, I have some personal experience regarding the many decisions you face each day. … I’d be very grateful if you would take my thoughts and prayers into your consideration on this critical issue. Most sincerely, Nancy Reagan.”
The juxtaposition of Mrs. Reagan’s letter and the Huxley novel framed the decision I faced on stem cell research. Many felt the federal government had a responsibility to fund medical research that might help save the lives of people like President Reagan. Others argued that supporting the destruction of human embryos could take us off a moral cliff toward an uncaring society that devalued life. The contrast was stark, and I faced a difficult decision.
“Sometimes our differences run so deep it seems we share a continent, but not a country,” I said in my Inaugural Address on January 20, 2001. “We do not accept this, and we will not allow it. Our unity, our union, is the serious work of leaders and citizens in every generation. And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity.”
After a luncheon with dignitaries at the Capitol, Laura and I made our way to the White House as part of the official Inaugural parade. Pennsylvania Avenue was lined by well-wishers, along with a few pockets of protesters. They carried big signs with foul language, hurled eggs at the motorcade, and screamed at the top of their lungs. I spent most of the ride in the presidential limo behind thick glass windows, so their shouting came across in pantomime. While I couldn’t make out their words, their middle fingers spoke loudly: The bitterness of the 2000 election was not going away anytime soon.
Laura and I watched the rest of the parade from the reviewing stand at the White House. We waved to the marchers from every state and were thrilled to see high school bands from Midland and Crawford. After the parade, I went to check out the Oval Office. As I walked over from the residence, the room looked like it was glowing. Its bright lights and gold drapes stood out in vivid contrast from the dark winter sky.
Each president decorates the Oval Office in his own style. I hung several Texas paintings, including Julian Onderdonk’s renditions of the Alamo, a West Texas landscape, and a field of bluebonnets—a daily reminder of our ranch in Crawford. I also brought a painting called Rio Grande from an El Paso artist and friend, Tom Lea, and a scene of a horseman charging up a hill by W.H.D. Koerner. The name of the piece, A Charge to Keep, echoed a Methodist hymn by Charles Wesley, which we sang at my first inauguration as governor. Both the painting and hymn reflect the importance of serving a cause larger than oneself.
The Oval Office as it looked during my presidency. White House/Eric Draper
I decided to keep the Rembrandt Peale portrait of George Washington that Dad and Bill Clinton had placed over the mantel. I added busts of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, and Winston Churchill—a gift on loan from the British government courtesy of Prime Minister Tony Blair. I had told Tony that I admired Churchill’s courage, principle, and sense of humor—all of which I thought were necessary for leadership. (My favorite example of Churchill’s wit was his reply when Franklin Roosevelt caught him coming out of the tub on a visit to the White House in December 1941. “I have nothing to hide from the president of the United States!” he said.) After 9/11, I realized the three busts had something in common: All depicted wartime leaders. I certainly didn’t have that in mind when I chose them.
One space on the wall was reserved for the president’s most influential predecessor. I chose Lincoln. He’d had the most trying job of any president, preserving the Union. Some asked why I didn’t put Dad’s portrait in that spot. “Number forty-one hangs in my heart,” I said. “Sixteen is on the wall.”
The centerpiece of the Oval Office was the Resolute desk. I had chosen the desk because of its historical significance. Its story began in 1852, when Queen Victoria dispatched the HMS Resolute to search for the British explorer John Franklin, who had been lost looking for the Northwest Passage. The Resolute was trapped in ice near the Arctic and abandoned by its crew. In 1855 it was discovered by an American whaling ship, which sailed the Resolute back to Connecticut. The vessel was purchased by the U.S. government, refitted, and returned to England as a goodwill gift to the queen. When the Resolute was decommissioned two decades later, Her Majesty had several ornate desks made out of its timbers, one of which she gave to President Rutherford B. Hayes.