Difference between revisions of "Prescott Bush"

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{{Infobox Senator | name=Prescott Sheldon Bush
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'''Prescott Bush''' (May 15, 1895-October 8, 1972) was a banker and [[Republican Party|Republican]] Senator from Connecticut from 1952-1963. He was the father of [[President of the United States of America|President]] [[George H. W. Bush]], and the grandfather of President [[George W. Bush]]
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| nationality=american
 
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| image name=PrescottBush.jpg
 
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| jr/sr and state=Senator (Class 3)</br>[[Connecticut]]
 
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| party=[[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]
 
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| term=[[November 5]], [[1952]]&mdash;</br>[[January 2]], [[1963]]
 
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| preceded=[[William A. Purtell]]
 
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| succeeded=[[Abraham A. Ribicoff]]
 
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| date of birth=[[May 15]], [[1895]]
 
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| place of birth=[[Columbus, Ohio]]
 
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| dead=dead
 
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| date of death=[[October 8]], [[1972]]
 
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| place of death=[[New York City]]
 
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| law school=none
 
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| spouse=[[Dorothy Walker Bush]]}}
 
  
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'''Prescott Sheldon Bush''' ([[May 15]], [[1895]] &mdash; [[October 8]], [[1972]]) was a [[United States]] [[United States Senate|Senator]] from [[Connecticut]] and a [[Wall Street]] executive banker with [[Brown Brothers Harriman]]. He was the father of former [[United States|U.S.]] President [[George Herbert Walker Bush|George H. W. Bush]] and the grandfather of current President [[George Walker Bush|George W. Bush]].
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[[Category:Political people|Bush, Prescott]]
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==Early life==
 
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Bush was born in [[Columbus, Ohio|Columbus]], [[Ohio]] to [[Flora Sheldon]] and [[Samuel Prescott Bush]]. Samuel Bush was a railroad executive, then a steel company president, and during [[World War I]], also a federal government official in charge of coordination and assistance to major [[defense contractor|weapons contractors]].
 
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Bush attended the Douglas School in Columbus and then [[St. George's School, Newport|St. George's School]] in [[Newport, Rhode Island]] from 1908 to 1913. In [[1913]], he enrolled at [[Yale University]], officially creating a long standing family legacy, as his grandfather, [[James Smith Bush]], his son, George H.W. Bush, his grandson, George W. Bush, as well as his great-granddaughter [[Barbara Pierce Bush (1981)|Barbara]] are all Yale alumni. Prescott Bush was admitted to the [[Zeta Psi]] fraternity while at Yale, though two of his sons and grandson would opt for [[Delta Kappa Epsilon]]. All four Bushes, however, would be members of the [[Skull and Bones]] [[secret society]] (along with several Walkers), and Bush has long been implicated in the society's alleged [[grave-robbing|theft]] of the [[skull]] of [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] leader [[Geronimo]], when three Bonesmen were stationed at [[Fort Sill]].[http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2006_05/notebook.html] Some historians, and [[Cecil Adams]], regard this claim as false.
 
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Prescott Bush played varsity golf, football, and baseball, and was president of the [[Yale Glee Club]], and, in fact, was regarded as the best [[close harmony]] man in the class of 1917.  His strong devotion to singing at Yale became another of his passions, as evidenced by his founding of the Yale Glee Club Associates, an alumni group, in [[1937]].
 
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He maintained homes in [[Long Island]], [[New York]] and [[Greenwich, Connecticut]]; the [[Bush Compound|family compound]] at [[Kennebunkport, Maine]]; a 10,000 acre (40 km²) plantation in [[South Carolina]]; and an island retreat in [[Florida]].
 
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== Military service ==
 
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After graduation, Bush served as a field artillery captain with the [[American Expeditionary Forces]] ([[1917]]-[[1919]]) during [[World War I]]. He received intelligence training at [[Verdun-sur-Meuse|Verdun]], [[France]], and was briefly assigned to a staff of French officers. Alternating between intelligence and artillery, Captain Bush came under fire in the [[Meuse-Argonne offensive]]. Controversially, Bush wrote home about receiving medals for heroic exploits.  His letters were later published in Columbus newspapers, but were retracted a few weeks later when it was revealed that he, in fact, had not received such medals. The retraction was made in a cable in which Bush stated that his earlier letter had been written "in a spirit of fun" and was not intended for publication.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
 
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== Business career ==
 
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After his discharge in 1919, Prescott Bush went to work for the Simmons Hardware Company in [[St. Louis, Missouri|St. Louis]], [[Missouri]].
 
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On [[August 6]], [[1921]], in [[Kennebunkport, Maine]], he wed [[Dorothy Walker Bush|Dorothy Walker]], the daughter of [[George Herbert Walker]] (who would be the namesake of Prescott Bush's second son, [[George Herbert Walker Bush]]).  They would have four other children: [[Prescott Bush, Jr.]], [[Jonathan Bush]], [[William H.T. Bush]], and [[Nancy Bush]]. 
 
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Among those attending the wedding ceremony were Isabel Stillman Rockefeller (daughter of [[Percy Rockefeller]]), Hope Lincoln, Mary Keck, Elizabeth Trotter, Martha Pittman, Ruth Lionberger, Nancy Walker, George Herbert Walker, Knight Wooley, Frank Shepard, John Shepley, Richard Bentley, Henry Isham, William Potter Wear, and Henry Fenimore Cooper.
 
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The Bushes moved to [[Columbus, Ohio]], in [[1923]], where Prescott Bush went to work for the [[Hupp]] Products Company, where his business efforts generally failed. He left in November, 1923 to become president of sales for the Stedman Products company of South Braintree, Massachusetts.  It was during this time that he lived in a Victorian home at 173 Adams Street in [[Milton, Massachusetts]], where his son and the future President was born in 1924.  In [[1925]], Prescott Bush joined the [[United States Rubber Company]] of [[New York City]] as manager of the foreign division, and moved to [[Greenwich, Connecticut|Greenwich]], [[Connecticut]].
 
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From [[1944]] to [[1956]], Bush was a member of the [[Yale Corporation]], the principal governing body of Yale University.  Bush was on the board of directors of [[CBS]], having been introduced to chairman [[William Paley]] around 1932 by his close friend and colleague Averell Harriman, who became a major Democratic party power-broker.
 
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== Political career ==
 
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Bush was a typical [[New England]] Republican of his time; as a former banker, he was a pro-business conservative, but held many positions today considered socially moderate. Conservatives distrusted and at times openly opposed him.
 
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Bush was involved with the [[American Birth Control League]] as early as 1942, and served as the treasurer of the first national capital campaign of [[Planned Parenthood]] in 1947. Bush was also an early supporter of the [[United Negro College Fund]], serving as chairman of the Connecticut branch in 1951.
 
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[[Image:Prescott Bush and Eisenhower 1.jpg|thumb|300px|left|Bush with President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Oval Office.]]
 
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From 1947 to 1950, he served as Connecticut Republican finance chairman, and was the Republican candidate for the United States Senate in 1950. One of his opponents at the time, a Republican woman named [[Vivien Kellems]], said that Bush's nomination was an inside job of political sabotage in favor of [[William Benton]], the Democratic nominee. A columnist in Boston said that Bush "is coming on to be known as [[Harry S. Truman|President Truman]]'s [[Harry Hopkins]].  Nobody knows Mr. Bush and he hasn't a [[Chinaman's chance]]."<ref>"Fair Enough" by Westbrook Pegler, "Burlington Daily News-Times" (North Carolina), August 22, 1950</ref>  Bush's ties with Planned Parenthood also hurt him in heavily [[Roman Catholicism|Catholic]] Connecticut, and were the basis of a last-minute campaign in churches by Bush's opponents; the family vigorously denied the connection, but Bush lost to Benton by only 1,000 votes.
 
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In 1952, he was elected to the United States Senate, defeating [[Abraham Ribicoff]] for the seat vacated by the death of [[Brien McMahon|James O'Brien McMahon]].  A staunch supporter of President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], Prescott Bush served until January 1963. He was reelected in 1956 with 55% of the vote over Democrat [[Thomas J. Dodd]] (father of the current U.S. Senator from Connecticut, [[Christopher J. Dodd]]), and decided not to run for another term in 1962. He was a key ally for the passage of Eisenhower's [[Interstate Highway System]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/rw01d.htm
 
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|title=A Bush at Both Ends: Before and After the Interstate Era
 
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|publisher=U.S. [[Federal Highway Administration]]
 
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|date=January 18, 2005 (last modified)
 
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|accessdate=2006-08-06}}</ref>, and during his tenure supported the [[Ethan Allen class submarine|Polaris submarine]] project (ships which were built by [[Electric Boat Corporation]] in [[Groton, Connecticut]]), [[civil rights]] legislation, and the establishment of the [[Peace Corps]].<ref name="Mansfield">{{cite book|url=http://www.ereader.com/product/book/excerpt/16982
 
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|title=The Faith of George W. Bush
 
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|author=Stephen Mansfield
 
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|publisher=Tarcher
 
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|url=http://www.ereader.com/product/book/excerpt/16982
 
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|year=2004}}</ref>
 
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His boldest stance in the Senate was to vote to "condemn" (in fact a censure) Senator Joseph McCarthy for his anti-communist witch-hunt. But when McCarthy lay on his deathbed he wished him a speedy recovery and return to the Senate.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
 
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In an undated handwriten list by President Eisenhower, Bush was included
 
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as one of the ten best prospective candidates for the 1960 GOP presidential nomination.
 
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Bush's moderate politics became more complicated in time. In terms of issues he often agreed with New York Governor [[Nelson Rockefeller]], but personally disliked and politically opposed him, despite the close relationship his father [[Samuel P. Bush]] had with the Rockefeller family. When Rockefeller divorced his first wife and remarried to a woman about twenty years his junior with whom he had been having an affair while married to his first wife, a scandal that hurt his campaign for the [[United States presidential election, 1964|1964 Republican nomination for President]], Bush denounced Rockefeller <ref name="Mansfield" />.
 
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Bush was also in staunch opposition to the [[Kennedy family]], and especially President Kennedy's maternal grandfather [[John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald]].{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
 
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== War seizures controversy ==
 
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[[Harriman Bank]] was the main [[Wall Street]] connection for [[Germany|German]] companies and the varied U.S. financial interests of [[Fritz Thyssen]], who had been an early financial backer of the [[Nazism|Nazi]] party until [[1938]], but who by [[1939]] had fled Germany and was bitterly denouncing [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]].  Business transactions for profit with Nazi Germany were not illegal when Hitler declared war on the US, but, six days after the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]], President [[FDR|Roosevelt]] signed the [[Trading With the Enemy Act]] after it had been made public that U.S. companies were doing business with the declared enemy of the United States.  On [[October 20]], [[1942]], the U.S. government ordered the seizure of [[Nazi German]] banking operations in [[New York City]]. President Franklin Roosevelt's Alien Property Custodian, Leo T. Crowley, signed Vesting Order Number 248 seizing the property of Prescott Bush under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The order, published in obscure government record books and kept out of the news, cited only the UBC connections with Von Thyssen.  Fox News has reported that recently declassified material "The 4,000 Union Banking shares owned by the Dutch bank were registered in the names of the seven U.S. directors, according a document signed by Homer Jones, chief of the division of investigation and research of the Office of Alien Property Custodian, a World War II-era agency that no longer exists"[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100474,00.html].
 
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* E. Roland Harriman--3991 shares (managed and under voting control of Prescott Bush)
 
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* Cornelis Lievense--4 shares (He was the New York banker of the German Nazi Party)
 
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* Harold D. Pennington--1 share (Employed by Prescott Bush at Brown Brothers Harriman)
 
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* Ray Morris--1 share (a business partner of the Bush and Harriman families)
 
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* H.J. Kouwenhoven--1 share (organised UBC for Von Thyssen, managed UBC in Nazi occupied Netherlands)
 
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* Johann G. Groeninger--1 share (German Industrial Executive, a not unimportant member of the Nazi party)
 
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The Harriman business interests seized under the act in October and November 1942 included:
 
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* [[Union Banking Corporation]] (UBC) (for Thyssen and [[Brown Brothers Harriman]]). The President of UBC at that time was [[George Herbert Walker]], Prescott Bush's father-in-law. He is the grandfather and great-grandfather of the former and current Presidents Bush.
 
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* Holland-American Trading Corporation (with Harriman)
 
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* the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation (with Harriman)
 
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* [[Silesian-American Corporation]] (this company was partially owned by German entity; during the war the Germans tried to take the full control of Silesian-American. In response to that, American government seized German owned minority shares in the company, leaving the U.S. partners to carry on the business.)
 
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The assets were held by the government for the duration of the war, then returned afterward. UBC was dissolved in 1951. Prescott Bush was on the board of directors of UBC and held one share in the company. For it, he was reimbursed $1,500,000. These assets were later used to launch Bush family investments in the Texas energy industry.  This presupposes that Union Banking Corporation was worth $4 billion, of which almost all would have been paid to the Harrimans. Critics have addressed this claim with skepticism. <ref>Cecil Adams, http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030214.html</ref>
 
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[[Toby Rogers]] has claimed that Bush's connections to Silesian businesses (with Thyssen and Flick) make him complicit with the [[mining]] operations in [[Poland]] which used slave labor out of [[Oświęcim|Auschwitz]], where the [[Auschwitz concentration camp]] was later constructed. Allegations that Prescott Bush profited from slave labor or the Auschwitz concentration camp remain unproved.
 
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There are unsubstantiated rumors concerning Prescott Bush's associations with the Nazi party. The [[Anti-Defamation League]] has stated, "Rumors about the alleged Nazi 'ties' of the late Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, have circulated widely through the Internet in recent years. These charges are untenable and politically motivated." [http://www.adl.org/Internet_Rumors/prescott.htm] The rumors began with extreme right-wing attacks on George H.W. Bush during his 1980 presidential run and were renewed during his 1988 run.
 
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The ''[[New York Herald-Tribune]]'' referred to the German industrialist, [[Fritz Thyssen]], as "Hitler's Angel" and mentioned Bush only as an employee of the investment banking firm Thyssen used in the USA.  The label was wildly wrong, since by the time the Tribune article appeared, Hitler had turned on Thyssen himself---although other reports say Thyssen fled Germany---and imprisoned him.  Notwithstanding, the underlying importance is Hitler's known ideology; intelligent business partners like Bush and Thyssen and Harriman clearly knew who they were doing business with and were willing to do so. Thyssen's "autobiography" is entitled "I Paid Hitler." (?)
 
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There has been a determined effort by Canadian bloggers, apparently connected with [[Lyndon LaRouche]], to circulate reports that Bush himself was known as "Hitler's Angel". Bloggers from the United States recently have tried to go so far as to imply that George H. W. Bush was diverted to the War in the Pacific to fight the Japanese because of the close family ties to Nazi Germany.  Some records in the National Archives, including the Harriman papers, document the continued relationship of Brown Brothers Harriman with Thyssen and some of his German investments up until his 1951 death.<ref name="Buchanan">{{cite news
 
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|url=http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_2
 
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|title=Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951
 
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|author=[[John Buchanan (American politician)|John Buchanan]] and Stacey Michael
 
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|publisher=[[New Hampshire Gazette]]
 
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|date=2003-11-07
 
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|accessdate=2006-08-06}}</ref> Investigator [[John Loftus]] has said, "As a former federal prosecutor, I would make a case for Prescott Bush, his father-in-law (George Walker) and [[Averell Harriman]] <nowiki>[to be prosecuted]</nowiki> for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. They remained on the boards of these companies knowing that they were of financial benefit to the nation of Germany." Two former slave laborers from Poland have filed suit in London against the [[federal government of the United States|government of the United States]] and the heirs of Prescott Bush in the amount of $40 billion. A class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. in 2001 was dismissed based on the principle of state sovereignty.<ref name="Guardian">{{cite news
 
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|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html
 
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|title=How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power
 
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|author=Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell
 
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|publisher=[[The Guardian]]
 
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|date=September 25, 2004
 
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|accessdate=2006-08-06}}</ref>
 
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(For more information on the Bush family and the arms industry, see [[Samuel P. Bush]].)
 
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==Miscellany==
 
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* On the February 7, 2007 episode of ''[[The Daily Show]]'', guest [[Ralph Nader]] mentioned that his mother had extracted a promise from Senator Bush to build a dry dam for a river near the Nader home by refusing to let go of his hand after shaking it upon being introduced to him.
 
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*In the first season of [[Boston Legal]], while undergoing a psychological exam, [[Denny Crane]] claims that his father wrestled Bush when they attended Yale together.
 
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==Writings==
 
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Bush's articles include:
 
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* "Timely Monetary Policy," ''Banking'', June 1954 and July 1954
 
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* "To Preserve Peace Let's Show the Russians How Strong We Are!" ''[[Reader's Digest]]'', July 1959
 
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* "Politics Is Your Business," Chamber of Commerce, State of New York, ''Bulletin'', May 1960.
 
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==References==
 
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<references />
 
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==Further reading==
 
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* The Prescott Bush Papers are at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.
 
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* The Greenwich Library Oral History Project has interviews with Prescott Bush, Jr., and Mary Walker.
 
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* There is material by and about Bush in the History of the Class of 1917 Yale College (1919) and the supplementary class albums.
 
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* John Atlee Kouwenhoven, Partners in Banking: An Historical Portrait of a Great Private Bank, [[Brown Brothers Harriman]] (1968).
 
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* Obituaries are in the Washington Post, Oct. 9, 1972; the New York Times, Oct. 9, 1972; the Hartford Courant, Oct. 9, 1972; and Yale Alumni Magazine, Dec. 1972.
 
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* "Prescott Sheldon Bush. "Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 9: 1971-1975. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994.
 
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* Darwin Payne, Initiative in Energy: Dresser Industries, Inc., 1880-1978.  New York: Simon and Schuster (1979).
 
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*Kelley, Kitty. 2004, 2005. ''The Family: The True Story of the Bush Dynasty''.  Doubleday, Anchor.[http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/thefamily/index.php]
 
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==External links==
 
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*{{imdb name|id=1778210|name=Prescott Sheldon Bush}}
 
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*{{nndb name|id=501/000052345|name=Prescott Sheldon Bush}}
 
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*[http://www.lib.uconn.edu/online/research/speclib/ASC/findaids/Bush_PS/MSS19910001.html University of Connecticut's profile of Prescott Bush]
 
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*[http://genealogy.about.com/od/presidents/p/george_bush.htm Bush Family Tree]
 
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*[http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=5988&pt=Prescott%20Bush Gravesite: Putnam Cemetery, Greenwich, Fairfield County, Connecticut, USA]
 
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*[http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html Article on Bush's involvement with Nazi Germany]
 
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*[http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography]
 
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* [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/MDbushPR.htm Spartacus Educational Biography]
 
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*[http://illuminati-news.com/Videos/keeping-it-in-the-family.wmv 10 Minute Video Clip of John Buchanan Discussing Prescott Bush (WMV)]
 
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{{start box}}
 
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{{succession box | before = [[William A. Purtell]] | title = [[List of United States Senators from Connecticut|U.S. Senator (Class 3) from Connecticut]] | years = [[November 5]], [[1952]]&mdash;[[January 3]], [[1963]] | after = [[Abraham A. Ribicoff]]}}
 
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{{end box}}
 
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<!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] -->
 
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{{Persondata
 
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|NAME=Bush, Prescott Sheldon
 
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|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Bush, Prescott
 
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|SHORT DESCRIPTION=Former US Senator, Father of George H.W. Bush
 
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|DATE OF BIRTH=[[May 15]], [[1895]]
 
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|PLACE OF BIRTH=[[Columbus, Ohio]], [[United States of America|USA]]
 
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|DATE OF DEATH=[[October 8]], [[1972]]
 
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|PLACE OF DEATH=[[New York City]]
 
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}}
 
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[[Category:George H.W. Bush|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:United States Senators from Connecticut|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:United States Army officers|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:American military personnel of World War I|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:Bush family|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:Yale Bulldogs football players|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:People from Columbus, Ohio|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:People from Greenwich, Connecticut|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:Bonesmen|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:Zeta Psi brothers|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:Lung cancer deaths|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:1895 births|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:1972 deaths|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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[[Category:Historical US Republicans|Bush, Prescott]]
 
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Revision as of 02:16, March 22, 2007

Prescott Bush (May 15, 1895-October 8, 1972) was a banker and Republican Senator from Connecticut from 1952-1963. He was the father of President George H. W. Bush, and the grandfather of President George W. Bush

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