The Quiet Man: The Indispensable Presidency of George H.W. Bush

by John H. Sununu

Overview

In this major reassessment of George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st president of the United States, his former Chief of Staff offers a long overdue appreciation of the man and his universally underrated and misunderstood presidency.

“I’m a quiet man, but I hear the quiet people others don’t.”—George H. W. Bush

In this unique insider account, John H. Sununu pays tribute to his former boss—an intelligent, thoughtful, modest leader—and his overlooked accomplishments. Though George H. W. Bush is remembered for orchestrating one of the largest and most successful military campaigns in history—the Gulf War—Sununu argues that conventional wisdom misses many of Bush’s other great achievements.

During his presidency, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Bush’s calm and capable leadership during this dramatic time helped shape a world in which the United States emerged as the lone superpower. Sununu reminds us that President Bush’s domestic achievements were equally impressive, including strengthening civil rights, enacting environmental protections, and securing passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 1990 agreement which generated budget surpluses and a decade of economic growth.

Sununu offers unparalleled insight into this statesman who has been his longtime close friend. He worked with Bush when he was vice president under Ronald Reagan, helped him through a contentious GOP primary season and election in 1988, and as his chief of staff, was an active participant and front-row observer to many of the significant events of Bush’s presidency. Reverential yet scrupulously honest, Sununu reveals policy differences and clashes among the diverse personalities in and out of the White House, giving credit—and candid criticism—where it’s due.

The Quiet Man goes behind the scenes of this unsung but highly consequential presidency, and illuminates the man at its center as never before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062384294
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/16/2017
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	940,230
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

John H. Sununu served three terms as governor of New Hampshire and was cochairman of George H. W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, as well as his chief of staff from 1989 to 1991. Prior to becoming governor, Sununu was associate dean of the College of Engineering at Tufts University and president of the JHS Engineering Company. After leaving the White House, he was the conservative host of CNN's Crossfire and won a Cable Ace Award. He lives with his wife, Nancy, in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

1 Journey to the White House 1

2 Framing the Mission 27

3 Clearing the Way 71

4 The Disciplined Leader: Ending the Cold War 91

5 "Read My Lips": The Budget Agreement of 1990 159

6 Free-Market Policies for the Environment and Energy 205

7 Empowering Communities and Families 227

8 The Compassionate Conservative 249

9 Desert Storm 271

10 Panama, China, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 319

11 The Supreme Court 339

12 An Embattled 1992 357

Postscript: Completing the Mission 381

Acknowledgments 391

References 393

Index 395

Editorial Reviews

05/04/2015
Sununu, an engineering dean at Tufts University and three-term governor of New Hampshire, became President George H.W. Bush's White House chief of staff after playing a key role in the contentious 1988 New Hampshire primary. Since leaving government, he has been a prominent talking head on cable television. This chronicle recounts the 1989–1993 Bush presidency. It's easy to see why Bush and Sununu got along in respective roles as Good Cop and Bad Cop. Both were smart, capable technocrats. Bush was calm and personable; Sununu was protective, brusque, and partisan. The author's loyalty to his former boss is absolute, unswerving, and reverential. He witnessed profoundly important transitions in geopolitics, including the Gulf War and fall of the Soviet Union, recounted here in valuable detail. Readers encounter Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev working behind the scenes during the collapse of the USSR. They also encounter the riveting backstory to Operation Desert Storm. Supporting players in this account include Brent Scowcroft, George Mitchell, Bob Dole, Richard Darman, and Tom Foley. It is marred by the unwise choice to stress Bush's unmemorable domestic record along with his adroit foreign policy. The boastful, idiosyncratic superstructure precludes much distanced analysis or balanced assessment. This seemingly unghosted, honestly wrought political memoir nonetheless makes for a valuable addition to the literature on the 41st president of the U.S. Agent: Keith Urbahn, Javelin Group. (June)

Publishers Weekly

05/15/2015
George H.W. Bush's (b. 1924) administration as president of the United States was a significant hinge of American history. Sununu, who served as governor of New Hampshire from 1983 until 1989 when he assumed the role of White House chief of staff, views Bush's achievements, domestic and international, as underestimated and unappreciated. This work is an apologetic of the achievements of a leader reticent to discuss his accomplishments. (Bush has publicly stated that he will not write a memoir.) The former president is best credited as a successful war commander during Desert Storm and for shepherding the United States through a potentially treacherous post-Cold War transition after the fall of the Soviet Union. Sununu believes Bush is not given enough credit for his domestic policy achievements, and he seeks to remedy that oversight by maintaining that Bush's service as Congressman, CIA director, Republican National Chairman, ambassador to China, and vice president, prepared him—more so than anyone else—to lead during a sensitive period in American history. Sununu falls short of providing a completely realistic behind-the-scenes account of the policies Bush championed as a "compassionate conservative;" his narrative nearly crosses into hagiography. VERDICT Best suited for readers interested in the Bushes as a political family and as background to Jeb Bush's potential candidacy. Those seeking a more scholarly analysis should consider John Robert Greene's The Presidency of George H.W. Bush.—Glen Edward Taul, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY

Library Journal

2015-04-01
A droning, 400-page toast to George H.W. Bush. In his first book, Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor and longtime chief of staff known as "Bush's Bad Cop," tries to set the record straight on his old boss, relying mainly on willful blindness to his faults, a flattering reinterpretation of his failures, and a gross exaggeration of his accomplishments. Readers inclined to the view that Bush was underrated, or at the very least a decent, ethical, and kind man (no argument there), might be put off by Sununu's starry-eyed perception of Bush as a leader whose life is a testament to his selfless love of country and whose grasp of domestic and international politics was so sure and subtle that no one saw how brilliant it was. The president's slowness to act on getting rid of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was just an example of a master gunslinger biding his time for the right moment. In the author's view, Bush's actions in Desert Storm were sure and unwavering; the Margaret Thatcher who said, "Don't go wobbly on us, George," is nowhere to be found. The Bush who blundered so badly by saying, "Read my lips—no new taxes" isn't the one that's important; it's the Bush who saw the error of his ways and nobly raised taxes anyway. All of this might be regarded as pardonable bias if the book were at least an interesting portrait. Although Sununu does have his share of anecdotes and some glimpses of life inside the White House, the book is primarily written in press release prose, thickly woven with cut-and-paste positions, platform planks, and robotic quotes from the commander in chief. For true believers only—and even they are going to have a hard time lasting through this dull book, which actually encourages more skepticism than it erases.

Kirkus Reviews