Read Conason and Pizzi in Background.

This Village Voice piece nails down most of the impt. particulars and lists the major players in this favoritism run amok (taking a middle- management mentality on a roller-coaster ride from the an MBA with nothing to do into the multi-million range):

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0228/ridgeway.php

Kevin Sack's "George Bush the Son Finds That Oil and Blood Do Mix," NY Times, May 8, 1999 (another excellent background piece concerning W.'s acquisition of a fortune, but Sack's clearly draws the personal and familial connections):

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/f/friedman/spring02/govt1/schedule/j/j1/bush.html

William Walker, for the Ontario Star, July 21, 2002, makes the financing of W.'s first company, Arbusto, an interesting read (and also spells out W.'s drinking problem):

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar%2FLayout%2FArticle_Type1&c=Article&cid=1026143579604&call_page=TS_World&call_pageid=968332188854&cal

_pagepath=News%2FWorld&col=968350060724

(you'll have to paste the address together to make work, but it's worth it as the following shows):

<snip>

Other friends of the Bushes soon lined up. From 1979 to 1983, about 50 investors plowed $4.7 million into Arbusto.

George L. Ball, CEO of Prudential Bache Securities, a stock market giant, invested $100,000. Lewis Lehrman, a New York millionaire and Republican supporter, put up $47,500. Fitzgerald Bemiss, a childhood friend of Bush's father, invested $80,000. George Ohrstrom, who went to private school with Bush's father in Connecticut, anted up $100,000. Philip Uzielli, a close friend of James Baker III, the senior Bush's political fixer and cabinet member, chipped in $50,000.

. . .

Two years before, Arbusto had hit the skids, returning just $1.5 million to investors on their $4.7 million stake.

But Bush fared much better personally, making $362,000 on his investment of only $102,000 (which he had borrowed from a bank).

Hoping to raise more cash, he changed the company's name from Arbusto to Bush Exploration. It didn't help.

He was finally bailed out by an old Yale classmate, William DeWitt Jr., an oilman who owned Spectrum 7 Energy Corp.

By now, Bush's father was vice-president to Ronald Reagan. Later, in 1988, the wealthy Dewitt would become one of the biggest donors to Bush Sr.'s presidential campaign.

DeWitt bought Bush Exploration outright. Bush was named Spectrum 7's CEO, at $75,000 a year, and received 1.1 million shares in the company's stock, a practice many in Congress now want outlawed.

As world oil prices fell, Spectrum 7, with Bush at the helm, became a money loser.

By 1986, another bailout was needed. Enter Harken Energy, a mid-sized Texas oil company that gave Bush and his fellow Spectrum 7 owners $2 million worth of Harken stock for the debt-ridden company.

Bush's take was about $500,000 worth of stock. He was also named a company director and received $120,000 in consulting fees, even though he was off working on his father's presidential campaign through most of 1987 and 1988.

"His name was George Bush. That was worth the money they paid to him," said Harken founder Phil Kendrick, as reported by Charles Lewis of the Centre for Public Integrity, in his book, The Buying Of The President 2000.

One month after Bush came aboard, the company obtained a $20 million investment from Harvard Management Company Inc., which manages Harvard University's multi-billion dollar endowment.

. . .

Enter Tom Hicks, the chairman of Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst Inc., a Texas company specializing in leveraged buyouts. Later, Hicks would become Bush's fourth-largest political donor, giving the future president more than $290,000.

Hicks bought the Rangers for $250 million, including the stadium and landaround it. It was almost three times what Bush and his partners paid.

Bush was by now in the governor's seat and already being touted as a future president. With 1.8 per cent of the team, he should have been due about $2.3 million from the sale. But the other owners, impressed by his shrewdness in the stadium deal, boosted his take to $14.9 million.

<snip>

I've quoted extensively, but there is much more . . . esp on Bahrain connection and much on how the Rangers stuck the town of Arlington for $146 million (!). A good article on favoritism shown W. from the late 70s on.

Tom Flocco, World Net Daily, laid it out clearly:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=16298

<snip>

In October 1991, Time Magazine questioned why the tiny country of Bahrain would stake so much of its financial future on Harken Energy, which it labeled an "obscure, money-losing company with no refineries and no experience in offshore oil exploration." But the magazine also noted that oil-insiders speculated that Bahrain's rulers saw the arrangement as a way to gain influence with the Bush administration.

Mysteriously, primary reporters have also ignored what could point to a nexus regarding foreign policy and personal financial interests. Interestingly, the Village Voice in January 1991 reported that in 1990 the Bush administration signed an agreement with Bahrain that chose the small country as the permanent principal allied base in the Middle East, although it was some 200 miles away from the hostilities in Iraq and Kuwait.

The military-base deal came after Harken announced its Jan. 30, 1990, joint oil-drilling venture with Bahrain. So President Bush's key contributors and his son George W. were carrying on personal financial business with Bahrain at the same time decisions were being made regarding the possibility of a war in the Gulf.

And neither the president nor his adviser, George Jr., let the press know that Bahrain had been permitted to infuse $7.7 million in foreign cash to hire U.S. public relations firm Hill & Knowlton to lobby Congress and the American people; a stunning variety of opinion-forming devices and techniques were employed to inflame U.S. patriotic passions of war while personal financial interests were on the line.

<snip>

Most recent story on the Bahrain factor, July 20, 2002, AP:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/business/1502370

<snip>

Five days after former President Bush was inaugurated in 1989, an official from Bahrain set in motion a chain of events that allowed the Texas oil company where the president's son was a director to beat out Amoco for drilling rights with huge profit potential.

. . .

Despite Harken's continuing financial losses in 1990, minutes of a Harken board meeting attended by Bush show that the company's investment banker, Chad Weiss of the firm Smith Barney, said the Middle East drilling venture would keep the company's stock price up.

"The potential of the Bahrain prospect will be the primary driving force initially for the company's stock," according to the minutes of a May 1990 meeting. "With the prospect of Bahrain in the picture," the investment banker "did not see much downside for the price of the stock."

<snip>

Aside: Of course W. told us that he was opposed to the Bahrain deal, right? Why then do the records, recently obtained thru a FOIA by The Center for Public Integrity, show otherwise?

http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=456&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

<snip>

The minutes of the Dec. 6, 1989 board meeting, however, show that after a presentation from Monte Swetnam, president of the reviewed and discussed the background of the Bahrain transaction with the Board including the discussions and negotiations conducted in Bahrain on his several trips there. Mr. Swetnam further discussed with the Board the potential benefits which the Company could realize from this opportunity. The Board discussed and reviewed the matters raised by Mr. Swetnam concerning this foreign opportunity and after which discussion, the Board unanimously approved HEX's proceeding towards finalization of a formal agreement with the State of Bahrain…"

George W. Bush, then a director of Harken, attended the meeting. There is no indication that he did not vote to approve the Bahrain deal.

<snip>

David Corn of The Nation details the real reason Harken bought Spectrum 7: political influence:

http://www.thenation.com//capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=82

<snip>

In 1986, Bush's own oil firm, Spectrum 7, was collapsing. Before it went belly-up, Harken purchased Spectrum for $2.25 million worth of Harken stock and made Bush a Harken director and consultant. That is, Harken saved Bush from ruin.

. . .

Later, when I saw the billionaire (George Soros) almost alone, I sidled up to him. "Nice offices," I said. "But can I ask you about some ancient history?" Sure, he said, with a good-natured smile. What was the deal with Harken buying up Spectrum 7? I inquired. Did Soros know Bush back then?

"I didn't know him," Soros replied. "He was supposed to bring in the Gulf connection. But it didn't come to anything. We were buying political influence. That was it. He was not much of a businessman."

<snip>

But a spokesman for Soros is trying to back off the story:

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/200/nation/Report_says_that_Harken_sought_influence_in_buying_Bush_firm+.shtml

(You'll have to paste the address back together to use.)

And it's even possible that some bin Laden money went to Bush's launching pad in the oil business (Arbusto) as the wealthy Saudi family sought to maintain favor with the Republican administration as Wayne Madsen reports in In These Times:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/25/feature3.shtml

<snip>

In 1979, Bush's first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a

Houstonian and close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave Bush $50,000 for a

5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the time, Bath was the sole U.S. business representative

for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a brother (one of 17)

to Osama bin Laden. It has long been suspected, but never proven, that the Arbusto

money came directly from Salem bin Laden. In a statement issued shortly after the

September 11 attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting

that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden's, in Arbusto.

In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged

his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests. In fact,

Bath has extensive ties, both to the bin Laden family and major players in the

scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) who have gone on to

fund Osama bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in the '80s in what has

been called the "largest bank fraud in world financial history" by former Manhattan

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the '80s, BCCI also acted as a main conduit

for laundering money intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial

support to the Afghan mujahedin to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair.

<snip>

And check out (potentially explosive if it checks out):

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/07/136245.php

<snip>

The Harken deal with Bahrain raises another troubling question: Did the Bahrainis and the BCCI-linked Saudi oil sheikhs. use the production sharing agreement with Harken to curry favor with the Bush administration and influence U.S.. policy in the Middle East? Talat Othman's sudden rise to prominence in Bush administration foreign policy circles is a. case in point. Othman, who sits on the Harken board as Sheikh Bakhsh's representative, didn't have access to. President Bush before Harken's Bahrain agreement. "But since August 1990, the Palestinian-born Chicago investor has. attended three White House meetings with President Bush to discuss Middle East policy," the Wall Street Journal. pointed out. "His name was added by the White House to a select list of 15 Arab-Americans chosen to meet with. President Bush, Sununu and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft in the White House two days after Iraq's. August 1990 invasion of Kuwait."

<snip>

More:

http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/07/136245_comment.php

Asking what Bush is hiding, Frank Rich (in his NY Times column, July 20, 2002) speculates:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/20/opinion/20FRIC.html

<snip>

Most likely it (what Bush is hiding) involves the mystery first raised by The Wall Street Journal and Time in 1991. Back then, their

investigative journalists tried to break the cronyism code by which tiny Harken beat out the giant Amoco for a prized contract for drilling in Bahrain. They also tried to learn what various Saudi money men, some tied to the terrorist-sponsoring Bank of Credit and Commerce International, may have had to do with Harken while the then-president's son was in proximity

<snip>

But the Basses are probably behind this and may well be behind much else concerning W.'s fortune as well. Perhaps the "Lee" mentioned on the stock broker's memo refers to Lee Bass, making Bass the angel for Bush when he wanted to sell stock to pay for his shares in the Rangers. Bass might have provided the grease here AND with Bahrain.

The bin Laden connection with Bush:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/25/feature3.shtml

and

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/INL110A.html

Here's one of the fullest articles showing the BCCI and Osama bin Laden connection as well as the connection to the rest of the family, other illegal money schemes, &c. Rick Wiles, in this item titled" Bush Family's Dirty Little Secret: President's Oil Companies Funded Bin Laden Family and Wealthy Saudis Who Financed Osama bin Laden," sounds a bit like a tinhatter, but his facts on straight:

http://www.americanfreedomnews.com/afn_articles/bushsecrets.htm

Speculation is surfacing on why Harvard bailed out Harken:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/18/1026898888500.html

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/199/nation/Harvard_fund_poured_millions_into_Bush_connected_oil_firm+.shtml

(You'll have to paste 2nd address back together to go to source.)

<snip>

Harken, which is engaged in oil and gas exploration, development, and production in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as in Colombia, Peru, Panama, and Costa Rica, soldiered on after Bush left. CEO Mikel Faulkner and COO Bruce Huff, CPAs who have been with the Harken since 1980 and 1990 respectively, pursued a variety of deals to jump-start its operations. But without much luck. The company's Latin American operations in particular were a drag, and Harken lost some $263 million over the past five years. And in a complex series of transactions, Harken recently moved its South American operations into a British company called Global PLC, of which Harken owns 92%. "It was always suspected that something was fishy, but not because of the Bush connection," says Gheit of Fahnestock. "That for a small company like Harken to be involved in foreign drilling operations getting concessions from foreign governments, things just didn't add up. A lot of people had suspected that this was a CIA front." That particular point, of course, is just a rumor.

<snip>

Speculation on a Harken-CIA connection:

http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=208814

<snip>

(Unclearly sourced.) "Two Harvard University officials who manage the investment of Harvard's endowment have themselves owned stock in one of the companies in the university's portfolio, raising questions of conflict of interest. Michael R. Eisenson and Donald D. Beane, partners in the Harvard Management Company, each owned shares of common stock in Harken Energy Corp., worth about $26,250 each, the Harvard Crimson reported. Harvard owns about $28 million of stock in Harken, a Texas oil and gas concern ... "

<snip>

Curiouser and curiouser . . .

Harken's connection to BCCI, in an archived Wall Street Journal report:

http://www.random-abstract.com/archives/00000292.html

Jerry Politex has focused on the webwork of contacts surrounding Harken:

http://www.bushwatch.net/bushwater.htm

2. HARKEN'S POSTING OF PHONY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS CLAIMING ASSETS WITHOUT NOTING DEBITS AND BUSH'S KNOWLEDGE OF THE FRAUDULENT ACCOUNTING.

Paul Krugman's July 7 column spells it out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/opinion/07KRUG.html

<snip>

That's exactly what happened at Harken. A group of insiders, using money borrowed from Harken itself, paid an exorbitant price for a Harken subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum. That created a $10 million phantom profit, which hid three-quarters of the company's losses in 1989. White House aides have played down the significance of this maneuver, saying $10 million isn't much, compared with recent scandals. Indeed, it's a small fraction of the apparent profits Halliburton created through a sudden change in accounting procedures during Dick Cheney's tenure as chief . But for Harken's stock price — and hence for Mr. Bush's personal wealth — this accounting trickery made all the difference.

Oh, and Harken's fake profits were several dozen times as large as the Whitewater land deal — though only about one-seventh the cost of the Whitewater investigation.

Mr. Bush was on the company's audit committee, as well as on a special restructuring committee; back in 1994, another member of both committees, E. Stuart Watson, assured reporters that he and Mr. Bush were constantly made aware of the company's finances. If Mr. Bush didn't know about the Aloha maneuver, he was a very negligent director.

<snip>

Krugman re wrote for Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,751821,00.html

<snip>

The ploy works as follows: corporate insiders create a front organisation that seems independent but is really under their control. This front buys some of the firm's assets at unrealistically high prices, creating a phantom profit that inflates the stock price, allowing the executives to cash in their stock.

A group of insiders, using money borrowed from Harken itself, paid an exorbitant price for a Harken subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum. That created a $10m phantom profit, which hid three-quarters of the company's losses in 1989. White House aides have played down the significance of this manoeuvre, saying $10m isn't much, compared with recent scandals. Indeed, it's a small frac tion of the apparent profits Halliburton created through a sudden change in accounting procedures during Dick Cheney's tenure as chief executive. But for Harken's stock price - and hence for Mr Bush's personal wealth - this accounting trickery made all the difference.

Mr Bush was on the company's audit committee, as well as on a special restructuring committee; back in 1994, another member of both committees, Stuart Watson, assured reporters that he and Mr Bush were constantly made aware of the company's finances. If Mr Bush didn't know about the Aloha manoeuvre, he was a very negligent director.

<snip>

An unattributed editorial in the St. Louis Post Dispach July 7, 2002, puts it succinctly:

http://home.post-dispatch.com/channel\pdweb.nsf/TodaySunday/

86256A0E0068FE5086256BEF002DD29E?OpenDocument&PubWrapper=Editorial

(You'll have to bind http address together to go directly.)

<snip>

...Harken sold a subsidiary to a group of its own insiders. It lent those insiders much of the money to make the purchase. Then Harken claimed a profit from the sale. It was almost as if the company were claiming profits for selling something to itself. Shades of Enron, Qwest and Dynegy, among others. The SEC cried foul. It forced the company to restate its earnings to show a much larger loss.

Did Mr. Bush approve of such accounting sleight of hand? After all, he was on Harken's audit committee. Or was he snoozing while management had fun with figures?

<snip>

Mike Allen for the Washington Post, July 21, 2002, musters the data (esp. that released under a FIOA request by the Center for Public

Integrity, see below) to suggest that it is more than likely that W. knew that Harken's stock was going to plunge due to the bad financial news that had clearly crossed his desk. (A good story, designed to pressure W. to release all the documents in the case that the SEC is holding):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38246-2002Jul20.html

<snip>

The documents show that four months before Bush sold most of his stake in Harken Energy Corp., he and other board members received a letter from management calling the previous year's profits disappointing and warning that the company would "continue to be severely limited in our activities due to cash constraints." The letter said that "as indicated at the December board meeting," the failue of a deal involving a subsidiary had "left the company with little cash flexibility."

. . .

The 150 pages of minutes and of the board documents released Friday tie Bush to the company's sale of Aloha Petroleum Ltd., which was recorded in such a way that Harken masked massive losses. . . .

<snip>

much more. . .

A Jan. 9, 1991 letter from Bruce N. Huff, senior vice president of Harken Energy, to Edmund Coulson, chief accountant of the SEC in a obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. A pdf file. As the Center writes, "Huff describes in detail Harken's position on the Aloha sale, and how it was restructured. Huff notes that in April 1990, `The immediate focus of the Company was at that time redirected to raising cash.' He also notes, `By June, 1990, the Company was constrained by its worsening cash and credit situation.'" (Remember when Bush sold? June 1990.):

http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/downloads/harken_010991.pdf

A recent Boston Globe Editorial by Bill Black and James Galbraith, both at UT Austin, claims Harken engaged in deliberate fraud:

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/204/oped/Bush_s_role_in_corporate_fraud+.shtml

<snip>

Bush claims to see nothing wrong about Harken's frauds. However, the goal was to hide real losses and to book fictional income. The people who made the decision and. the board of directors stood to gain directly from the fraud, and Bush did benefit -enormously.

Bush is also wrong on the accounting. This was a deliberately complicated transaction for the same reason that Enron's and Lincoln Savings's partnerships were complicated. Complexity makes it hard for regulators to discern fraud. While the transaction was complicated, the underlying fraud is so well known that the accounting rules governing such transactions are not vague. There was no ''honest dispute'' about accounting rules. There was a deliberate fraud structured in a complicated manner in order to claim that it wasn't really deliberate.

<snip>

Public Integrity went thru the documents obtained under FOIA and found that Bush probably had knowledge of the scam:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=450&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

(You'll have to paste address back together to get to story)

<snip>

. . . Bush chaired a special committee of board members set up to review the terms of a $12 million note held by Intercontinental Mining and Resources Ltd., which was set up by Harken insiders to purchase Aloha, according to an internal Harken document dated March 14, 1990 that was obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

. . .

The documents the Center has obtained do not unambiguously resolve the question of what Bush knew about the sale of the Aloha subsidiary.

The March 14, 1990 Shareholders Notes and the March 14, 1990 minutes from the Board of Directors meeting suggest that Bush was aware of some of the details of the Aloha transaction; the decision to renegotiate the terms of the deal with Advanced Petroleum Marketing was unanimously approved by the board.

<snip>

The Public Inquiry provides the documents.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/07/08/MN139428.DTL

<snip>

Democrats hope to draw attention to a controversial deal by Harken to sell one of its subsidiaries, Aloha Petroleum, to a group of Harken insiders. The SEC later found that deal might have disguised at least $8 million in losses by Harken and asked the company to restate its 1989 earnings. Bush was on the audit committee of Harken's board at the time.

<snip>

Another quick account, recounting the history of the story and the maneuverings by Bush and others to impede public knowledge of what exactly happened:

http://www.campaignwatch.org/more1.htm#update

3. BUSH'S SELLING OF HARKEN STOCK BASED ON POSSIBLE KNOWLEDGE OF POTENTIAL STOCK DEVALUATION, I.E, INSIDER TRADING

(2 possibilities):

The chart posted at CitizensLaw.net: (highly useful):

http://www.citizenslaw.net/_cases/MachsCat/BushFamily/GWBush_insider_trading_harken.htm

http://www.citizenslaw.net/_cases/MachsCat/BushFamily/imageRTT.JPG

–a. BUSH'S KNOWLEDGE OF A SECRET STATE DEPARTMENT MEMO CLAIMING HUSSAIN WAS OUT OF CONTROL AND READY TO ATTACK KUWAIT

Pizzo lays out the case:

http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/bushboys.html

<snip>

In May 1990, the U.S. State Department sent a chilling but still classified report to Scowcroft. The report warned that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was out of control and was threatening his neighbors:

May 16, 1990

SECRET

Attached is a paper containing a list of options for responding to recent actions and statements by the Government of Iraq. ...We ask that you pass this paper to Robert Gates for his review.

Under "options" the memo suggested: Ban Oil Purchases: The largest benefit Iraq receives from the US is through our oil purchases...

PRO -- A total ban on oil purchases would have some short-term impact.

CON -- Such action might also have an impact on US Oil prices.

Oil companies had learned, during the years of the long Iran-Iraq war, that trouble in the gulf hurts companies with oil interests because, for one thing, at the first sound of a rifle shot in the gulf region, Lloyds of London jacks up insurance rates on oil tankers and company installations. The "wartime" rates are very high and cut deeply into company profits and investor confidence. If things really get out of hand, pipelines are destroyed and waterways are mined.

The secret memo augured ill for Harken's fledgling venture.

<snip>

(Memo is May, Bush sells in June!)

House Democrats mention this as a possibility as well:

http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/bushcorpltrattach72402.pdf

<snip>

. . . there are concerns that, as son of the President of the United States at a time when the White House, but no the general public, was well aware of the aggressive intentions of Saddam Hussein in thelead up to the Persian Gulf conflict, you may have been privy to this information. It was also well known that such a conflict would cause substantial disruptions in the oil industry.

<snip>

–b. KNOWLEDGE OF HARKEN'S POOR FINANCIAL SITUATION AS A MEMBER OF A THREE-MEMBER "FAIRNESS" (read: AUDIT) COMMITTEE :

The House Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are also extraordinarily thorough in their July 25, 2002 summary of allegations with fine time lines. This pdf file (the second, the first is the cover letter) especially concerns when Bush was informed about company matters and regulations, when he signed the lock-down agreement which is in direct variance with his claim that he had always intended to sell the stock, and how much a role he was said to have in company affairs (i.e., how knowledgeable was he?). Includes W.'s attempt to coverup insider trading violations and allegations of W. making "false statements under oath"! A great file:

http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/bushcorpltr72402.pdf

http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/bushcorpltrattach72402.pdf

Read Conason and Pizzi in Background.

Center for Public Inquiry has received a letter indicating Bush met with President of Harken, Mikel Faulkner, 15 days prior to his stock sale and was deeply involved in the company's "inner workings":

http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=453&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

(then click on 1st letter, a pdf file):

<snip>

I enjoyed the opportunity to visit briefly with you yesterday and to discuss several organizations and strategic matters. Your advise in these situations is beneficail to me. Upon reflection of our conversation, I realize the value of your perspective in these matters and in particual, the tremendous value associated with my being able to "council" with you from time-to-time on just such matters. I would like to schedule an hour or two sometime in the next several weeks to sit down and get your thought on several related matters.

<snip>

The Reuter's story based on the above:

http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=1253955&fromEmail=true

What didn't Bush know and when didn't he know it????

Well, the 4th letter in the above batch (another pdf file), is a confidential internal memo Bush may have seen (read: probably did) in late May of 1990 and it is evidence that Harken knew profound financial problems would plague its business for the remainder of the year.

And another letter (April 20, 1990 from the president of Harken to his board) shaken loose via a FOIA request by the Center for Public Integrity which, as the Center states: that new conditions on a loan Harken sought "greatly intensifies our current liquidity problem and mandates the infusion of equity into the company."

http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/downloads/harken_memo_president_042090.pdf

Last week's explosive news! That Bush had signed a letter not to sell his stock for 180 days some 75 days prior to selling! Pete Yost's AP story, July 16, 2002:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-1881786,00.html

or

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9416-2002Jul15.html

<snip>

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two and a half months before George W. Bush sold his stock in a struggling Texas energy company where he was a director, he signed a letter promising to hold onto the shares for at least six months, internal company documents show.