(2 of 2)
Bush, in his advocacy of the new policy, is relying heavily on the delegates' reluctance to expel a charter member cf the U.N. "There is strong sympathy against expelling Taiwan," he says. "Even though the sponsors of the opposition say it's not a matter of expulsion, but a restoration of lawful rights, somewhere deep in his soul, everyone knows that it is expulsion. It's a bad precedent. The little countries particularly don't like it. They say to themselves, 'There but for the grace of God go I.'"
Larger Things. A Yale graduate, a millionaire (oil drilling) and the son of a former Republican Senator from Connecticut, Bush gave up a safe congressional seat at Nixon's urging, to run unsuccessfully against Democrat Lloyd Bentsen Jr. in last year's Texas senatorial elections. Bush's credentials in foreign affairs were sketchy at best, so some U.N. diplomats were initially skeptical of the neophyte envoy who clearly got his job for being a good loser and a, staunch Nixon loyalist. A few delegates still find Bush a trifle crude and bumptious; since March, though, he has impressed the professionals with his charm and ability to learn fast. (Despite his impatience with "technicalities," he understands their importance and relies heavily on the talents of the mission staff.)
Bush has one asset that U.N. delegates could not ignore even if they wanted to. Unlike Yost, he is personally close to the President and to Secretary of State Rogers; he frequently visits the White House and attends all the Cabinet meetings he can. Some observers, in fact, suspect that he is merely using the ambassadorship as a steppingstone to larger things—like running for Vice President should Nixon decide to dump Spiro Agnew in 1972. Personable and photogenic, Bush will undoubtedly impress American audiences watching the televised debates on the China question.
It is somewhat ironic that Bush's first task as Ambassador to the U.N. should be lobbying for Red China's admission. During the 1964 campaign in Texas, he declared: "If Red China should be admitted to the U.N., then the U.N. is hopeless and we should withdraw." Looking back on that statement, Bush points out that at the time China was in the throes of the Red Guard purges and showed no signs of wanting to establish relationships with other countries: "It was impossible that China could have been a constructive member of the U.N. then." On his turnabout: "I'm still concerned about China, but I feel completely comfortable about the President's policy. It makes a hell of a lot of sense in the year 1971."