Restless Giant: The United States From Watergate to Bush v. Gore (96 page)

43
. John Gaddis,
The United States and the End of the Cold War: Implications, Reconsiderations, Provocations
(New York, 1992), 128–29; Brands,
The Devil We Knew
, 196–99.

44
. Gaddis,
The United States and the End of the Cold War
, 129; Cannon,
President Reagan
, 690–92.

45
. D’Souza, “How the East Was Won.”

46
. Gaddis,
The United States and the End of the Cold War
, 291; Hodgson,
The World Turned Right Side Up
, 268.

47
. Samuel Wells, “Reagan, Euromissiles, and Europe,” in Elliot Brownlee and Hugh Davis Graham, eds.,
The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism and Its Legacies
(Lawrence, Kans., 2003), 133–52; David Allin,
Cold War Illusions: America, Europe, and Soviet Power, 1969–1989
(New York, 1998); Brands,
The Devil We Knew
, 227.

48
. Mann,
Rise of the Vulcans
, 159.

1
. For Bush, John Greene,
The Presidency of George Bush
(Lawrence, Kans., 2000); and Herbert Parmet,
George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee
(New York, 1997).

2
. David Halberstam,
War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals
(New York, 2001), 69–73.

3
. William Martin,
With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America
(New York, 1996), 278–82.

4
. For the campaign see Greene,
The Presidency of George Bush
, 41–43; Parmet,
George Bush
, 340–48; Jules Witcover,
Party of the People: A History of the Democratic Party
(New York, 2003), 636–42; and Fred Greenstein,
The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to Clinton
(New York, 2000), 163–64.

5
. John White,
The New Politics of Old Values
(Hanover, N.H., 1989), 149.

6
. Only later, after Bush had lost the election of 1992, did he acknowledge that he had in fact been kept informed about progress in the arms-for-hostages dealings.
Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
(New York, 2000), 661.

7
. Michael Sherry,
In the Shadow of War: The United States Since the 1930s
(New Haven, 1995), 434. For Dukakis, see Garry Wills,
Under God: Religion and American Politics
(New York, 1990), 58–60.

8
. Robert Reich,
The Resurgent Liberal
(New York, 1989), 69.

9
. For religious issues in 1988, see Wills,
Under God
; and Martin,
With God on Our Side
, 263–66, 278–82, 294.

10
. Congressional Quarterly,
Guide to the Presidency
(Washington, 1989), 197. There had been 201 labor PACs in 1974 and 297 in 1980.

11
. Kevin Phillips,
Arrogant Capital: Washington, Wall Street, and the Frustration of American Politics
(Boston, 1994), 39.

12
. Wills,
Under God
, 70–75.

13
. Parmet,
George Bush
, 335–36, 350–53.

14
. White,
New Politics of Old Values
, 161; Wills,
Under God
, 59–60; Parmet, 355.

15
. See Michael McDonald and Samuel Popkin, ”The Myth of the Vanishing Voter,”
American Political Science Review
95 (Dec. 2001), 963–74, and note 105,
chapter 4
, for a corrective to this pessimistic view of American political engagement.

16
. John Judis and Ruy Teixeira,
The Emerging Democratic Majority
(New York, 2002), 25–6;
World Almanac, 2001
, 40.

17
. Greene,
The Presidency of George Bush
, 41–43.

18
. White,
New Politics of Old Values
, 168.

19
. Bush’s first choice as defense secretary was former Texas senator John Tower, but he failed to be confirmed.

20
. James Mann,
Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet
(New York, 2004), 184; Greenstein,
The Presidential Difference
, 165–67. Scowcroft added to his staff a person who was to become national security adviser and secretary of state in the administration of George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice. An African American, Rice was a professor at Stanford University and an expert in Soviet affairs.

21
. For Bush and the Balkans, see Halberstam,
War in a Time of Peace
, 24–46, 86–100, 121–42; and William Hitchcock,
The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945–2002
(New York, 2003), 380–95.

22
. Later reduced to thirty years, with eligibility for parole in 2006.

23
. Greene,
The Presidency of George Bush
, 100–106; Parmet,
George Bush
, 411–19.

24
. Parmet,
George Bush
, 398–400.

25
.
New York Times
, Oct. 26, 2002. Cheney became vice president under George W. Bush (“Bush 43”) in 2001, and Wolfowitz became Cheney’s deputy. Both men were known to be strong advocates within this administration of war against Iraq, which was launched in early 2003.

26
. Mann,
Rise of the Vulcans
, 209–15. The final version of this document, issued under Cheney’s name in early 1993, was reworded but reiterated the central point: The United States must maintain permanent military superiority in the world.

27
. United States defense spending declined from $299 billion in 1990 to $282 billion in 1994. In constant 1996 dollars this was a decrease of roughly 16 percent, from $354 billion to $298 billion.
Stat. Abst., 2002
, 326.

28
.
New York Times
, Nov. 14, 2001.

29
. Frances FitzGerald, “George Bush and the World,”
New York Review of Books
, Sept. 26, 2002, 80–81.

30
. Human rights groups in Iraq later placed the number of Iraqis killed, many of them thrown into mass graves, during Saddam Hussein’s regime at more than 300,000 between 1979 and 2002.
New York Times
, Dec. 23, 2003.

31
. Parmet,
George Bush
, 453–54.

32
.
U.S. News & World Report
,
Triumph Without Victory: The Unreported History of the Persian Gulf War
(New York, 1992), 141; Mann,
Rise of the Vulcans
, 182–97.

33
. Greene,
The Presidency of George Bush
, 113–33.

34
. The troops were more than twice the number that the United States and its allies dispatched in the next war against Iraq, in 2003. Congress estimated that the cost of the Gulf War of 1991 was $61 billion. Other estimates rise as high as $71 billion. Coalition partners, especially the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, paid an estimated $42 billion of these costs.
U.S. News & World Report
,
Triumph Without Victory
, 413.

35
. In 2003, Kerry voted to authorize President George W. Bush to go to war against Iraq.

36
. Mann,
Rise of the Vulcans
, 184–85.

37
.
New York Times
, March 27, 2003.

38
. Ibid., April 20, 2003. For accounts of the fighting, see Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor,
The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the War in the Gulf
(Boston, 1995); and Robert Divine, “The Persian Gulf War Revisited: Tactical Victory, Strategic Failure?”
Diplomatic History
24 (Winter 2000), 129–38.

39
. For the estimates cited here of Iraqi troop sizes, desertions, and casualties, see John Heidenrich, “The Gulf War: How Many Iraqis Died?”
Foreign Policy
90 (Spring 1993), 108–25. Heidenrich rejects a range of other early estimates, most of which were higher. Generally agreed-upon statistics concerning American and coalition casualties may be found in Rick Atkinson,
Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War
(Boston, 1993), 491–92;
U. S. News & World Report
,
Triumph Without Victory
, vii–ix, 402–13;
New York Times
, April 20, 2003; and
World Almanac, 2003
, 209. Later, 15,000 to 20,000 U. S. soldiers reported symptoms—fatigue, aches and pains, difficulty in thinking, loss of memory—that they attributed to service in the Gulf at the time of the war. These ailments were collectively given the name of Gulf War Syndrome.
New York Times
, March 25, 2003.

40
. Comment in 1999, reported in
Providence Journal
, Dec. 16, 2003.

41
. David Rieff, “Were Sanctions Right?”
New York Review of Books
, July 27, 2003, 41–46. Though most observers believe that international sanctions against Iraq helped to prevent Hussein from developing weapons of mass destruction, it later became clear that Hussein—both before and especially after the $64 billion oil-for-food arrangements that lasted until early 2003—managed to siphon off an estimated $10.9 billion ($1.7 billion of which went into his own pockets), mainly by illegally smuggling oil to nearby countries like Jordan, Turkey, Syria, and Egypt. Illicit surcharges and kick-backs further enriched his inner circle. United Nations officials overseeing the oilfor-food program badly mismanaged it, and British and American officials charged with monitoring some of the arrangements did a poor job of preventing smuggling. Hussein also succeeded in hiding large caches of conventional arms, components, and high explosives—some of which Iraqi rebels later used with telling effect during the American-led occupation of Iraq that began in 2003.
New York Times
, Feb. 29, June 4, Nov. 16, Dec. 8, 2004, April 24, 2005.

42
. Interview with the BBC later reported in
New York Times
, Dec. 16, 2003; ibid., Sept. 30, 2004.

43
. Osama bin Laden, a mastermind of Muslim terrorism in later years, repeatedly emphasized the evil of America’s presence in these nations—especially in Saudi Arabia, his native land—and advocated terrorist activities as a means of driving the Americans out.

44
. Parmet,
George Bush
, 492–93, 500.

45
. See
chapter 1
.

46
. Average SAT verbal scores were 502 in 1980, 500 in 1990. Average SAT math scores rose a little, from 492 in 1980 to 501 in 1990. Average verbal scores in 1970 had been 537, average math scores, 512.
Stat. Abst., 2002
, 244. For school issues, including the issue of tests, see
chapter 1
.

47
. Greene,
The Presidency of George Bush
, 69–71.

48
. John Jennings,
Why National Standards and Tests? Politics and the Quest for Better Schools
(Thousand Oaks, Calif., 1998), 17–20, 25–32.