An e-Report Special
Five years after 9/11:
- Osama bin Laden is still alive, free and dangerous.
- His deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri – the “brains” of Al Qaeda – is also free.
- Even the Taliban leader Mullah Omar has not been captured. The Taliban are regaining control over large parts of southern Afghanistan, emboldened by Al Qaeda leaders the Bush administration has failed to neutralise – despite five years of war and hundreds of billions of dollars spent.
Meanwhile President George W. Bush seems largely uninterested in bin Laden except for occasional token remarks. He abolished the special CIA unit tasked with tracking bin Laden and shifted focus to a new war: Iraq. More than 2,500 Americans have died there, over 18,000 have been wounded, and countless Iraqi civilians have perished. The U.S. military is bogged down in a growing insurgency while the world’s sympathy for America post-9/11 has curdled into widespread distrust and even hatred.
Is this just incompetence, or is there something more sinister in the Bush presidency? Is there a hidden family history that U.S. mass media have generally failed to present? Here is some of the evidence we believe every American, British and Australian voter should know.
Part One: The Scandal of the Bushes
The Bush dynasty has been built across generations:
- founded on arms profiteering,
- enriched by Nazi-linked investments,
- advanced by Saudi oil and Bin Laden family connections,
- sustained by corporate fraud,
- and benefiting from wars they have helped start.
Should a leader be blamed for the sins of his ancestors? Perhaps not. But when he shows no contrition, continues to profit, and repeats the pattern, the question is unavoidable. Is George Walker Bush fit to be President? Are those around him fit to govern? You be the judge.
The Founders: Samuel Prescott Bush (1863–1948)
Samuel Prescott Bush was the Ohio steel executive who founded the modern Bush dynasty. As President of Buckeye Steel Castings (1905–1927), his company supplied parts to the Harriman railway empire. He was the son of Rev. James Smith Bush and Harriet Fay; graduated Stevens Institute of Technology in 1884; married Flora Sheldon; and had four surviving children, including Prescott Bush. His wife Flora tragically died in 1920 after being struck by a car.
Samuel Bush was a leading member of the National Association of Manufacturers and advised President Herbert Hoover on business and unemployment issues. He also headed the War Industries Board’s Ordnance, Small Arms & Ammunition Section during WWI – despite no prior arms background. His patrons included powerful Rockefellers, Bethlehem Steel directors, and Bernard Baruch. Buckeye Steel received lucrative war contracts; Samuel’s circle thrived on the union of patriotism and profit.
Thus began the Bush family’s enduring link between war and money.
Merchants of Death: Arms Profits and War Scares
After the U.S. Civil War and Franco-Prussian War, industrialists and bankers made vast fortunes in an unregulated arms industry. Fear itself was their greatest product: weapons dealers stoked war scares to boost spending. Remington infamously sold arms simultaneously to opposing sides: Russia and Turkey; Cuban rebels and the Spanish; Colombia and Venezuela’s warring factions.
In 1894 the Harvey United Steel Co. cartel (the “Harvey Syndicate”) joined major arms firms worldwide, including Vickers, Armstrong-Whitworth, Krupp, Schneider, Bethlehem Steel. Interlocking boards tied them to financiers like J.P. Morgan. All claimed patriotism at home while selling to friends and foes alike abroad.
Arms panics in 1889 and 1892–93 triggered surges in military spending in Britain and France, mirrored by Germany. Agents spread false “intelligence” to keep the powderkeg primed. The eventual result: the catastrophic First World War.
The League of Rascals & The Military-Industrial Complex
Lord Welby of Allington, former U.K. Treasury chief, called it plainly: “We are in the hands of an organisation of crooks… politicians, generals, manufacturers of armaments and journalists… inventing scares to terrify the public.”
The same corrupt nexus existed in the U.S. and exists today. President Eisenhower later warned in 1961 of the “disastrous rise of misplaced power” in the military-industrial complex. Samuel Bush’s friendships with arms speculators like Baruch and his son Prescott’s later career reflect that warning.
World War I: Profits and Slaughter
WWI made 21,000 new U.S. millionaires. DuPont stock multiplied 50×; J.P. Morgan’s wealth exploded; Bethlehem Steel paid a 200% dividend in 1917. European munitions imports from the U.S. rose from \$40M in 1914 to over \$2.3B in 1918.
Samuel Bush, in his War Industries Board role, steered contracts to arms firms. Buckeye Steel benefitted handsomely. Investigations later labeled him one of the “Merchants of Death.” Many records of his wartime dealings conveniently vanished from archives – a pattern repeated by later Bushes.
Prescott Sheldon Bush (1895–1972)
Samuel’s son Prescott carried the dynasty into banking and politics.
He attended Yale, joined the secretive Skull & Bones society, and befriended E. Roland “Bunny” Harriman, heir to the Harriman railroad fortune. Skull & Bones members, or “Bonesmen,” form lifelong networks of advantage. Both Presidents Bush are Bones alumni; many appointees in their administrations share this bond.
Prescott served as a U.S. Army artillery captain in WWI. While stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he and other Bonesmen allegedly removed Apache leader Geronimo’s skull and bones to Yale’s “Tomb” headquarters – an unresolved scandal.
After the war Prescott married Dorothy Walker (daughter of financier George Herbert Walker), joined W.A. Harriman & Co., and rose to partner in Brown Brothers Harriman. Through these connections, the Bush-Harriman bank developed troubling Nazi-era business ties.
The Nazi Connection
Through the Union Banking Corporation (UBC), founded 1924 with Thyssen family money, Prescott Bush and the Harrimans managed U.S. assets for Fritz Thyssen – Hitler’s chief early financier. Thyssen’s steel empire built the Nazi war machine; his U.S. investments were overseen by UBC directors Prescott Bush and Harriman until the U.S. seized their assets under the Trading With the Enemy Act in 1942.
Prescott and associates also controlled Silesian-American and Consolidated Silesian Steel corporations, which used forced labor from death camps. Even after Thyssen broke with Hitler in late 1938, his companies’ Nazi profits flowed through Harriman-Bush channels.
Despite clear evidence, neither Prescott nor Harriman were prosecuted. Most Americans remain unaware; mainstream U.S. media rarely examine these ties.
Aftermath and Legacy
Despite the Nazi-era ties and later seizures of assets, Prescott Bush’s wealth and influence only grew. After WWII, further investigations under the Trading with the Enemy Act found additional Brown Brothers Harriman and UBC-related client assets with Nazi connections, some hidden in Switzerland, Panama, Argentina and Brazil. Much of this capital flight helped protect Nazi holdouts in Latin America for decades.
Most Americans have never heard of the Bush-Harriman Nazi business history. Mainstream U.S. media have largely avoided examining it, for reasons rarely discussed publicly. The Bush family’s deep ties to corporate media and political elites offer one explanation:
- Prescott Bush served as a director of CBS.
- E. Roland Harriman was a director of Newsweek and owned other media interests.
- Barbara Bush’s father Marvin Pierce headed McCall Corporation (magazine publishing).
- Other Bush family members married into media-connected families; Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. empire and Clear Channel’s radio network have been consistent Bush allies.
With such connections, the lack of scrutiny is unsurprising.
Prescott Bush’s Political Rise
Prescott went on to serve as U.S. Senator for Connecticut (1952–1963). His Skull & Bones and banking connections provided ample support. Profits from his Nazi-linked dealings were never confiscated. In 1951, he received \$750,000 (over \$5 million today) for his share in Union Banking Corp. Some of these funds helped finance his son George H. W. Bush’s first businesses and Prescott’s own Senate campaigns.
The uncomfortable truth: the Bush family fortune and political power were built on arms profiteering and dubious alliances. Even more troubling, patterns of unethical business behavior continued into future generations.
A Government of “War from Business and Business from War”
Under President George W. Bush, many pre-WWI and pre-WWII patterns have re-emerged:
- Close ties between politicians, defense contractors, and media.
- Wars enriching corporations connected to governing elites.
- Attempts to censor or seal off damaging records.
The family credo appears unchanged: “It’s all just business.”
There is more circumstantial evidence that President George W. Bush’s grandfather helped empower Hitler than there ever was that Saddam Hussein possessed active WMD programs in 2003 — yet the latter claim was used to justify a devastating war.
If this comparison doesn’t give voters pause, it’s difficult to see how democracy can hold leaders accountable.
Part Two and Part Three (Previews)
The original e-report promised further installments examining later generations of the Bush family. Key themes previewed include:
- George H. W. Bush (the first President Bush): Navy service at 18 may have been an attempt to redeem his family’s shame over Nazi-era profits, but later business scandals and CIA entanglements echoed Prescott’s “just business” ethos.
- The Bush Sons – George W., Jeb, Neil, Marvin: A recurring pattern of business failure rescued by political connections and questionable deals, often at taxpayer or investor expense.
- The Bush Dynasty as a Clan: The family’s drive for collective wealth and power resembles a political machine. Beyond the presidents and governors, numerous Bush relatives occupy (or have occupied) influential positions in politics, diplomacy, and business.
Example: Dynastic Appointments
George Herbert Walker III, a cousin of President George W. Bush, was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Hungary on 30 September 2003 — one of many instances where Bush family connections facilitated prestigious appointments.
Conclusion & Call for Awareness
The Bush family story is more than a tale of political ambition; it’s a cautionary chronicle of how wealth, power, and war can intertwine over generations. The evidence of arms profiteering, media influence, and self-serving wars should concern anyone who values democracy and accountability.
Until these facts are widely examined — by voters and an independent media — history risks repeating itself.
Here’s how you can continue the e-report into the promised Part Two and Part Three in a way that is production-ready, readable and consistent with the tone of the original page. The original material you provided teases these parts but doesn’t actually contain them; what follows is a continuation you can paste straight into WordPress to complete the narrative arc.
Part Two – A Government of Thieves (Later Bushes)
This section examines how patterns from the Bush family’s early history persisted in later generations. It is not about ancient history alone; it is about understanding how those same dynamics of privilege and “business first” shaped modern policy.
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush — the first President Bush — is often praised for his WWII service as a Navy pilot, and rightly so. But after the war, he entered the oil business with heavy backing from his father’s connections, including Dresser Industries and Brown Brothers Harriman alumni. His early ventures, like Zapata Offshore, repeatedly relied on inside capital and preferential treatment. Allegations have long persisted about overlaps between his business operations and CIA activity, culminating in his appointment as CIA Director in the 1970s.
Iran–Contra and Deregulation
As Vice President and President, George H. W. Bush presided over scandals like Iran–Contra, where arms were illegally sold and covert funds diverted. His administration also pursued deregulation that benefited connected industries. The credo of “business entwined with government” persisted.
The Bush Sons
Jeb Bush, Neil Bush, Marvin Bush and George W. Bush have all had controversial business careers:
- George W. Bush: Failed oil ventures rescued by family backers; the Texas Rangers deal; and later, as president, tax and energy policies favoring allies.
- Neil Bush: Implicated in the 1980s savings-and-loan collapse; later involved in questionable education-tech contracts.
- Marvin Bush: Sat on boards of companies with federal security contracts.
- Jeb Bush: Land deals and lobbying in Florida often overlapped with his political influence.
These cases show a recurring pattern: business ventures failing on their own merits but made profitable through political connections and insider networks.
The Saudi and Bin Laden Connections
The Carlyle Group, an investment firm with Bush family ties, counted Saudi investors and even members of the Bin Laden family among its clients before and after 9/11. While not evidence of wrongdoing per se, it illustrates the same theme: a family deeply enmeshed with the worlds of oil, arms and power on a global scale.
Part Three – The Bush Dynasty and Democracy
The Bushes are not unique in using privilege to advance; what makes their story notable is the scope and consequences of their influence.
A Dynastic Machine
From Prescott’s Senate seat to George W. Bush’s presidency, Bush relatives and close allies have held ambassadorships, cabinet posts, governorships and more. Their appointments often reward loyalty over merit. George H. Walker III’s ambassadorship to Hungary in 2003 is one example among many.
The Cost to Public Trust
When wars are launched under questionable pretenses and contracts flow to connected corporations, democratic accountability suffers. When media outlets with family ties avoid critical scrutiny, the public is deprived of information needed to make informed decisions.
Looking Ahead
The Bush daughters may seem apolitical, but the wider clan includes many younger relatives positioned for future influence. Treating them as a dynastic political machine — not just disparate individuals — helps explain their coordinated rise.
Conclusion: Why This History Matters
The purpose of recounting these histories is not to assign inherited guilt but to encourage vigilance. Democracies falter when political dynasties exploit power without accountability. The same warning Dwight Eisenhower gave about the military-industrial complex applies today.
An informed public, an independent press and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths are essential. Only then can voters decide whether those seeking office truly serve the public good, or perpetuate a government of thieves.