From Psst to Oops: Secret Taper of Bush Says History Can Wait

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 - All week, Doug Wead has said the reason he secretly recorded some of his phone calls with President Bush was for history's sake.

But Wednesday, after a blast of criticism, Mr. Wead abruptly decided he had spoken too soon. "History can wait," he said, promising to turn over the tapes to Mr. Bush.

The disclosure that he had such tapes, recordings that spanned two years before the 2000 presidential election when he was an evangelical adviser to Mr. Bush, was published in The New York Times on Sunday.

Since then, Mr. Wead has appeared on several television news and talk shows to defend his actions, insisting several times that he had never sought to profit from the tapes and had decided to release some of them only after the president's re-election.

"My thanks to those who have let me share my heart and regrets about recent events," Mr. Wead wrote in the statement, posted on his Web site Wednesday. "Contrary to a statement that I made to The New York Times, I know very well that personal relationships are more important than history."

Mr. Wead, an author who drew on the tapes obliquely for one page in his recently published book, "The Raising of a President: The Mothers and Fathers of Our Nation's Leaders," said, "I am asking my attorney to direct any future proceeds from the book to charity and to find the best way to vet these tapes and get them back to the president to whom they belong."

The White House declined to add to its previous statements that Mr. Bush "was having casual conversations with someone he believed was his friend."

But even Laura Bush was drawn into the controversy during her trip in Europe with Mr. Bush.

"I think it's very odd and awkward, to be perfectly frank, to tape someone while you're talking to them on the phone, and they don't know it, and then come out with the tapes later," Mrs. Bush said in an interview on the NBC morning show "Today." "I don't know if I'd use the word 'betrayed,' but I think it's a little bit awkward for sure."

Mr. Wead's decision may be the coda to an unlikely 15-year-friendship, begun when Mr. Bush was the born-again son of a well-known political family and Mr. Wead was a former evangelist who made his living turning out quickly written books and speaking at Amway conventions.

Among the disclosures Mr. Wead made about the tapes was that he was keeping some additional undisclosed ones - coyness that prompted furious speculation this week about what else or who else they might contain since Mr. Bush and Karl Rove, his top political adviser, both had many conversations with Mr. Wead over the phone during that time. One of the tapes he played for The Times included what he said was a brief conversation with Mr. Rove.

In the eyes of the Bush family and its loyalists, Mr. Wead violated a cherished code of silence about their private affairs.

White House displeasure could put a dent in Mr. Wead's other careers. As news of the conversations was about to be published last weekend, the White House warned some of its evangelical allies who might be mentioned on the tapes. Mr. Wead had augmented his book royalties with fees as an evangelical motivational speaker and an expert on the Bush family, and his actions could hurt his popularity with evangelical supporters of Mr. Bush. He also has close ties to Rich DeVos, the wealthy evangelical Christian co-founder the network-marketing giant Amway who is also a major supporter of Mr. Bush. Representatives of Mr. DeVos did not return calls for comment Wednesday.

"I know Doug Wead," said Dr. James C. Dobson, the founder of the evangelical group Focus on the Family who acknowledged receiving a "heads up" before the report appeared. "I am shocked by his breach of trust and his relationship with then Governor Bush, who had welcomed him into his confidence."

Richard Land, president of the ethics and religious liberty commission of the Southern Baptist Convention said, "I would say it wasn't all that great a career move if he wants to speak at evangelical events."

Mr. Wead declined to comment on any contact with the White House about the tapes, but said the White House had not pressured him.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Mr. Wead, sounding noticeably fatigued, said he decided to change course because of "the perception that I have tried to exploit the tapes and make money off of it and hurt the president and had all kinds of agendas."

"Nobody believes my story that I saw him as a figure of history," Mr. Wead said with exasperation. "I guess I have got a story that is unbelievable to people."

Mr. Wead said he had not yet worked out to whom he would give his future royalties. He noted that his advance for his current book was based only on the success of his previous book about presidential families, which became a best seller, not on his access to the tapes.

Mr. Wead declined to comment on how he planned to turn over the tapes to the president. "That will be proceeding," he said.

About the book he is planning next, another history of presidential families, and his career as a paid speaker, Mr. Wead said he did not yet know what the consequences might be.

"What is next is for me to make this right," he said. "To give any future proceeds away and to give the tapes back to the president since he didn't know he was being recorded."

Because the tapes were made before Mr. Bush became president, they would not be subject to the regulations governing presidential papers, which require them to be declassified after 25 years, said Barbara Elias, freedom of information coordinator for the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research group. Other lawyers suggested that the White House may seek to convey the tapes to an outside lawyer representing Mr. Bush, thus further shielding them under attorney-client privilege.

Mr. Wead, a former minister of the Assemblies of God, first met President Bush's father before his 1988 presidential campaign. At the time, Mr. Wead was already a speaker at Amway events and had also written a handful of books, and he approached Mr. Bush, who was then the vice president, about a biography. Mr. Wead became an adviser to the first President Bush on relations with evangelical Christians. The younger Mr. Bush, who had become more devout than his father, worked closely with Mr. Wead in reaching out to conservative Christians during his father's campaigns; the two often traveled the country together.

After the 1988 election, Mr. Wead worked as a White House aide. He left in 1990 after he sent a letter criticizing the invitation of some gay activists to the White House, although Mr. Wead says he did not object to their inclusion.

In 1992, however, when Mr. Wead was considering running for Congress in Arizona, Mr. Bush stood by his friend, telling The Arizona Republic: "Sometimes in White House circles, people have the knives out for you. I think Doug got caught up in that. But I don't believe he was fired. There was no reason for it."

On the tapes Mr. Wead played for The Times, he often appears to be angling for a position on Mr. Bush's campaign, pointing out that he might be able to help Mr. Bush with conservative Christians. Mr. Bush politely rebuffs him, explaining that he was ruling out any of his father's former advisers. Still, Mr. Bush called repeatedly to seek Mr. Wead's advice, and never failed to ask Mr. Wead friendly questions about his welfare.

Tuesday evening, Mr. Wead sent a copy of his statement to Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC television program "Hardball," explaining that he was canceling a planned appearance on the show.

"It seems the better part of wisdom for me to forgo television for a time," he wrote, according to a copy of the note released by MSNBC. "It would only add to the distraction I have caused to the president's important and historic work."

In an interview yesterday, Mr. Matthews, who once worked as a speechwriter to President Jimmy Carter, said he was sympathetic and that the note seemed heartfelt.

"This is a live debate among people who have served high-level people like presidents at close range, whether your duty is to your personal relationship or to history," Mr. Matthews said. "It is a question of loyalty versus truth."

from the same author, Doug Wead :
interview, before the election, 2000

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2000/bush/wead.html

"Is there any story you can tell us that helps define another aspect of him that you think is important?

Yeah, one thing I haven't seen covered in the press a lot is his almost anal sense of integrity; anything fishy, anything grey. When he was running his dad's campaign, there were girls who would have loved to have slept with the vice-president's son, the future president of the United States, and they'd send signals out and he'd send signals back saying, "Not interested."

There was even one that was kind of pushed. I remember sitting in his office when a very prominent public figure walked in and said, "G.W., you really made her feel bad, you really hurt her." G.W. said, "Good. I'm married. Not interested. Case closed. Good, I hope she feels bad, good. Glad she got the message." And in his business life I saw that. "

another story:

"There was a congressman, former congressman, who came to me with a wonderful business deal that would be good for the cause, it involved a media purchase, it was a good deal. They had one little piece of the puzzle missing and G.W. had the contact and could make the phone call to make this work, to add, to make this work. So this congressman, I said, "Ok, I'll get you in to see G.W."

And we were rehearsing in his hotel room before the meeting, and he gets to a part where he's going to say to G.W., "And there's something in this for you, if you can be helpful to us, da da da da da." ...So I plead with the congressman "Don't do this, don't say this to G.W., he'll spot it" and, he says, "That's not the way Washington works, this is what we do here, it's quid pro quo, this is long before Washington, this is the essence of people, of politics and business and there's nothing illegal about this." I said, "You understand Washington, I understand G.W. Bush. Please don't do that, you're going to embarrass me and it will backfire." He says, "Alright," I say, "Promise me," he says, "Ok, I promise." So I took him in there, and sure enough, we get in the middle of this thing, G.W.'s listening to it, sounds good, and then this congressman says, "And we're not going to take advantage of you, and if you can help us and da da da da da" and G.W. jumped out of his chair so fast and lifted the congressman up-- former congressman-- and said, "Well, this was great, thanks, buddy, thanks," and basically threw him out of his office... "

"What are his strengths as a politician?

G.W. is extremely sharp politically. Right on the money. So if you have a conversation with him that's off the record, that's loose and free-flowing, you pick up very quickly that this guy is right, again and again and again, he's right. Again, you can look from the outside and say, "That's luck." Well, it's not, as is often the case with successful people-- it's more than luck...This is a dream politician; I was at private dinners with Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford, George Bush, and nobody can hold a candle to G.W. Bush in politicking. He just is instantly friends with whomever I meet. And they feel it and they know it. The press corps that rides on his plane, the first time in quite awhile now, they're shifting the press corps, they're shifting people off of his press plane because of the familiarity that's developing, because they like the guy.

How does he compare, as a politician to his father?

A lot of people say that George W. Bush is much more decisive than his father. And I'm one of the people who said that because I saw it. I came into the campaign and he joined in eighty-seven. He made decisions that just took your breath away, just bam bam bam bam, yes yes yes, no no yes no. Decisions that had been laying around, collecting dust for a long time that he could instantly get to the bottom line and decide. And it was wonderful, it was like the train took off, started moving because he had the guts to make those decisions...I've realized that he is just like his father at making strategic decisions, very methodical, very deliberate ad nauseam.... The difference is, once he has made a strategic decision, that tactical decisions are no-brainers. He spends no time on them. It's just "Yes, no, yes, no," and they all fall like dominos under these great strategic decisions that he has taken time to arrive at. "

THAT'S the President we know and this Doug Wead has no hidden agenda, IMO...I think he was tricked by some slick reporters and editors, saying "prove it".

I feel sorry for him.

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