it has never been proven that strings were pulled. One day turn around to make Junior George an officer when there were many candidates including ROTC graduates, and you think no strings were pulled? Like I've said before, you really don't understand Texas politics.
Bush himself admits lobbying commander Staudt, who approved him, and court documents confirm that close family friend and oil magnate Sid Adger called Texas Speaker of the House Ben Barnes, who called General James Rose, the head of the Texas Air National Guard, to get Bush in. Rose, who is now dead, told his friend and former legislator Jake Johnson that "I got that Republican congressman's son from Houston into the Guard."
Staudt's unit, the 147th, was infamous as a nesting place for politically connected and celebrity draft avoiders. Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen's son was in the unit, as was Republican Senator John Tower's, both of Sid Adger's sons and at least 7 members of the Dallas Cowboys.
realchange.org |