Bush favored the handwritten letter. He wrote them by the hundreds to family, friends, critics, colleagues and contemporaries. To read them is to take in a brief history of the second half of the 20th century — stories of war and peace, victory and defeat, musings on culture and sports, and expressions of deeply personal sentiments.

As a public figure, Bush was rarely given to the kind of introspection that his letters reveal. Rather than write a memoir, as several of his friends had urged, he published a compendium of his letters, “All the Best,” which became a New York Times best seller.

During World War II, Heroism, Romance and Family

Bush enlisted in the Navy on June 12, 1942 — his 18th birthday — defying the wishes of his father, Prescott S. Bush, who wanted him to start college at Yale.

In an undated letter a few months later, while he training in North Carolina, he wrote:

Dear Mum and Dad,

… It is amazing how our moods change here. So many little things affect us. A cold Coke after drill can do more for one than you can imagine. I have never appreciated little things before. Ice cream, movies, a 15 minute rest, a letter, a compliment to our platoon.

He also wrote critically about the military’s approach to indoctrination:

The only thing wrong with this place is, they don’t realize the average intelligence. They hand out so much crude propaganda here. It is really sickening — Many of the men here realize it — also the intelligent officers. Stuff like ‘Kill the Japs — hate — murder’ and a lot of stuff like ‘you are the cream of American youth.’ … All the well educated fellows know what they are fighting for … and don’t need to be “brainwashed.”

Bush was also in throes of romance with his future wife, Barbara Pierce, and he wrote affectionately about her:

Dear Mum,

Well today sure was wonderful … I met Barbara at the Inn at 12 … She looked too cute for words — really beautiful.

And he was ever the dutiful son:

Dear Mum,

Gosh it was wonderful hearing your voice today — It was swell of you to call.

Dear Mum,

… I don’t think that it is entirely wrong for a girl to be kissed by a boy. Let us take this famous case of Pierce v. Bush summer ’42. I kissed Barbara and am glad of it.

Bush then began to put dates on his letters, and the young woman whom he kissed by Dec. 12, 1943, was his fiancée:

I love you, precious, with all my heart and to know that you love me means my life. How often I have thought about the immeasurable joy that will be ours some day.

The tone was much more somber on Sept. 3, 1944, when Bush told his parents of his plane being shot down over the Pacific. Two of Bush’s crew members died in the attack.

I wish I could tell you that as I write this I am feeling well and happy. Physically, I am O.K., but I am troubled inside and with good cause. Here is the whole story at least as much of it as I am allowed to relate right now. … The cockpit filled with smoke and I told the boys in back to get their parachutes on. … I told them to bail out, and the I called up the skipper and told him I was bailing out. … My heart aches for the families of those two boys with me.

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A Political Life

Bush continued his prolific letter writing after the war, through his years in the oil business in Texas and his long political career. He lost two Senate races, then was named chairman of the Republican National Committee just as Watergate was coming to a close.

He wrote to Alexander Haig on June 27, 1973:

There is a feeling of confusion; there is a feeling of “not knowing”; and there is a feeling of wanting to believe the President which can be totally shored up by yet another Presidential statement.

But a year later, he conveyed a different feeling in a letter to his sons:

Dear Lads:

… My Dad felt strongly the firm obligation to put something into the system. He felt compelled to give, to be involved and to lead — and that brings me to the worst of times. I mean the part about Watergate and the abysmal amorality it connotes. You must know my inner feelings on this.

But Bush survived Watergate and became CIA director. In a letter to an old friend on May 4, 1976, he wrote:

… I’ve never worked so hard in my life, and after three months here I conclude this is the most interesting job I’ve ever had.

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As Vice President

After losing the Republican presidential nomination to Ronald Reagan in 1980, Bush was named Reagan’s vice-presidential running mate. As vice president, Bush mixed the personal with the professional.

On March 30, 1982, he wrote the actress Audrey Hepburn:

We respect you so — and I guess as a little kid I thought you were the meowest of the cat’s meows. … But this is about last night’s Oscar too. Hooray for you — 3 cheers for excellence and style and class and honor and warmth. 3 cheers for your decency.

In the 1984 re-election campaign, Bush would face off against the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Geraldine Ferraro, a congresswoman from New York. He wrote to her on July 12, 1984:

Dear Geraldine,

It is a good job. Congratulations on your selection. Good luck — up to a point.

In 1987, the Reagan administration was consumed by the Iran-contra scandal, a controversy that did not go unnoticed by Bush’s mother, Dorothy. Bush tried to assure her in a letter dated Jan. 11:

Dear Mum,

Loved your post-visit letter; but let me clear up one point. The President did NOT know about the diversion of funds to the Contras. … Don’t worry about all this stuff, please.

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In the White House

Few candidates for president had a more complete résumé than Bush. His challenge was to establish his own identify and not simply be seen as serving Reagan’s “third term.”

Though his letter writing shows a facility with language, his speeches were not always well received. He turned to the speechwriter Peggy Noonan for help with his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans in 1988. He gave her a staccato list of his traits and what he hoped to do:

I’m just me!

Know where I want to go — Have the experience to get there:

Jobs, peace, education

I know what drives me-comforts me: family, faith, friends.

As president, Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq after its strike in Kuwait. In his diary on Feb. 14, 1991:

K-Day is approaching, and I feel quite content. I wish it were tomorrow. I have no qualms now about ordering a ground war — none at all.

After the war had been won, Bush turned his attention in June 1991 to another matter: his funeral.

I want the song “Last full Measure of Devotion” sung by a good male soloist at any church or memorial service. Gravestone — the plain stones we see at Arlington. I would like my navy number on the back of it. … Also on the stone in addition to what I already requested: “He loved Barbara very much.”

His relationship with the news media was at once close and cordial but also had some serious friction. On April 23, 1992, he wrote of being concerned about the latest “Devroyism,” a reference to an article by Ann Devroy, who covered the White House for The Washington Post.

This article read like ‘influence peddling’ and I am disturbed by that.

But when Devroy was diagnosed with cancer, Bush wrote her a long letter of encouragement on July 26, 1996:

You know that, for there was a tension; perhaps an inevitable tension, that clouded things between us — never a visceral dislike, but a tension. I was the out of touch President, the wimp; you were the beltway insider who thrived on who’s up, who’s down — who will be fired, who will win. …

Strangely, wonderfully, I feel close to you know. I want you to win this battle. I want that same toughness that angered me and frustrated me to a fare-thee-well at times to see you through your fight.

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A Family Business

In his post-White House life, Bush would see his eldest son, George W. Bush, become president and another son, Jeb Bush, seek — and lose — the Republican presidential nomination.

On Aug. 1, 1998, he advised them both to ignore any negative accounts in the news media, especially those that made fun of his own occasional mangling of words:

Do not worry when you see stories that compare you favorably to a Dad for whom English was a second language and for whom the word destiny meant nothing.

When George W. Bush’s election was settled by the Supreme Court in 2000, his father wrote a letter to the longtime friend, Time magazine columnist Hugh Sidey:

The fat lady sang. The ordeal ended. And now a huge new chapter in the lives of the Bush family opens up.

That new chapter included another war in Iraq, this time ordered by his son, and Bush wrote him an email on the day that Saddam Hussein fell from power:

I shamefully choked up, the tears tumbling down my aging cheeks. I was embarrassed; but then I realized that I shouldn’t worry if people see this visible manifestation of a father’s concern, a father’s love.

The New York Times

Michael Tackett © 2018 The New York Times