His Legacy and His Library Occupy Bush's Thoughts

[dcpony]

NY Times
May 8, 2006
White House Letter
His Legacy and His Library Occupy Bush's Thoughts
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON — President Bush had dinner last month on the Stanford University campus at the home of George P. Shultz, who was President Ronald Reagan's secretary of state, and the topic of conversation was not, as might be expected, the war in Iraq. Instead, guests said, Mr. Bush spent the evening focused on how he could create a public policy center with his presidential library after he leaves office in 2009.

The dozen or so guests at the dinner included directors and fellows of the Hoover Institution, the Stanford-affiliated policy center with close ties to the Bush White House. Mr. Bush spent most of his time, guests said, grilling the center's director, John Raisian, about the pros and cons of having an organization like Hoover within the confines of an institution like Stanford.

"Our presence here raises all the same questions that he'll have to deal with if he puts his think tank at an elite university," said Charles G. Palm, a former Hoover deputy director who did not attend the dinner.

In 1987, Mr. Palm served as the liaison between the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Stanford when efforts to house the Reagan library on Stanford's campus fell apart because of opposition from faculty members and from homeowners near the proposed site.

Whatever Mr. Bush decides, one thing is obvious: Two and a half years before he leaves office, with his popularity at record lows, Mr. Bush is actively thinking ahead to his post-White House life. His dinner with Mr. Shultz, a Hoover fellow, offers a glimpse into how the president wants to spend at least some of his time and influence his legacy — after he leaves office.

At this point, Southern Methodist University in Dallas is considered the favorite to get Mr. Bush's presidential library and policy center, but the University of Dallas and Baylor University in Waco, Tex., near the president's ranch, are also in the running. All three universities have submitted formal proposals to the Bush library selection committee, led by Donald L. Evans, the former commerce secretary and Mr. Bush's longtime friend.

A decision is expected this spring or summer, and Mr. Evans has been submerged in the process, including a meeting some months back at Stanford to discuss policy centers with Mr. Raisian. "He and I spent a day together, talking about this whole concept," Mr. Raisian said. "The president was briefed and was eager to continue that dialogue personally."

So far Mr. Bush has said little publicly about his plans, although he told Bob Schieffer of CBS News in an interview in January that he wanted to create a policy center focused on the spread of democracy and Alexis de Tocqueville's vision of America as a nation made better by its "associations," or community groups.

"I would like to leave behind a legacy or a think tank, a place for people to talk about freedom and liberty, and the de Tocqueville model, what de Tocqueville saw in America," Mr. Bush told Mr. Schieffer. "I would like for there to be a place where young scholars come and write and think and articulate and opine and teach."

There are now a dozen presidential libraries, from Franklin D. Roosevelt's in Hyde Park, N.Y., to Bill Clinton's in Little Rock, Ark., and they operate as shrines, repositories of presidential papers and resources for scholars. None have a policy center of the kind and size that Mr. Bush evidently envisions, although Jimmy Carter's is adjacent to the well-known Carter Center, dedicated to advancing human rights and fighting disease.

The library of Mr. Bush's father, like others, offers education programs and lectures on its site at Texas A&M University, but it is considered more a part of the campus than its own entity.

In contrast, the Hoover Institution, Mr. Bush's apparent model for his policy center, has maintained such a separate identity over its 85-year history that it has clashed with its parent, Stanford.

In the 1980's, liberal faculty members were angry over Hoover's close ties to the Reagan White House — Reagan himself was an honorary fellow — and a faculty committee considered separating the two institutions. The relationship has settled down in recent years.

At the dinner with Mr. Shultz, which set off anti-Bush protests on campus, the Hoover guests told Mr. Bush that he would be better off having a strong affiliation with a university, with joint appointments of scholars. But they said he should make a deal that would establish his institutional identity.

They also urged him to make a decision soon and get moving on fund-raising. The library is expected to cost more than $200 million (Mr. Clinton's cost $165 million, the most expensive to date), and presidents have had a far easier time raising money while still in the White House.

Mr. Carter — and other one-term presidents who had no time for library fund-raising in the heat of re-election campaigns — learned that the hard way.

"He had to raise the money after he left office, and that was a difficult assignment," said Jay Hakes, the director of the Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta.

Financially, Southern Methodist is considered best positioned for fund-raising since it is in a wealthy area within Dallas known as the Park Cities, home to many of the president's biggest political donors. Southern Methodist is also, not incidentally, the alma mater of Laura Bush.