George Bush - Decision Points

At the 2007 APEC Summit in Sydney, I told President Hu I planned to attend a ceremony where the Dalai Lama would receive the Congressional Gold Medal. The Buddhist leader was a source of distress for the Chinese government, which accused him of stirring up separatists in Tibet. I met with the Dalai Lama five times during my presidency, and I found him to be a charming, peaceful man. I told China’s leaders they should not fear him. “This is not meant as a slap at China,” I said, “but as a measure of my respect for the Dalai Lama and for the U.S. Congress. You know my strong belief in religious freedom.”

With the Dalai Lama. White House/Eric Draper

“This is a politically sensitive issue in China,” President Hu replied. “… It will draw a very strong reaction from the Chinese people.” What he meant was that it would draw a strong reaction from the government, which did not want me to be the first American president to appear with the Dalai Lama in public.

“I’m afraid that I have to go to that ceremony,” I said.

I also had some good news to share. “How is your Olympic planning coming?” I asked, referring to the 2008 Summer Games, which China had been chosen to host.

He gave me an update on the construction process. I told him I was coming to the Games. I knew I would face pressure not to, and many would try to politicize the Olympics, but I promised he could count on me to attend. “I’ve got my hotel reservations already,” I joked. He looked relieved.

The Beijing Olympics were one of the highlights of my final year in office. I flew over on Air Force One with Laura and Barbara, my brother Marvin, my sister-in-law Margaret, and our friends Roland and Lois Betts and Brad Freeman. Mother, Dad, and Doro met us in China. Dad and I joined Ambassador Sandy Randt, who served in Beijing all eight years, to open a huge new American embassy. It was quite a change from the small diplomatic post Dad led thirty-three years earlier. In an extraordinary gesture of generosity, President Hu hosted a lunch for us all at the government’s Zhongnanhai Compound, a Bush family reunion like none before or since.

( From left: ) My niece Lauren, sister Doro, Barbara, Dad, Hu Jintao, Laura, brother Marvin, and sister-in-law Margaret. White House/Shealah Craighead

The Beijing Olympics turned out to be a phenomenal success—and a lot of fun. We were at the Water Cube when the men’s swimming team staged a dramatic comeback to edge out France for the gold medal in the freestyle relay. I dropped by to watch the impressive team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh practice for their beach volleyball match. I made international news by giving Misty a playful slap on the back—a little north of the traditional target. We visited the locker room before Team USA and China squared off in the most-watched basketball game in history. The players couldn’t have been more gracious or impressive. “Hey, Pops!” LeBron James called out when Dad entered the room.

At the Beijing Olympics. White House/Eric Draper

The Olympics gave the world a chance to see the beauty and creativity of China. My hope is that the Games also gave the Chinese people a glimpse of the wider world, including the possibility of an independent press, open Internet, and free speech. Time will tell what the long-term impact of the Beijing Olympics will be. But history shows that once people get a taste of freedom, they eventually want more.

November 23, 2002, was a rainy, gray day in Bucharest. Yet tens of thousands had turned out in Revolution Square to mark Romania’s admission to NATO, a landmark development for a country that just fifteen years earlier was a Soviet satellite state and a member of the Warsaw Pact. As I approached the stage, I noticed a brightly lit balcony. “What is that?” I asked the advance man. He told me it was where Nicolai Ceausescu, the communist dictator of Romania, had given his last speech before he was overthrown in 1989.

As President Ion Iliescu introduced me, the rain stopped and a full-spectrum rainbow appeared. It stretched across the sky and ended right behind the balcony that was lit as a memorial to freedom. It was a stunning moment. I ad-libbed: “God is smiling on us today.”

Congratulating Romania on its admission into NATO. White House/Paul Morse

Romania was not the only young democracy celebrating that day. I had also cast America’s vote to admit Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia into NATO. I viewed NATO expansion as a powerful tool to advance the freedom agenda. Because NATO requires nations to meet high standards for economic and political openness, the possibility of membership acts as an incentive for reform.

A year after my speech in Bucharest, a charismatic young democrat named Mikheil Saakashvili burst into the opening session of parliament in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Speaking for thousands of Georgian demonstrators, he denounced the assembly as the illegitimate result of a corrupt election. President Eduard Shevardnadze felt the groundswell and resigned. The bloodless coup became known as the Rose Revolution. Six weeks later, the Georgian people went to the polls and chose Saakashvili to be their president.

In November 2004, a similar wave of protests broke out after a fraudulent presidential election in Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands braved freezing temperatures to demonstrate for opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko. At one point during the campaign, Yushchenko suffered a mysterious poisoning that disfigured his face. Yet he refused to drop out of the race. His supporters turned out every day clad in orange scarves and ribbons until the Ukrainian Supreme Court ordered a rerun of the tainted election. Yushchenko won and was sworn in on January 23, 2005, completing the Orange Revolution.

At the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, both Georgia and Ukraine applied for Membership Action Plans, MAPs, the final step before consideration for full membership. I was a strong supporter of their applications. But approval required unanimity, and both Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, the new president of France, were skeptical. They knew Georgia and Ukraine had tense relationships with Moscow, and they worried NATO could get drawn into a war with Russia. They were also concerned about corruption.

I thought the threat from Russia strengthened the case for extending MAPs to Georgia and Ukraine. Russia would be less likely to engage in aggression if these countries were on a path into NATO. As for the governance issues, a step toward membership would encourage them to clean up corruption. We agreed on a compromise: We would not grant Georgia and Ukraine MAPs in Bucharest, but we would issue a statement announcing that they were destined for future membership in NATO. At the end of the debate, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Great Britain leaned over to me and said, “We didn’t give them MAPs, but we may have just made them members!”