Former Presidential Advisor Gives New Insights on White House by Alex Markou, Ewell Castle

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Stacey Chaney served as a special advisor to George Bush (Senior) in the White House. Her position allowed her to get a unique insight into how the White House reacted to certain historical events.

Recently, Stacey Chaney spoke at my school and underwent a Q and A session in which I was able to find out a lot of information which isn’t heavily publicised on said events.

Chaney was able to shed light on the White House’s behind closed doors reaction to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the reasons for the minimal sanctions from the US, and insights into Bush’s foreign policy – particularly in regards to the Invasion of Kuwait.

Chaney’s own career path began in South Dakota, where her role largely involved dealing with logistical issues with legislators and local mayors. At twenty-four, her job was to brief the president on local affairs surrounding South Dakota. Despite this, Chaney’s access to the president was “very limited”, although she did have extensive contact with the White House chief of staff, alongside the president’s wife and children; with Chaney mentioning several times that she had “a lot” of contact with them. In her few interactions with Bush Senior, Chaney found him to be “very nice” and “charming”.

Chaney was in and around the White House during the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and was therefore able to reveal as to why the US’s public reaction remained so understated.

Chaney revealed that Bush wasn’t actually present at the White House during the event as he was “actually at a conference with Margaret Thatcher”, however all other senior White House members were described as “very excited”.

Many at the time expected the US to rub the fall of the Berlin Wall in the Soviet’s faces, seizing the potential big PR victory over the Soviet Union; however, Bush’s response juxtaposes this entirely, a very reserved and lowkey reaction was to be seen. Chaney explains that the “cautious” response from President Bush was to try and preserve his “relationship with Gorbachev” and he didn’t want to appear like he was “gloating” in case of the negative response from hard-line Soviets, “It played very lowkey for those international reasons”.

Another lingering question over the Bush administration in regards to foreign policy, was the US’s response to the Tiananmen Square massacre. Bush’s response to the massacre was criticised worldwide for being too soft on China, others viewed it as a sensible approach. “One would think we would go crazy over this”, Chaney goes on to say, “[however] sanctions were minimal”. Chaney adds that they were “big on human rights violations” however due to the economic importance of China via trade, there were “very few sanctions” and military interference was simply out of the question.

The Invasion of Kuwait was another pivotal moment in the Bush era. Bush was met with “criticism later” for not taking out Saddam Hussein, but that was “never the aim” according to Chaney. Chaney honed in on the idea that everything was extensively planned with regards to the Invasion of Kuwait, “George Bush never acted independently, he would not react without a coalition”. Chaney also touched upon how enormous it was to have the Soviets on their side during this conflict, “the Soviet Union were behind us…that was huge!”.





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