Talk:Prescott Bush

UBC: THF's edits

I have just reverted THF's edits to our coverage of Bush's involvement with the UBC. There were several problems.

First of all, Fritz Thyssen's arrest is rather irrelevant to Bush anyway, and I see no reason to discuss it in this article. On the one hand, Bush's business relations with the Thyssens go back to a time before Thyssen's break with the Nazis, on the other hand, the primary sources actually allege a relation between UBC and Heinrich Thyssen, making Fritz' fall-out with the Nazis even more irrelevant to Bush. There is no indication that Bush and Fritz Thyssen's arrest affected each other in the least.

Next, THF removed mention of UBC's role as a Thyssen front company. Multiple reliable sources say something along those lines, none disagree. There is no reason to consider the Guardian's coverage of this detail unreliable.

THF also removed background on why the government investigated the company and seized it. I see no reason to remove this content. Especially the explicit link between Thyssen control and seizure seems important to me - otherwise readers might misunderstand why the company was seized and thus misinterpret Bush's role.

Finally, THF included "conspiracy theorist" language and cited the Guardian for it - ironically, the same article he deemed unreliable before. Unfortunately the Guardian does not link the allegation to a "conspiracy theorist" at all. (I personally agree that Buchanan is a conspiracy theorist, and other reliable sources explicitly call him one, but we have deliberately removed all Buchanan stuff from the article and left only that which was independently confirmed by others who are not conspiracy theorists.) In my opinion, both the conspiracy theories and the criticism of the conspiraciy theories are off-topic. What Conason, the ADL and Parmet say about Bush belongs in the article, what they say about modern-day critics of Bush does not. Thus we should focus on their assessment of Bush's motives, not on what they say about others' conspiracy theories (which, again, they tend not to actually call conspiracy theories).

For these reasons I do not think THF's edits were an improvement. Huon (talk) 22:40, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

1. Bush had little contact with Thyssen, who was mainly Harriman's friend. 2. The seizure act definition included even American citizens residing in "enemy territory" making all of the Union Bank stuff minor indeed. 3. The ADL specifically emphasized that the charges against Bush were politically motivated. In short - THF improved the article with the edits, and the reversion did not improve the article. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't follow your reasoning. We agree that Bush had little contact with Thyssen. Why then should we add more details about Thyssen to the article? How are other possible reasons for seizure that did not apply to UBC relevant to either the article or this discussion? When we agree that the more bizarre claims about Bush-Nazi deals are motivated by politics (wholly independent of Prescott Bush, though the ADL does not explicitly say so), why should we mention them at all? Do you want the article to reproduce those politically motivated charges? Huon (talk) 00:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

In which case, frankly, the entire "Union Bank" stuff is of extremely marginal connection to Bush as far as any imputation of wrongdoing is concerned. Let's just pull it out. Cheers. Collect (talk) 01:05, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I see no imputation of wrongdoing in the entire UBC section. The UBC episode happens to be the part of Bush's business career most thoroughly discussed in secondary sources, and the article should reflect that. But we need not - and currently do not - dive into the conspiracy theories which actually do accuse Bush of wrongdoing. I would prefer to keep it that way, which is part of the reason why I reverted THF. Huon (talk) 02:46, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Birthname

I moved the full name to the "birthname" section of the infobox. Typically, the top name should match the title of the article, while the birthname should be more specific. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 10:23, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

UBC: Conspiracy theories removed

I have removed all mention of the supposed Bush-Nazi connections that are rejected by all reliable sources. In particular, despite what our article said, those reliable sources did not actually use the term "conspiracy theory", and we should not put such words in their mouths. I have also re-added the Nazi gold rumor and the government investigation that disproved said rumor; that seems relevant background to the government's seizure of UBC. Huon (talk) 19:51, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Business Plot again

The Business Plot made a re-appearance with some cut&paste screed from that article that didn't even mention Bush. We've been through this several times; compare this page's archives. The short of it: While one company Bush worked for was investigated by the same congressional committee that investigated the Business Plot, there is no connection between Bush and the plot. I've removed it. Huon (talk) 03:01, 5 January 2012 (UTC)