Decision Points

officials had set up indoctrination programs, broadcast propaganda over omnipresent loudspeakers, and sought to stamp out any evidence of China’sancient history. Mobs of young people lashed out against their elders and attacked the intellectual elite. The society was divided against itself and cascading into anarchy.
    China’s experience reminded me of the French and Russian revolutions. The pattern was the same: People seized control by promising to promote certain ideals. Once they had consolidated power, they abused it, casting aside their beliefs and brutalizing their fellow citizens. It was as if mankind had a sickness that it kept inflicting on itself. The sobering thought deepened my conviction that freedom—economic, political, and religious—is the only fair and productive way of governing a society.

    For most of my time at Harvard, I had no idea how I was going to use my business degree. I knew what I did not want to do. I had no desire to go to Wall Street. While I knew decent and admirable people who had worked on Wall Street, including my grandfather Prescott Bush , I was suspicious of the financial industry. I used to tell friends that Wall Street is the kind of place where they will buy you or sell you, but they don’t really give a hoot about you so long as they can make money off you.
    I was searching for options when my Harvard classmate Del Marting invited me to spend spring break of 1975 at his family’s ranch in Tucson, Arizona. On the way out west, I decided to make a stop in Midland. I’d heard from my friend Jimmy Allison, who had become publisher of the
Midland Reporter-Telegram
, that the place was booming. He was right. The energy industry was on the upswing after the 1973 Arab oil embargo. The barriers to entry in the industry were low. I loved the idea of starting a business of my own. I made up my mind: I was headed back to Texas.
    I pulled into town in the fall of 1975 with all my possessions loaded into my 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass. I had a lot to learn, so I sought out mentors. One of the first people I visited was a local lawyer named Boyd Laughlin , affectionately known as Loophole. He set up a meeting with Buzz Mills , a big man with a crew cut and years of experience in the oil business. I found Buzz and his partner, a cigar-chomping man named Ralph Way , playing gin rummy. I couldn’t tell how much money they were betting on the game, but it was a hell of a lot more than I had.
    Behind their friendly country demeanor was a shrewd understanding of the oil business. I told Buzz and Ralph that I wanted to learn to be a land man. The job of a land man is to travel to county courthouses and research who owns the mineral rights to potential drilling sites. The keys to success in the job are a willingness to read lots of paperwork, a sharp eye for detail, and a reliable car. I started by tagging along with seasoned land men, who showed me how to read title books. Then I made trips on my own, checking courthouse records for day fees. Eventually I bought a few royalties and small working interests in Buzz and Ralph’s wells. Compared to the big-time oilmen, I was collecting the crumbs. But I was making a decent living and learning a lot.
    I held down costs by living lean. I rented a five-hundred-square-foot alley house that friends described as “a toxic waste dump.” One corner of my bed was held together with a necktie. I didn’t have a washing machine, so I took my laundry over to Don and Susie Evans ’s place. Susie and I had known each other since grade school. She married Don, a Houston native with two degrees from the University of Texas, and they moved to Midland to break into the oil business. Don was a down-to-earth, humble guy with a great sense of humor. We ran together, played golf, and forged a lifelong friendship.
    In the spring of 1976, Don and another close friend, a Midland orthopedic surgeon named Charlie Younger , suggested I join them for a Willie Nelson concert in Odessa. Of course, we needed a little libation to prepare for the event. We bought hip bottles of bourbon and had a few slugs on the way. When we got to the Ector County Coliseum, we were reminded that no drinking was allowed. We took a couple more gulps, discarded the bottles, and went to our seats.
    Charlie decided we needed more alcohol to enjoy the experience fully. To our amazement, he was able to convince a stagehand that Willie Nelson needed some beer. The guy dutifully went out and