Ken Quinn walked into George H. W. Bush’s office in 1975 to get a document signed. Quinn, a Dubuque native, worked for the State Department…
Ken Quinn walked into George H. W. Bush’s office in 1975 to get a document signed.
Quinn, a Dubuque native, worked for the State Department covering Cambodia and Vietnam.
Bush, the future president who died Nov. 30 at age 94, was then the top diplomat to China in the era before formal diplomatic relations between the two nations.
The meeting was brief and genial, Quinn said.
“He had a very small office,” said Quinn, who is now president of the World Food Prize. “He was very pleasant, but I certainly didn’t think I was talking to a man on the rise or a future president.”
Yet four years later, Quinn would see Bush again — from a distance — as he trudged through the snow to greet potential Republican caucusgoers near Quinn’s Des Moines home on 56th Street.
Bush faced a strong GOP field: Ronald Reagan, Howard Baker of Tennessee, John Connally — who, while Texas governor, had been severely wounded during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — and Bob Dole from Kansas.
This time, Quinn saw Bush’s potential.
“Here was a man who was born in the affluent suburbs of Boston, who had been grounded by his years living and working in Texas and was connecting with everyday Iowans,” Quinn said. “I think Iowans saw an inherent decency in him. It was ‘Bush nice’ meeting ‘Iowa nice.’”
Bush won the Iowa caucuses by just 2 percentage points over the eventual nominee, Reagan.
