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Michael Moore.com : Mike's Message : Mike's Latest News: "October 23rd, 2004 10:51 pm
Bush Pull in Project is Disputed

By Meg Laughlin / Knight Ridder Newspapers

HOUSTON - President Bush often has cited his work in 1973 with a now-defunct program for troubled teens as the source for his belief in 'compassionate conservatism.'

'I realized then that a society can change and must change one person at a time. ...' Bush said in a video shown at the 2000 Republican National Convention about his tenure at P.U.L.L., the Professional United Leadership League, whose executive director, John White, had played tight end for the Houston Oilers in the early 1960s.

But former associates of White, who died in 1988, have disputed in recent interviews much of Bush's version of his time at the program.

'I was working full time for an inner-city poverty program known as Project P.U.L.L.,' Bush said in his 1999 autobiography, 'A Charge to Keep.' 'My friend John White ... asked me to come help him run the program. ... I was intrigued by John's offer. ... Now I had a chance to help people.'

But White's administrative assistant and others associated with P.U.L.L., speaking on the record for the first time, say Bush was not helping to run the program and White had not asked Bush to come aboard.

Instead, the associates said, White told them he agreed to take Bush on as a favor to Bush's father, who was honorary co-chairman of the program at the time, and Bush was unpaid.

They say White told them Bush had gotten into some kind of trouble but White never gave them specifics.

'We didn't know what kind of trouble he'd been in, only that he'd done something that required him to put in the time,' said Althia Turner, White's administrative assistant.

'John said he was doing a favor for George's father because an arrangement had to be made for the son to be there,' said Willie Frazier, also a former player for the Houston Oilers and a P.U.L.L. summer volunteer in 1973.

Fred Maura, a close friend of White, refers to Bush as '43,' for 43rd president, and his father as '41,' for the 41st president.

'John didn't say what kind of trouble 43 was in -- just that he had done something and he (John) made a deal to take him in as a favor to 41 to get some funding,' Maura said. 'He didn't help run the program. I was in charge of him and I wouldn't say I helped run the program, either,' said David Anderson, a recreational director at P.U.L.L.

A White House spokesman, told about the interviews, denied Bush had been in any trouble or Bush's father, who was ambassador to the United Nations at the time, had arranged the job at P.U.L.L.

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