Author: Secretly Taped Bush for History, Not Money

Feb. 21, 2005 — -- The friend of the Bush family who secretly recorded nine hours of conversations with George W. Bush says he never intended for the tapes to become public but felt he had a duty to accurately represent a man who he believed would one day become president.

Doug Wead, the author of the new book "The Raising of a President," surreptitiously recorded his conversations with Bush beginning in 1998, when Bush was governor of Texas and considering a run for president.

"I didn't do it for money. I could sell the tapes even now for tremendous amounts of money," Wead said in an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America," adding, "I didn't do it to sell books." Wead said his publisher wanted him to release his book during the 2004 presidential campaign so it could benefit from sales to Bush supporters, but he refused. "My publicist told me at the time, 'That cost you a million dollars,'" Wead said.

Wead, a former Assembly of God minister, said he had had second thoughts about secretly taping the future president. "If I had to do it over, I wouldn't do it at all," he said, "but I love history."

The candid conversations suggested Bush's strategies to deal with questions about whether he used drugs, to reconcile his born-again Christian faith with a tolerance toward gays, and other issues.

Wead, who has written extensively about other first families, including the Kennedys and the Roosevelts, believed Bush would become a "pivotal figure in history."

"I had a choice to either write propaganda about the Bushes or write accurately and fairly based on what I knew," said Wead in an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America."

Wead said his publisher insisted on listening to the tapes to confirm anonymous sources cited in the book. The New York Times then got wind of the tapes, and from there, it "all became unraveled," Wead said.

Wead played about a dozen tapes to a reporter from the Times over the past several weeks, and the paper confirmed their authenticity with an audio expert, according to an article in the paper today.

On the tapes, Bush discussed strategies for stonewalling questions about past marijuana use.

"Do you want your little kid, to say, 'Hey daddy, President Bush tried marijuana; I think I will?'" said Bush on the tapes. "That's the message we've been sending out. I wouldn't answer the marijuana question."

In a taped segment played on "Good Morning America," Bush also addressed how he would deal with questions about cocaine use.

"The cocaine thing, let me tell you my strategy on that," Bush said on the tape. "Rather than saying no … I think it's time for someone to draw the line and look people in the eye and say, you know, 'I'm not going to participate in ugly rumors about me and blame my opponent,' and hold the line. Stand up for a system that will not allow this kind of crap to go on."