The man who led America during the 9/11 terror attacks visited Indiana just prior to the 10-year anniversary of the tragic event.
Former President George W. Bush showed up at Forest Lucas' mansion in Carmel Friday to attend a private event hosted by the Indiana chapter of the Young Presidents Organization.
Earlier on Friday, the 43rd presdient enjoyed a round of golf with Pete Dye at Crooked Stick golf club in Carmel.
Governor Mitch Daniels also attended the event at the Lucas mansion. Daniels was Bush's budget director during his first term as president and was sought after to run for president himself. Daniels decided against a run for the White House due to family reasons.
According to the book, "JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot To Assassinate John F. Kennedy," the Young Presidents Organization is closely associated with Harvard Business School and the CIA. The books says the organization is made up of men who are presidents of their own companies and under the age of 40. The CIA's role is to introduce young leaders in foreign countries for the purpose of opening export-import talks and franchising discussions. The book talks about how the CIA's first Director, Allen Dulles, who was a close friend of George H.W. Bush's father, Prescott Bush, went to Puerto Rico to an event hosted by the YPO just as the Bay of Pigs operation was being launched by President John F. Kennedy in Cuba. In Dulles' absence, his underlings made key operational decisions in what turned out to be a failed mission that badly embarrassed the Kennedy administration. Kennedy, in turn, sacked Dulles, a move that angered the powers within the growing military industrial complex former President Dwight Eisenhower had warned the country against and as the story goes, led them to plot his assassination.
It would be interesting to learn a little bit more about who started the Indiana chapter of the YPO and who their members are. The company's website doesn't identify the Indiana chapter's members. I wouldn't be surprised if Beurt SerVaas, a former OSS officer, had a role in founding the Indiana chapter. YPO has been masked in secrecy since its founding by Ray Hickok of Hickok Manufacturing in 1950. According to the organization's website, former GE CEO Jack Welch and billionaire Warren Buffet were on hand to help the organization celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2000. According to Russ Baker's book, "Family of Secrets", both Bush and his father worked for the CIA fresh out of college before ever entering politics. George H.W. Bush would later become Director of the CIA during the Ford administration.
