Return of the First Family : White House Should Acquire a Down-Home Touch When the Bush Clan Takes Over

WASHINGTON — The great unanswered question in the nation’s capital is: When George and Barbara Bush move to the world’s most upscale address, are they going to leave those brightly colored Big Wheels and plastic slides all over the South Lawn the way they do at the Kennebunkport family compound?

The United States is about to get a new President, and along with him, there could be a new American family dynasty. After eight years focused almost exclusively on a First Couple who were quite publicly devoted to and wrapped up in each other, the Executive Mansion is once again expected to frequently echo with the sounds of a multigenerational family.

George and Barbara Bush have five children and 10 grandchildren, all of whom share a down-home closeness, flair for public service and a competitive athletic streak that already is being compared to the Kennedys’.

“Those comparisons are probably fair,” said the second youngest son, Neil Bush, 33. “The one memory I have of that (J.F.K.’s) presidency is him playing football with young kids at the White House or Hyannisport, and the family image always stuck with me. I think it’s healthy to see a President be a family man.

Trikes in Rose Garden

“You won’t see (Bush) grandchildren running around at state dinners,” he said. “My mom has said that and I concur, so long as you see grandkids running around the Rose Garden with trikes every once in a while.”

In addition to being plentiful, like the Kennedys, the Bushes have become increasingly active in public endeavors. George W., the vice president’s oldest child at 42, is a former Texas oilman who has run for Congress unsuccessfully once and seems to have his eye on the Texas governorship. He was a senior campaign adviser. Jeb, 35, was Florida’s secretary of commerce until he resigned to work on the campaign.

Marvin, 31, is a Washington stockbroker who campaigned heavily and also gives talks to people who have had surgery called ileostomy, in which body wastes are rerouted and collected in a bag outside the body. Marvin had such surgery, which saved his life, in 1986 during a bout of ulcerative colitis, an inflammation of the colon. Twenty-nine-year-old Dorothy LeBlond, the Bushes’ daughter, was a shy family businesswoman in Cape Elizabeth, Me., until she hit the campaign trail, where she proved to be a big hit. Neil is a Denver oilman and did weekly political commentary on television.

“I hope the brothers and sisters and cousins become active in politics so we can have the same impact on American politics that the Kennedy family has had,” Neil said. “I think there’s a real calling out there for leadership and maybe the Bush family could fill the void. All of us have been bitten by the bug to do something some day in our lives to help others.” For now, Neil quickly added, “all this stuff is speculative.”

Despite the family members’ interest, Neil doubts that a Billy Carter figure will emerge in the Bush Administration.

“We have too much respect for our father to make a Bush Beer or write books or do anything that’s self-serving,” Neil said. “I know all of us will avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest with the government and bend over backward to stay out of the news.

“I don’t think any of us will want to work in the Administration,” he said. “I don’t know what Jeb and George are planning but Marvin and Doro and I are worried about how to pay for these kids’ educations in the future, so we are just plugging away at our jobs.”

The Bush children say they are uncertain how often they will be able to visit the White House, but family members will clearly be more in evidence than during the Reagan Administration.

Daughter Maureen Reagan was the only offspring to visit frequently. There was also a very public rift with Michael Reagan, which has since been smoothed over. He publicly complained that his children never saw their grandfather. And Mrs. Reagan recently admitted that she and daughter Patti Davis had not spoken to each other in a year and that “there is no relationship.”

Far different were the Carter and Ford years. Both Presidents had children young enough to live with them in the White House. And the headlines on the domestic life then ran the gamut from elementary school student Amy Carter attending state dinners to forestry student Jack Ford admitting he had smoked marijuana.

The Bush style is barbecues, outdoor games of all kinds, kids running everywhere and Barbara Bush in her bathrobe walking the dog, Millie. First Lady or not, Barbara Bush will still have time to continue baby sitting for Marshall, Marvin’s 2-year-old daughter, said Alixe Glenn, a longtime Bush aide. Marvin lives in the Washington suburb of Arlington, Va., and he and his family usually dine with his parents a few times a week.

“My father has said, and I know this to be true, that his family is his oasis and one of his great sources of strength,” Neil said. “The other side of me wants to tell you outright that he doesn’t ask me advice on public policy and that’s a good thing. My input wouldn’t help. I don’t know how much input Mom has. I’m sure her voice is heard because they’re so close.”

Motherhood was not without tragedy for Barbara Bush. Their daughter, Robin, died of leukemia at the age of 4. Barbara, then 30, “nearly fell apart,” she has said and friends recall that her hair turned white virtually overnight. What made her able to function again, she has said, was concern that her continued mourning would deprive her other children of a good mother.

“All of the kids and their parents will tell you that their strength comes from the family,” Glenn said.

The family closeness is so important to the Bushes that Jeb had mixed feelings about the victory a week after his father won the presidential election.

Proud of Parents

“I’m not that excited,” he said in a telephone interview from Tallahassee, Fla., where he returned to his real estate business. “I’m pleased and very proud of both my mom and dad. But at the same time, I don’t know how it will work out. There’s an uneasiness about losing your parents when they become President and First Lady. We haven’t talked about it, but I’ve thought about it.

“It’s all brand-new and with that comes higher degrees of uncertainty. From a personal sense, I don’t know if it’s a great deal. It’s great for the country.”

The President-elect often has said that his proudest accomplishment is that his kids still come home, despite the fact they were raised in troubled times for families.

“We weren’t all goody two-shoes,” Neil said.

“I think we were all rebellious when we were in the rebellious stage,” Jeb said.

“I don’t think we were hippies,” Neil said, “but we weren’t unaffected by the times we were raised in. I remember being in Washington for high school when the city was on fire and those were troubling times, the Vietnam War, the protests. No one (in the family) was actively protesting but when you’re in a school environment you can’t help be affected by what goes on around you.”

‘The Enforcer’

Throughout their upbringing, Barbara Bush was “the chief operating officer,” Jeb said. Neil called her “the enforcer.” Barbara Bush herself has said that the oldest son, George, had earlier curfews than his dates and that she has attended “more Little League games than any living human.”

“She went to every one of my basketball games,” Neil said. “Dad would show up when he was in town and always made the effort. But my mother was there all the time, knocking herself out performing the lowest-paid job in the world. But hopefully it was gratifying.”

The Bushes have been known to feed 65 relatives at really big family gatherings. Horseshoes, fishing, baseball, basketball, swimming and tennis are the sports of choice when the family gets together for the yearly summer reunions in Kennebunkport, Me., or for Christmas.

“We’re very competitive in athletics. We love to win,” Neil said. “Politics is fun and I think the competitive instinct we all showed in the campaign was nurtured as kids. We played basketball and we’d throw elbows at each other and duke it out. After it was over we’d always be friends. No one in our family likes to lose. But we get more out of competition than winning.”

Jeb said that what the Bush children learned from their father was “just protect your own, protect your family. Do your best as honorably as you possibly can.” Neil said that their father did not try to steer them into any particular professions and encouraged them to be independent.

“I always wanted to do what was right and good and also avoided doing things that would disappoint my mother and father because I held them in such high regard,” Neil said. “All the family is like that. Not to say we were perfect kids. We weren’t. But they set the right example for us.”

(George W., Marvin and Doro declined to be interviewed for this article.)

THE BUSH CHILDREN:

George W.: The oldest son is the one most like his father. “He resembles Dad the closest physically and in his mannerisms,” Neil said. Like his father, George W. attended Yale, became a pilot and went into the oil business. And he is the only Bush child who still lives in Midland, Tex., and works on the White House transition team. He also attended Harvard business school and joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, serving in the same unit as Lloyd Bentsen III, son of the former Democratic vice presidential candidate.

His oil business “was not necessarily a roaring success,” he once told an interviewer. When he ran for the House of Representatives in 1978 in a heavily Democratic western Texas district he was accused of capitalizing on his father’s name.

“On the surface he’s feisty and competitive and sometimes pretty gruff,” Jeb said, “but underneath that exterior he’s a thoughtful, caring, bright person.” George is also, he said, the family’s worst tennis player. He and his wife, Laura, have 6-year-old twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara.

John (Jeb): The second son has “reached the farthest, greatest height so far in public service,” as secretary of commerce of Florida, Neil said. “Although (brother) George might dispute this, Jeb and Marvin are probably the brightest of the boys.” Jeb made the news in August when he recommended that Modesto Maidique, the president of Florida International University, be considered as a replacement for resigning Education Secretary William Bennett.

Now that his father has won, Jeb said, he has “a lot of people calling me who express an interest to serve their country. I pass it on to the proper people, my buddies and my brother in the transition team.” Latino affairs are of special interest to Jeb, who is fluent in Spanish and whose wife, Columba, is of Mexican descent. They have three children: George P., 12; Noelle, 11; and John Ellis Jr., 4.

Neil: He and another partner own an oil exploration concern in Denver, but falling oil prices make it anything but a rich man’s game. Nonetheless, Neil is “an unbelievable optimist about life,” Jeb said. “He transmits that. It’s contagious and he’s a carrier.” Neil met his wife, Sharon, a New Hampshire native, while campaigning for his father in 1980. They have two children: Lauren, 4, and Pierce, 2.

Marvin: The youngest son is reputedly the best tennis player in the family, and his handling of his critical illness has been “an inspiration,” Neil said. “It seemed like he was on his death bed one day and out stumping for Dad the next. Everybody who goes through what Marvin goes through looks for role models and he’s been a support mechanism for others.” Marvin and his wife, Margaret, have a 2-year-old adopted daughter, Marshall, whom Marvin brags is the cutest Bush grandchild “by far.”

Doro: A mother of two, she keeps the books for husband Billy’s construction firm in Cape Elizabeth, Me. “My sister used to be the youngest and the only girl and all that entails, and now she’s blossomed into someone everyone loves a lot and she’s very special,” Jeb said.

“She really grew a lot in the campaign,” Neil said. “I don’t know what her ambition is in politics but who knows after the children are grown?” The children are: Sam, 3; and Nancy, 1.

With so many children, whom did George Bush love best?

“He loved us all equally,” Neil Bush said. Spoken like a man with politics in his blood.