By Lois Romano
Monday, October 23, 2006; A19

My Father, My President:

A Personal Account of the Life of George H.W. Bush

By Doro Bush Koch

Warner Books, 586 pp. $29.99

George H.W. Bush has long said that he will never write a personal memoir but will instead let history speak for itself. He never promised his family would sit tight.

It may be that the next best thing to hearing from Bush is reading his story through the eyes of his sixth child and only surviving daughter, Doro Bush Koch. At her father's request, Koch, 47, pulled together a warm and, not surprisingly, favorable look at Bush's eventful life, as relayed to her by many of his friends and political associates, his diaries and letters, and conversations with Dad.

Indisputably told through the lens of an adoring daughter, "My Father, My President" breaks no new ground and presents no neutral judgments. But it does offer an intimate look into one of America's political dynasties, and subtly conveys the hope of an 82-year-old man to have some say in how the story is told -- even if he doesn't want to tell it himself.

For instance, Koch gives her father plenty of space to distance himself from the Watergate scandal, which he weathered from the unenviable perch of chairman of the Republican National Committee. As the government was unraveling around him, Bush -- ever loyal -- said nothing about President Richard M. Nixon publicly but found plenty to share with his family, and his diary, thoughts first published in this book.

"The gloom in the White House is unimaginable, difficult to describe," he wrote in 1974. "It is brought dramatically home that this president is a liar, a total liar and we cannot face up to it in fairness, in the nation's interest, in any other way. . . . "

Bush admits to his daughter: "I always felt Nixon thought I wasn't tough enough. I lacked the kind of bull-doze-'em approach that some of his lieutenants had. Nixon liked the tough guy. . . . "

Koch cast a wide net in researching the book, writing hundreds of letters to her father's friends and political adversaries, as well as to world leaders, asking for impressions and anecdotes. The book takes on the feel of an oral history when she prints long portions of interviews or e-mails about specific events. She also relies on thoughtful correspondences from her father to family members and friends that confirm what many already know about Bush: that he is a decent, gracious and sentimental man.

It is refreshing to learn that despite the power and the pedigree, the Bush clan faced the same comic mishaps of any other large family -- and didn't always do everything according to Emily Post. When Jeb Bush insisted on marrying his 19-year-old girlfriend in 1974, brother Marvin-- an amateur photographer -- offered to take the official pictures to save money. The high school student, who rolled his own film spools, discovered in the darkroom that he had shot the wedding over images of a Frank Zappa concert. "Every single photo of the Bush and Garnica families had either a photo of Frank Zappa and/or members of . . . the Mothers of Invention, superimposed onto their own images," Marvin recalls. Koch further tells us that her dad did not meet Jeb's fiancee (now wife), Columba, until the rehearsal dinner.

On a painful note, Koch looks at how her parents coped with the death of their firstborn daughter, Robin, who died before Koch was born. The Bushes have never liked to talk about Robin's death from leukemia, but Koch captures the devastation through others who witnessed it. One friend from Midland, Tex., recalled to Koch how Bush continued to teach Sunday school as his daughter was failing and how often "he arrived disheveled and unshaven, to teach his class."

"Having no time to prepare the lesson, he would share with these young people his feelings on life, death, war, faith, hope, and despair."

Koch tries to explain her family's distrust of the media, and how, despite a lifetime in the public eye, they often felt under siege.

She examines a damaging story from 1992 -- "the worst political year" of Bush's life -- when the New York Times reported that the president didn't understand how a basic grocery store scanner worked, which Bush has long refuted. "The trouble is, it gets stuck in the computer, and it's still there today," he tells Koch. "It's just manufactured news -- fake history -- but there's no question that it hurt me a lot."

She describes a scene of hurt and turmoil in the family when Newsweek published its infamous cover in 1987 referring to Bush as a "wimp." She says they all felt stunningly betrayed because they had cooperated with the magazine and the reporter.

While Bush's live shouting match with Dan Rather on the "CBS Evening News" has not gone underreported, Koch offers a new, colorful version of the story as told by Roger Ailes, then Bush's media adviser, who was in the room for the interview. At one point, Ailes relates that he could see the vice president was reluctant to hit back at Rather as the anchor shouted at him over the Iran-Contra scandal. Ailes frantically held up a sign urging Bush to bring up one of Rather's more embarrassing career moments -- when he had walked off the broadcast leaving dead airtime. Bush went for the jugular, which made for one of the best moments in TV news.

Koch brings up the rumor that Bush had an affair with a longtime aide -- which he always denied. She interviewed Bush's 1988 Democratic opponent, Michael S. Dukakis, on why he fired then-aide Donna Brazille after she talked about the rumor publicly. "To hell with all that. I just said 'Look, we're not going to have any part of that,' " the former Massachusetts governor told Koch. "When you decide you're going into this business, you've got to decide who you are. . . . If folks get out of line, you can't accept that."

Koch doesn't offer any new insights into the 2000 electoral drama between her brother, George W. Bush, and Al Gore. But she reveals one hilarious story about joining protesters in front of the vice president's mansion, disguising herself in dark glasses and scarf. She said her ex-husband met her at the site where she was "standing in the freezing cold, yelling very creative and very adult chants such as 'Get Out of Cheney's House!' and 'Sore Loserman!' "

In the end, Koch cannot help but give us an extra line of sight on history because she lived it. She offers up the book her father will probably never write. But now at least, we know what he might have said.

Romano is a Washington Post national staff reporter.