SwiftVets.com

[coldwarvet]

Originally published on Friday, July 16, 2004 in the News section of The
Harvard Crimson.
Former HBS Prof Blasts Bush
By SIMON W. VOZICK-LEVINSON
Crimson Staff Writer

As the race for the White House heats up and the nation’s left-leaning
heads come together to unearth potential skeletons in President Bush’s
closet, one line in his resume has avoided major scrutiny: the time Bush
spent just across the Charles River, earning an MBA at the Harvard Business
School (HBS) in the 1970s. Now, as some fervently question the
commander-in-chief’s performance in the Texas National Guard decades ago
and more current-minded politicos take aim at the events surrounding Sept.
11, 2001 and the invasion of Iraq, one former HBS professor is doing his
best to publicize his recollections of what he calls a sarcastic, mediocre
student who went on to lead the United States.

Yoshihiro Tsurumi, an avowed opponent of Bush’s current views and policies
who was a visiting associate professor of international business at HBS
between 1972 and 1976, said Bush was among 85 students he taught one year
in a required first-year course. In the class on “Environment Analysis for
Management,” incorporating elements of macroeconomics, industrial policy
and international business, Tsurumi said students discussed and debated
case studies for 90 minutes several times a week.

Tsurumi­now a professor of international business at Baruch College in the
City University of New York­said he remembers the future president as
scoring in the bottom 10 percent of students in the class.

Thirty years after teaching the class, Tsurumi said the twenty-something
Bush’s statements and behavior­“always very shallow”­still stand out in his
mind.

“Whenever [Bush] just bumped into me, he had some flippant statement to
make,” said Tsurumi when reached at his home in Scarsdale, N.Y. “The
comments he made were revealing of his prejudice.”

The White House did not reply to requests for comment on Bush’s time at HBS.

Tsurumi said he particularly recalls Bush’s right-wing extremism at the
time, which he said was reflected in off-hand comments equating the New
Deal of the 1930s with socialism and the corporation-regulating Securities
and Exchange Commission with “an enemy of capitalism.”

“I vividly remember that he made a comment saying that people are poor
because they’re lazy,” Tsurumi said.

Tsurumi also said Bush displayed a sense of arrogance about his prominent
family, including his father, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.

“[George W. Bush] didn’t stand out as the most promising student, but...he
made it sure we understood how well he was connected,” Tsurumi said. “He
wasn’t bashful about how he was being pushed upward by Dad’s connections.”

Tsurumi said that the younger Bush boasted that his father’s political
string-pulling had gotten him to the top of the waiting list for the Texas
National Guard instead of serving in Vietnam. When other students were
frantically scrambling for summer jobs, Tsurumi said, Bush explained that
he was planning instead for a visit to his father in Beijing, where the
senior Bush was serving at the time as the special U.S. envoy to China.

In addition, Tsurumi is still sore about what he recalls as Bush’s slight
to his cinematic taste. When he arranged for students to view the film of
John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath during their study of the Great
Depression, Tsurumi said, Bush derided the film as “corny.”

At the time, Tsurumi said his worries about his student extended no further
than the boardroom.

“All Harvard Business School students want to become president of a company
one day,” Tsurumi said. “I remember saying, if you become president of a
company some day, may God help your customers and employees.”

When he discovered that his former pupil was vying for the presidency in
2000, Tsurumi said he tried to inform the public about his experience with
the then-Texas governor at HBS­but got few results beyond hate mail.

“Last election time, if you recall, the American mass media did a shameful
job of vetting [the presidential candidates],” Tsurumi said.

As another November approaches, Tsurumi is trying again to air his
criticisms of the man he once taught and his actions as president.

“This time it seems to be getting around a bit more widely,” he said.
“After three years of dismal record, people seem more inclined to believe
that all his failed leadership was apparent during the Harvard Business
School years.”

In a July 2 speech to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo,
Tsurumi repeated the broadside he has launched repeatedly in the past.

“I always remember two groups of students,” Tsurumi said then, according to
published reports. “One is the really good students, not only intelligent,
but with leadership qualities, courage. The other is the total opposite,
unfortunately to which George belonged.”
_________________
Defender of the honor of those in harms way keeping us out of harms way.

"Peace is our Profession"
Strategic Air Command - Motto

USAF 75-79 Security Police

[coldwarvet]

Is their a smoking gun in their some where in all this gobbledygook? And I thought Harvard was where America’s brightest and best thinkers come from. I would were it as a badge of honor if I was in the bottom 10% in this professor’s class.
_________________
Defender of the honor of those in harms way keeping us out of harms way.

"Peace is our Profession"
Strategic Air Command - Motto

USAF 75-79 Security Police

[kate]

Sounds more a personality clash, and he thinks his own opinion of GWB, formed during the period of one class, is definitve.

Have to wonder what Tsurumi's own definitions of leadership qualities and courage are, since if nothing else GWB has certainly shown that in this WOT.

methinks a case of sour grapes, and the guy is looking for his 15 minutes.
_________________
.
one of..... We The People

[carpro]

Sounds to me like they had a mutual dislike of each other.

Wonder what grade W got, Tsurami doesn't say.

I had a relationship like that with a teacher once. He was full of...himself and I was young and brash. Bless him for not holding a grudge and giving me the grade I earned instead of what he wanted to give me.

No story here unless you are grasping for straws.
_________________
"If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service."

[Scott]

Sounds to me like the President may actually have matured since graduate school...

Those who can, do; those who can't do, teach.
_________________
Bye bye, Boston Straggler!

[ASPB]

[Tony]

What a bunch of sour grapes! This academic is being hypocritical in the worst way. If his student didn't measure up - how did he make it through? I mean come on...we're talking about one of the most elite schools in the country. As previously mentioned... even the person who finished in the bottom 10% is still head and shoulders above the rest.

I think what this Professor really means, is that he placed his students into two groups...one group that was onboard with his left leaning ideas and agenda, and another group who would have nothing to do with them. At least we know which group the President chose to associate with....

John Kerry would have no doubt been his star pupil....
_________________

http://tonyk.smugmug.com/photos/1822816-L-1.jpg
USN 1983-1992

[MCFARB]

[fortdixlover]

[ASPB]