George W. Bush Interview With Mark K. Updegrove (Audio) 
Cast Away
During her 23-year marriage to a brother of the president of the United States, Sharon Bush dutifully played the role of stay-at-home mother while reaping the rewards of her famous last name. Only now does she understand the terms of inclusion in the world's most powerful family: Membership can be revoked at any time
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By way of introduction, he told the story of his problems at school ("I remember struggling and having this incredibly painful feeling of not being able to keep up") and displayed a cockeyed optimism ("Learning is effortless. Learning is a painless process. Learning is something we do naturally!"), as well as a wry candor ("By the way, I am the least political member of my family—I have no future in politics"). Even so, the group was about as welcoming as a Democratic caucus: The teachers stifled yawns and seemed skeptical that his software could make school fun and raise test scores. One educator approached him and began arguing passionately that class size, not content, makes the difference in educational quality. "Tell your brother we need smaller classes," the teacher urged. The usually ebullient Neil stiffened. "Well, I don't talk to him much," he snapped. There was the Neil conundrum in a nutshell: He wasn't supposed to capitalize on the family name, but he couldn't avoid it either.
Maybe in the beginning Neil thought he could carry off Ignite on his own. But developing school software is competitive these days, even for people with expertise in the field. It wasn't long before financial need—the company has had four rounds of financing—sent him back to the old familiar well. Jamal Daniel and the senior Bushes had been there at the beginning; Crest Financial Services put in $100,000, and the Bush Community Property Trust put in $50,000. Six months later, Crest put in another $249,998, and the senior Bushes another $150,000. Neil also got $500,000 from Michael Milken; the fallen creator of junk bonds was in turnaround as an education guru. Partners from other business ventures came in too, most notably Winston Wong, the son of one of Taiwan's richest men—Neil's contact on the Grace Semiconductor deal—and his sister Charlene, who was just charged with corporate espionage in Taiwan last year. The Wong siblings put in around $2 million.
A great many of Ignite's benefactors had connections to the forty-first president. John Nau, a beer distributor who was appointed to head the National Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, invested $100,000. Hushang Ansary put $500,000 into Ignite; the former Iranian economics minister was a trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation, donated $100,000 to George W. Bush's inaugural committee, and now serves on the National Finance Committee of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. The Bush family's other Middle Eastern contacts also came through, particularly the Saudis, presumably still grateful for the U.S. aid against Saddam Hussein in 1991: Khalid Alireza, from one of Saudi Arabia's richest families (with ties to the country's royal family), contributed $500,000. Nasser Rashid, a consulting engineer to the Saudi king—and one of the richest men in the world—put in $500,000. Saad Hariri, a son of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, put in close to $1 million. Hamza al Kholi, a powerful Egyptian who is the chairman and CEO of the First Arabian Development and Investment Company, put in $1 million as well. One might be tempted to ask—as Sharon's divorce lawyer did in Neil's 2003 deposition—why Kholi chose to invest in Ignite. Neil's answer: "He cares about kids."
Friends of the Bush dynasty were also instrumental in getting Ignite into schools. In Houston, for instance, Ansary contributed to the Houston Independent School District Foundation; this organization raised additional funding for Ignite when HISD worried about implementing the program on a large scale. Even with all this help, Ignite faltered. At least once, Neil's parents covered payroll with a $500,000 check from their personal account.
THERE WAS, OF COURSE, ANOTHER reason Neil wasn't focused on his marriage during this time. Although he waffled on occasion, he had pretty much decided it was over. As winter turned to spring in 2002, he and Sharon talked frankly about whether their marriage could or should survive. She wanted counseling; he didn't. She didn't understand how he could be traveling so much and earning so little; he felt that she was needling, nagging, and perpetually disappointed in him. Away in Dubai, he tried to be compassionate when he sent Sharon the e-mail that ended it all.
"Before reiterating concerns we shared Friday and with Mother's Day just past, it is worth repeating that you are a world class mother," Neil began. "Our kids are a reflection of this." He was, however, worried about money and resentful of Sharon's belief that "Jamal's plotting or dad's influence will be the magic answer to our financial woes." He acknowledged her complaints about his constant travel but added, "When I'm not traveling either you are traveling or we both seem to get too busy to make an effort."
He wanted to talk again when he returned to Houston, but there was one more thing: "You have asked numerous times the past couple of days whether I have another lover. My response is no. You should know however that I have recently felt loved and have had an emotional (not sexual) connection with another woman. I feel very vulnerable in the sense that I liked the feeling of being respected for the kind of person that I feel I am—kind, gentle, modest, passionate . . ."
Her name was Maria Andrews. A lushly pretty woman in her forties, she had volunteered in Barbara's office for three years, responding to the former first lady's myriad invitations. When Maria met Neil, her own fourteen-year marriage, to Robert Andrews, was coming to an end; the couple had worked together to build an oil and gas business based largely in Mexico, but the marriage was failing for reasons that might have sounded familiar to Sharon: Robert traveled constantly, leaving his wife alone with their three children in the sprawling $2.8 million hacienda they had built, coincidentally, just a few miles from Neil and Sharon. Robert was a self-made titan—one of his companies had $15 million in sales in 1995—and was typical of many rich men in that his focus tended to be on his fortune, not his home life.
Somehow, it wasn't surprising that Neil and Maria first felt their mutual stirrings at a Bush family event, in this case a political fundraiser for Jeb. Nor was it hard to see what the two lovers would have in common: Maria was small, gorgeous, and geisha-like; Neil was tall, handsome, and looking, consciously or unconsciously, for someone to make him feel worthy. A flirtation ensued over the next few months, helped along by Neil's need for Ignite investors. The Andrewses were well connected in Mexico; Maria invited Neil and his family to dinner to explore networking opportunities. (Sharon, depending on whom you believe, was unable to attend because she either wanted to be out of town or was nudged out of town.) Soon after that, the Andrewses contributed $100,000 to Ignite, and Maria also offered to make a few introductions on Neil's behalf. In the early spring of 2002, Neil and Maria traveled to Mexico, where billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, the chairman of Grupo Carso, a conglomerate that owns a majority stake in Teléfonos de Mexico, among other things, agreed to join the Ignite team. (Later that year, Ignite would lay off 42 percent of its workforce while finalizing a $15 million deal to outsource software production to Grupo Carso.)
A contingent of wealthy Mexican "friends" joined Neil and Sharon's social circle. An Acapulco real estate mogul named Jaime Camil offered to buy Pierce a flat-screen TV and invited him to stay free at his villa, for instance. But even with generous new acquaintances, Neil's disposition at home did not improve. His business partners assured Sharon that he was just preoccupied with Ignite. Meanwhile, Neil and Maria were communicating by e-mail and had met once for coffee. Perhaps sensing that things were getting dicey—Pierce had discovered the relationship and was keeping it from his mother—Maria quit her job with Barbara in July.
Neil was on the fence: He was going to counseling to appease his wife, but he was also writing Maria love notes, almost one a day. Like his father, Neil was a prolific correspondent. (Rumors about George H. W. Bush's infidelities had surfaced occasionally too, but were repeatedly and hotly denied.) "Early in our conversations," Neil wrote, "I speculated that men and women aren't meant to be monogamous. That's easy to say when you are in a loveless marriage. Ours will be a committed and loving marriage. I have no doubt of my ability to be a faithful lover." That same month, he was getting his parents used to the idea: "Everyone is sympathetic to my situation . . . You will melt like butter into our family—no doubt in my mind that everyone will come to know you as I do and will love you and welcome you. The Bush thing is a blessing and a burden for in-laws but your temperament and nature are such that you will have no problem."
Finally, on the same day in August, Neil and Maria both filed for divorce. To protect the Bushes' privacy, the petition was styled with their initials, NMB v. SB. But Sharon was not about to keep quiet.
THE DIVORCE WAS FINAL in April 2003, but Sharon petitioned soon after to have the case reopened, alleging that she had suffered intolerable cruelty, alluding to the fact that Neil had been unfaithful and might be the father of Maria's youngest child. She wanted her husband back, or she wanted more money to live on. (Currently, Sharon will receive $2,500 a month in alimony and $1,500 a month in child support for four years.) More bitterness followed before the judge denied her request and granted the divorce. In January I happened to be at a party commemorating the opening of Super Bowl week when Sharon arrived with Lauren and Ashley. The three women were whisked into a dark VIP suite where, in a corner near the bar, George and Barbara had sequestered themselves. Lauren and Ashley embraced their grandparents while Sharon stood nearby. "Remember me?" she asked, when she caught her mother-in-law's eye.
"I've been reading your deposition," Barbara responded coolly. Sharon beat a hasty retreat but not before running into another guest she knew but didn't care to see: the judge in her divorce case, Republican Frank Rynd.
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