PREVIEW / BUSH LIBRARY : 3 Texas Universities Fight to Be Depository of Presidential Papers

As the hoopla over the opening of the Richard M. Nixon presidential library last week settles down, a quiet but fierce battle is heating up in Texas over the site of the future George Bush library.

It is not likely to be built for several years, even if Bush is turned out of office in 1992. But Bush’s decision about where to put the library is expected to be announced at any time. He has indicated that he wants the library to be somewhere in Texas, where he was an oilman and congressman and where he maintains his official residence at a Houston hotel.

THE COMPETITORS

Texas A&M;, Rice University and the University of Houston are the leading contenders.

None of the three are releasing the full details of their proposals, which are in the hands of the President. Officials believe that that would not be proper at this time. The millionaire Texas A&M; alumnus in charge of the Aggies’ effort, oilman Michel Halbouty, refuses to discuss the matter.

But some details are known.

Part of A&M;’s plan is to attach Bush’s name to the university’s school of government and change the name of the street approaching the library to George Bush Boulevard. A&M;, one of the largest landholding universities in the nation, has promised to put the library on a spacious piece of real estate.

“It seems to me that the advantage of having the library here is the availability of a large park-like setting and the relationship with academic programs,” said Bryan Jones, the chairman of the A&M; political science department and co-author of the original memo urging that the school make a serious push for the Bush library.

The University of Houston has committed $35 million to building a library, as well as a 35-acre tract on the campus.

Rice is proposing using land on a park adjacent to the campus and is also hoping that Secretary of State James A. Baker III’s relationship with the school will be helpful. Baker is donating his papers to the university library.

WHY THERE ARE NO OBJECTIONS

So far, the Bush library has not run into the problems that dogged the Nixon and Ronald Reagan structures. The Nixon library was rejected by both the city of San Clemente and Duke University before finding a home in Yorba Linda. The Reagan library, which is now under construction in the Simi Valley, was turned down by Stanford University after several tense years of negotiations with the Reagan Presidential Foundation. One of the fears expressed by the faculty was that the Reagan complex might stamp Stanford as too conservative.

There are no such fears in Texas, where a presidential library is viewed as a tremendous boon both for academics and tourism.

The Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin has been hailed as the most important thing to have ever happened to the huge University of Texas system. It is also the No. 3 tourist attraction in the state, behind the Alamo and the state Capitol.

The Bush library “can certainly be a crown jewel, no matter where it is,” said Don Wilson, the nation’s official archivist, who is charged with making certain that the site and library design are appropriate.

THE STAKES

With the Bush library, A&M; would be able to match archrival University of Texas at Austin, presidential edifice for presidential edifice. For Rice, it would enhance its reputation as one of the finest schools in the country. And, for the University of Houston, a Bush library would go a long way toward establishing it as something more than a huge commuter school.

“There’s every expectation that the University of Houston will be one of the great public universities at the end of the decade,” said Ken Lay, chairman of the school’s board of regents and a friend of the President.

OUTLOOK

The struggle boils down to whether the Bush library will be in Houston, home of both Rice and the University of Houston, or in A&M;’s College Station.

Six colleges in Houston have pledged to cooperate in supporting the Bush library if it is built in this, the state’s largest, city. The Houston backers point to the fact that College Station is not an urban hub and is a long drive from almost anywhere.

But A&M; points out that it is within 200 miles of 77% of the population of Texas.

“All of the proposals are good,” said Wilson, the archivist. “It’s the President’s decision.”