Bush Got Loans Like Ones He Denounced

As a Texas businessman, President Bush took two low-interest loans from an oil company where he was a member of the board of directors, engaging in a practice he condemned this week in his plan to stem corporate abuse and accounting fraud.

Bush accepted loans totaling $180,375 from Harken Energy Corp. in 1986 and 1988, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Bush was a director of Harken from 1986 to 1993, after he sold his failed oil and gas exploration concern to the company. He used the loans to buy Harken stock.

Corporate loans to officers came under scrutiny after WorldCom Inc., the long-distance carrier that last month reported huge accounting irregularities, revealed it had lent nearly $400 million to Bernard J. Ebbers to buy the company’s stock when he was chief executive. He resigned in April as the stock price tumbled.

Bush attacked corporate loans during his speech on Wall Street on Tuesday, when he offered proposals to tighten the accountability of corporate executives while stopping short of the tougher measures headed toward passage in the Senate. “I challenge compensation committees to put an end to all company loans to corporate officers,” he said.

White House communications director Dan Bartlett said Harken offered the loans to directors to buy shares in the company as part of an incentive for board members “to have a long-term commitment with the company.” Bartlett said the loans to Bush were “totally appropriate--there was no wrongdoing there.”

“This is a common practice in small, medium and large companies,” Bartlett said. “These recent abuses of certain types of loans led the president to believe that the government should draw a bright line concerning loans going forward. This is one of the main things that undermined the confidence of investors and shareholders.”

Bartlett said the loans were for $96,000 in 1986, for 80,000 shares, and $84,375 in 1988, for 25,000 shares. He said that in 1993, Harken changed its compensation policies and discontinued the loan program. He said Harken converted to a program giving directors stock options, allowing them to buy stock later at a fixed price.