Waterloo women 'hailed for the chiefs'

Kathy McCoy, Jane Field did advance travel work for Presidents Bush

Apr 21, 2023

Kathy McCoy of Waterloo holds an autographed photo from President George H.W Bush, taken when she worked for the president organizing his travel arrangements and events. (Pat Kinney photo)

Kathy McCoy had the trip of a lifetime last fall. It took her back to many trips half a lifetime ago -- when it was business, not pleasure, when she was working for the leader of the free world.

Jane Field knows the feeling — reaching back across the years, to when a young man, barely in his 40s and not looking it, was an overnight guest at her and her husband Hugh’s home. She didn’t know then she’d eventually be spending six months out of the year traveling across the globe for their onetime lodger — who would follow in his father’s footsteps to lead a nation.

McCoy, the daughter of late Waterloo Courier publisher Robert J. McCoy, and her husband, former Waterloo Mayor Tim Hurley, traveled to Stockholm, Sweden in October to witness McCoy's cousin and Chicago native Douglas Diamond, a professor with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, received the Nobel Prize for economics with former Federal Reserve board chairman Ben Bernanke and Philip Dybvig of Washington University in St. Louis, for their groundbreaking research on banks in financial crisis.

While the Waterloo couple were wowed by the whole affair and the arrangements, in the back of her mind, McCoy couldn't help but make some mental notes and comparisons to her earlier days an event planner.
And we're not talking a wedding reception.
McCoy did advance work for President George H.W. Bush on several overseas trips during his administration in the late 80s and early '90s.
She worked on the president’s 1989 inaugural with Jane Field — who would work for both that president and his son, President George W. Bush, throughout the younger Bush’s eight-year administration, from 2001-09. including many economic summits for the G8 and Pacific Rim nations all over the world.

President George W. Bush shares a warm moment with Jane Field of Waterloo during the president trip to the G8 economic summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2006. Field worked on advance travel arrangements for that and other international summits during the president’s administration. (photo courtesy of Jane Field)

Both Field and McCoy got involved, as many Iowans do, during Iowa Caucuses campaign season, in 1986-87, prior to the February 1988 caucuses, when George H.W. Bush was vice president.

McCoy recalled, "I was working for (downtown developer and businesswoman ) Donna Nelson at the Waterloo Club (restaurant) and she asked me if I would help the White House advance team. Vice President Bush was coming to cut the ribbon for our new Chamber of Commerce.
"I said 'Sure. What's an advance team?' " McCoy said. She arranged for the advance team to take up residence at a couple of hotel rooms downtown for a dinner event at the downtown convention center.
To continue in that role beyond Waterloo, she was told to submit a resume and a cover letter and "if you hear back, you hear back," she said. "The only way I knew I'd got it is I got a call from the White House travel office, asking if I could do a trip to Council Bluffs-Omaha."
Bush campaign operative and Des Moines native Gordon James, who now has a Phoenix public relations agency, "asked if I wanted to be on his team and travel the country for four months, adding 'We might get one weekend off, but I can't promise,' I said. 'Yeah, sign me up!' "
Her immediate colleagues were all male, some a bit younger. "I said 'I now know what it's like to be married, divorced and have children,' " all at the same time, she joked. "We moved every four or five days. You couldn't carry a lot,' not much more than what would fit into a garment bag.
While McCoy initially was working for Nelson, prominent Waterloo attorney Hugh Field and his wife Jane, long active in local Republican politics, were hosting the vice president’s son at their home.
”This is the beginning of George W. and our relationship,” Jane Field said. “It was 1986 and he was campaigning for his dad during the 1988 campaign. And he was very young then. He was a nice-looking man — or, he is. That was before he was governor of Texas, and three of our kids stayed home from school to meet him.”

George W. Bush with Jane Field at her and her husband Hugh’s Waterloo home in 1986. (Photo courtesy Jane Field)

When George H.W. Bush won the 1988 election over Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, "It was hysteria," McCoy said. "Some of us went back to Houston for their victory party. We're in this gigantic ballroom," packed to capacity, "waiting for the president(-elect) and Mrs. Bush to come out. They came out on stage, It was unbelievable and the Bushes were just beaming."
Both Field and McCoy worked on arrangements for the inauguration celebration.
”They were both really great guys,” Field said of the older and younger Bushes, “but they were different. A lot different. I would say Herbert Walker was probably more presidential in some ways, but not as hands-on as George W.”
The elder Bush “had his staff and their staff did their jobs,” Field said. “Like the advance team, he didn’t monitor them as much as George W. But when we were on a trip with George W., he would ask us all questions about the trip — and if you didn’t know the answer, it was a problem!” she said, laughing.
While George H.W. Bush delegated tasks due to his years of diplomatic and overseas experience and having served as vice president, his son may have been more hands on because he has served as a governor of a state.
“But they were both really great people,” Field said.

President-elect George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush on election night in Houston in 1988. (Associated Press photo)

"I just loved doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff," McCoy said. Field said her Waterloo colleague had a flair for events. In addition to setting up campaign rallies, McCoy had to keep track of the bills. "I was with an accountant, who didn't have a sense of humor," she said. "It was a lot of money, but they were dynamite events."

There had to be lively music for the senior Bush to enter and exit a rally. At one of the last 1988 campaign events, in Michigan, 1950s rocker Ritchie Valens' hit song "La Bamba" was played as Bush went off the stage. The song had been re-released for a Valens biopic and had regained popularity. But, McCoy said, as Bush heard the music as he left the stage, he looked around and questioned, "La Bamba?" It wasn't played again.
In another nearly unfortunate occurrence at an outdoor rally in the South, during primary season, McCoy said semitrailers hauling equipment for the event had Dole pineapple signs on them. Sen Bob Dole of Kansas was Bush's principal primary opponent, so the signs had to be hurriedly covered up.
In Des Moines, at a forum sponsored by the Des Moines Register, moderated by then-Register Editor James P. Gannon, McCoy said Bush came off the stage, sweltering from the lights and wiping his face after an intense debate, and said, in an uncharacteristically blunt moment of blue language, "I hope that son of a....got the message!"
McCoy worked for Bush through his single term of office, including several overseas trips: to Bonn, Germany; Paris; Japan and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. At the Bonn visit, McCoy looked out the window at where they were staying to see a barge full of John Deere tractors passing down the Rhine River; Deere, which has a huge presence in Waterloo, also has a plant in Mannheim, on the Rhine.

Kathy McCoy took this picture from her hotel window of a barge of John Deere tractors being shipped on the Rhine River in Bonn Germany during a visit by President George H.W. Bush. (photo courtesy of Kathy McCoy)

On that same trip, McCoy had a chance hotel elevator encounter with another Waterloo resident, but of the opposing party: Lynn Cutler, a former Black Hawk County supervisor who became a Democratic National Committee vice chairwoman and later worked for President Bill Clinton.
"She said, 'I should have known there was a bunch of Republicans!' " McCoy said, laughing.
Field was on the advance team on the elder President Bush’s trip to Japan in early 1992 when he took ill, fainted and threw up at dinner next to Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa.
”I’d been working like crazy and my Secret Service counterpart and I sat down and were having dinner. And I took my radio earpiece out during dinner and he looked up and me and said, ‘The president’s down.’ We didn’t know why. And we had to be at the door to receive him. And it was kind of crazy.” The president was diagnosed as having a case of severe gastrointeritis.

Kathy McCoy, left, and Jane Field are shown in this 1989 Waterloo Courier photo by Rick Chase, when they both worked for President George W. Bush.

In a completely different but also bizarre event, McCoy also separately worked for James' private firm on behalf of Imelda Marcos, exiled widow of late deposed Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos. She regularly visited her husband’s refrigerated encrypted body in Hawaii. McCoy's name ended up on a "wanted" list in the Philippines when rumors arose Mrs. Marcos planned to illegally smuggle her husband's body back to their homeland over the objections of human rights activists. McCoy was listed as part of the widow's possible travel party.

The rumors were bogus, but James told McCoy, “Don’t travel to the Philippines.” Mrs. Marcos, her family and husband's body were eventually allowed to return, but no formal burial for her husband was held until 2016.
Jane Field worked on President George W. Bush’s travel to G8 summits in France, Great Britain, Russia and other locations, as well as Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summits in Pacific Rim nations as well as in the U.S. throughout his eight years as president.
One challenge was taking along exercise equipment for the president. Field recalled that on a state visit to Buckingham Palace, “We had to get a treadmill in there. The Secret Service had to take the door frame off to get it in the bedroom where he slept. And the queen wasn’t real happy.”
One job she anticipated, but didn’t get to do, was some advance work for the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2001. Some associated sessions were postponed due to the Sept. 11 terrorist skyjacker bombings that felled the World Trade Center.
While she never accompanied the president into a war zone in Iraq or Afghanistan, her organizational skills and leadership earned her the nickname “The General” among her colleagues, and even some superiors.
”I bossed everybody around,” she said laughing. “The president never did — but the chief of staff did.” She recalled that Joshua Bolten, the president’s last chief of staff, greeted her with a “General! How are you?” at a White House Christmas party.
She also handled advance work on the president’s and his family’s trip to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. Then-former President George H.W. Bush, who had served as a diplomatic envoy to China in the 1970s, also made the trip and was honorary captain of the U.S. Olympic team.

Jane Field, at her Waterloo home, holds a certificate of appreciation from the White House Communications Agency for her advance travel work during President George W. Bush’s adminstration (Pat Kinney photo)

Of the elder Bush, McCoy said she recalled several instances of warm private conversation where he’d ask her how things were back in Iowa.
"I loved him." she said. "He reminded me of my dad. A lot of Dad. Just a very gentle, thoughtful, kind man."

Jane Field said, “I think the thing that made me most proud of the Bushes was that they were a family. And they were the kind of people you would like to be representatives of the United States.”

Pat Kinney is a former longtime reporter and editor for the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. He works for the Grout Museum District in Waterloo and still does freelance journalism for The Courier, Investigate Midwest/IowaWatch and others. Some of his work has received awards from the Iowa Newspaper Association and the Iowa Associated Press Managing Editors.

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