UPDATE: See this post for why this is all struck out.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the gentleman who taped his good buddy George W. and released those tapes to the world, Doug Wead. And you may ask: who is Mr. Wead, and what kind of a man is he?
And after you read this, you may also ask: So what prompted him to reveal these tapes now? And what other tapes does he have?
Scoop: Amway, Republicans & That Old Time Religion
First off, lets take a look at evangelist Doug Wead, a divorced Baptist Minister, and former Diamond distributer, who is still a regular speaker at Amway conventions.
Wead was the first President Bush’s liaison to the Christian Right and he later served as Special Assistant to the President in the first Bush White House. Time magazine referred to him as "the man who coined the phrase the compassionate conservative."
He was linked to the second President Bush early on as well. US News and World Report described Wead as an "old friend and advisor" to George W Bush. In the book, First Son, Author and Dallas Morning News Reporter, Bill Mintuglio, said that Wead was a man who had spent years "preparing strategy reports" for both President Bush and GW.
The book claims W was the "family liaison to hard-edged conservatives and to Christian evangelical leaders, developing close ties to (among others) defeated … congressional candidate Doug Wead, with his Amway and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker connections."
In 1998, W decided it was his turn. Within days of his reelection as governor, W was secretly planning to run for President, because, as he said, he felt certain he had been called. He was encouraged in this belief by evangelical friends like Doug Wead and by his mother, who called him "the Chosen One," according to Kitty Kelly’s book, the Family.
Anticipating W’s reelection, Wead had already written a memo encouraging him to run, "You have been given a great opportunity, an opportunity that has been denied to many who have sought it. It is a gift that has rarely been extended. It might not ever be extended again," Wead wrote.
Years earlier, Wead had lost his own Congressional bid after Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, threw his support behind Wead’s Democratic opponent, and stunned the Christian community with the remark, "I don’t think God should be sold for money."
Goldwater was obviously a good judge of character and realized that it would be better to have a Democrat in office than a charlatan like Wead. And he was absolutely right, because as it turns out, Wead’s past with Amway is even shadier than most people know.
At one time, Wead and his ex-wife Gloria, were both Diamond distributors, sponsored by Dexter and Birdie Yager. Wead earned large sums of money by speaking at Amway functions throughout the Yager organization.
Wead and another kingpin, Jean Godzich, eventually branched out and set up an Amway in France. In 1986, the French government began investigating it and decided the company was a dangerous mind-control cult, and a fraudulent business. Amway France terminated the distributorship of Godzich, from whose group most of the complaints had originated.
So what do Wead and Godzich do next? They set up a new MLM in France, called Groupement or GEPM. Its product line consisted of Amway products, its business structure was identical to Amway France, and its cultic activities were just as blatant as they were in the first operation.
After receiving numerous complaints about GEPM, French authorities moved in to shut it down, but this time it issued criminal arrest warrants, 13 for the company’s distributors, and 2 for Godzich and Wead. Godzich took all the cash and fled the country and Wead never returned to France.
This man is the same Doug Wead, who 2 years later, would become a White House Aide to the first President Bush, and spiritual adviser to the second.