
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 23, 1990                   TAG: 9005230161
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

NEIL BUSH LINKED TO THRIFT'S COLLAPSE

President Bush's son Neil voted as a board member of a Colorado thrift to approve $106 million in loans to a business associate who defaulted on the entire amount, a federal regulator said Tuesday.

Stephen Hershkowitz, deputy director of enforcement for the Office of Thrift Supervision, revealed the amount of the loss after a House Banking Committee member pressed him to testify on Bush's role in the $1 billion collapse of Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association of Denver in December 1988.

Bush, 34, was to testify Wednesday. He was a director of Silverado from 1985 to August 1988, resigning two weeks after his father won the Republican presidential nomination.

Hershkowitz and other regulators said Silverado made inflated loans - $270 million to $300 million over market value - to developers who had to reinvest part of the money in the thrift.

Bush had oil and gas business deals with two of Silverado's major borrowers, developers Kenneth Good and Bill Walters. Hershkowitz said Bush voted to approve loans to Walters but did not vote on loans to Good. Regulators have alleged that loans by Silverado to the two men were a conflict of interest for Bush, who failed to disclose the relationship to the board. - Associated Press

by CNB