Editing HRG Group (section)

==Early business history==

The company traced its origins to Zapata Petroleum Corporation, founded in 1953 by future U.S. President [[George H. W. Bush]], along with his business partners John Overbey, [[Hugh Liedtke]], [[Bill Liedtke]], and Thomas J. Devine. Overbey was a [[Landman_(oil_worker)|landman]]{{clarify|date=December 2023}} skilled in scouting oil fields and obtaining drilling rights cheaply. Bush and Thomas J. Devine were [[wildcatter|oil-wildcatting]] associates.<ref>Baker, Russ, ''[[Family of Secrets]]'' (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) p.&nbsp;13.</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=conspiracy book asserts GHWBush was tied to the assassination of JFK|date=April 2017}} Their joint activities culminated in the establishment of Zapata Oil.<ref name=MaryFerrell/> The company was named for ''[[Viva Zapata!]]'', a 1952 biographical film starring [[Marlon Brando]] as Mexican revolutionary [[Emiliano Zapata]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Schoenfeld Walker |first1=Amy |last2=Marsh |first2=Amy |date=December 1, 2018 |title=George Bush's Life in 13 Objects |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/obituaries/george-bushs-life-in-13-objects.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=December 1, 2018}}</ref> The initial $1 million ({{inflation|US|1000000|1953|r=-5|fmt=eq}}) investment for Zapata was provided by the Liedtke brothers and their circle of investors, by Bush's father [[Prescott Bush]] and his
maternal grandfather [[George Herbert Walker]], and their [[Bush family#Connections to other prominent families|family's circle of friends]]. Hugh Liedtke was named president, Bush was vice president; Overbey soon left.

According to a CIA internal memo dated November 29, 1975,<ref name=MaryFerrell>{{cite web
|url=http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=12758&relPageId=2
|title=Memorandum: To: Deputy Director of Operations; Subject: Messrs. George Bush and Thomas J.
|date=November 29, 1975
|author=Withheld (sanitized, unclassified document), [[Central Intelligence Agency]]
|publisher=NARA Record Number: 104-10310-10271}}</ref> Zapata Petroleum began in 1953 through Bush's joint efforts with Thomas J. Devine, a CIA staffer who had resigned his agency position that same year to go into private business, but who continued to work for the CIA under commercial cover. Devine would later accompany Bush to Vietnam in late 1967 as a "cleared and witting commercial asset" of the agency, acted as his informal foreign affairs advisor, and had a close relationship with him through 1975.<ref>[http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=12758&relPageId=2 "MEMORANDUM:MESSRS. GEORGE BUSH AND THOMAS J. DEVINE", 3 pp.]</ref>

In 1954, Zapata Off-Shore Company was formed as a subsidiary of Zapata Oil, with Bush as president of the new company. He raised some startup money from [[Eugene Meyer (financier)|Eugene Meyer]], publisher of the ''[[Washington Post]]'', and his son-in-law, [[Philip Graham]].<ref name=Hasty2004>{{cite web
|url=http://onlinejournal.com/Media/020504Hasty/020504hasty.html  |title=Secret admirers: The Bushes and the Washington Post
|work=Online Journal
|date=February 5, 2004
|last=Hasty|first=Michael |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20040405042234/http://onlinejournal.com/Media/020504Hasty/020504hasty.html |archive-date = April 5, 2004}}</ref><ref name=Adios1999>
{{cite news
|url=http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/1999/04/26/story2.html
|date=April 23, 1999
|title=Adios, Zapata! Colorful company founded by Bush relocates to N.Y.
|work=[[Houston Business Journal]]
|last=Perin |first=Monica
}}</ref>

Zapata Off-Shore accepted an offer from an inventor, [[R. G. LeTourneau]], for the development of a mobile but secure drilling rig. Zapata advanced him $400,000, which was to be refundable if the completed rig did not function, followed by an additional $550,000 together with 38,000 shares of Zapata Off-Shore common stock when it did.

The U.S. government began to auction off mineral rights to the Caribbean, the [[Gulf of Mexico]], and islands off the Central American coast in 1954, and in the late 1950s and early 1960, Zapata Off-Shore concentrated its business in these areas.<ref name=King1980>{{cite book
|last=King
|first=Nicholas
|title=George Bush: A Biography
|year=1980
|publisher=Dodd Mead
|isbn=0-396-07919-9
|url=https://archive.org/details/georgebushbiogra00king
}}</ref> In 1958, drilling contracts with the [[Seven Sisters (oil companies)|seven largest U.S. oil producers]] included wells {{convert|40|mi|km}} north of [[Isabela, Cuba|Isabela]], Cuba, near the island [[Cay Sal]].

In 1959 Bush bought control of Zapata Off-Shore, funded with $800,000,<ref name=ZapataFiles>
{{cite web|url=http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/find/Doncol1/bushpaps.html#Series:%20Zapata%20Oil%20Files,%201943-1983
|title=Zapata Oil Files, 1943–1983
|work=George Bush Personal Papers
|publisher=[[George Bush Presidential Library]]
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070820095146/http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/find/Doncol1/bushpaps.html#Series:%20Zapata%20Oil%20Files,%201943-1983
|archive-date=August 20, 2007}}</ref> splitting Zapata Corporation into two independent companies with the Liedtkes still in control of Zapata Petroleum. Bush moved his offices and family that year from [[Midland, Texas]] to [[Houston]] for access to the Caribbean through the Houston Ship Channel.<ref>[[Russ Baker]], ''[[Family of Secrets]]'' (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) p.&nbsp;36.</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=conspiracy book asserts GHWBush was tied to the assassination of JFK|date=April 2017}} But although Zapata Offshore had only a few drilling rigs, Bush set up operations also in the Gulf of Mexico, the Persian Gulf, Trinidad, Borneo, and Medellín, Colombia, and the Kuwait Shell Petroleum Development Company was among the company's clients.<ref>Russ Baker, ''[[Family of Secrets]]'' (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) p. 35.</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=conspiracy book asserts GHWBush was tied to the assassination of JFK|date=April 2017}}

In 1960, [[Jorge Díaz Serrano]] of Mexico was put in touch with Bush by [[Dresser Industries]]. Dresser was owned by [[Prescott Bush]]'s Yale friends [[E. Roland Harriman|Roland]] and [[W. Averell Harriman]], and had been George H.W. Bush's first employer upon his graduation from [[Yale]], giving him his start in both the oil business and the defense contractor business.<ref>Russ Baker, ''Family of Secrets'' (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) pp.&nbsp;23&ndash;28.</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=conspiracy book asserts GHWBush was tied to the assassination of JFK|date=April 2017}} Serrano and Bush created a new company, Perforaciones Marinas del Golfo, aka Permargo, in conjunction with [[Edwin Pauley]] of [[Pan American Petroleum]], with whom Zapata had a previous offshore contract. The deal with Permargo is not mentioned in Zapata's annual reports, and SEC records are missing. In 1988, a Bush spokesman claimed that the deal lasted only from March to September 1960. However, Zapata sold the oil-drilling rig Nola I to Pemargo in 1964.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}

Zapata's filing records with the U.S.[[Securities and Exchange Commission]] are intact for the years 1955–1959, and again from 1967 onwards. However, records for the years 1960–1966 are missing. The commission's records officer stated that the records were inadvertently placed in a session file to be destroyed by a federal warehouse, and that a total of 1,000 boxes were pulped in this procedure. The destruction of records occurred either in October 1983 (according to the records officer), or in 1981 shortly after Bush became Vice President of the United States (according to, Wison Carpenter, a record analyst with the commission).<ref>Jonathan Kwitny, "The Mexican Connection: A look at an old George Bush business venture", ''Barron's'' September 19, 1988. Cited with further discussion by Russ Baker, ''[[Family of Secrets]]'' (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009) pp.&nbsp;37 and&nbsp;503.</ref>

During the [[Bay of Pigs invasion]] and the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]], Zapata allowed its oil rigs to be used as [[listening post]]s.<ref name="Bardach">{{cite book |last=Bardach |first=Ann Louise Bardach |author-link1=Ann Louise Bardach |year=2009 |chapter=The Island and the Empire |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=5_BCdYfwqGQC&pg=PA60 |title=Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5_BCdYfwqGQC |location=New York |publisher=Simon & Schuster |page=60 |isbn=9781416580072 |access-date=August 22, 2015}}</ref> In 1988, ''[[Barron's (newspaper)|Barron's]]'' said Zapata was "a part time purchasing front for the <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Central Intelligence Agency]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>".<ref name="Bardach"/>

In 1962, Bush was joined in Zapata Off-Shore by Robert Gow.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/green-acres/|title = Green Acres| work=Texas Monthly |date = February 2000 | last1=Chapman | first1=Carol }}</ref> By 1963, Zapata Off-Shore had four operational oil-drilling rigs&mdash;Scorpion (from 1956, the first oil-drilling [[jackup rig]] ever built), Vinegaroon (from 1957), Sidewinder, and (in the [[Persian Gulf]]) Nola III.

In 1963, Zapata Petroleum merged with South Penn Oil to become [[Pennzoil]].

By 1964, Zapata Off-Shore had a number of subsidiaries, including: Seacat-Zapata Offshore Company (Persian Gulf), Zapata de Mexico, Zapata International Corporation, Zapata Mining Corporation, Zavala Oil Company, Zapata Overseas Corporation, and a 41% share of Amata Gas Corporation.

In 1964, Bush ran for the [[United States Senate]], and lost; he continued as president of Zapata Off-Shore until 1966, when he sold his interest to Doyle Mize and ran for the [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House of Representatives]].

On September 9, 1965, [[Hurricane Betsy]] struck the coast of Louisiana sinking the oil rig ''Maverick''.<ref name="Schweizer">{{cite book |last1=Schweizer |first1=Peter |author-link1=Peter Schweizer |last2=Schweizer |first2=Rochelle |year=2005 |orig-year=2004 |chapter=Chapter 14: Mainstream |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UlXxr05oIQUC&pg=PA174 |title=The Bushes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UlXxr05oIQUC |location=New York |publisher=Anchor Books |publication-date=January 2005 |page=174 |isbn=0-385-49864-0}}</ref> There were no deaths, however, $8 million in Zapata assets were lost.<ref name="Schweizer"/> A helicopter flew Bush over the area for several days until debris was located.<ref name="Schweizer"/> After evidence was submitted to [[Lloyd's of London]] for the loss, they paid Zapata for the claim.<ref name="Schweizer"/>

In 1966, [[William Stamps Farish III]], age 28, joined the board of Zapata.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}