PRIVATE conversations with George W. Bush taped secretly by an old friend before he was elected President were leaked to the press yesterday. They reveal a politician eager to court conservative Christians, with an utter contempt for Al Gore and seeming to admit that he had used marijuana.

The dozen conversations were recorded without Mr Bush’s knowledge by Doug Wead, a former aide to Mr Bush’s father, who played them to The New York Times. They cover the period from 1998, when the Texas Governor was considering running for the White House, to just before the Republican National Convention in 2000 when he accepted his party’s presidential nomination.

Although the White House condemned Mr Wead for publicising the tapes, they reveal a private Mr Bush almost identical to his public persona: tough, confident, conservative, with a genuine belief in God, a distrust of the United Nations and a loathing of the press.

The recordings show that Mr Bush fully understood the importance of wooing conservative Christian voters in any run for the White House, and how his own faith would be an asset in achieving that goal.

He made clear that in 1998, six years before he called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, that he was opposed to same-sex marriage. “Gay marriage, I am against that,” he said.

He was adamant, however, that he would not criticise homosexuals, although he worried that this would turn off conservative Christians. Mr Bush said that he had told an evangelical he would not “kick gays because I’m a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?” Mr Bush, who drank heavily as a young adult, told Mr Wead that he could withstand a scrutiny of his past. He said that it involved “just, you know, wild behaviour”.

He also worried that allegations of cocaine-use would surface in the campaign, which they did. During his 1999 Republican primary campaign, Mr Bush said that he had not taken any illegal drugs at any time in the past 25 years.

He refused to answer reporters’ questions about his past, he told Mr Wead, even though it might cost him the election. He said: “I wouldn’t answer the marijuana questions. You know why? I don’t want some little kid doing what I tried.”

He was contemptuous of Mr Gore, his 2000 opponent, calling him “pathologically, a liar”.

The tapes reveal Mr Bush to have plenty of confidence. On the eve of his re-election as Texas Governor in 1998 he said of the Republican candidates below him on the state election ticket: “I hate to be a braggart, but they are going to win for one reason: me.”

When Mr Wead told him that power corrupts, Mr Bush said: “I have a great wife. And I read the Bible daily. The Bible is pretty good at keeping your ego in check.”

Mr Wead said that he had revealed the tapes because Mr Bush “is going to be a huge historical figure”. But he also has a book on presidential childhoods to sell.

A White House spokesman said: “The Governor was having casual conversations with someone he believed was his friend.”

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