ASHINGTON - When his two sons ran for governor last year, George Bush wrote them a letter, advising both not to worry about political stories that ''contrast you favorably to a father who had no vision and who was but a place holder in the broader scheme of things.''
George W., the governor of Texas, and Jeb, running in Florida, had told their mother they were concerned about his feelings. The former president told them he was not bothered by stories ''that compare you to a Dad for whom English was a second language and for whom the word destiny meant nothing.
''So read my lips ... no more worrying.''
This week, George Bush releases a book of letters, notes, and diary entries written during a 60-year span that reveal insecurities, sentimentality, and flashes of humor from a man who shunned introspection and ''the vision thing'' when he was in the White House.
In a prologue, Bush said he had no interest in writing a memoir. But friends talked him into collecting his letters, and one of his sons, the governor of Florida, says readers might be surprised.
''People don't think of him as giving eloquent, Reaganesque speeches, but he has always been an eloquent letter-writer,'' Jeb Bush said recently. ''They show a little about what kind of man he is.''
''All the Best, George Bush'' captures the nervous young Navy pilot who can also joke with his mother about the pros and cons of ''necking,'' and a president haunted by thoughts of death as he launches the Gulf War ground attack in 1991.
''I've been plagued by the image of body bags,'' he writes in his diary. ''Everybody who opposed this war ... raised body bags, body bags, and it gets to my heart.''
They also show the anxieties of a father watching his two sons in the political arena. He writes a friend on Election Day last fall that he is ''one pathetic nervous wreck'' waiting for the returns, and then mentions that he and Barbara are conspiring to surprise Jeb that night in Miami ... but only if he wins.
''I don't want to be with Jeb if he loses,'' he wrote. ''It would hurt him even more to have us there.''
Both sons won, of course, and now George W. is setting his sights on the White House his father left six years ago. The proud former president, now 75, gives this very nonobjective appraisal of his two governor-sons:
On George W.: ''He is good, this boy of ours. He is uptight at times, feisty at other times. ... He includes people. He has no sharp edges on issues. He is no ideologue, no divider. ... All this talk about his wild youth days is pure nuts. His character will pass muster with flying colors.''
On Jeb: ''There is no question in my mind that he will become a major political figure in the country. He is passionate in his caring and in his beliefs. He speaks well and at 6'4'' is an impressive man.''
The sons, along with the rest of the family, gave Bush plenty of grief two years ago when he decided that making a parachute jump at the age of 73 was ''something I had to do.''
''You're crazy,'' his wife told him. ''Are you kidding?'' said George W.
''Next was Jeb. He fully understood. Never one for idle chatter, Jeb says what he means and then hangs up: `Fine, Dad, but don't change your sexual preference.' I put him down as a positive.''
Amid the letters to Gorbachev, Reagan, Nixon, and other world leaders, there are short notes, often bluntly written, that reveal some of Bush's feelings and vulnerabilities.
He acknowledges that losing the 1992 election was very painful and caused self-doubt. ''It hurt, hurt, hurt,'' he told a friend.
A few weeks later, he was at his mother Dorothy's bedside as she was dying. ''There is no way to really describe the emotions I felt,'' he wrote in his diary. ''She lay on a pillow, tiny, fighting hard for every breath ... Doro (his daughter) and I sat next to her bed sobbing.''
Bush fired off a note to Nicholas Brady, his treasury secretary, after his election defeat: ''The economy was slow and lousy. I got the blame; so did you.''
He wrote a short, chatty letter to his nephew John that makes light of a celebrated incident in Japan: ''Just back from barfing on Miyazawa [the Japanese prime minister] to find your good letter ...''
The letters also reveal a man still angry at media criticism who wants to strike back. ''I miss the crowd reaction, frankly,'' he wrote a friend, Vic Gold, six years after the 1992 election. ''No more wimp, no more nice guy ... I was out there in the raw meat department stirring the passions of the crowd ... I was settling old scores. Oh, how I loved it.''
One student of the presidency, historian Stephen Wayne, said Bush's decision to release years of letters might simply be an effort to enhance his place in history.
''Parts of it sound quite moving, and he doesn't take himself too seriously,'' said Wayne, who has written several books on the presidency. ''But he always had high ratings for his personal qualities ... people just didn't see him as a strong leader.''
Bush's letter-writing days are far from over, and he reveals that he has gone high-tech:
''Twelve months ago I was a fax man or a phone man. Now I e-mail everyone in the office and tons of people outside the office. I am hooked. I know how to hit the `reply' button and to use the paper clip to forward documents ... and I can forward Monica Lewinsky jokes.''
