George W Bush: I’m comfortable about my place in history

George W Bush, who has published an autobiography giving his view of his controversial presidency, talks to Andrew Roberts. Despite this publishing campaign, it is very clear that George W Bush doesn't really mind terribly what people think and say about him.

The last time I had seen George W Bush was at a dinner in the family dining room of the White House, just before he left office. He dropped into the conversation how that same afternoon his administration had nationalised the mortgage houses Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in order to prevent another Great Depression. He mentioned it with that natural insouciance that some people find infuriating, but which I find beguiling. Then he turned to the conversation he had had a few days before with Vladimir Putin about Georgia and South Ossetia. Here was someone who wore the cares of the greatest office of the Free World with confidence and lightness. So how would he be this week in Dallas on the day of the launch of his autobiography, Decision Points?

Although The New York Times described Bush this week as “still reviled”, he believes, as he puts it in Decision Points: “History’s perspective is broader.” Would the publication of his autobiography — an immensely readable and fascinating account of the key decision moments of his presidency told through the prism of his life — be the moment that the historical argument tips in his favour?

We meet in his office 14 storeys above the attractive Dallas suburb of Preston Center. A fit 64 year-old with an engaging wit and immense charm, Bush has set himself a tough goal: nothing less than to restore his reputation for statesmanship that was so badly battered over the past decade by the liberal media, anti-war movement and Left-wing political opponents.

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