Ex-presidents bond

last updated 8 January 2015

Sumatra, Indonesia

Bill Clinton slept on the floor so George H.W. Bush could have the only bed on the plane they used last month to tour tsunami-stricken Southeast Asia. “We could have switched places, each getting half a night on the bed, but he deferred to me,” Bush told Newsweek. “That was a very courteous thing, very thoughtful, and that meant a great deal to me.” Bush, 80, suffers from back pain, while Clinton, 58, recently had heart surgery and was scheduled for additional surgery this week. The two spent three days together on a fact-finding tour of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. “We’ve never been all that close,” Bush said, “but the nice thing about it was that there was a compatibility.”