Zapata Corporation split in 1959 into independent companies Zapata Petroleum, headed by the Liedtkes, and Zapata Off-Shore, headed by George H.W. Bush. Bush moved his offices and family that year from Midland, Texas to Houston.
According to a George H. W. Bush-biographer, Nicholas King, in the late-1950s and early-1960, Zapata Off-Shore concentrated its business in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Central American coast. The U.S. government began to auction off mineral rights to these areas in 1954. In 1958, drilling contracts with the seven large U.S. oil producers included wells 40 miles (64 km) north of Isabela, Cuba, near the island Cay Sal. In July 1959, Cuba's Batista government was overthrown by Fidel Castro. Zapata also won a contract with Kuwait.
In 1962, Bush was joined in Zapata Off-Shore by a fellow Yale Skull and Bones member, Robert Gow. By 1963, Zapata Off-Shore had four operational oil-drilling rigs—Scorpion (1956), Vinegaroon (1957), Sidewinder, and (in the Persian Gulf) Nola III.
By 1964, Zapata Off-Shore had a number of subsidiaries, including: Seacat-Zapata Offshore Company (Persian Gulf), Zapata de Mexico, Zapata International Corporation.
Various writers have suggested that Zapata Off-Shore, and Bush in particular, cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) beginning in the late 1950s.
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