George H. W. Bush

President of the United States (1989–1993)

• Born: June 12, 1924
• Birthplace: Milton, Massachusetts
• Died: November 30, 2018
• Place of death: Houston, Texas

Bush’s term as the forty-first president of the United States included a significant legacy in foreign affairs. During his tenure, the world saw the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, and, most directly, it witnessed the end of Saddam Hussein’s advance into Kuwait during the Gulf War.

Early Life

George H. W. Bush was the second son of Prescott and Dorothy Bush. His father was a prominent New England businessman and a US senator from Connecticut, while his mother was the daughter of George Herbert Walker, a wealthy businessman who endowed the Walker Cup golf prize.

Bush grew up with four siblings in Greenwich, Connecticut, and was active in sports. He went to the prestigious preparatory school at Andover, fully expecting to go to Yale University, as his father had. However, his educational plans were derailed by World War II; the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Bush swore to avenge his fallen countrymen, and on his eighteenth birthday was sworn into the US Navy and sent to Pensacola, Florida, for flight training. He then went to the Pacific, where he flew missions from an aircraft carrier, and was the sole survivor in an attack that downed his plane on September 7, 1944. He was rescued by the US submarine Finback and promptly returned to his squadron. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross before returning to civilian life and his college education.

The end of the war also marked the end of Bush’s bachelor days, as he married his longtime girlfriend, Barbara Pierce, on January 6, 1945. They had six children, two of whom, George W. Bush (president, 2001–2009) and Jeb Bush (governor of Florida, 1998–2007), would follow him into politics.

At Yale, Bush excelled at both academics and sports, and he was the captain of his baseball team. He was good enough at the sport to have pursued a career in professional baseball, but he was more interested in business. After being turned down by his first choice of employers, he found work in Odessa, Texas, and entered the oil business. It would not take long before he built a fortune in lease-and-drill oil prospecting. During this period the Bush family endured the death of three-year-old daughter Robin from leukemia. By the end of the 1950s, Bush was a leading businessman in Texas, but he felt restless and had a growing sense that he ought to be giving back to his community.

Life’s Work

In 1962, Bush began his political career by running for the chairmanship of the Harris County Republican committee to forestall a takeover of the committee by members of the ultraconservative John Birch Society. He became an active political campaigner for Republican candidates and developed, in the process, a network of friends and associates far beyond his circle of business connections. These new associates would become powerful supporters when it came time for him to run for office in his own right.

Bush’s bid for office arrived in 1964, when he ran for the US Senate and lost. Two years later he was elected to the House of Representatives from the newly created Houston seventh district. He was reelected in 1968 but, in 1970, decided to give up his congressional seat for a second try at the Senate. Although unsuccessful, Bush had done well enough that he now had the confidence of then president Richard M. Nixon, who had campaigned on his behalf.

On December 11, 1970, Bush was appointed US ambassador to the United Nations, a position that led him to make more influential connections on a broader level. However, he also had to face the death of his father, Prescott Bush, on October 8, 1972. This personal crisis was followed by the public debacle of the Watergate scandal, a blow to the prestige of the Republican Party and a major setback for Bush’s career. By this point, Bush had become chair of the Republican National Committee, and in that capacity he was present at the critical August 6, 1974, cabinet meeting in which Nixon sought to fight demands for his resignation. Although Bush was not supposed to be an active participant, he told Nixon that Watergate was destroying the country’s confidence in its leadership. As such, he said, it was essential that Nixon resign. Bush’s actions, along with Senator Barry Goldwater’s warning to Nixon that he no longer had enough support to prevent his own impeachment, were critical to Nixon’s decision resign from the presidency days later.

Bush then went to Beijing as ambassador to China, serving until the final months of 1975, when he was called to return to the United States to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He held this position for a single year, yet in many ways that year was a defining moment for him. As CIA director he made major changes in the top tier of the agency’s leaders, and he staved off several attempts to politicize the agency’s mission.

Bush’s tenure as CIA director ended, however, after President Gerald R. Ford lost to Democrat Jimmy Carter in the elections of 1976. For the next few years Bush concentrated on developing his political connections, and on May 1, 1979, he formally filed papers as a candidate for president. Although he was a strong contender in the Iowa primaries, he was soon overshadowed by Ronald Reagan. Reagan was so impressed by Bush’s early showings and his talent for developing personal friendships that he was convinced that Bush could be his running mate on the Republican ticket. On November 4, 1980, Reagan and Bush won the elections, and Bush was the new vice president.

Although a previous incumbent of that office, John Nance Garner, spoke derisively of the vice presidency as not being "worth a bucket of warm spit," Bush served conscientiously, becoming a junior partner to Reagan. When Reagan underwent two major surgeries during his second term of office, Bush became the acting US president, as would any vice president in a similar situation, for the duration of the operation.

The vice presidency was a sort of apprenticeship for Bush, as he was elected president on November 8, 1988, beating Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis. Bush’s term, however, soon faced major problems. First, the Senate refused to confirm his choice for secretary of defense. Second, the massacre of Chinese students and workers at Tiananmen Square in Beijing immediately followed the Bush administration’s public relations victory with the fall of the Berlin Wall. These events in China and East Germany served to remind the world that communism was both fading (in the case of East Germany) and persistent (in the case of China). Also, Bush’s nominee for the US Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, was involved in a controversial confirmation process that included allegations of sexual harassment against Thomas and accusations by Thomas that the confirmation process was a "high-tech lynching."

On the domestic front, Bush faced the failure and subsequent bailout of the savings and loan industry, the Exxon Valdex oil spill, and a government shutdown over budget negotiations with the Democratically-held Congress. The year 1990 saw his passage of the two pieces of domestic legislation for which he is best remembered: the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Clean Air Amendments Act. However, conservative critics charged that the former would harm the business community and represented government overreach and that both were too costly.

The greatest crisis of the Bush administration came on August 2, 1990, when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ordered his forces to attack and then annex Kuwait. Announcing that the annexation was not acceptable, Bush presided over a rapid buildup of American and coalition forces in Saudi Arabia in what was called Operation Desert Storm (January 17, 1991). After strikes against Iraqi troops that lasted less than six weeks, Hussein was forced to withdraw his soldiers from Kuwait. Although many felt that coalition forces, led by American general H. Norman Schwarzkopf, should have advanced to Baghdad and ousted Hussein, Bush honored United Nation mandates and halted the coalition advance just inside the Iraqi border with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

By the end of Desert Storm, Bush’s approval ratings were at an all-time high. However, the ratings came too early to help him win reelection. By the time November 3, 1992, arrived, the US economy had run into serious difficulties, and the electorate turned instead to the Democratic candidate, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton .

After Bush left office, he settled into a life of public service. On November 7, 2000, he saw his son, George W. Bush, become president, making the older Bush only the second president to have a son win the presidency. Bush did not interrupt his son’s work as president, even after the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001. Bush offered advice only when specifically asked by his son. Bush witnessed the ouster of Hussein in 2003, an accomplishment that bypassed him during his time in office.

In June 2004 Bush was awarded the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award. A year later he returned to the national spotlight when he teamed up with former president Bill Clinton—with whom he had become friends—to work on relief efforts and fund-raising after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, and again in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. In 2011 Bush was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

Bush's health declined in his later years, with several health scares making national headlines. By 2012 he was largely confined to a wheelchair due to Parkinson's disease, and in 2013 he was hospitalized for an extended period with bronchitis. In 2015 he suffered a fall and broke a bone in his neck, though the incident was not life threatening. In 2017, he also dealt with allegations of sexual harassment at a time when many politicians and celebrities were facing accusations, though in his case the reports had little impact on his reputation. Bush's wife, Barbara, died in April 2018 and soon after Bush entered the hospital with sepsis due to an infection, though he recovered and was released. Bush died at the age of ninety-four on November 30, 2018, at his Houston home. Individuals on both sides of the political spectrum united in memorializing him as a highly respected figure.

Significance

Bush’s single term in office lies between the two-term presidencies of Reagan and Clinton, but he was not merely a transitional figure. His strongest legacy is his work in foreign affairs. He helped bring an end to communism, witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and, ultimately, the fall of the Soviet Union and an end to the Cold War. In the firm resolve he displayed in the face of Hussein’s aggression against Kuwait, and in his leadership in prosecuting the war of liberation that rolled back the Iraqi annexation of the small nation, Bush did a great deal to undo the damage to American confidence that was done by the Vietnam War. Had he not led American forces to victory in the Gulf War, his son likely would have had a far greater challenge in responding to the attacks of September 11 by invading Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. However, Bush is also remembered for the controversial legacy of the Gulf War, his failure to connect with the American people on domestic issues, and the other controversies during his presidency.

Bibliography

Barilleaux, Ryan J., and Mark J. Rozell. Power and Prudence: The Presidency of George H. W. Bush. College Station: Texas A&M UP, 2004. Print.

Bush, George. All the Best: G. Bush, My Life in Letters and Other Writings. New York: Scribner, 1999. Print.

Bush, George. Heartbeat: George Bush in His Own Words. New York: Scribner, 2001. Print.

Cull, Nicholas J. "Speeding the Strange Death of American Public Diplomacy: The George H. W. Bush Administration and the U.S. Information Agency." Diplomatic History 34.1 (2010): 47–69. Print.

Engel, Jeffrey A. "A Better World . . . but Don't Get Carried Away: The Foreign Policy of George H. W. Bush Twenty Years On." Diplomatic History 34.1 (2010): 25–46. Print.

Himelfarb, Richard, and Rosanna Perott, eds. Principle over Politics? The Domestic Policy of the George H. W. Bush Presidency. Westport: Praeger, 2004. Print.

Khadduri, Majid, and Edmund Ghareeb. War in the Gulf, 1990–91: The Iraq-Kuwait Conflict and Its Implications. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Print.

Knott, Stephen, ed. "George H. W. Bush: Domestic Affairs." American Presidents. Miller Center, U of Virginia, 2015. Web. 4 Sept. 2015.

Levantrosser, William, and Rosanna Perotti, eds. A Noble Calling: Character and the George H. W. Bush Presidency. Westport: Praeger, 2004. Print.

Nagourney, Adam. "George Bush, Who Steered Nation in Tumultuous Times, Is Dead at 94." The New York Times, 30 Nov. 2018,www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/us/politics/george-hw-bush-dies.html. Accessed 3 Dec. 2018.

Parmet, Herbert S. George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee. New York: Scribner, 1997. Print.

Solomon, John. "A Wimp He Wasn't." Newsweek 28 Mar. 2011: 48–51. Print.

Wicker, Tom. George Herbert Walker Bush. New York: Viking, 2004. Print.