41. GEORGE HW BUSH (Watch out for that tree)
Born: June 12, 1924, Milton, Massachusetts
Died: November 30, 2018, Houston, Texas
Term: January 20, 1989- January 20, 1993
Political Party: Republican
Vice President: Dan Quayle
First Lady: Barbara Pierce Bush
Before the Presidency: George Bush was born into a wealthy family. Though wealthy, his parents insisted on modesty and public service. In fact, George’s father, Prescott Bush, would become a well-known Senator from Connecticut.
As a teenager, Bush attended a boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts. There, he excelled at soccer and baseball and was the Senior Class President. Upon graduation from the school on his eighteenth birthday, Bush signed up for the United States Navy.
Bush became a Navy pilot in 1943, earning the distinction as the youngest pilot in the Navy. He flew fifty-eight missions and was even shot down by Japanese fire. Luckily, he was recovered by a submarine and would be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Back home and still in the Navy, Bush married Barbara Pierce. They would raise six children including sons George W. and Jeb, both of whom would follow in their father’s footsteps. After his discharge from the Navy, Bush entered Yale University where he majored in economics. At Yale, Bush captained the baseball team and was a member of the secretive Skull and Bones society.
Bush was an adventurous sort and he moved to Texas in 1948. Two years later, he would form an oil company with a friend of his. By 1954, the company had expanded into Zapata Off-Shore Company. Buoyed by the success, Bush moved the family to Houston.
In Houston, Bush started his own political career as the chair of the Harris County Republican Party. Bush was a conservative and he had a way of working with people. In 1964, Bush ran for the Senate against incumbent Senator Ralph Yarborough, but he couldn’t escape the carpetbagger tag and Yarborough would be re-elected.
Bush fared better in his run for a House seat in 1966. Running as a Moderate Republican, he would be elected to two terms. He could have been elected to a third, but Bush thought he could beat the very liberal Yarborough in the 1970 Senate election. But the Democrats thought so too, and they nominated Conservative Lloyd Bentsen instead. Bush was going home.
He wasn’t home for long though. In December 1970, President Nixon appointed Bush as US Ambassador to the United Nations. He wasn’t very effective as he wasn’t part of Nixon’s inner circle (luckily for him in retrospect) but he was able to make friends and connections on his own and he proved to be quite adept at his position.
Nixon removed Bush as UN Ambassador in 1973 and asked him to be Chairman of the Republican National Committee, mainly because he was what Nixon wasn’t, honorable and with great integrity. Bush tirelessly defended Nixon throughout Watergate until the tapes were released. It was then Bush who advised Nixon that he had lost the support of his own party. Though not the final straw (that was likely Goldwater), it did eventually help Nixon on his decision to resign in 1974. Bush, subsequently, resigned as RNC Chairman soon after.
Bush’s career was far from over, however. President Ford quickly appointed him as the US Envoy to China. Bush was in his element there as he absorbed the culture especially. The liaison position would be short lived, however, as President Ford had a new position for him, CIA Director. The CIA was in desperate need for reform and Bush was seen as someone that could bring integrity back to the organization. Bush’s tenure there wouldn’t be long either as Ford would lose the 1976 election to Carter. So, the Bushes returned for Houston.
But the political career wasn’t over. He was already eying the 1980 Presidential nomination and he announced his candidacy in May 1979. Though considered the underdog to Reagan, he was seen as the more moderate (and thus, more electable) alternative. And, as a dark horse favorite, he surprised everyone by winning the Iowa Caucus and would be Reagan’s toughest competitor in the 1980 primaries.
In the end, though, it was Reagan’s nomination to lose, and he clearly didn’t. But Reagan was also a pragmatist in his own way, and he asked Bush to be his running mate. Bush accepted and the rest is history.
Bush proved to be a loyal Vice-President to Reagan as his own positions began turning to the right, especially on the abortion issue, something that put him at odds with his pro-choice wife. He also became a personal friend of Reagan’s and the two had weekly lunches. The Vice President also traveled widely and was on a number of task forces. He also was involved in foreign discussions and could be influential on such matters.
He also, though likely inadvertently, got tied up in the Iran-Contra Affair. And though there was never any proof, there were suspicions that he was not out of the loop as he insisted, and he would be investigated by a Special Prosecutor during his own Presidency.
In the meantime, Bush was getting ready for a Presidential run of his own.
Summary of offices held:
1942-1945: US Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade
1963-1964: Chairman, Harris County, Texas Republican Party
1967-1971: US House of Representatives
1971-1973: US Ambassador, United Nations
1973-1974: Chairman, Republican National Committee
1974-1975: Chief of the US Liaison Office to the People’s Republic of China
1976-1977: Director, Central Intelligence Agency
1981-1989: Vice President of the United States
What was going on: Invasion of Panama, Fall of the Berlin Wall, The Gulf War, recession, end of the Cold War
Scandals within his Presidency: Post Iran- Contra investigations and subsequent pardons
Why he was a good President: He can get some credit for the end of the Cold War as most of the Communist nations fell during his administration. While it is questionable whether we had a right to go to war with Iraq in the first place, he did show some restraint at the end. And there is also the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Why he was a bad President: He was a social conservative for the most part, and the Clarence Thomas nomination for the Supreme Court is now having some pretty chilling effects on basic freedoms today, all over the abortion issue basically. He also didn’t have a clue on how to handle the economy and seemed standoffish when people told him they were hurting.
What could have saved his Presidency: More of the kinder gentler conservative that he yearned to be at the GOP convention. A better grasp of the economic situation that he seemed to be ill prepared for.
What could have destroyed his Presidency: If the Gulf War turned out to be a disaster. Like it or not, the Gulf War is Bush’s lasting legacy and it saved him from being less than average.
Election of 1988: It was a foregone conclusion that Bush would run for the Presidency in 1988 but the nomination wasn’t etched in stone like it had been for Reagan. For one thing, he had to contend with the strong Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, and he would launch an aggressive campaign against Bush, who had been seen by some as a softie. Evangelist Pat Robertson was also making a quixotic run for the nomination but, realistically, it was between Bush and Dole.
With the help of James Baker, a Chief of Staff of Reagan’s and one of Bush’s closest advisers, and down and dirty campaign manager, Lee Atwater, Bush overcame a slow start and was the clear choice by the time the Republican Convention took place in New Orleans. He picked the youthful conservative, Dan Quayle of Indiana, as his running mate and it would prove to be his only blunder in the general campaign. Bush also hoped to blunt out the harsher aspects of the Reagan Administration as he called for a kinder, gentler, nation. He also made the ill-fated pledge, “Read My lips: No new taxes.”
In the meantime, the Democrats seemed ready to take back the White House and close to a dozen candidates had their hat in the ring ranging from Jesse Jackson to Tennessee Senator Al Gore to Colorado Representative Pat Schroeder among others. Even a young Joe Biden was in the race briefly.
But it was former Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis who had the edge. He was a traditional liberal, but he was also seen as kind of bland. He certainly didn’t have the charisma of Jesse Jackson in particular or even the nerdy appeal of Illinois Senator Paul Simon. But he was strong as a policy wonk and, after what ended up as a three way race between, he, Jackson, and Gore, Dukakis emerged as the Democratic Candidate.
The general campaign was perhaps one of the nastiest in recent memory, not on Dukakis’ end so much, but on Bush’s. They successfully painted Dukakis as an extremist liberal (and, in many ways, a long political war against liberalism was beginning), and Bush famously confronted liberal newscaster Dan Rather in a TV interview.
The lowest point though was the Atwater led advertisement depicting the story of Willie Horton. He had been released under a Dukakis furlough program. Horton went on to rape a woman in Maryland. The Bush campaign jumped on the story and aired a commercial that clearly had racial overtones. It hurt Dukakis badly, but it also set race relations back a bit, even as Bush himself had African Americans in his inner circle.
And Dukakis didn’t do himself any favors either. After an Ill-advised photo op in a tank to prove he’d be tough on defense, he stumbled on a debate question about what he would do if his wife had been murdered. This was asked because Dukakis was an opponent of the death penalty. Dukakis didn’t give a straight answer, he simply iterated his opposition to the death penalty. It proved to be his death knell despite Dan Quayle’s screw up in the Vice Presidential debate when he tried to compare his experience to that of John Kennedy. Lloyd Bentsen, Dukakis’ running mate, pounced on the misstep when he declared that Quayle was no Jack Kennedy. Democrats afterwards wondered if Bentsen should have been their candidate instead of Dukakis.
But, alas, he wasn’t, and Bush would win an easy election in November.
First term: The first year of Bush’s term was very much a transformative year from a global standpoint as there were pro-democracy protests in China that Bush supported and the planned reunification of Germany which saw the Berlin Wall come down late in 1989. He also came up with a bailout plan during the back end of the Savings and Loan crisis that started in Ohio and Maryland in 1986 but by now had gone national. Another issue would be the ballooning deficit from the Reagan years that Bush had to decide how to handle.
But it would be foreign affairs and how to use the military that dominated Bush’s term, or at least the first half of it. By 1989, it was obvious that strongman Manuel Noriega of Panama was using his power to sell illegal drugs to cartels in the United States. Bush wanted to capture and try Noriega on drug charges in the States but that would mean violating International Law. No matter, just before Christmas 1989, The United States invaded Panama and Noriega would surrender just two weeks later. He would be tried in the States and convicted in 1992. He remains in prison to this day.
The most famous, or arguably infamous, period of Bush’s term would concern one Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Neighboring Kuwait was rich in oil reserves and Hussein decided he wanted the reserves for himself and Iraq. So, in the summer of 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait.
The Western World, and Bush in particular, were against the invasion, mainly because they thought it would affect oil prices in general but also because Iraq clearly violated international law. But the US only used invasion of Iraq as a veiled threat while forming a coalition that included not only most of Europe and a Soviet Union in transition, but also some key Arab states. Hussein responded by holding the British Embassy hostage and even, in a sinister way, stroke the head of some poor diplomat’s kid that outraged the British and Americans to no end. Invasion seemed inevitable.
And after one last demand for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait was denied, the Coalition invaded Iraq in what became known as the Gulf War. Bush was able to convince Israel to use restraint if attacked (and Iraq would attack the country with SCUD missiles in a vain hope that Israel would retaliate, and the other Arab countries would join him. Israel didn’t retaliate and the Arab countries didn’t turn towards Saddam). As for the war itself, it was over in a month and Saddam agreed to withdraw the troops from Kuwait. It was the high point of Bush’s Presidency, and he enjoyed record popularity numbers that were even higher than Reagan’s had been.
There was an argument on whether the US should have kept the war going until they had captured Hussein, but Bush and most of his advisors argued against that noting they would then have to win the peace if they actually occupied Iraq. A truly prophetic conclusion in wake of what Bush’s son would do a decade later.
In 1991, Bush’s numbers were at an all-time high, but all good things have to end. If Bush was a master at handling foreign affairs, he was all but a disaster when it came to the economy. He had already reneged on his no new taxes pledge when he signed a tax hike later in 1991. Even worse, the economy was taking such a hit that by 1992, the US was in yet another recession, the biggest since the early eighties. The war hero Bush was now seen as out of touch with the American Public and, despite signing the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act and seeing the reunification of Germany and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Bush’s election chances were not all that high.
Election of 1992: Bush had no trouble winning renomination but there were rumblings from the right wing of the party, who supported Nixon-era firebrand Pat Buchannan. Buchannan, in fact would prove to be a bit of an annoyance to the Bush family for years.
A bigger problem for Bush though would come from the maverick billionaire, H. Ross Perot, who decided to run as an independent. He formed the Reform Party and was gaining popularity as a tell it like it is centrist.
And, of course, the Democrats had their own candidate in former Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Clinton was a charismatic sort who had a knack of feeling empathy with the average voter while Bush came off as a bit unfeeling and even cold. It was something that was obvious in the three way debate between Bush, Clinton, and Perot as the differing personalities were front and center in front of a national audience. While Perot confused people with his down home slogans and Clinton looked like he almost wanted to hug people in pain, Bush stuck to his platform instead of empathizing and kept looking at his watch. It didn’t make for good optics. And Quayle, as usual, wasn’t much help either as we learned he couldn’t spell potato and he condemned a fictional character for being a single mother (guess she should have had an abortion then?).
We’ll never know how big a loss it would have been for Bush or if he would have been able to make the election closer thanks to Perot’s strong third party showing, but in the end, Clinton would score a fairly solid victory. President Bush was a one term President.
Post Presidency: After the Presidency, the Bushes returned to Houston where they lived quietly for the most part. That’s not to say Bush didn’t stay active, however. He stayed involved with various boards while also spending time at their Kennebunkport, Maine home.
Bush also would get involved in politics again as two of his sons were now pursuing political careers. Son Jeb seemed to be the one with the brighter future and the elder Bush aggressively campaigned for him in his quest for Governor of Florida, which he would win. George W., in the meantime, was running for Governor of Texas and Bush campaigned for him as well. Soon, he would have two sons as State Governors.
And in 2001, one of those sons would become President after a controversially close election. And though the younger Bush’s policies were sometimes conflicting with the elder’s, the Elder Bush let his son make his own mistakes.
Bush also teamed up with former President Bill Clinton with a campaign for relief after the Tsunami that hit Indonesia in 2004. Bush also had an organization known as the Thousand Points of Light Foundation that specialized in humanitarian endeavors.
In the end, Bush 41, as he was now called, became about as respected an elder statesman as one could possibly be, even going against the Republican tide when he acknowledged voting for Hillary Clinton instead of Trump in 2016.
George HW Bush died on November 30, 2018, at the age of 94.
Odd Notes: George Bush notoriously threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister.
Bush met Babe Ruth while playing baseball at Yale.
Final Summary: Again, I have to admit my liberal bias here, but socially, Bush would not lead my list of favorite Presidents. I’m also not a warmonger, so Bush doesn’t get many points on that score either.
But even if he acted indifferent in the public arena, he really did have a heart of gold. The Americans With Disabilities Act is enough proof of that plus some of his post presidency endeavors. No, he wasn’t exactly Jimmy Carter, but he didn’t just rest on his laurels either. Even when it came to race, as despicable as the Willie Horton ad was (and it may be partially responsible for the civil divide we have today), Bush himself wanted a diverse administration and he was especially close to his Security Advisor, Colin Powell. And he did raise taxes when he knew he’d take a big political hit. With him, America really did come first.
I just wish he had been a bit more moderate.
Overall rating: C
https://millercenter.org/president/bush