Bush, George

Bush, George (1924–), forty‐first president of the United States.George Herbert Walker Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to Dorothy Pierce Bush and Prescott Bush Sr. a businessman and later (1953–1963) a U.S. Senator from Connecticut. After graduating from Philips Andover Academy, Bush served as a naval pilot in the Pacific, flying fifty‐eight missions during World War II. On his return, he married Barbara Pierce of Rye, New York, and then attended Yale College, playing on the baseball team and graduating in 1948.

Rejecting a career on Wall Street (where his father was a partner in the brokerage firm of Brown Brothers Harriman), Bush moved to West Texas, where he formed a successful oil‐exploration company before moving to Houston and entering politics. Running as a Republican, he campaigned unsuccessfuly to unseat incumbent Senator Ralph Yarborough in 1964. Two years later, Bush was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's Seventh District. After losing another Senate race to Democrat Lloyd Bentsen in 1970, Bush served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during the Richard M. Nixon administration, and then as chair of the Republican National Committee during the Watergate scandals and Nixon's resignation in August 1974.

Under President Gerald Ford, Bush headed the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing, China, before returning to Washington to run the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). As CIA director, Bush helped to revive the agency's morale, which had been damaged by embarrassing exposés of its covert operations. Leaving the CIA in 1977 when Democrat Jimmy Carter became president, Bush launched his campaign for the White House. After unsuccessfully contesting Ronald Reagan for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, Bush accepted the vice‐presidential slot. Following the landslide Republican victory that fall, Bush served President Reagan loyally and participated in the secret arms‐for‐hostages trade with the Islamic fundamentalist government of Iran. Attempting to minimize damage to his political career, Bush alleged that he had been “out of the loop” during the most intense dealings of the so‐called Iran‐Contra affair.

Bush won the presidency in 1988 by defeating his Democratic opponent, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, with a sweep of forty states and 53.4 percent of the popular vote. Facing Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, the Bush administration achieved its most notable successes in foreign affairs, the area of Bush's primary interest and preparation. Bush worked skillfully with President Mikhail Gorbachev during the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he responded forcefully to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 by organizing economic and military resistance through the United Nations and the Arab League. In early 1991, a U.S.‐led coalition ejected Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait, thereby preserving a favorable balance of power in the oil‐rich Persian Gulf. Bush also promoted U.S. interests in Central America by overseeing an end to Sandinista control in Nicaragua following free elections, and by forcibly removing dictator Manuel Noriega from power in Panama and extradicting him to the United States to face drug‐smuggling charges.

The Bush domestic record proved less impressive. The president's few achievements included the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) and a bipartisan five‐year budget agreement (1991) that attempted to tame the spiraling federal deficits of the 1980s. The budget agreement forced Bush to renounce his “Read my lips: No new taxes” pledge. That, combined with a lingering economic downturn, contributed to his reelection defeat in 1992. A favorable public opinion rating of 89 percent reached during of the Persian Gulf crisis could not be sustained, as Bush faced the additional complication of Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot's independent candidacy and the skillful campaigning of his Democratic opponent, Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas. The distribution of the popular vote—Clinton 43 percent, Bush 38 percent, Perot 18 percent—demonstrated the significance of the third‐party candidate in the final outcome.

Highly popular at its peak, George Bush's administration made an effective transition to what Bush called “a new world order,” and, despite the prolonged recession, contributed to long‐term stability at home.

Of the Bushes' five surviving children, two entered politics. John E. (“Jeb”) Bush (1953–) won the Florida governorship in 1998, while George W. Bush (1946–) was elected Texas governor in 1994 and reelected in 1998. In 2000, in a very close and disputed election, he defeated Democrat Al Gore to win the presidency with running mate Dick Cheney, resulting in the first father‐son presidential succession since John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
See also Cold War; Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations with Latin America; Persian Gulf War; Post–Cold War Era.

Bibliography

David Mervin , George Bush and the Guardianship Presidency, 1994.
Herbert S. Parmet , George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee, 1997.
George W. Bush and and Brent Scowcroft , A World Transformed, 1998.

Herbert S. Parmet