Bush, George H. W. 1924-

BIBLIOGRAPHY

When George Herbert Walker Bush became the forty-first president of the United States on January 20, 1989, he entered the Oval Office as one of the most experienced political figures to become president in modern times. He had just completed eight years as Ronald Reagan’s vice president, and before that had served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and to China, had headed both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Republican National Committee, and had been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas. When he left the White House four years later, Bush’s presidency seemed far more successful in terms of foreign policy than in economic policy.

Bush, born into one of the United States’ most influential families, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University after flying fifty-eight missions as a naval aviator during World War II (1939–1945). After graduation Bush moved to Texas to enter the oil business and, eventually, Republican politics. He first ran for president as a Republican moderate in 1980 and became Ronald Reagan’s running mate despite criticizing Reagan’s fiscal policies as “voodoo economics.” Despite Reagan’s reliance on Bush throughout the 1980s, the vice president became the 1988 G.O.P. nominee only after defeating several more conservative rivals. Bush then defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts in a tough campaign waged over prison furloughs and flag burning and marked by Bush’s vow: “Read my lips: no new taxes.”

As president, Bush pursued a centrist course legislatively, winning support from Democratic majorities in Congress for social programs such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 1990 Clean Air Act. As the federal budget deficit expanded, Bush agreed in 1990 to tax increases that he previously had vowed to oppose.

Bush’s four years as president were marked by many foreign policy challenges, most notably the collapse of communist governments across Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself. Bush’s diplomatic negotiating secured reductions in superpower nuclear arsenals, a peaceful end to the cold war, the reunification of Germany, and the development of democratic nation-states in areas that had been under Soviet control for decades. Bush had less success in handling China, which brutally crushed prodemocracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989, killing or injuring thousands. When Iraqi president Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990, the diplomatically oriented president built an international coalition that dislodged the dictator from Kuwait.

Bush’s 89 percent approval rating after the first Gulf War in early 1991 deterred many prominent Democrats from running for president in 1992. The eventual Democratic nominee, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, focused on public anxieties over the state of jobs under Bush. Ross Perot, an independent presidential candidate, also attacked Bush’s economic policies, saying the president’s policies would trigger “a giant sucking sound” as U.S. jobs moved to Mexico. Voters did focus on the economy, not on Bush’s foreign policy performance. In addition, some Republicans were angered by what they viewed as Bush’s broken promise on taxes. In the end, Clinton received 43 percent of the vote, Bush received 38 percent, and Perot received 19 percent.

SEE ALSO Bush, George W.; Gorbachev, Mikhail; Gulf War of 1991; Hussein, Saddam

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bush, George H. W. 1999. All The Best: My Life in Letters and Other Writings. New York: Scribner.

Bush, George H. W., and Brent Scowcroft. 1998. A World Transformed. New York: Vintage.

Campbell, Colin, and Bert A. Rockman, eds. 1991. The George W. Bush Presidency: First Appraisals. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.

Farnsworth, Stephen J., and S. Robert Lichter. 2006. The Mediated Presidency: Television News and Presidential Governance. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Fitzwater, Marlin. 1995. Call The Briefing! New York: Times Books.

Greene, John Robert. 2000. The Presidency of George Bush. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

Pomper, Gerald M., ed. 1989. The Election of 1988: Reports and Interpretations. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.

Pomper, Gerald M., ed. 1993. The Election of 1992: Reports and Interpretations. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.

Woodward, Bob. 1999. Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Stephen J. Farnsworth