OBITUARY
George HW Bush dies
● He was president for only four years, but George HW Bush shaped US history for decades, taking on tough jobs from Beijing to the CIA, ousting Iraqi forces from Kuwait, sealing a breakthrough budget deal that cost him an election and fathering a future president.
He died on Friday at the age of 94, his family said, seven months after the death of his wife, Barbara, to whom he was married for 73 years.
His presidency, which ran from 1989 to 1993, was defined by two events — his aggressive response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and the soon-to-be-broken “read my lips” pledge not to raise taxes that he made while running for president in 1988.
At a time when the Cold War was ending and Soviet influence was withering, Bush’s military and diplomatic actions firmly cast the US as the world’s leading superpower.
After Bush emphatically said Saddam’s aggression “will not stand”, USled forces routed Iraq’s army in the Gulf War, driving it from Kuwait but stopping short of taking Baghdad. Bush’s popularity rating soared to about 90%.
US involvement in the Gulf War was seen as a violation of Arab sovereignty by some in the Middle East, and led a few militant groups — namely Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda — to focus on fighting US influence. A decade later, the presidency of Bush’s son, George W Bush, would be jolted by al-Qaeda’s attacks on September 11 2001.
The Bush political dynasty included Bush snr’s father, who was a US senator, and son Jeb, a former governor of Florida who mounted his own run for the presidency in 2015 but dropped out after gaining little traction.
Bush snr did not endorse Donald Trump, who attacked both Jeb and George W Bush during his 2016 campaign. The elder Bush did not publicly say for whom he voted, but a source told CNN he went for the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.
Bush was a moderate Republican known for his diplomacy and ability to compromise with Democrats. He was a symbol of a relatively collegial period in Washington that nevertheless set the stage for the divisive gridlock that now plagues the US capital.
When he accepted the Republican nomination for president in 1988, Bush, then Ronald Reagan’s vice-president, was trying to win over conservatives who had more enthusiasm for Reagan. He answered questions about his conservatism with an emphatic pledge.
“Read my lips,” he told the Republican National Convention. “No new taxes.” Later, as president, Bush agreed to raise taxes to help reduce the government’s deficit.
The reversal angered conservatives and led in 1992 to an unusual primary challenge of the incumbent president by another Republican, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan.
Bush easily defeated Buchanan for the Republican nomination, but Bill Clinton ended up winning the race with just 43% of the popular vote.
Bush’s loss in 1992 made him a cautionary tale for a generation of Republicans, a lesson that endures in today’s showdowns over the federal budget and spending.
Years later, in 2014, Bush was honoured with the Profile in Courage Award for his 1990 budget compromise by the John F Kennedy Library Foundation, which praised the “decision to put country above party and political prospects”.
In issuing the award, the foundation wrote: “Although he recognised the 1990 budget deal might doom his prospects for re-election, he did what he thought was best for the country and has since been credited with helping to lay the foundation of the economic growth of the 1990s that followed.”
A major accomplishment of Bush’s presidency can be seen every day across the US — from the cut-away curbs on street intersections to the ramps outside buildings that allow access to those in wheelchairs.
They were mandated by the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act, the law Bush signed that barred discrimination against the disabled in the workplace and ensured them equal access to public facilities.
Bush was born on June 12 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts, into a patrician New England family, the son of financier Prescott Bush, who later would be elected to the US Senate from Connecticut, and Dorothy Bush.
He grew up in the posh New York City suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut, and was educated at exclusive private schools and Yale University.
Bush came to know war first-hand, leaving school at 18 to become the US Navy’s youngest pilot in World War 2. He flew 58 missions off carriers in the Pacific, was shot down at sea and rescued by a US submarine.
After the war, Bush rejected a Wall Street job and, aided by his father’s business connections, moved to West Texas to start an oil drilling firm.
He made a fortune and began a rise to national prominence by winning elections to the House of Representatives from Texas in 1966 and 1968.
President Richard Nixon appointed him ambassador to the UN in 1971, and two years later, Bush became chairman of the Republican National Committee. Another Republican president, Gerald Ford, appointed him as an envoy to China in 1974 and then director of the CIA.
After Reagan’s two terms, Bush breezed into office, thrashing the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, in 40 of the 50 US states.
Bush did not hesitate to use force as a foreign policy tool. Apart from driving Saddam’s forces from Kuwait, he sent paratroopers to overthrow Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega in December 1989.
He sent his secretary of state, James Baker, to the Middle East to set in motion a process that led to a 1991 Madrid peace conference and eventually the signing of a peace pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1993.
Queen Elizabeth awarded him an honorary knighthood in November 1993 for his leadership during the Gulf War.