GEORGE H W BUSH 1924-2018
41st President sought a ‘kinder gentler America’
George H W Bush, whose presidency soared with the coalition victory over Iraq in Kuwait, but then plummeted in the throes of a weak economy that led voters to turn him out of office after a single term, has died. He was 94.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last night acknowledged his contribution to international affairs over his decades of service to the US.
‘‘As an American envoy to Beijing, as CIA director, as vicepresident for eight years and then four years as president, George H W Bush’s statesmanship played a key role in helping to end the Cold War, which brought democracy to millions of people in Europe and diminished the threat of nuclear war,’’ she said.
‘‘George H.W. Bush was a strong supporter of the international rules-based system, the rule of law and democratic values.’’
Family spokesman Jim McGrath said the World War II hero, who also presided during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the final months of the Cold War, died yesterday. His wife of more than 70 years, Barbara Bush, died in April 2018.
They had married in 1945 when Bush returned from war service. He had enlisted on his 18th birthday and was one of the youngest pilots in the Navy, flying missions off the carrier USS San Jacinto.
He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery after he was shot down in September 1944 while completing a bombing run against a Japanese radio tower. He was rescued by an American submarine, but his two crewmates perished.
In politics Bush was the man with the golden resume, rising through the ranks from congressman to United Nations ambassador, Republican Party chairman to envoy to China, CIA director to two-term vice-president under the hugely popular Ronald Reagan.
He entered the White House in 1989 with a reputation as a man of indecision and indeterminate views. One news magazine suggested he was a ‘‘wimp’’. But his work-hard, play-hard approach to the presidency won broad public approval.
He rode into office pledging to make the US a ‘‘kinder, gentler’’ nation and called on Americans to volunteer for good causes.
An avid outdoorsman, he sought to safeguard the environment and signed the first improvements to the Clean Air Act in more than a decade. He also signed the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act to ban workplace discrimination against people with disabilities and require improved access to public places and transportation.
The Iraq crisis of 1990-91 brought out all the skills he had honed in a quarter-century of politics and public service, and stoked his popularity. But Bush would acknowledge that he had trouble articulating ‘‘the vision thing’’, and he was haunted by his decision to break a stern, solemn vow he made to voters: ‘‘Read my lips. No new taxes.’’
Bush lost his bid for reelection to Bill Clinton.
Still, he lived to see his son, George W Bush, twice elected to the presidency, and became the patriarch of one of the nation’s most prominent political families.