LEADER DEFINED BY WIN AND LOSS
41st president triumphed abroad but lost re-election
George Herbert Walker Bush, the linchpin of an American political dynasty whose presidency saw the end of the Cold War and the close of an era of American bipartisanship that conflict fostered, has died.
He was 94.
The World War II hero, who also presided during the collapse of the Soviet Union, died late Friday night, said family spokesman Jim McGrath. His wife of more than 70 years, Barbara Bush, died in April.
The son of a senator and father of a president, Bush was the man with the golden resume who rose through the political ranks: from congressman to U.N. ambassador, Republican Party chairman to envoy to China, CIA director to two-term vice president under the hugely popular Ronald Reagan. The 1991 Gulf War 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.”
During his single term in the White House, the Berlin Wall fell, newly democratic states sprang up across Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union came to an end. And in the Middle East, the U.S. military launched its most successful offensive since World War II.
For a time, Bush rode foreign policy triumphs to wide popularity; his approval ratings were higher than those of Reagan. Yet, he would end up humbled and humiliated, undermined by a revolt within his own party when he broke his pledge not to raise taxes, buffeted by economic decline, then defeated for reelection in 1992, receiving less support than any incumbent president in 80 years.
The chasm between Bush’s achievements and his standing with the American public is a paradox that defines but doesn’t fully explain the legacy of the 41st president of the United States.
That legacy would, however, live on in part through his son, George W. Bush, who in 2000 would be elected president and go on to win the second term that had eluded his father. The son’s own trials — and key decisions in which he departed from his father’s course — would result in a more generous reappraisal of the elder Bush’s tenure.
The 43rd president issued a statement Friday following his father's death, saying the elder Bush “was a man of the highest character.”
“The entire Bush family is deeply grateful for 41's life and love, for the compassion of those who have cared and prayed for Dad,” the statement read.
The two were the second father and son to share the presidency, after John and John Quincy Adams. In 2016, his second son, John Ellis, known as Jeb, sought the Republican presidential nomination but was badly beaten by the eventual winner, Donald Trump.
Bush was the last in a remarkable line of eightAmerican presidents, beginning with Dwight Eisenhower, whose lives had been shaped by World War II and the rivalry with the Soviets that followed it. His tenure marked a dual transition — from presidencies dominated by the Cold War to a renewed focus on domestic affairs and from an America still largely run by the long-dominant white, Protestant establishment of which he was a product to a nation both more diverse and fractious.
His inability to master those transitions doomed a presidency to which he initially had appeared ideally suited by background and training.
Until his defeat in 1992 at the hands of Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush — as he became known after his son’s rise to power — had lived what many called a charmed life, one largely dedicated to government service.
He had been a college athlete, a Navy pilot and war hero, a business success, a congressman, a diplomat, the director of the nation’s intelligence service, vice president and, finally, president.
But while he was adept at rising within the inner circles of business and government, he often seemed out of place when trying to communicate with voters.
His post-presidential life, too, defied easy categorization. While he earned millions of dollars giving speeches and serving on corporate boards, he also re-emerged in the public eye for his humanitarian work with former rival Clinton in the wake of the tsunami that devastated southern Asia in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded Bush the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He is survived by sons, George, Jeb, Neil and Marvin; their daughter, Dorothy; 17 grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren; and three siblings. A daughter, Robin, died of leukemia in 1953.
George H.W. Bush was born in Milton, Mass., on June 12, 1924, and raised in Greenwich, Conn., one of New York’s wealthiest suburbs. His father, Prescott Bush, was a leading light of the Eastern establishment and a U.S. senator.
During Bush’s senior year at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, plunging the United States into war. When he enlisted on his 18th birthday he became the youngest pilot in the Navy. But his naval career nearly ended after his plane was struck over the Pacific by Japanese antiaircraft fire. His plane aflame, he delivered his bombs on target before bailing out. For his exploits, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Rotated home in time for Christmas in 1944, Bush two weeks later married Barbara Pierce. After graduation from Yale, Bush turned down a job offer on Wall Street from his uncle Herbert Walker and decided instead to take his wife and son George to Texas to seek his fortune in the oil business. By Bush’s early 40s, oil had made him a millionaire.
Bush began to carve out a career in politics, serving two terms as a congressman from Texas and failing twice at a bid for a U.S. Senate seat. President Richard Nixon named him ambassador to the United Nations in 1970, where he served for two years.
Nixon yanked him from that world, however, naming him chairman of the Republican National Committee just as the Watergate scandal was brewing. True to his code of personal loyalty, Bush defended Nixon until the end. President Gerald Ford rewarded him by naming him as the U.S. representative to China, but recalled him to take over the CIA, then under assault from Congress for improprieties around the globe.
In the Iowa caucuses, the first official contest of the 1980 presidential campaign, Bush scored a stunning upset over the overwhelming favorite, Reagan. In a few weeks, however, Reagan recovered and defeated Bush decisively in the New Hampshire primary.
Bush’s candidacy was memorable chiefly for his description of the Reagan campaign’s supply-side economic proposals. “Voodoo economics,” he called it. He uttered the phrase only once, but he never heard the end of it.
By May, Bush was forced to drop out of the race. But he had made enough of an impression for Reagan to select him as running mate.
But as the 1988 presidential election approached, a new obstacle to his ambitions loomed in the form of the Iran-Contra scandal and suspicion about his possible role. Though it required him to confess being “not in the loop,” the vice president repeatedly denied any knowledge of the deal to trade arms to gain the release of hostages held by Iran, and his candidacy weathered the storm.
Bush arrived at the GOP convention a perceived underdog to the Democratic Party nominee, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. He found it difficult to articulate what he wanted to accomplish as president — “the vision thing,” as he once famously called it. Still, he carried 40 states and 54 percent of the popular vote.
In the fall of 1989, barely a year after his election, the Berlin Wall fell and the pillars of the exhausted Soviet Union began to crumble. Reagan received most of the credit for what Americans perceived as their victory after four decades of the
Cold War. But Bush was able to ride a surge of hope and optimism that stirred the nation and the world, even as critics complained that he was too slow to react to the convulsive changes.
Then, in the summer and fall of 1990, Bush made two decisions — one foreign, one domestic — that came to define his term in office.
On Aug. 2, 1990, Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, sent his army across the border to quickly overrun his country’s tiny, oil-rich neighbor, Kuwait. Within weeks, Bush had set in motion a massive U.S. military buildup, the largest since the Vietnam War. With minimal debate or explanation, he made the reversal of Iraq’s aggression the central purpose of his presidency.
Bush personally undertook the diplomatic mobilization. He succeeded in orchestrating, through the United Nations Security Council, a worldwide embargo against Iraq, along with authorization for a multinational military force based in Saudi Arabia.
In January 1991, after a massive air bombardment, a U.S.-led coalition of forces launched a ground offensive that achieved victory within 100 hours.
Even as Bush orchestrated the Gulf War alliance, he was wrestling with Congress over how to handle the large budget deficits he had inherited from Reagan. Democrats insisted they would accept the spending cuts Bush sought only if he agreed to higher taxes. Bush’s budget director, Richard Darman, and some congressional Republicans urged the president to accept a deal. Others, led by the House’s third-ranking Republican, Newt Gingrich, opposed the idea.
Late in 1990, Bush accepted a compromise — breaking his “no new taxes” vow. The move helped tame the deficit. But it set off a revolt that weakened Bush within the party.
Then, in 1991, Bush’s nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, and the accompanying sexual harassment allegations that turned Thomas’ confirmation hearing into national theater, further boosted partisan animosities.
The final blow came from a recession that took hold in 1990 and raised unemployment during the rest of Bush’s presidency.
Meanwhile, he faced a youthful rival in Clinton, who seemed to signal a new American era, and he was dragged down by a thirdparty challenge from Texas billionaire Ross Perot, who drained votes from Bush.
At the end, Bush received 38 percent of the popular vote, a shocking outcome 21 months after the swift and nearly bloodless liberation of Kuwait had made many view his re-election as inevitable. No incumbent had done so badly since William Howard Taft in 1912.
Despite his family’s political accomplishments, the elder Bush disliked the idea that his family was viewed as a “dynasty” with a “legacy.”
“Those two words, ‘dynasty’ and ‘legacy’ — irritate me,” Bush told The New York Times in 2000. “We don’t feel entitled to anything.”