Remembering the legacy of America’s 41st President
George H.W. Bush, a World War II hero 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, died on Friday, Nov. 30.
He was 94.
Bush, who also presided during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the final months of the Cold War, died at his Houston home, said family spokesman Jim McGrath.
Bush will be honored with a funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Saturday. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump will attend, she said.
Son of a senator, 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 twoterm 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.”
He lost his bid for re-election to Bill Clinton in a campaign in which businessman H. Ross Perot took almost 19 percent of the vote as an independent candidate. Still, he lived to see son George W. twice elected to the presidency — only the second father and son chief executives, following John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
The 43rd president issued a statement Friday following his father’s death, saying the elder Bush “was a man of the highest character.”
In the years after his presidency, George H.W. Bush came to be seen as a fundamentally decent and well-meaning leader who, though not a stirring orator or a visionary, was a steadfast humanitarian.
Bush entered the White House in 1989 with a reputation as a man of indecision and indeterminate views. One newsmagazine suggested he was a “wimp,” but his work-hard, playhard approach to the presidency won broad public approval. He held more news conferences in most months than Reagan did in most years.
The Iraq crisis of 199091 brought out all the skills Bush had honed in a quartercentury of politics and public service.
After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Bush quickly began building an international military coalition that included other Arab states. After winning United Nations support and a green light from a reluctant Congress, Bush unleashed a punishing air war against Iraq and a fiveday ground juggernaut that sent Iraqi forces reeling in disarray back to Baghdad. He basked in the biggest outpouring of patriotism and pride in America’s military since World War II, and his