George Herbert Walker Bush is the oldest U.S. President still alive.
*** President of the United States, Vice-President of the United States, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Director of Central Intelligence Agency, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, United States Representative from Texas ***
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Sunday, May. 30, 2004
A Former President's Mad Dash to 80
By Hugh Sidey
Former President George H.W. Bush is the only person on this planet who can casually prowl by jet, ship and train the upper reaches of power from London to Beijing, dine intimately with heads of state, call the President of the U.S. when he wants, e-mail any of 14 grandchildren about school and baseball ("Astros might go to the World Series"), talk details with a handyman making repairs on the house that has been his spiritual home for eight decades, track menacing chipmunks in the flower beds and then turn and embrace a visiting billionaire.
Not to mention at 5:30 one recent morning bang on a houseguest's bedroom door, elbow it open and deliver a tray of hot coffee and grapefruit wedges and then trumpet the start of an adventure that would in a few hours take him inside the roaring wind tunnel at Fort Bragg. There, in the levitating blast of air, he grins and trains for free fall from an airplane, looking like Buck Rogers (his era) in helmeted black zip-up, forming an untethered star with half a dozen new buddies of the Army's Golden Knights Parachute Team. "It's the greatest," he says.
Bush is rushing madly into his 80th birthday June 12, when there will be a Houston
celebration ("41@80") involving thousands — including a certain
U.S. President and a couple dozen sports, TV and movie stars blowing candles
and kisses. The next day: Bush's fourth parachute jump (counting his WW II bailout),
at Texas A&M in College Station.
"The country is doing pretty darn well," he insists, "but the war in Iraq is a large problem. There's a lot of what Jimmy Carter called 'malaise' around. I give total support to what the President does — without any reservation."
Much of his time now goes to lectures ("Got to pay the bills"), to his special causes, like the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and to talking with American soldiers, the wounded and the families of casualties. He holds no higher heroes in his crowded life, and when he said so to the troops at Fort Bragg, there was thunderous approval.
Soon he's off to pursue the great coho salmon in Newfoundland, cross the Rockies in a special Union Pacific train and jet across the Atlantic to hunker down on the banks of England's Test River, where Bush was told a fellow named William Shakespeare fished for trout. "Ah, the Bard and me along the Test," he spoofs. "They say that you are not a man until you have been to the Great Wall and fished the Test. I've been to the Great Wall. I'll be a man."
In this season there has been London and Kiev and Zurich. Later there will be the Chrissie Evert tennis tournament. He turned her down at first because he ached so badly after last year, then rethought and e-mailed her, "O.K. Can't give up on show-biz tennis." All the while he invokes Satchel Paige: "Don't look back. Something may be gaining on you."
"I've got goals," declares Bush, taking a few minutes off for lunch on his Kennebunkport, Maine, patio, starting with a hefty glass of sherry and finishing with "a scoop and a half" of Blue Bell ice cream shipped up from Texas. He wants to go to sea on the George H.W. Bush, a nuclear-powered carrier scheduled for completion in 2008. He hopes to accept an invitation from former Chinese President Jiang Zemin to attend the 2008 Beijing Olympics. "I reminded him of that the other day, 'You invited me,' and he said, 'Oh, yes, you'll be my guest.'"
Bush confesses that while he has the zest of a 50-year-old, his body sometimes hesitates. He stormed around the other day looking for his glasses, and an aide pointed out they were on the end of his nose. He has rented a movie and looked at Barbara 10 minutes into it as they both realized they'd seen it before. But then he ticks off his surviving indulgences — golf, tennis, fishing, horseshoes, hunting quail and the new boat, Fidelity III, a 34-ft. Fountain V hull. "I love it. I hit 68 m.p.h. the other day."
He will be on deck in Florida for the wedding of George P. Bush (son of Governor Jeb), secretly say a little prayer to encourage a great-grandchild before long, then swoop off for the opening of the Olympics in Athens and some hiking in the stony hills of the Greek islands.
There is nobody who can match up with this life, bolstered by membership direct and indirect in the Presidents' club, though there are those who suggest that Barbara Bush may be at least 51% of the momentum. At the center of this Bush life is the reach and majesty of the U.S., conferred on a couple who served long and well and felt honored every step of the way. Not done yet.
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George H. W. Bush
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
George Herbert Walker Bush (born June 12, 1924), was the forty-first President of the United States, serving from 1989 to 1993. Before his presidency, Bush was the forty-third Vice President of the United States in the administration of Ronald Reagan.
Bush was born in Massachusetts to Senator Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush. He became involved in politics soon after graduating from Yale University, serving as a member of the United States House of Representatives for the 7th district of Texas (1967–1971), the United States Ambassador to the United Nations (1971–1973), chairman of the Republican National Committee (1973–1974), Chief of the United States Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China (1974–1976), and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (1976–1977). After an unsuccessful 1980 presidential run, Bush was chosen by Ronald Reagan to be vice president. During his tenure (1981–1989), Bush was the first person ever to serve as Acting President of the United States.
In 1989, Bush succeeded Reagan as president, defeating challenger Michael Dukakis. He is the father of George W. Bush, the 43rd and current president of the United States, and Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida. Upon the death of Gerald Ford in 2006, Bush became the oldest living United States president.
Early years
George Herbert Walker Bush was born at 173 Adams Street in Milton, Massachusetts on June 12, 1924. The Victorian house where he was born is privately owned and not open to the public. The Bush family moved from Milton to Greenwich, Connecticut shortly after his birth.
George began his formal education at the Greenwich Country Day School in Greenwich. Beginning in 1936, Bush attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he held a large number of leadership positions including being the president of the senior class and secretary of the student council, president of the community fund-raising group, the Society of Inquiry, a member of the editorial board of the school newspaper, the Philippian, captain of both the varsity baseball and soccer teams. It is said that he was a member of A.U.V., or "Auctoritas, Unitas, Veritas" (Latin for "Authority, Unity, Truth"), an exclusive fraternity.
World War II
After graduating from Phillips Academy in June 1942, he joined the United States Navy on his 18th birthday to become a naval aviator. After completing the 10-month course, he was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve at Corpus Christi, Texas on June 9, 1943, just three days before his 19th birthday, which made him the youngest naval aviator to that date.
After finishing flight training, he was assigned to Torpedo Squadron (VT-51) as the photographic officer in September 1943. As part of Air Group 51, his squadron was based on the USS San Jacinto (CVL-30) in the spring of 1944. San Jacinto was part of Task Force 58 that participated in operations against Marcus and Wake Islands in May, and then in the Marianas during June. On June 19, the task force triumphed in one of the largest air battles of the war at the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Shortly after takeoff Bush's aircraft made a forced water landing. A destroyer rescued the young pilot and his crew, although the plane was lost. On July 25, Bush and another pilot received credit for sinking a small cargo ship off Palau.
After Bush's promotion to lieutenant junior grade on August 1, the San Jacinto commenced operations against the Japanese in the Bonin Islands. On September 2, 1944, Bush piloted one of four Grumman TBM Avenger aircraft from VT-51 that attacked the Japanese installations on Chichi Jima. For this mission his crew included Radioman Second Class John Delaney and Lieutenant Junior Grade William White, who substituted for Bush's regular gunner. During their attack, four Avengers from VT-51 encountered intense antiaircraft fire. While starting the attack, Bush's aircraft was hit and his engine caught on fire. Despite the fact that his plane was on fire, he completed his attack and released the bombs over his target, scoring several damaging hits. With his engine on fire, Bush flew several miles from the island, where he and one other crew member on the TBM Avenger bailed out of the aircraft. However, the other man's parachute did not open, and he fell to his death. It was never determined which man bailed out with Bush. Both Delaney and White were killed in action. While Bush waited four hours in his inflated raft, several fighters circled protectively overhead until he was rescued by the lifeguard submarine USS Finback. For this action Bush received the Distinguished Flying Cross. During the month he remained on the USS Finback, Bush participated in the rescue of other pilots.
Bush subsequently returned to San Jacinto in November 1944 and participated in operations in the Philippines. When San Jacinto returned to Guam, the squadron, which had suffered 50% casualties of its pilots, was replaced and sent to the United States. Through 1944, he had flown 58 combat missions for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation awarded aboard the San Jacinto.
Because of his valuable combat experience, Bush was reassigned to Norfolk Navy Base and put in a training wing for new torpedo pilots. He was later assigned as a naval aviator in a new torpedo squadron, VT-153. With the surrender of Japan, he was honorably discharged in September 1945 and then entered Yale University.
Marriage and education
Almost immediately upon his return from the war in December 1944, George Bush married Barbara Pierce. Their marriage produced six children: George Walker Bush, Pauline Robinson Bush ("Robin," 1949–1953, died of leukemia), John Ellis "Jeb" Bush, Neil Mallon Bush, Marvin Bush, and Dorothy Bush Koch.
While at Yale, he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and was elected president. He also captained the Yale baseball team, and as a left-handed first baseman, played in the first College World Series. Late in his junior year he was, like his father Prescott Bush (1917), tapped for membership by the Skull and Bones secret society. Some people believe that through this organization, also known as "the Order", Bush made connections with other influential people and families which would shape his career. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale in 1948 with a Bachelor's degree in economics.
Business ventures
After graduating from Yale, Bush went into the Texas oil exploration business. He was given a position with Dresser Industries, a subsidiary of Brown Brothers Harriman, where his father served on the board of directors for 22 years. His son, Neil Mallon Bush, is named after his employer at Dresser, Henry Neil Mallon, who was a close family friend dating back to Skull & Bones at Yale in 1918 along with Prescott. Zapata Corporation was created by Bush and the Liedtke brothers in 1953 as Zapata Oil.
Campaigns for Senate and Congress
In 1964, Bush won the Republican Party's nomination for U.S. senator from Texas. His opponent was incumbent Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough. Yarborough made several personal attacks against Bush, calling him a "tool of the eastern kingmakers" and a right-wing extremist. Bush lost the general election.
Bush did not give up on elective politics and was elected in 1966 to the United States House of Representatives from the 7th District of Texas, defeating Democrat Frank Briscoe with 57% of the vote. Despite being a first-term congressman, Bush was appointed to the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.
In 1970, President Nixon convinced Bush to relinquish his House seat to again run for the Senate against Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough, a fierce Nixon critic. In the Republican primary, Bush easily defeated conservative Robert Morris, a defeated 1964 candidate, by a margin of 87.6% to 12.4%. However, former Congressman Lloyd Bentsen, a native of Mission, Texas, defeated Yarborough in the Democratic primary, 816,641 votes (53%) to 724,122 (47%). Yarborough then endorsed Bentsen. With Yarborough defeated in the primary, Nixon's support for Bush's campaign waned. Because there was no presidential election in 1970, turnout in Texas was unusually low in the general election. Bentsen defeated Bush by a margin similar to that in his primary victory over Yarborough.
1970s
After the 1970 election loss, President Richard Nixon appointed Bush Ambassador to the United Nations, where he served from 1971 to 1973.
After Nixon was re-elected in 1972, he asked Bush to become chairman of the Republican National Committee. Bush held this position during the Watergate scandal, when the popularity of both Nixon and the Republican Party plummeted. Bush defended Nixon steadfastly, but later as Nixon's complicity became clear he focused more on defending the Republican Party while still maintaining loyalty to Nixon.
After Nixon's resignation in 1974, Vice President Gerald R. Ford became President, and Bush was one of the two leading contenders to be appointed vice president by Ford, but he lost to the other leading contender, Nelson Rockefeller. Bush had the support of many conservative elements in the Republican Party, particularly Barry Goldwater, against Rockefeller for the vice presidency. Ford appointed Bush to be Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China. (Since the United States at the time maintained official relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan and not the People's Republic of China, the Liaison Office did not have the official status of an embassy and Bush did not formally hold the position of "ambassador" even though he unofficially acted as one.)
In 1976, Ford brought Bush back to Washington to become Director of Central Intelligence. Bush claimed the appointment was "a real shocker" and denied any prior involvement with the agency.
Interestingly, initially Bush's confirmation as Director of Central Intelligence was opposed by many pundits and politicians still reeling from the Watergate scandal (when Bush was head of the Republican National Committee, and a steadfast defender of Nixon) and the Church Committee investigating whether CIA-ordered foreign assassinations were being directed towards domestic officials, including President Kennedy. Many arguments against Bush's initial confirmation were that he was too partisan for the office. The Washington Post, George Will, and Senator Frank Church were some notable figures opposed to Bush's nomination. After a pledge by Bush not to run for either president or vice president in 1976, opposition to his nomination died down.
Bush served in this role for 355 days, from January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977. The CIA had been rocked by a series of revelations, including revelations based on investigations by the Senate's Church Committee, about the CIA's illegal and unauthorized activities, and Bush was credited with helping to restore the agency's morale. In his capacity as DCI, Bush gave national security briefings to Jimmy Carter both as a Presidential candidate and as President-elect, and discussed the possibility of remaining in that position in a Carter administration.
After a Democratic administration took power in 1977, Bush became chairman of the First International Bank in Houston. He also became an adjunct professor of Administrative Science at Rice University in the Jones School of Business in 1978, the year it opened. The course, Organization Theory, involved lectures from Bush regarding the organizations he headed: the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Republican Party, a U.S. congressional office, the USA Representative Office to China, and an oil exploration company. Just months before Bush hit the presidential campaign trail, he was also candid about his internal debate to enter the primaries.
He also became a board member of the Committee on the Present Danger.
1980 presidential campaign and vice presidency
In the 1980 presidential election, Bush ran for the presidency, stressing his wide range of government experience. In the contest for the Republican Party nomination, despite Bush's establishment backing, the front-runner was Ronald Reagan, former actor and governor of California who was running for his third presidential bid.
In the primary election, Bush represented the centrist wing in the GOP, whereas Reagan represented the conservative wing. He labeled Reagan's supply side-influenced plans for massive tax cuts "voodoo economics." During the election, Reagan once famously described Bush as a "Brooks Brothers Republican," in response to which Bush opened his jacket at a press conference, smiling, to reveal a J. Press logo. Bush won the Iowa caucus to start the primary season, then told the press that he had "Big Mo" (or momentum). However, Reagan came back to decisively win the New Hampshire primary, and Bush's "mo" subsided. With a growing popularity among the Republican voting base, Reagan won most of the remaining primaries as well as the nomination.
After some preliminary discussion of choosing former President Gerald Ford as his running mate, Reagan selected Bush as his Vice Presidential nominee, placing him on the winning Republican presidential ticket of 1980.
Four years later, the Reagan-Bush ticket won again in a landslide in against the Democrats' Walter Mondale-Geraldine Ferraro ticket.
During his second term as Vice President, Bush became the first Vice President to become Acting President when, on July 13, 1985, President Reagan underwent surgery to remove polyps from his colon. Bush served as Acting President for approximately eight hours, most of which he passed playing tennis.
When the Iran-Contra Affair broke in 1986, Bush, like the President, stated that he had been "out of the loop" and unaware of the Iran initiatives related to arms trading.
1988 presidential campaign
In 1988, after nearly eight years as Vice President, Bush again ran for President. His challengers for the Republican presidential nomination included U.S. Senator Bob Dole and Conservative Christian televangelist Pat Robertson.
Though considered the early frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Bush came in third in the Iowa caucus, beaten by winner Dole and runner-up Robertson. However, Bush rebounded to win the New Hampshire primary, perhaps partly because of television commercials portraying Dole as a tax raiser. Once the multiple-state primaries such as Super Tuesday began, Bush's organizational strength and fundraising lead were impossible for the other candidates to match, and the nomination was his.
Leading up to the 1988 Republican National Convention, there was much speculation as to Bush's choice of running mate. In a move anticipated by few, Bush chose little-known U.S. Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana. On the eve of the convention, Bush trailed Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, then Massachusetts governor, by double digits in most polls.
Bush, often criticized for his lack of eloquence when compared to Reagan, surprised many by giving perhaps the best speech of his public career, widely known as the "Thousand points of light" speech for his use of that phrase to describe his vision of American community. Bush's acceptance speech and a generally well-managed Convention catapulted him ahead of Dukakis in the polls, and he held the lead for the rest of the race. Bush's acceptance speech at the convention included the famous pledge: Read my lips: no new taxes.
Bush blamed Dukakis for polluting the Boston Harbor as the Massachusetts governor. Bush also pointed out that Dukakis was opposed to the law that would require all students to say the pledge of allegiance. Another, produced and placed by an independent group supporting Bush, referred to murderer Willie Horton, a man who had committed a rape and assault while on a weekend furlough from a life sentence being served in Massachusetts.
Dukakis's unconditional opposition to capital punishment also led to a pointed question during the U.S. presidential debates. Moderator Bernard Shaw asked Dukakis hypothetically if Dukakis would support the death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered. Dukakis's response appeared to many oddly wooden and technical, and contributed toward the characterization of him as "soft on crime." These images helped enhance Bush's stature as a possible Commander-in-Chief compared to the Massachusetts governor.
Bush beat Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen soundly in the Electoral College, by 426 to 111 (Bentsen received one vote). In the nationwide popular vote, Bush took 53.4% of the ballots cast while Dukakis gained 45.6%. Bush was the first serving Vice President to be elected President since Martin Van Buren in 1836.
Presidency 1989-1993
President Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 1989. The fall of the Berlin
Wall and the collapse of Soviet Union came early in his presidency. That combined
with military successes in Panama and the Persian Gulf led to a record-high
approval rating of 89%. However economic recession and breaking his "No
New Taxes" pledge caused a sharp decline in his approval rating, and Bush
was defeated in the 1992 election.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist administering the oath of office to Bush during
Inaugural ceremonies at the United States Capitol, January 20, 1989.
Foreign policy
Foreign policy drove the Bush Presidency from its first days. In his Inaugural Address, Bush said, "I come before you and assume the Presidency at a moment rich with promise. We live in a peaceful, prosperous time, but we can make it better. For a new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree. A new breeze is blowing, and a nation refreshed by freedom stands ready to push on. There is new ground to be broken, and new action to be taken."
Leading up to the first Gulf War, on September 11, 1990, President Bush addressing a joint session of Congress stated: "Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective — a New World Order — can emerge: a new era"
With these words President Bush gave the order to start the military action which would later be known as the Gulf War.
Panama
Operation Just Cause was the U.S. military invasion of Panama that deposed General Manuel Noriega in December 1989. Involving an expeditionary force of 25,000 troops and state-of-the-art military equipment, the invasion was a large American military operation. General Manuel Noriega was at one time a U.S. ally, who was increasingly using Panama to facilitate the drug traffic from South America to the United States. In the 1980s, dictator Manuel Noriega was one of the most recognizable names in the United States, being constantly covered by the press. The deteriorating situation in Panama was a growing embarrassment for the Reagan Administration, which President Bush inherited. The military implementation took place under supervision of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Colin Powell who—as National Security Advisor for President Reagan—knew well the Panama situation and dictator Noriega. The invasion was preceded by massive protests in Panama against Noriega. Bush's Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney visited American troops in Panama right after the invasion. President Bush visited Panama with his wife in June 1992, to give support to the first post-invasion Panamanian government.
Gulf War
As President, Bush is perhaps best known internationally for leading the United Nations coalition in the 1990–1991 Gulf War. In 1990, Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein invaded its oil-rich neighbor to the south, Kuwait. The broad coalition, in an operation known as Desert Shield, sought to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait and ensure that Iraq did not invade Saudi Arabia. Bush summed up his position succinctly when he said, "This aggression will not stand," and, "This is not a war for oil. This is war against aggression." On November 29, the UN passed a resolution establishing a deadline that authorized the nations allied with Kuwait 'to use all necessary means' if Iraq did not withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991. Fighting began on January 17, 1991, when U.S.-led air units launched a devastating series of air attacks against Iraq, with this operation referred to as Desert Storm. On February 24, coalition ground troops attacked Iraq, and on February 26, Iraqi forces began retreating from Kuwait. Coalition troops pursued the retreating Iraqi troops into Iraq, to within 150 miles (240 km) of Baghdad before withdrawing. President Bush declared a cease-fire on February 27.
In a foreign policy move that would later be questioned, President Bush achieved his stated objectives of liberating Kuwait and forcing Iraqi withdrawal, then ordered a cessation of combat operations —allowing Saddam Hussein to stay in power. Bush later explained that he did not give the order to overthrow the Iraqi government because it would have "incurred incalculable human and political costs... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq".
Post-Soviet breakup
After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, President Bush and Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev declared a U.S.-Soviet strategic partnership at the summit
that July, marking the end of the Cold War. President Bush declared that U.S.-Soviet
cooperation during the Persian Gulf War in 1990–1991 had laid the groundwork
for a partnership in resolving bilateral and world problems.
- Malta Summit
- Arms control: START I, Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction
NAFTA
From left to right: (standing) President Carlos Salinas, President Bush, Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney; (seated) Jaime Serra Puche, Carla Hills, and Michael
Wilson at the NAFTA Initialing Ceremony, October 1992
Bush's government, along with the Progressive Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, spearheaded the negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Bush's primary negotiator was Trade Secretary Carla Anderson Hills. While initial signing was possible during his term, negotiations made slow but steady progress during Bush's term. President Clinton would go on to make the passage of NAFTA a priority for his administration, despite its conservative and Republican roots — with the addition of two side agreements — to achieve its passage in 1993.
Pardons
As other Presidents have done, Bush issued a series of pardons during his last days in office. On December 24, 1992, he pardoned six former government employees implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal - most prominently former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Weinberger had been scheduled to stand trial on January 5, 1993, for lying to Congress regarding his knowledge of arms sales to Iran and concealing 1700 pages of his personal diary detailing discussions with other officials about the arms sales.
As Weinberger's private notes contained references to Bush's endorsement of the secret shipments to Iran, some believe that Bush's pardon was an effort to prevent an order for Bush to appear before a grand jury or possibly to avoid an indictment. Weinberger's indictment stated that Weinberger's notes contradicted Bush's assertions that he had only peripheral knowledge of the arms for hostages deal. Lawrence Walsh, the Independent Counsel assigned to the case, charged that "the Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed." Walsh likened the pardons to President Richard Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre. Bush responded that the Walsh probe constituted an attempt to criminalize a policy dispute between the legislative and executive branches. In addition to Weinberger, Bush pardoned Duane R. Clarridge, Clair E. George, Robert C. McFarlane, Elliott Abrams, and Alan G. Fiers Jr., all of whom had been indicted and/or convicted of charges by the Independent Counsel. He is also known to have given executive clemency to Aslam P. Adam, a convicted heroin dealer.
Orlando Bosch, an anti-Castro terrorist convicted of firing a bazooka at a Polish freighter in Miami harbor, was released from detention by Bush, but never formally pardoned.
1992 re-election campaign
The tail end of the late 1980s recession, that had plagued most of Bush's term in office, was a contributing factor to his defeat in the 1992 Presidential election to Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas. The coalition victory in the Persian Gulf War led to a feeling that Bush's re-election was almost assured, but the economic recession coupled with a perceived failure to end the war properly reduced his popularity. Bush was also perceived as being "out of touch" with the American worker. One incident that was said to lend credence to this suspicion occurred during a technology trade show in which Bush appeared "amazed" upon seeing a demonstration of a supermarket scanner. However, Andrew Rosenthal, the reporter who broke the story was not present during the demonstration. He had relied on his own interpretation of a pool report by Gregg McDonald. The New York Times stood by its interpretation of the event, but Newsweek and Mark Duffy of Time Magazine, as well as the man who demonstrated the product for Bush, all took issue with Rosenthal's characterization. Nevertheless, media outlets reported the story as it tied in with and supported the notion that the president was out of touch with the common man.
Several other factors were key in his defeat, including agreeing in 1990 to raise taxes despite his famous "Read my lips: no new taxes" pledge not to institute any new taxes. In doing so, Bush alienated many members of his conservative base, losing their support for his re-election. Bush raised taxes in an attempt to address an ever-increasing budget deficit, which some attributed to the Reagan tax cuts and military spending of the 1980s. George Bush had been supported in 1988 by conservatives to continue the Reagan revolution, and was seen as a failure in this regard. Ironically, Bush had previously admonished Reagan's supply side tax cuts in the 1980 presidential primary when he referred to Reagan's tax proposals as "voodoo economics."
Ross Perot won 19% of the popular vote, the highest total for a third-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt on the ticket of the Bull-Moose Party. In early 1992 a Gallup poll found the President's approval rating to be at an all-time low, 29%. Despite his defeat, George H. W. Bush left office in 1993 with a 56% job approval rating.
Supreme Court appointments
Bush appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
- David Souter, 1990
- Clarence Thomas, 1991
Post-Presidency
Since his 1992 election campaign, Bush has retired to be with his wife at their home in the exclusive neighborhood of Tanglewood in Houston, with a presidential office nearby. They summer at Walker's Point in Kennebunkport, Maine. Bush holds his own fishing tournament in Islamorada, an island in the Florida Keys.
Since 1992, Bush has made many public appearances, and even more so in the years of his son's Presidential term. He and Mrs. Bush attended the state funeral of Ronald Reagan in June 2004, and of Gerald Ford in January 2007. One month later, he was awarded the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award in Beverly Hills, California by former First Lady Nancy Reagan.
In 1993, Bush was awarded an honorary knighthood (GCB) by Queen Elizabeth II.
Bush was also present in various ceremonies during the construction of USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77), which is the last Nimitz class supercarrier of the United States Navy, and one of the few that are named after persons that are living at the time of the vessel's christening.
Presidential library
The George Bush Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library named for Bush. This tenth presidential library was built between 1995 and 1997 and contains the presidential and vice-presidential papers of George H.W. Bush and the vice-presidential papers of Dan Quayle. It was dedicated on November 6, 1997 and opened to the public shortly thereafter; the complex was designed by the architectural firm of Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum.
The George Bush Presidential Library and Museum is located on a ninety-acre site on the west campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. The Library and Museum is situated on a plaza adjoining the Presidential Conference Center and the Texas A&M Academic Center. It operates under the administration of the NARA under the provisions of the Presidential Libraries Act of 1955.
George Bush School of Government and Public Service
The George Bush School of Government and Public Service is a graduate public policy school at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. It is named for former President George H.W. Bush. The Bush School is part of the George Bush Presidential Library complex. The graduate school offers four programs: two master's degree programs (Public Service Administration and International Affairs) and two certificate programs (Advanced International Affairs and Homeland Security). The Masters Program in International Affairs (MPIA) program offers a choice of concentration on either National Security Affairs or International Economics and Development.
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Collection of George Herbert Bush pictures
Captain-elect "Poppy" Bush as featured in a 1948 Yale Banner
Bush with President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Bush with President Ronald Reagan
The 1988 presidential electoral votes by state
The 1992 presidential electoral votes by state
Bush campaigns in Omaha, Nebraska, 1988
Chief Justice William Rehnquist administering the oath of office to Bush during Inaugural ceremonies at the United States Capitol, January 20, 1989.
President Bush visited American troops in Saudi Arabia on Thanksgiving Day, 1990
From left to right: (standing) President Carlos Salinas, President Bush, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney; (seated) Jaime Serra Puche, Carla Hills, and Michael Wilson at the NAFTA Initialing Ceremony, October 1992
The official White House portrait of President George H.W Bush
TIME Magazine cover, December 11, 1989
Presidents (from left) George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon at the dedication of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in 1991
The George Bush Presidential Library
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"Two Bad Neighbors" - THE SIMPSONS - Original Airdate: 1/14/96
Former President George Herbert Walker Bush becomes the newest resident of Evergreen Terrace, moving with his wife Barbara into the large house across the street from the Simpsons. Everyone in the neighborhood is excited to have the Bushes in Springfield, but Homer and Bart get off on the wrong foot with the former Chief Executive. In a decidedly non-wimp act, Bush spanks Bart after the boy destroys his memoirs, and from that moment on it's war between Homer and Bush. A series of escalating pranks leads to a fist-fight between the two men. George decides that Springfield is not the place for him to live out his golden years and hightails it away with Barbara. In his place, former President Gerald Ford moves in and becomes fast friends with Homer.
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First President Bush sobs while talking of Jeb
Chokes up over Florida governor's ability to handle victory and defeat.
The Associated Press
December 05, 2006
Former President George H.W. Bush broke down in tears as he cited his son, Gov. Jeb Bush, as an example of leadership.
Tallahassee, Fla. - Bush was addressing lawmakers, his son's top administrators, and state workers gathered in the House chamber Monday for the last of the governor's leadership forums.
He said he was proud of how his son handled losing the 1994 governor's race to popular incumbent Democrat Lawton Chiles, and vaguely referred to dirty tricks in the campaign.
'True measure of a man'
"He didn't whine about it. He didn't complain," the former president said before choking up. As he tried to continue, he let out a sob and put a handkerchief to his face. When he spoke again, his words were broken up by pauses as he tried to regain composure.
"A true measure of a man is how you handle victory and how you handle defeat, so in '94 Floridians chose to rehire the governor. They took note of his worthy opponent, who showed with not only words but with actions what decency he had," Bush said before again sobbing.
After his defeat, Jeb Bush formed a group called Foundation for Florida's Future which promoted education policy. He also helped open a charter school in a poor Miami neighborhood, helped the state Republican Party organize a convention and straw poll to have sway in the 1996 presidential election and lobbied for education and campaign finance reform bills. Bush won the first of his two terms in 1998.
"The moral of the story is to serve with honor and your governor has served with honor," the former president said.
"I'm the emotional one," Bush said later. "I don't enjoy breaking up, but when you talk about somebody you love, when you get older, you do it more."
Future Bush politicians
The former president also answered questions. When asked about the vision for
his grandchildren, he said neither he nor his wife are pushing them toward politics
or running for public office.
"But I hope that they will, I hope quite a few of them will," he said before pausing and joking about the current President Bush's daughters. "I'm not sure I'd count on the twins doing this - Jenna and Barbara - but they're full of life and they might."
Six years ago, when the twins were 19, they were charged with underage drinking in an Austin, Texas bar.
"They've calmed way down," their grandfather said. "They're doing great."
Bush & Clinton
He also talked about his recent friendship with former President Clinton. He recalled a political cartoon showing his son, the president, opposing gay marriage and then walking into a room and finding his father on a sofa with Clinton's arm around him, prompting him to shout, "Dad! What are you doing?"
"(Clinton) cut it out of the paper and said, 'Don't you think we ought to cool it, George?'" Bush said.
***
January 1990
The In-Box President
George Bush is a master of an unheroic politics in which everything,
or almost everything, is negotiable.
By William Schneider
George Bush was elected President in 1988 because most American voters were
satisfied with the status quo. What we got is a status-quo President.
So far, the status quo has been Bush's principal source of strength. The economy has stayed pretty much on track. There has been no major foreign-policy calamity. True, 1989 was a great year for Washington scandals, but they involved either members of Congress or Reagan Administration officials.
Bush has averaged a 63 percent job approval rating in Gallup polls. Ronald Reagan's job-approval rating for his first year in office, when he struck out in bold new directions, averaged only 57 percent. That's what you get for taking risks.
After eight years of Reagan, Americans may have had enough vision for a while. Bush has done what the voters elected him to do. He has managed the status quo. We are, by and large, a nation of happy campers, to borrow a phrase from Vice President Dan Quayle.
The down side is that President Bush is hostage to the status quo. Suppose the economy goes into a tailspin, as it did under Reagan in 1982. Suppose Bush makes a terrible blunder, as Reagan did in the Iran-contra affair. Would the voters stay the course? And just what is the course, anyway?
Reagan was not a status-quo President. "Ronald Reagan was a successful candidate and an effective President above all else because he stood for a set of ideas," one observer has maintained. "He stated them in 1980, and it turned out that he meant them; and he wrote most of them not only into public law but into the national conciousness." That assessment was offered by Senator Edward M. Kennedy last March, at Yale University.
Reagan could be remarkably open and bold, as he was in his response to Mikhail Gorbachev. He could also be terribly naive, and his grand schemes were often grand illusions—painless deficits, Star Wars, freedom fighters, his offer at the Reykjavik summit to abolish nuclear weapons. But no one ever said Reagan was fearful of change.
That is exactly what people say about George Bush. "I think this perhaps is a time for caution," President Bush said last spring, when asked to comment on the student protests in Beijing. In China, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union millions of people were putting their lives on the line for democracy. But all the U.S. Secretary of State had to say was, "I don't think it would be in the best interests of the United States for us to see significant instability in the People's Republic of China, just like I don't think it's in the best interests of the United States for us to see significant instability in [the USSR].'' In other words, democracy is fine so long as it doesn't disturb the status quo.
Ronald Reagan was a creature of the 1960s. He was elected governor of California in 1966 in a wave of popular revulsion over racial violence (the rioting in Watts) and student protests (the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley). Reagan often saw issues as "us" versus "them." Bush, on the other hand, set out to smooth over the bitter divisions of American politics. In his inaugural address Bush lamented the fact that "a certain divisiveness" had emerged in our political life, "in which not each other's ideas are challenged but each other's motives."
Bush called on the nation to end the 1960s. "This is the age of the offered hand," the President said. "I yearn for a greater tolerance, an easygoingness about each other's attitudes and way of life." This from the man who had just run a harsh, negative campaign attacking his opponent's "values" on issues like the pledge of allegiance and furloughs for criminals.
Bush changed his image three times in one year. During the 1988 primaries he was Bush the Wimp, the man the Democrats loved to make fun of. ("Poor George, he can't help it," the Democrats' keynote convention speaker said. "He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.") He became Bush the Tough Guy in the general election, when he followed a script written by Lee Atwater, his campaign manager. Then he got elected and changed to a script by James Baker, the ultimate Washington insider. Virtually overnight he was transformed into Bush the Old Pro—cautious, reassuring, and thoroughly pragmatic.
What is missing in Bush is the hard core of conviction that one could always sense in Reagan. "I believe in unions, I believe in nonunions," Bush once said while touring a furniture factory in North Carolina. When he refused to compromise with Congress on the budget, when he defied the air-traffic controllers' strike, and when he stood by his nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, Reagan made it clear that important issues of principle were at stake.
The Bork debate was positively elevated compared with the fight over Bush's nomination of John Tower to be Secretary of Defense. Bork raised fundamental constitutional issues like original intent and the limits of judicial activism. The only principle at stake in Bush's last-ditch defense of Tower was executive privilege. Stubbornness without conviction gets a President into trouble. Jimmy Carter was at his best—the Camp David negotiations, the Panama Canal treaties—when his stubbornness was rooted in principle. Reagan was at his worst—the Iran-contra affair, the Bitburg incident—when his principles were unclear.
Bush also seems to lack Reagan's personal security. Reagan said a lot of nutty things, but he was at ease with himself, and that was reassuring. Over time the public became convinced that he was not going to start a nuclear war or throw old people out into the snow. (Poor people were another matter.) Bush, on the other hand, usually says sensible things, and he goes out of his way to sound reassuring ("a kinder, gentler nation"). But he is so easily rattled that he makes people nervous. Last September, when reporters confronted him with evidence that federal agents had set up a drug deal in a park across the street from the White House to provide a prop for his speech on drug policy, Bush responded angrily, "I don't understand. I mean, has somebody got some advocates here for this drug guy?"
Bush seems paralyzed by two fears—the fear of being called a wimp and the fear of creating controversy. Our greatest tragedies as President, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, were haunted by deep personal insecurities. They kept polls in their pockets and made lists of enemies. Bush seems nowhere near that level of paranoia or vindictiveness. But he has been described as "ill at ease ... in his own skin," and that is not a good sign.
Reagan's style was to take a firm stand, rally public support, and challenge Congress to give him what he wanted. Bush's style is to make a deal. He negotiates quietly, outside the glare of publicity and with as little rancor as possible. He then announces a compromise, shifts his position to accommodate the outcome, and invites the country to applaud the spirit of bipartisanship and cooperation.
Almost every year Reagan would go to the wall on the federal budget and military aid to the contras. Bush made deals with Congress early last year on both issues. The deals had serious flaws, but at least the two sides agreed to agree. The country was spared the usual gunfight at the O.K. Corral over budget policy and contra aid. In May, Bush averted a NATO crisis by hammering out a compromise among the allies. In October he made a deal with the Democrats to raise the minimum wage but allow for a temporary training wage for teenagers.
The Bush Administration has made progress on issues that seemed hopelessly stalemated during the Reagan years—clean air, the minimum wage, the contras. This progress has deflected criticism by the Democrats. They can hardly complain about a President who wants to make a deal with them.
Bush sees the President as the great facilitator, not the great communicator. His is an unheroic politics in which everything, or almost everything, is negotiable. Reagan believed that raising the minimum wage was wrong, that Americans have an absolute right to bear arms, and that the Sandinista government is an intolerable threat to U.S. security. Bush has been willing to compromise on all these points.
There are two issues on which Bush has drawn the line, however—abortion and taxes. Like Reagan, Bush will not compromise his "principles" on these issues. But Reagan was an ideologue; he believed what he believed, reality be damned. Bush is a pragmatist, so the conflict with reality is more of a problem for him. In his only prime-time television speech to the nation, Bush called for a national war on drugs, but he refused to ask Americans to make any sacrifices to pay for it. In October he vetoed a bill that would have extended Medicaid funding to poor women who are the victims of rape or incest. Reagan's stubborn fealty to principles conveyed an image of strength. Bush's willingness to compromise on everything except abortion and taxes conveys an image of calculation, religious conservatives and affluent suburbanites being the core constituencies in the GOP coalition.
The Bush Administration does bring a high standard of professionalism to government. That's not such a bad thing, considering that professionalism was often conspicuously missing during the Reagan years. Bush's appointments have fallen into two categories. His political choices, all of them controversial, have come from the right wing of the party—Quayle for Vice President, Atwater for Republican Party chairman, and John Sununu for White House chief of staff. In the realm of policy-making, however, Bush has been more cautious. He kept on a number of Reagan appointees, all of whom were regarded as moderates—Nicholas Brady in the Treasury Department, Richard Thomburgh in the Justice Department, William Webster at the CIA, and Lauro Cavazos in the Department of Education. Bush's Secretary of State, James Baker, was reviled by conservatives when he served as Reagan's chief of staff.
These people are not agenda-setters. They are problem-solvers. Like Bush himself, they offer strong qualifications and considerable experience. Moreover, they have records of accomplishment independent of their relationship with George Bush. With Bush the rule seems to be no ideological hard-liners, no Evil Empire-baiters, no economic cranks, "no Bozos." And no bold new ideas.
What all this professionalism adds up to is not exactly leadership. It is more like management. Bush's policies have been reactive. The United States responds, cautiously and reluctantly, to others' proposals. It is an in-box approach to governing. You respond to problems as they reach your desk, and you do whatever is necessary to get them off your desk.
There is a peculiar rhythm to the Bush presidency. A crisis suddenly emerges and dominates the public agenda—an oil spill in Alaska, a new Soviet proposal on arms control, a hostage quandary in the Middle East, a stolen election in Panama, a NATO conflict, a saving-and-loan problem, mass protests in China, an emergency in Poland. The press attacks the administration for weakness and indecision. Commentators accuse Bush of having no policy to deal with the situation. The administration responds that it is being prudent. Critics say it is being timid.
Suddenly the President steps in and makes a dramatic gesture. There is a burst of activity, heads get banged together, and a compromise results. The crisis ends, even though the problem may be unresolved. (Noriega is still in power, American hostages are still in Lebanon, and the Alaskan coastline is still befouled.) The press pronounces Bush's intervention a success. The President's popularity goes up. And public attention shifts to something else. Bush has kept up with his in-box.
Bush is a master of the politics of good intentions. In his inaugural address he declared, "We have work to do" and ticked off the nation's problems—homelessness, child poverty, crime, drug addiction. He called for "a new activism, hands-on and involved, that gets the job done." But what did he intend to do? Whatever it was, it would not involve spending a lot of money. "The old solution ... was to think that public money alone could end these problems," the new President told the nation. "But we have learned that this is not so.... We have more will than wallet, but will is what we need." It is hard to quarrel with Bush's assertion that money alone cannot solve our problems. But how can they be solved without money? Governor Mario Cuomo tried to call Bush's bluff when he wrote in September, "President Bush has done all he can with speeches. Now he has to produce resources that will deliver on his promises or concede to the nation that he is still an unconverted conservative [trying] to earn himself some cheap grace by reciting a little Democratic poetry."
U.S. diplomatic initiatives have been as limited as U.S. domestic initiatives, and for the same reason: there isn't any money. At the economic summit in Paris last July the United States had to persuade other countries to help foot the bill on critical issues like international debt relief and economic aid for Poland and Hungary.
Mindful of appearing too defensive and reactive, George Bush began his presidency by ordering a comprehensive policy review to figure out how the United States should meet Gorbachev's bold challenge. After months of effort the review concluded that the United States could no longer remain in the position of defending the status quo. The report recommended that the United States broaden the agenda instead, and offer the world something new—"the status quo plus."
Last spring, when Gorbachev said he would stop sending weapons to Nicaragua, the White House responded with annoyance. Its press spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, dismissed the gesture as a "public-relations gambit" perpetrated by a "drugstore cowboy." When the Soviets announced that they would withdraw 500 nuclear missiles from Europe, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney complained that they have "so many ratholes over there in Eastern Europe that 500 is a pittance." That kind of grudging, small-minded response reinforces our status-quo image. The world changes, and the United States stands still.
When President Bush announced that he would have an "interim, informal" meeting in December with Gorbachev, he explained, "I just didn't want to, in this time of dynamic change, miss something." The world is waiting for a Bush Doctrine that defines the American response to the Communist Reformation. The Bush Doctrine so far might be characterized as "this might not really be happening." When East Germany opened the Berlin Wall on November 9, the country longed to hear a Kennedy or a Reagan say, "We are all Berliners now." What it heard Bush say was, "We are not trying to give anybody a hard time." When Bush announced the "non-summit summit," he said, "Neither President Gorbachev nor I anticipate that substantial decisions or agreements will emerge from this December meeting." If that is the case (and at this writing it is still unclear), 1989 could go down in history as The Year of Missed Opportunities.
In September the Senate majority leader, George Mitchell, accused the administration of being so ambivalent about changes in the communist world that it often sounded "nostalgic about the Cold War." Secretary Baker's response stirred up a controversy in Washington. He said, "When the President of the United States is rocking along with a seventy-percent approval rating on his handling of foreign policy, if I were the leader of the opposition, I might have something similar to say." The Secretary appeared to acknowledge what the poll results about foreign intervention confirm—that the Bush Administration's cautious, measured approach to foreign policy is essentially politics-driven. Reaganism without risks.
Even embarrassments can be rendered harmless, as long as the President is careful to stay within the boundaries of favorable public opinion. The United States encouraged a coup in Panama, we supported a coup in Panama, and we may have even helped plan a coup in Panama. But we did not take the risk of intervening. The polls revealed that most Americans did not support the use of U.S. troops to remove General Noriega. Nothing was ventured and nothing was gained. The administration's cautious, risk-averse approach kept us out of trouble. On the other hand, the Panama issue keeps turning up in the President's in-box.
The administration is confident, however, that its strategy of prudence will pay off. A State Department official used a revealing, and distressingly shallow, metaphor to explain the Bush foreign policy to The New York Times. He said, "The Soviet game is chess, where you think out your strategy ten moves ahead, and Gorbachev is a chess player. Our game is baseball. You play it one inning at a time, but it's the final score that counts. Gorbachev may hit an occasional grand slam. We are going to try to win on singles."
However timid or unimaginative their policies may be, the Republicans can usually rely on one thing to save them. That is the greater incompetence of the Democrats. The Democrats have repeatedly been spooked, for instance, by President Bush's "good cop-bad cop" routine—his habit of making gestures of bipartisanship and compromise while his party operatives play dirty.
The GOP strategy is to force roll-call votes in Congress on controversial issues like flag-burning and censorship. The expectation is that in the 1990 mid-term elections Democrats who take unpopular positions on these issues can be exposed as liberals whose values are outside the mainstream of American politics. The Republicans want to do to all Democrats what Bush did to Michael Dukakis in 1988.
In 1989, however, it was the Republicans who looked vulnerable on social issues like gun control and abortion. Nevertheless, it was the Democrats who seemed more nervous about "values." They didn't want Lee Atwater to use their records as he had used Dukakis's record, for target practice.
There is one lesson the Democrats have been unable to learn from the Republicans—how to behave like an opposition party. After thirty-five years in the minority, the Republicans in Congress have finally mastered the art of keeping Democrats on the defensive. Democrats, however, persist in believing that they run the country. After all, they have a lock on Congress. As a result, Democratic congressional leaders seem to feel more comfortable acting as partners with a Republican President than they do acting as the loyal opposition.
What's more, they don't seem to understand that their basic problem in the Bush era isn't values. It's taxes. Ever since the Great Inflation and the tax revolt of the late 1970s, Republicans have used anti-tax sentiment to control the political agenda.
From the 1930s through the 1960s the spending issue enabled Democrats to maintain their political hegemony. Now the Republicans are doing precisely the same thing with taxes. The national consensus has changed, and Democrats are finding tax cuts as irresistible as Republicans used to find spending bills. The anti-tax consensus helped produce the single biggest victory of the Bush presidency to date—the September 28 vote in the House of Representatives to lower the tax rate on capital gains for two years. Democratic leaders condemned what they called "a tax giveaway to the wealthy." But they found little popular resistance to a measure that raised no one's taxes and held out the possibility of some gains for everyone. So House Democratic leaders tried to outbid the Bush Administration by offering a better deal. They tried the same thing in 1981, when Ronald Reagan proposed his original tax cut. It didn't work in 1981, and it didn't work in 1989, at least not in the House. In the Senate, Democratic leaders stalled the tax cut by preventing the issue from coming to a vote.
The catastrophic-illness plan is a good example of the shift in the public agenda from spending to taxes. The program to insure Medicare recipients against catastrophic illnesses was the only major new domestic program of the 1980s. It passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 328 to 72 in 1988. The program was held up as a model of how to finance social initiatives in the deficit era. It would be financed in part by "supplemental premiums" paid by more-affluent Medicare recipients. Everyone in government, including Ronald Reagan and George Bush, seemed to view these premiums as user fees. Those who paid the premiums would get the insurance coverage.
But the program was strangled at birth. Elderly Americans discovered that what they were really paying was a tax. Moreover, they were being taxed to pay for a benefit that most of them felt they did not need. The result was a wave of angry protest calling for repeal of the plan. Which is exactly what the House voted to do, 360 to 66, last year. Something important had changed in American politics. The elderly had always been a prime spending constituency. Suddenly a vocal minority of them started militating against taxes. Virtually no one who stood to benefit from the new program spoke out in defense of it. This was very bad news for the Democrats. How could they talk about "a new agenda for social progress" if no one was willing to pay for it?
In the long run Bush's biggest problem will come not from the opposition party—the Democrats don't know what they are—but from the challenge of holding two different constituencies together. His tough, hard-hitting, right-wing election campaign, including the selection of Quayle as his running mate, enabled him to keep Reagan's conservative coalition together. This was the Bush who said, "Read my lips: No new taxes." Reaganites were reassured. They looked at Bush and said, "He's one of us."
Bush used his transition to reassure the Washington establishment that he was really a cautious, moderate pragmatist. This was the Bush who announced to the Republican National Convention in 1988, "I don't hate government." "Good old George," the Washington power elite said to one another. "He's one of us."
Well, which is he? The establishment is bothered by the President's occasional political vulgarity—his tolerance of Atwater, the flag-burning amendment—and by his failure to engage in serious negotiations on the deficit. But it approves of the administration's high standards of professionalism. Conservatives are uneasy about the sincerity of Bush's commitment to Star Wars, the contras, and gun control. But they are encouraged by his refusal to compromise on taxes and abortion.
The balance is holding right now because things are going well for Bush. But will either the conservatives or the establishment be there when Bush gets into trouble? Conservatives have never really trusted Bush. As Anthony Dolan, the chief speechwriter for President Reagan, wrote recently in The New York Times, "If [Democrats] can back the President off on his pledges to conservatives on the emotional issues—taxes, contras, defense or a Supreme Court nominee—they rob him of the intensity and the depth of personal support that would make permanent his hold on conservative voters."
Nor does the establishment's good will provide much of a political base. The power elite will stick with a President only as long as his policies are successful. If things suddenly start to fall apart, the power elite will be the first to abandon him, as it did Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Like Ford and Carter—other Presidents who had trouble with "the vision thing"—Bush will be judged entirely on his effectiveness.
Bush's popularity reflects a simple fact: he appears to be the right President for the times. The country is not in the mood for big ambitions right now, and Bush isn't offering any. Bush has only one thing to worry about—the fact that times change.
***
Former President Bush endorses McCain
Calls the presumptive GOP nominee "a remarkable patriot" with a "sound
conservative record" that also allows outreach to to moderates and independents.
By Johanna Neuman
February 18, 2008
Washington — Sen. John McCain, trying to solidify his support among conservatives amid resolute competition from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, today won the endorsement of former President George Bush.
Welcoming "an old friend back to Texas," Bush called McCain -- who served as a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War and was captured and tortured by the Viet Cong -- "a remarkable patriot."
"Few men walking among us have sacrificed so much in the cause of human freedom," the former president said, adding that McCain has "the right values and experience to guide our nation forward at this historic moment."
Asked about conservative unease with McCain, the 41st president read from the diaries of former President Ronald Reagan, who was also assailed by the Right during his presidency for being "a turncoat." Bush dismissed conservative criticism of McCain as "an unfair attack," and said the Arizona senator has "a sound conservative record but not above reaching out to the other side,"
For his part, McCain, who has parted company from conservatives on immigration, taxes and campaign finance, said he welcomed the Bush endorsement and hoped it would help him rally the party behind him to begin waging a battle against Democrats.
"We as a party must unite and move forward and attract not only members of our own party but independents and so-called Reagan Democrats," McCain said, adding that Democrats had been wrong when they said the surge in Iraq would not work and should be held accountable for their position.
As McCain worked to tighten his hold on the Republican nomination, Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama were battling it out for votes ahead of Tuesday's Wisconsin and Hawaii primaries.
Clinton, offering what she calls "solutions" to her opponent's "speeches," today released a 13-page blueprint for fixing the economy that outlines her plans for healthcare, middle-class jobs and home ownership protected from foreclosure.
"Over the past seven years, big corporations and special interests have been given a free pass to profit, often at the expense of the American worker," says the pamphlet, to be distributed to voters at Clinton's campaign rallies. "As president, Hillary will make it a priority to scale back special benefits and subsidies to these corporations and put those resources to work for our economy again."
***
Elder Bush parachutes in for presidential museum opening
College Station, Texas (AP) -- He's 83 and just had hip replacement surgery in January, but that isn't keeping former President George H.W. Bush from skydiving.
Bush celebrated the grand reopening of his presidential museum yesterday with a surprise jump.
It was his sixth and the first since he celebrated his 80th birthday with a jump in 2004. As in that one, Bush was strapped to an expert from the Army Golden Knights parachute team.
His first parachute jump was in 1944 when his plane was shot down over the Pacific island of Chi Chi Jima.
The 69,000-square-foot museum has been under renovation. It opened a decade ago on the Texas A&M University campus about 100 miles northwest of Houston, displacing an Aggie hog farm. Across the museum parking lot is a broad grass field that Bush, now 83, used as a landing site for his parachute jump on his 80th birthday. Behind the library is the spot that will be the burial site for the former president and his wife, Barbara.
The number of interactive exhibits has increased from 10 to 90, and dozens of large flat-screen monitors have been erected throughout the place to better explain exhibits.
"There are all kinds of things we couldn't do 10 years ago," museum Director Warren Finch said.
Among them is a recreated White House Situation Room, where visitors can sit around an oak table, make decisions and compare them to the decisions Bush made. There's also a replica of the Oval Office where visitors can get a picture of themselves as commander in chief seated behind the presidential desk.
Among other new exhibits is a presentation about the Gulf War, where visitors sit in a tent supposedly in the Kuwaiti desert and experience jets flying overhead and bombs going off as soldiers who where there recall their experiences.
Other video displays allow visitors to land a plane on an aircraft carrier like Bush did as a World War II fighter pilot. Another focuses on many of the pets the Bush family has had. And there's a mock-up satellite from the CIA -- an agency Bush once headed -- to show how spy surveillance cameras work.
"This is a visual age, and people -- especially kids -- expect more," said Dave Asada, with Universal Exhibits Inc., the California-based firm that installed many of the new interactive devices. "Today, people don't just want to read something, they want to experience it."
One display features a video clip of comedian Dana Carvey, famous for his impersonation of Bush saying "Not gonna do it," and a commercial the Bushes did for the Houston Astros. There's also a miniature White House for small children to crawl through.
The money to pay for the renovations was raised privately. The museum and library draws about 150,000 visitors annually, ranking it in the top five of the dozen presidential libraries operated by the National Archives.
***
Transcript: George H.W. Bush on 'FOX News Sunday'
November 04, 2007
Washington— The following is a partial transcript of the Nov. 4, 2007, edition of "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace":
"Fox News Sunday" Host Chris Wallace: Well, today we begin a new series called American Leaders. We'll still cover the big stories and interview top officials here in Washington, but we want to expand the conversation on Sunday talk shows to reach beyond the Beltway and hear from some of the most compelling voices in business, culture and religion.
This week we traveled to College Station, Texas, to the presidential library and museum on the campus of Texas A&M University. There we met with our first American leader, former President George Herbert Walker Bush.
(Begin videotape)
Wallace: This is the 10th anniversary of the Bush library, and over the School of Government there's a bust of you with the inscription, "Public service is a noble calling."
Where do you and your family — where did you get this commitment to public service?
George H. W. Bush: Some of it was from my parents. I watched my father, early age, not realizing what he was up to, doing a lot of charitable works.
My mother pounded into us early on do something for others, and so we started — we were so lucky from our parents we got. Then I went to a boarding school where part of the challenge was volunteering.
Yale University had that ethos, and I did some extra-curricular kind of charitable stuff there, so it's always been a part of my life, but I really believe it.
I really believe there can be no definition of a successful life that does not include service to others.
Wallace: There are famous stories of old Joe Kennedy sitting around the dinner table and drilling his kids on government and service. Did you do that with your kids?
George H W Bush: No. We didn't have any of these seminars or sessions, or hey, I want to run for governor, I'm thinking of running for president, or anything like that, nor what should I be doing with my life.
You know, both Barbara and I have led active lives, hopefully some of it in helping others, and I hope that that's where our kids picked up their convictions, and they all are involved in doing that.
Wallace: You like to say that you're big into the grandfather business. As you look at this next generation of Bushes, do you see this same commitment to public service?
George H W Bush: Well, if you define public service as running for office, not necessarily, although one or two of them probably will do that.
But if you define it as doing something for others — most recent example of that publicly is our granddaughter Jenna, who's written a book about a young girl with AIDS.
And Jenna's traveled around, and part of her travels around include, you know, the idea of doing something to help people.
And Barbara, her sister, is doing things with one of the United Nations organizations in Africa, and others have done that. George P., our oldest grandson, Jeb's boy, is active in that.
So it just kind of gravitates down from generation to generation, Chris.
Wallace: And as grandpa or poppy — what are you?
George H W Bush: Well, poppy is my nickname, but gampy.
Wallace: Gampy.
George H W Bush: We're called Gampy.
Wallace: Do you feel a tremendous sense of pride when you see not just your children but your grandchildren carrying on the family tradition?
George H W Bush: A total sense of pride and great happiness. I'm not in trying to sit at the head table anymore, Chris. I've done that and I've enjoyed it, and I've had a lot of challenges. But I take enormous pride in these grandkids, all of them, and watching them come along.
The only thing about getting old is, you know, I just don't — I want to be around to see the success in life, not necessarily being elected to something, but giving back and also great happiness for all of them.
Wallace: I know you're not — you're going to shudder when I say this, but aren't you a dynasty like the Kennedys? Aren't the Bushes?
George H W Bush: Two words I don't like — dynasty and legacy. But I don't think so. I mean, I think there's a period in the U.S. history where Bushes have been in the forefront, and this happens to be one of them.
My father was in the U.S. Senate, and I was in the Congress and in the presidency, and then George W. was a governor and now president of the United States. Jeb was a governor.
But we don't think of ourselves as a dynasty — onward it goes — I mean, that kind of thing. I really hope some of my grandkids will be actively involved in politics.
Wallace: And why not legacy, because I would think you would like the legacy of public service and commitment and...
George H W Bush: Well, what I'd like to do is have somebody else figure out that that's what motivates me and motivates Barbara, and I just think let the historians do it.
Somebody said, "Well, you're going to write your definitive book about your life, biography." No, I'm not. I haven't done that. I wrote a book of letters which, you know, gives an insight into the real me as opposed to the public perceptions of me.
But I'm convinced historians will figure out the things we got wrong and hopefully the things we got right. So I'd rather do it that way.
Wallace: As you know, we're beginning a new series called American Leaders, and we are honored to have you as our first leader. As you look around the country and around the world, what do you worry about?
George H W Bush: Well, I worry about international terror much more than I used to before 9/11. I worried about it. You know, we've had incidents of terror.
But I worry about international terror as a method for bringing about political change or sociological change in different countries. And this concerns me because our homeland is not — we see now, is not immune from this kind of dastardly attack. And so I worry about that a lot.
I don't worry about superpower confrontation. You know, I lived through the Cold War days, and where everybody was worried about a Soviet Union armed to the teeth. I think we're going to get along fine with Russia, and I don't see them as internationally ambitious.
Wallace: So you don't see Putin going back in a new Cold War?
George H W Bush: Not that much, no, not to a new Cold War. He's defining certain things that he believes in, and he's showing a concern about the old Russian view that they're trying to encircle us kind of thing.
But I think Putin — I think we ought not to give up on working with him, because I honestly believe that he's got the — he doesn't have ambitions to build the Soviet Union into — rebuild a Soviet Union and have it be an aggressive challenger to the United States of America.
Wallace: And as you look around the country and the world, what gives you the most hope?
George H W Bush: Most hope? Change in China gives me a lot of hope. The fact that we're still the leader in democracy — that gives me a lot of hope, and that's going to stay that way, and so I — I have a lot of reason to be hopeful.
Maybe I'm spoiled because my life is so good, Chris. I'm very happy out of the public eye. Sometimes thinking back — but not so much — and again, family. So I get a lot of hope from that, but that's not the broad philosophical picture.
Wallace: Beside this extraordinary complex at Texas A&M and the grandfather business, you're also deeply involved in charitable projects, especially volunteerism.
I remember I was on the floor of the 1988 convention when you talked about a thousand points of light, and there were some critics who said, "This is a conservative cop-out. This is somebody who's saying, you know, let's give private responsibility for things that the government used to be responsible for."
George H W Bush: Exactly.
Wallace: Volunteerism has had quite some staying power in the last 20 years, hasn't it?
George H W Bush: Volunteerism has been a part of the United States, a deeply felt part of it, for a long time. But you're absolutely correct.
When we started the Points of Light Foundation or Points of Light Program, people — "Oh, he's copping out," instead we want to get more government money here, more appropriations from this committee or that, he's trying to get private sector to do that which the government should be doing, and I don't agree with that.
I think the spirit of America, one American wanting to make another American's life better, or internationally our desire to see countries do better, or people in countries do better, coming from this concept of volunteerism is a very valid and important part of our internal being.
Wallace: I can't let this opportunity pass without talking a little politics with you.
George H W Bush: Go ahead.
Wallace: Do you agree with your son that Hillary Clinton is going to win the Democratic nomination? And why, as you said in Japan — and I'm going to clean this up slightly — are you going to try to beat the heck out of her?
George H W Bush: I'm trying to remember if I said that. I don't remember using the word "heck."
Wallace: Actually, you used another word.
(Laughter)
George H W Bush: Well, look. If she's the nominee, I obviously will be for her opponent. I had thought a few weeks ago that she was almost a gimme, as we say in golf, for the nomination. I'm not sure I feel that way now.
Wallace: Why?
George H W Bush: Well, there seems to be more kind of internal, in her own party — seems to be more willingness to take her on and to argue about stuff.
But she's a formidable opponent and she's done very well, in my view. Now, would I be for her? No. Would she ever be for the president? No.
You know, I listen to these debates. Everything George says, everything wrong, the president, it's his fault, tide's going out, his fault, his fault, he ought to keep it from going out, fires are burning, it's his fault, he ought to do something about that.
And you know, every one of these people standing there on the debate, when they didn't have an answer, they go, "The president — it's his fault." I get a little tired of that.
Wallace: Well, let me ask you about that, because the president was quoted as saying that he worries about you because you get so upset about that.
George H W Bush: He's right. Well, I mean, he's right I get upset about it, but he shouldn't worry about me. We talk a lot, and I have great respect for his positions and for his guts, for his staying in there.
And it would be very easy to go, "Ooh, hey, the Ipsos poll has me four points down. If I only adopted this new position, I'd be up and even." He doesn't do that. Here's what I believe, deals from conviction, and he's got one very proud father sitting right here with you today.
Wallace: The fact that you've developed such a close friendship with Bill Clinton won't make you go easy on Hillary Clinton?
George H W Bush: No, I don't think so. I do have a good friendship with Bill Clinton, and I've enjoyed working with him on charitable causes, Katrina and tsunami and all of this. And I might say I even enjoy playing golf with the guy.
And I'm enough older that he has treated me with great deference, and I would say friendship, and so there is a friendship there.
But just as he's not going to tiptoe about his differences with the president, I wouldn't tiptoe with my differences with him. But I don't plan to be all involved in this, Chris. My time is here. It's passed now.
I'm sitting here at the library, which I love, and we'll leave that to successors, younger people who have that — you know, the traditional, tired, old cliche, fire in the belly. I don't have that there.
I want to see change. I want to see my party win. And I think we've got very good people. But I don't want to — I don't want to kind of be an old guy on the sidelines carping, let's go see what the old so-and-so up there in Kennebunkport or Houston, Texas, has to say. I've had my chance.
Wallace: If Senator Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, there will have been a Clinton or a Bush on the ballot in every presidential election since 1980, 28 years.
In a democracy, how do you explain this attachment to two families?
George H W Bush: Well, I don't know that it's an attachment to families. I think it's being in the right place politically at a certain time.
I'm not sure that — you know, again, I want to be on record as saying I don't necessarily believe Hillary is going to win the primary, say nothing of the general election.
But the American people have a way of sorting these things out, and they go to the caucuses or go to the primaries, and just work — grind your way up the — to whatever lies ahead. And that's what's happened. It hasn't been any anointing in the process.
Wallace: I assume you're not going to tell me who your favorite for the Republican nomination is.
George H W Bush: Very valid assumption.
Wallace: OK. But I do have another question, though, in that regard. This is the first real Republican race post-9/11, because your son was running for re-election in 2004. Do you think that national security may now trump social issues among Republican voters?
George H W Bush: Yes, I do, because I think 9/11 guaranteed that national security is going to be in the forefront of every election.
The president's done a good job. Homeland security is doing a good job. The agency — intelligence is doing a good job. The Congress even here have taken the steps to support the initiatives on homeland security.
But I don't think any domestic issue, at least in the foreseeable future, is going to transcend the interest of the American people in keeping our homeland safe.
Wallace: Even more than social issues.
George H W Bush: Yeah, that's my view. Maybe it's — maybe that's my own personal view and, therefore, I don't know what others think, but, you know, if you could predicate there'd be a national depression or something when the economy's been pretty darn good, let's face it, then you might have somebody say, "Well, that will trump national security."
Wallace: Let's talk about George H.W. Bush, which I know you were brought up by your mother not to do.
As I prepared for this interview, I was reminded that you have led the most remarkable life — war hero, successful businessman, ambassador to the U.N., liaison to China, CIA director, vice president, president, elder statesman.
How do you explain it? How was George H.W. Bush able to accomplish so much?
George H W Bush: Oh, I guess some of it is — you know, might be ambition, which is not a particularly worthy way of describing it.
But I think more importantly the concept of service that we talked about earlier enters into this, and I've been very blessed.
When I was down, a president comes along. He gives me an interesting assignment. You know, and that's happened two or three times in my life. So I don't really find it that remarkable, looking back.
I find that I've had a very exciting and wonderful challenge of a life, but then I don't miss a lot of the things that I used to live — I used to pick up that paper or listen — turn on the Fox and listen to the news and say, "Listen to this. Look at this so-and-so. Why is he saying that?" I don't do that anymore. I'm a kind of a calmer, quieter old guy.
Wallace: Kinder, gentler.
George H W Bush: Kinder, gentler. Well, I really am. But it doesn't mean I've lost interest in it. And again, it all goes back. I've got a grandson that would make a wonderfully able public servant if he ran, George P. And Pierce, Neil's son — they have an interest in politics.
And I sit there by the sea or in my house in Houston saying, "Isn't this wonderful? They want to do something." But it's not — we're not trying to push them into anything. I've been very proud of Jenna and her sister Barbara. They travel around to help fight against HIV/AIDS.
Wallace: Finally, I know that you had a hip replacement operation in January. You marked your 80th birthday by jumping out of an airplane. Do you still intend to do it again when you turn 85?
George H W Bush: Definitely when I turn 85. Definitely, because...
Wallace: And let me just ask the question that I'm sure Mrs. Bush is asking. Why?
George H W Bush: Two reasons. One, it feels good. When you get to be my age, you don't have that feeling of running in the fields and jumping around and running the five miles and all. You don't get that charge.
I get it in my speed boat, but I — it feels good. It's a challenge, and it's a — there's an exhilaration when you look down 13,000 feet with no visible means of support.
But the other reason, which I think is a more serious reason, is it sends a message here and abroad, former president, that old people can still do stuff. Oh, you don't have to sit there drooling in the corner. You can get out there and do something fun and challenging.
And, Chris, all over — when I travel around the world to Korea or Japan or China a lot, Russia, people ask about that. It's surprising how many people know about it.
And it sends a message of hope to people, old people. Get in the game. Get off the bench. Do something, even if it's something as frivolous as jumping out of a plane.
(End videotape)
Wallace: Up next, Mr. Bush takes us behind the scenes of his presidency. We'll deal with a crisis in the situation room, only this time I have to make the decisions and he gets to second-guess me.
We'll be right back.
(Commercial break)
Wallace: We're back now with our new series, American Leaders. After sitting down with former President Bush, he gave us an inside look into his years in the White House, with a private tour through never-before-seen areas of his presidential library.
(Begin videotape)
Wallace: Walk through the Bush library and you walk through the events of his presidency. We started with the re-creation of the Oval Office. And I asked Mr. Bush if he ever lost his sense of awe for the room.
George H W Bush: You always feel that it's a special place for the American people and for foreign visitors. A lot of them stand outside, American citizens — I'm going to go in there and tell this guy off, you know? And they get in there and they start shaking. They don't tell you off. And it has a majesty to it.
Wallace: It's been called the ultimate home court advantage.
George H W Bush: It's true. I hadn't heard that, but that's very true.
Wallace: When you're here at the desk in the Oval Office making presidential decisions, what's the feeling?
George H W Bush: Every single day when I walked into this office from this door over here, you feel a sense of awe and a sense of respect, and I tried to treat the office with respect.
But I have many happy memories. I look down there and there was a secure phone in there, and I remember Colin Powell coming in one day, and they said, "Well, it's time to end the shooting in Kuwait."
And he picked up the secure phone right there and was on there to Schwarzkopf in about 45 seconds. "Get me Schwarzkopf." And they got him on there, and they confirmed that it was time to end the battle.
Wallace: We moved on to 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union
Well, this has got to be one of the high points of your presidency.
George H W Bush: Well, it is. It is. And of course, the wall coming down and then the subsequent reunification of Germany — I think the unification of Germany is going to be the most historic thing that happened on my watch.
And I think it's probably, in terms of the last century, one of the most significant international events, because it all but ended the Cold War in a definitive way, and I think my people and hopefully me — hopefully I handled it well, and not a shot was fired.
Wallace: That day, as I'm sure you were watching in the White House on television, as the people stormed the Berlin Wall and started tearing it down, what were you thinking?
George H W Bush: I was thinking this is amazing. This is absolutely amazing after all these years to see this coming down.
But I got a little criticized, Chris, because I didn't go and do, as Gephardt and Mitchell suggested, and dance on the wall. One, I'm a terrible dancer. And two, it would have been a stupid thing to do.
I think I'd have been sticking my finger in Gorbachev's eyes, and who knows how the Soviet military would have reacted. And so to go get a couple of points in the polls by dancing on the wall to show your exuberance — which I felt in my heart would have been stupid.
Wallace: Although the library is 10 years old, they have just done major upgrades, such as this version of the situation room where President Bush and his team handled crises.
George H W Bush: Exact replica. I mean, there's a little more room from here to that wall now.
Wallace: But the wood panels and the desk and the...
George H W Bush: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's the way it was. Now, these are on here as modern technology.
Wallace: He's talking about touch screens where you can have an interactive experience making decisions as events unfold, only this time I was the president, and Mr. Bush was second-guessing me.
George H W Bush: Now, I'm going to sit down and watch you at work.
Wallace: Here's August 8th, 1990. One of the conditions insisted upon by King Fahd when he agreed to accept U.S. troops on Saudi soil was that no public announcement be made until the troops had actually arrived and it was a fait accompli.
They were choices President Bush had to face during the first Gulf War, such as when to tell the American people he was sending U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia to confront Saddam Hussein.
Wallace: Make the news known immediately — that wouldn't be prudent.
George H W Bush: No, it wouldn't, wouldn't be prudent. Not gonna do that.
Wallace: Not gonna.
George H W Bush: Not gonna do that.
Wallace: I'll try three. Yes, congratulations.
George H W Bush: Amazing roll you're on here, Chris.
Wallace: I understand that. Now, here's the question, though. You're sitting around a room. These are obviously complicated situations. How do you make the choices?
George H W Bush: Well, I'll tell you how I did it. I was blessed with a strong national security team, and we'd sit around here and they'd review the various options.
Wallace: But are there times — and you had two very good men in Cheney and Baker — where Baker is saying X and Cheney is saying Y...
George H W Bush: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Wallace: ... and they both make very strong cases?
George H W Bush: Yes, there are. And then the president has to make the decision. And therein I was blessed with Scowcroft. I'd say, "Look, here's what — Cheney says this one, and Jim says that. And tell me what you really think," or, "Do you — what the rest of the departments are saying."
So there are times — and it's not easy. I mean, you have to do what you think is best for the overall good.
Wallace: Easy for you to make a decision, or would you agonize about it a lot?
George H W Bush: Well, when they say we need a decision by 5 o'clock today because we want to move forces or something, I had no problem doing that. But you always kind of hoped you were right.
Wallace: Finally, we see what happens when a president makes a decision, walking into the kind of tent where U.S. soldiers camped in the Saudi desert during Operation Desert Storm.
It's got to be the hardest thing for any president, to send troops into combat.
George H W Bush: Oh, that's the toughest decision a president make, no question. Nothing compares to it when you send somebody else's kid, somebody else's son, somebody else's daughter, whatever it is, into harm's way. There's nothing like it. You can't blame someone else. You've got to say this is — I'm making this call.
Wallace: And on a personal level, how do you live with it?
George H W Bush: Well, you — with all respect, you pray and you rely heavily on a team of experts, but in the final analysis you live with the decision. And sometimes things work out great, and sometimes I was very worried they wouldn't.
When you suit up to be president, that goes with the territory. And it's not easy. Those things are not easy. But I never, you know, felt sorry for myself because I knew — my mother would say, "You're doing your best," and I knew I had a wonderful group of advisers.
But we couldn't see how it would all play out, I will confess that.
Wallace: The library has a powerful film that puts you right in the action. January 16th, 1991, the night the air war is launched.
George H W Bush: I'll never forget that night.
Wallace: What...
George H W Bush: Well, just the fact that we're watching and knowing when the war was supposed to start. It started earlier. The skies lit up earlier on. I called the situation room and said, "What's going on here?" And I don't know what — don't remember the answer, but the battle had begun.
Wallace: Now, you must be thinking, as this is going on, you know, get home. Everybody get home.
George H W Bush: Yeah. Bring them home.
Wallace: The president remembered the courage and humanity of American soldiers and he grew emotional.
George H W Bush: My favorite picture is a picture of American soldiers surrounding a guy in a foxhole, Iraqi soldier, and the American guy says, "We're not going to harm you. We're American soldiers."
Wallace: This really brings back the sacrifice, doesn't it, sir?
George H W Bush: Sure does. You see, that side of the war never got — the fact that he treated those people with respect in spite of the fact that they were the enemy was really good.
Wallace: Then some final thoughts about the decisions he had to make.
George H W Bush: I still think Saddam Hussein thought he would — one, we wouldn't fight and, two, if we did fight, somehow talked himself into believing he'd win in the ground war.
Wallace: And then the decision to end it...
George H W Bush: Yeah.
Wallace: ... when we were slaughtering them — and again, I mean, I...
George H W Bush: I think we made the right decision. I've subsequently been criticized for that. But we had an objective. We formed a coalition based on not killing Saddam, not conquering, capturing Baghdad, but on ending the war, ending the aggression. And we did it.
And so we did what we said we were going to do. Had we not done that, that coalition would have fallen apart in a minute.
Wallace: Mr. President, thank you so much. This has been such a wonderful...
George H W Bush: All right. Well, Chris, thank you for coming all this way.
(End videotape)
Wallace: And a special thanks to everyone at Bush Presidential Library for all their help during our time in Texas.
***
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