George H. W. Bush facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
George H. W. Bush
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Official portrait, 1989
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| 41st President of the United States | |
| In office January 20, 1989 – January 20, 1993 |
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| Vice President | Dan Quayle |
| Preceded by | Ronald Reagan |
| Succeeded by | Bill Clinton |
| 43rd Vice President of the United States | |
| In office January 20, 1981 – January 20, 1989 |
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| President | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Walter Mondale |
| Succeeded by | Dan Quayle |
| 11th Director of Central Intelligence | |
| In office January 30, 1976 – January 20, 1977 |
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| President | Gerald Ford |
| Deputy |
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| Preceded by | William Colby |
| Succeeded by | Stansfield Turner |
| 2nd Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China | |
| In office September 26, 1974 – December 7, 1975 |
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| President | Gerald Ford |
| Preceded by | David K. E. Bruce |
| Succeeded by | Thomas S. Gates Jr. |
| Chair of the Republican National Committee | |
| In office January 19, 1973 – September 16, 1974 |
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| Preceded by | Bob Dole |
| Succeeded by | Mary Smith |
| 10th United States Ambassador to the United Nations | |
| In office March 1, 1971 – January 18, 1973 |
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| President | Richard Nixon |
| Preceded by | Charles Yost |
| Succeeded by | John A. Scali |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 7th district |
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| In office January 3, 1967 – January 3, 1971 |
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| Preceded by | John Dowdy |
| Succeeded by | Bill Archer |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
George Herbert Walker Bush
June 12, 1924 Milton, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | November 30, 2018 (aged 94) Houston, Texas, U.S. |
| Resting place | George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum |
| Political party | Republican |
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| Relatives | Bush family |
| Education | Yale University (BA) |
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| Awards | Full list |
| Signature |  |
George Herbert Walker Bush (June 12, 1924 – November 30, 2018) was an American politician, diplomat, and businessman who served as the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as the 43rd vice president from 1981 to 1989 under Ronald Reagan, and in various other federal positions prior to that.
Historians generally rank Bush as an above-average president.
Early life and education
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Bush at his grandfather's house in Kennebunkport, c. 1925
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Bush in Phillips Academy's 1942 yearbook
George Herbert Walker Bush was born on June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts. He was the second son of Prescott Bush and Dorothy (Walker) Bush, and a younger brother of Prescott Bush Jr. His paternal grandfather, Samuel P. Bush, worked as an executive for a railroad parts company in Columbus, Ohio, while his maternal grandfather and namesake, George Herbert Walker, led Wall Street investment bank W. A. Harriman & Co. Walker was known as "Pop", and young Bush was called "Poppy" as a tribute to him.
The Bush family moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1925, and Prescott took a position with W. A. Harriman & Co. (which later merged into Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.) the following year. Bush spent most of his childhood in Greenwich, at the family vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine, or at his maternal grandparents' plantation in South Carolina.
Because of the family's wealth, Bush was largely unaffected by the Great Depression. He attended Greenwich Country Day School from 1929 to 1937 and Phillips Academy, an elite private academy in Massachusetts, from 1937 to 1942. While at Phillips Academy, he served as president of the senior class, secretary of the student council, president of the community fund-raising group, a member of the editorial board of the school newspaper, and captain of the varsity baseball and soccer teams.
World War II
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On his 18th birthday, immediately after graduating from Phillips Academy, he enlisted in the United States Navy as a naval aviator. After a period of training, he was commissioned as an ensign in the Naval Reserve at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi on June 9, 1943, becoming one of the youngest pilots in the Navy. Beginning in 1944, Bush served in the Pacific theater, where he flew a Grumman TBF Avenger, a torpedo bomber capable of taking off from aircraft carriers. His squadron was assigned to the USS San Jacinto as a member of Air Group 51, where his lanky physique earned him the nickname "Skin".
Bush flew his first combat mission in May 1944, bombing Japanese-held Wake Island, and was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade) on August 1, 1944. During an attack on a Japanese installation in Chichijima, Bush's aircraft successfully attacked several targets but was downed by enemy fire. Though both of Bush's fellow crew members died, Bush successfully bailed out from the aircraft and was rescued by the submarine USS Finback. Bush's survival after such a close brush with death shaped him profoundly, leading him to ask, "Why had I been spared and what did God have for me?" He was later awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his role in the mission.
Bush returned to San Jacinto in November 1944, participating in operations in the Philippines. In early 1945, he was assigned to a new combat squadron, VT-153, where he trained to participate in an invasion of mainland Japan. Between March and May 1945, he trained in Auburn, Maine, where he and Barbara lived in a small apartment. On September 2, 1945, before any invasion took place, Japan formally surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bush was released from active duty that same month but was not formally discharged from the Navy until October 1955, when he had reached the rank of lieutenant. By the end of his period of active service, Bush had flown 58 missions, completed 128 carrier landings, and recorded 1228 hours of flight time.
College years
Bush enrolled at Yale College, where he took part in an accelerated program that enabled him to graduate in two and a half years rather than the usual four. He was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and was elected its president. He also captained the Yale baseball team and played in the first two College World Series as a left-handed first baseman. Like his father, he was a member of the Yale cheerleading squad and was initiated into the Skull and Bones secret society. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1948 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.
Business career (1948–1963)
After graduating from Yale, Bush moved his young family to West Texas.
With support from a family friend, Neil Mallon, and Bush's uncle, George Herbert Walker Jr., Bush and John Overbey launched the Bush-Overbey Oil Development Company in 1951. In 1953, he co-founded the Zapata Petroleum Corporation, an oil company that drilled in the Permian Basin in Texas. In 1954, he was named president of the Zapata Offshore Company, a subsidiary which specialized in offshore drilling. Shortly after the subsidiary became independent in 1959, Bush moved the company and his family from Midland to Houston. Bush remained involved with Zapata until the mid-1960s, when he sold his stock in the company for approximately $1 million.
Early political career
Following an unsuccessful run for the United States Senate in 1964, Bush was elected to represent Texas's 7th congressional district in 1966. President Richard Nixon appointed Bush as the ambassador to the United Nations in 1971 and as chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1973. President Gerald Ford appointed him as the chief of the Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China in 1974 and as the director of Central Intelligence in 1976. Bush ran for president in 1980 but was defeated in the Republican presidential primaries by Reagan, who then selected Bush as his vice presidential running mate.
As vice president, Bush generally maintained a low profile; he avoided decision-making or criticizing Reagan in any way. This approach helped him earn Reagan's trust, easing tensions left over from their earlier rivalry. In the 1988 presidential election, Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis.
Presidency (1989–1993)
Foreign policy drove Bush's presidency as he navigated the final years of the Cold War and played a key role in the reunification of Germany. He presided over the invasion of Panama and the Gulf War, ending the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in the latter conflict. Though the agreement was not ratified until after he left office, Bush negotiated and signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which created a trade bloc consisting of the United States, Canada and Mexico. Domestically, Bush reneged on a 1988 campaign promise by enacting legislation to raise taxes to justify reducing the budget deficit. He championed and signed three pieces of bipartisan legislation in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Immigration Act and the Clean Air Act Amendments.
Discrimination
The disabled had not received legal protections under the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, and many faced discrimination and segregation by the time Bush took office. In 1988, Lowell P. Weicker Jr. and Tony Coelho introduced the Americans with Disabilities Act, which barred employment discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities. The bill had passed the Senate but not the House and was reintroduced in 1989. Though some conservatives opposed the bill due to its costs and potential burdens on businesses, Bush strongly supported it, partly because his son, Neil, had struggled with dyslexia. After the bill passed both houses of Congress, Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 into law in July 1990. The act required employers and public accommodations to make "reasonable accommodations" for disabled people while providing an exception when such accommodations imposed an "undue hardship".
Senator Ted Kennedy later led the congressional passage of a separate civil rights bill designed to facilitate launching employment discrimination lawsuits. In vetoing the bill, Bush argued that it would lead to racial quotas in hiring. In November 1991, Bush signed the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which was largely similar to the bill he had vetoed in the previous year.
In August 1990, Bush signed the Ryan White CARE Act, the largest federally funded program dedicated to assisting persons living with HIV/AIDS.
Environment
In June 1989, the Bush administration proposed a bill to amend the Clean Air Act. Working with Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, the administration won passage of the amendments over the opposition of business-aligned members of Congress who feared the impact of tougher regulations. The legislation sought to curb acid rain and smog by requiring decreased emissions of chemicals such as sulfur dioxide, and was the first major update to the Clean Air Act since 1977. Bush also signed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. However, the League of Conservation Voters criticized some of Bush's other environmental actions, including his opposition to stricter auto-mileage standards.
Points of Light
Bush devoted attention to voluntary service to solve some of America's most serious social problems. He often used the "thousand points of light" theme to describe the power of citizens to solve community problems. In his 1989 inaugural address, Bush said, "I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good." During his presidency, Bush honored numerous volunteers with the Daily Point of Light Award, a tradition that his presidential successors continued. In 1990, the Points of Light Foundation was created as a nonprofit organization in Washington to promote this spirit of volunteerism.
In 2007, the Points of Light Foundation merged with the Hands On Network to create a new organization, Points of Light.
Other issues
Bush's education platform consisted mainly of offering federal support for a variety of innovations, such as open enrollment, incentive pay for outstanding teachers, and rewards for schools that improve performance with underprivileged children. Though Bush did not pass a major educational reform package during his presidency, his ideas influenced later reform efforts, including Goals 2000 and the No Child Left Behind Act.
Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990, which led to a 40 percent increase in legal immigration to the United States. The act more than doubled the number of visas given to immigrants on the basis of job skills. In the wake of the savings and loan crisis, Bush proposed a $50 billion package to rescue the savings and loans industry, and also proposed the creation of the Office of Thrift Supervision to regulate the industry. Congress passed the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989, which incorporated most of Bush's proposals.
Post-presidency (1993–2018)
Bush lost the 1992 presidential election to Democrat Bill Clinton following an economic recession, his turnaround on his tax promise, and the increased emphasis of foreign policy in a post–Cold War political climate. After leaving office in 1993, Bush was active in humanitarian activities, often working alongside Clinton. With the victory of his son, George W. Bush, in the 2000 presidential election, the two became the second father–son pair to serve as the nation's president, following John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Another son, Jeb Bush, unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 primaries.
Death and funeral
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After a long battle with vascular Parkinson's disease, Bush died at his home in Houston on November 30, 2018, at the age of 94. At the time of his death he was the longest-lived U.S. president, a distinction now held by Jimmy Carter. He was also the third-oldest vice president. Bush lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol from December 3 through December 5; he was the 12th U.S. president to be accorded this honor. Then, on December 5, Bush's casket was transferred from the Capitol rotunda to Washington National Cathedral where a state funeral was held. After the funeral, Bush's body was transported to George H.W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, where he was buried next to his wife Barbara and daughter Robin. At the funeral, former president George W. Bush eulogized his father saying, "He looked for the good in each person, and he usually found it."
Personal life
Bush met Barbara Pierce at a Christmas dance in Greenwich in December 1941, and, after a period of courtship, they became engaged in December 1943. While Bush was on leave from the Navy, they married in Rye, New York, on January 6, 1945. The Bushes enjoyed a strong marriage, and Barbara would later be a popular First Lady, seen by many as "a kind of national grandmother". They had six children: George W. (b. 1946), Robin (1949–1953), Jeb (b. 1953), Neil (b. 1955), Marvin (b. 1956), and Doro (b. 1959). Their oldest daughter, Robin, died of leukemia in 1953.
Memorials, awards, and honors
In 1990, Time magazine named him the Man of the Year. In 1997, the Houston Intercontinental Airport was renamed as the George Bush Intercontinental Airport. In 1999, the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, was named the George Bush Center for Intelligence in his honor. In 2011, Bush, an avid golfer, was inducted in the World Golf Hall of Fame. The USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), the tenth and last Nimitz-class supercarrier of the United States Navy, was named for Bush. Bush is commemorated on a postage stamp that was issued by the United States Postal Service in 2019.
The George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, the tenth U.S. presidential library, was completed in 1997. It contains the presidential and vice presidential papers of Bush and the vice presidential papers of Dan Quayle. The library is located on a 90-acre (36 ha) site on the west campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Texas A&M University also hosts the Bush School of Government and Public Service, a graduate public policy school. In 2012, Phillips Academy also awarded Bush its Alumni Award of Distinction.
See also
In Spanish: George H. W. Bush para niños
- Electoral history of George H. W. Bush
- List of presidents of the United States
