George H W Bush

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Personal

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Family

American Republican politician who served as the 41st President of the United States from 1989 to 1993. A Yale graduate in 1948, he went on to become a business executive and owner of Zapata Petroleum. Bush first took public office as GOP Chairman in 1963. From there, he served as a Congressman in 1966 for two terms and spent a diplomatic year in China in 1974. He was director of the CIA from 1975 to 1977. Bush was elected Vice-President under Ronald Reagan in 1980, taking office in January 1981. Young George was a student at Andover, where his grades were less impressive than his extracurricular records as senior class president, captain of the soccer and baseball teams and, maintaining his faith, chairman of the student deacons. Six months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, George got his diploma. On his 18th birthday, against the wishes of his parents who wanted him to go on to college, he was sworn into the Navy. When he got his wings in August 1943, he was the Navy's youngest pilot. By the time he emerged from the service two years later, he was a war hero. On 2 September 1944, he nearly died when his torpedo bomber, nicknamed "Barbara" for his girl friend, took a hit over the Pacific island of Chichi Jima. With the plane on fire, he flew on to drop his bombs on target. He stayed at the controls, hoping his two crewmen could parachute to safety, but both died. Bailing out over the ocean, Bush was picked up within two hours by an American submarine. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and three air medals. Home on leave three months later, Bush married Barbara Pierce on 6 January 1945, a debutante whose dad was president of McCall's. They had met three years earlier at a Christmas party when they were 16 and 17, and had connected with a particular intensity from then. Following his September 1945 discharge from the Navy, George entered Yale to study economics. He and his young bride moved into a basement apartment in New Haven. Racking up the proper credentials, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in the fall of 1948. Although his dad's international banking firm offered him a job, Bush headed for Texas with Barbara and their baby, George Jr., and tapped into the oil boom. He took a job painting machinery for $375 a month and they lived in a shabby rented house next door to a mother-daughter team of prostitutes. By 1953, he sunk all of his savings into an investment with three partners in a wildcatting operation. The company, Zapata Petroleum, would eventually make him a millionaire when he sold out in 1966. He and Barbara's lives were not without grief. One morning in 1953 their little girl Robin, a three-year old, woke listless and weak; she had leukemia and died six months later, on 11 October 1953. His dad died in 1972 and his mom 20 years later. The family stayed in Texas for 11 more years before Bush made the plunge into politics. His dad, Prescott, had served ten years as a U.S. Senator, up to 1962, just two years before George tried to win a Senate seat. He lost the 1964 race, but three years later a Republican district in Houston sent him to Congress for two terms. In 1970, he had a deflating loss of the Senate position to Lloyd Bentsen. In March 1971, Bush was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.; two years later he became chairman of the Watergate-plagued Republican National Committee. After Nixon's resignation, Gerald Ford named Bush U.S. envoy to China, where he and Barbara stayed for 14 months before returning home to head the C.I.A. In 1980, he entered the presidential fray as Ronald Reagan's running mate. In November 1988, he was elected to the Presidency and sworn in on 20 January 1989. The defining event of his Presidency was Desert Storm, the 1991 military operation in Kuwait. As a WW II vet, Bush was offended at the way we fought the Vietnam War, though he supported the president. So with Desert Storm, he was determined that we were going to do what was needed. On 3 November 1992, he lost re-election to Bill Clinton. The pressure of public life was replaced by more time for family and private pursuits. They moved to a new home in Houston in October 1993. His idea of retirement was fishing for three hours, jogging for 30 minutes, playing tennis and golf and then maybe reading a book and watching a movie. In the four following years, he traveled widely throughout the U.S., giving speeches and meeting Americans from all walks of life. Troubled by the patterns of the late 20th century, domestic crime, violence, drugs, the economy and educational standards, he called for a return to the values of honesty, integrity, honor, duty, service as a way of life. He credited his values from having loving parents, and both he and Barbara made a concentrated effort to pass those same values on to their kids. On 3 November 1998, his son George Jr. was elected Governor of Texas and his son Jeb, Governor of Florida. Bush always loved the competition, comparing the rush of politics to that of sports. Highly sociable, he had an active camaraderie with his circle of male friends and was known as a big flirt with the ladies. Family figured high on his list of priorities, with 13 grandkids keeping the household young. His golf game had always been an important part of his rest-and-recreation, along with social mixers. At 72, he made headlines with a parachute jump out of a plane 12,500 feet above the Arizona desert. Bush had a pension of nearly $150,000 a year and commanded more than $60,000 a speech. He was hospitalized briefly, from 24 to 26 February 2000, for suffering light-headedness during a political reception. It was determined to be related to his thyroid condition. The former US President was brought to a California hospital on 11 March 2007 after he collapsed on a golf course. He was released the next day after being treated for dehydration. His brother Prescott died on 23 June 2010; he was 87. At the time of his wife's death on 17 April 2018, George H. W. had been married to Barbara for 73 years; theirs was the longest presidential marriage in American history. Bush suffered from vascular parkinsonism, a form of Parkinson's disease that had forced him to use a motorized scooter or wheelchair since at least 2012. He died on the night of 30 November 2018, aged 94, at his home in Houston. At the time of his death, Bush was the longest-lived American president in history. Link to Wikipedia biography