George H. W. Bush

Vice President

After some preliminary discussion of choosing former President Gerald Ford as his running mate, Reagan selected Bush as his Vice President, placing him on the winning Republican Presidential ticket of 1980. Bush had declared he would never be Reagan's VP. Bush was many things Reagan had not been - a life-long Republican, a combat veteran, and an internationalist with UN, CIA, and China experience. Bush was also more moderate in his economic positions and political philosophy than Reagan.

As Vice President, Bush was loyal to Reagan and kept any policy differences hidden. Bush did not wield strong power within the Reagan administration, but had some influence on Reagan's staffing and was given some line responsibilities. [4] Reagan kept Bush busy on overseas diplomatic trips; Bush attended so many state funerals that he famously quipped, "I'm George Bush. You die, I fly." [5]

The Reagan/Bush ticket won again in 1984, against the Democrats' Walter Mondale/Geraldine Ferraro ticket.

During his second term as Vice President, Bush had the distinction of becoming 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 stated that he had been "out of the loop" and unaware of the Iran initiatives related to arms trading. [6] This claim met with some skepticism, but Bush was never charged with any wrongdoing.

Gulf War (January-February 1991)

As President, Bush is perhaps best known for leading the United Nations coalition in the 1990–1991 Gulf War despite his strong support for Saddam Hussein's regime against Congress over the latter's response to the Halabja affair, when he was Vice President and in his early days as President. In 1990, led by Saddam Hussein, Iraq invaded its oil-rich neighbor to the south, Kuwait. The broad coalition sought to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait and ensure that Iraq did not invade Saudi Arabia. Bush claimed that his position was summed up succinctly when he said, "This aggression will not stand," and "this is not a war for oil. This is war against aggression." It has since been revealed that the United Nations were unaware that the United States had actually attacked Iraq until they saw it on CNN (John Pilger).

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. His Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney noted that invading the country would get the United States "bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq." 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". [10] [11]

In explaining to Gulf War veterans why he chose not to pursue the war further, he said, "whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho? We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power — America in an Arab land — with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous." [12]

President Bush's popularity rating in America soared during and immediately after the apparent success of the military operations, but later fell dramatically due to an economic recession.

Post-presidency

Since his final election campaign, Bush has largely retired from public life. The Bushes live in Houston and their summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine. He holds his own fishing tournament in Islamorada, an island in the Florida Keys.

In April 1993, the Iraqi Intelligence Service attempted to assassinate former President Bush via car bomb during a visit to Kuwait. However, Kuwaiti security foiled the car bomb plot. On June 26, 1993, the U.S. launched a missile attack targeting Baghdad intelligence headquarters in retaliation for the attempted attack against Bush.

Bush has never written a memoir of his political life, and says he does not plan to. He has, however, published a book containing a series of collected letters (All The Best, George Bush, 1999), and co-authored a book on recent foreign policy issues with his former National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft (A World Transformed, 1998). He has given a number of paid speeches and participated in business ventures with the Carlyle Group.

The George Bush Presidential Library and Museum is located on the Southwest corner of the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas was renamed after the former president in 1997. The tenth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier will be named USS George H. W. Bush when it is launched in 2009.

In 2001, he became the first president since John Adams to be father of another president when his son George W. Bush, previously Governor of Texas, took office as President of the United States. During his term of office, George H. W. Bush was simply known as President George Bush, since his son had never held elective office and was not especially well-known to the public. He is now referred to by various nicknames and titles, including "Former President Bush," "Bush the Elder," "the first President Bush," "Bush 41," "Papa Bush," and simply "41", in order to avoid confusion between his presidency and that of his son. Although the names of the two men are similar, they are not identical—George W. Bush lacks his father's middle name Herbert—so they are not known as "senior" and "junior."

Bush, along with his son President George W. Bush, his daughter-in-law, Laura, and another former president, Bill Clinton, pay their respects to Pope John Paul II before the pope's funeral.On June 12, 2004, he went skydiving in honor of his 80th birthday. It was his third parachute jump since World War II. He also made a jump on June 9, 1999, before his 75th birthday, and told reporters then he had also parachuted in Arizona two years earlier. The day before his 80th birthday jump, he and his son both took part in eulogizing his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, at the latter's state funeral.

On November 22, 2004, New York Republican Governor George Pataki named Bush and the other living former presidents (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton) as honorary members of the board rebuilding the World Trade Center.

On January 3, 2005, Bush and Bill Clinton were named by the current President Bush to lead a nationwide campaign to help the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Bush and Clinton both appeared on the Super Bowl XXXIX pre-game show on Fox in support of their bipartisan effort to raise money for relief of the disaster through the USA Freedom Corps, an action which Bush described as "transcending politics." Thirteen days later, they both traveled to the affected areas to see how the relief efforts are going.

In August 31, 2005, following the devastation of the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina, Bush again teamed with Clinton to coordinate private relief donations. Reports were common that Bush and Clinton had developed a friendship by now, despite the latter having defeated the former in the 1992 election. (Such friendships were not unknown, as Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter had developed one despite a similar history.)

Bush and his wife Barbara could also be seen sitting in the front row behind home plate at Minute Maid Park in Houston, supporting the Houston Astros during the 2005 World Series.