GEORGE BUSH
Biography
Few presidents in recent years have entered the White House with as much
broad experience in government as George Bush. He served as a member of
Congress and as U.S. representative to the United Nations. He was one
of the first officials to represent the United States in the People's
Republic of China. He is a former director of the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA). And he was Vice President under President Ronald
Reagan for eight years, before winning the presidency himself in 1988.
Bush was the first sitting vice president to be elected president since
Martin Van Buren won office in 1836.
Oil and Politics in Texas
On his graduation from Yale in 1948, Bush was offered a job in his father's investment banking firm. But Bush preferred to make it on his own. With his wife and young son, he headed for Texas. His first job was painting oil rigs. But soon he was selling oil drilling equipment. In 1950 he and a partner formed a company that bought land in hopes of finding oil or natural gas. Three years later, Bush merged the company with the operations of other oil speculators, founding the Zapata Petroleum Corporation. From 1953 to 1966, Bush was the head of the Zapata Off Shore Company, which was a supplier of the drilling equipment used to explore for oil beneath the ocean floor.
Meanwhile, Bush had settled his family in Houston, Texas, and had become active in Republican Party politics. In 1964 he ran for the U.S. Senate, but was defeated. Setting his sights a little lower, Bush won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966. He was the first Republican to represent Houston in Congress. He was re-elected in 1968. In 1970, Bush again ran for the Senate and again was defeated.
Appointive Offices
In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon appointed Bush U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations. It was a crucial time for the world organization. The United States had agreed to allow the admission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations for the first time since 1949, when the Communists took over the mainland of China. Bush argued forcefully for a so-called “two-China” policy. Under this compromise, a special seat would have been created for the Republic of China (Taiwan), which had held the China seat since the founding of the United Nations in 1945. But the United Nations rejected the two-China plan and expelled the Taiwan government in favor of the People's Republic.
In 1973, Bush was named chairman of the Republican National Committee. At this time, President Nixon and the Republican Party were under the cloud of the Watergate scandal. For a long time, Bush defended Nixon, because he believed the president when he said that he had taken no part in attempts to cover up illegal activities by some members of his administration. But when the White House tape recordings were made public and exposed Nixon's involvement, Bush, acting for the Republican Party, asked Nixon to resign. Nixon did so on August 9, 1974.
Envoy to China and CIA Director
The new president, Gerald R. Ford, appointed Bush to what was then the top diplomatic post in the People's Republic of China, chief of the U.S. Liaison Office, in 1974. He remained in China until he was called home at Ford's request to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Bush served in that post from late January 1976 until the beginning of Jimmy Carter's administration in January 1977.
Vice President
Bush lost the Republican presidential nomination to Ronald Reagan in 1980 but was named as his vice-presidential running mate. The Reagan-Bush ticket won easily in 1980. They were re-elected overwhelmingly in 1984.
Two Presidential Emergencies
On March 30, 1981, President Reagan was shot in an assassination attempt. While Reagan was recovering, Vice President Bush met regularly with the Cabinet, White House officials, and congressional leaders. On July 13, 1985, the powers of the presidency were transferred temporarily to Bush while Reagan underwent cancer surgery.
The Iran-Contra Affair
In 1986 it became known that presidential aides had secretly sold arms to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages in the Middle East. Some of the arms profits were used, illegally, to help contra guerrillas in their war against the government of Nicaragua. Bush’s role in the affair became a point of controversy.
The 1988 Election
In 1988, Bush again sought and won the Republican presidential nomination. In the election, Bush and his vice-presidential running mate, J. Danforth (Dan) Quayle of Indiana, easily defeated the Democratic candidates, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts and Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Jr., of Texas. The Bush-Quayle ticket won 54 percent of the popular vote and received 426 electoral votes to 111 for the Democrats.
President
In one of his first measures as president, Bush proposed legislation to bail out the nation’s financially troubled savings and loan institutions. Congress passed a $159 million ten-year plan to rescue the ailing industry, but the scope and cost of the problem grew. The large federal budget deficit, inherited from the Reagan years, was a major concern of Bush's administration. Bush’s agreement to a budget-reduction tax package in 1990, which went against his campaign pledge not to raise taxes, cost him considerable popularity, particularly among conservative Republicans.
Following the resignation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan in 1990, Bush named David H. Souter of New Hampshire to the post. In 1991 he appointed Clarence Thomas, a black federal judge, to the court to succeed Thurgood Marshall, who was scheduled to retire. Thomas was confirmed after much controversy.
Bush signed a compromise civil rights bill in 1991, after vetoing an earlier measure in 1990. He twice vetoed family leave bills, in 1990 and 1992, which would have forced large businesses to grant such leave, prefering voluntary measures. An often-mentioned issue, a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, remained unresolved.
Foreign Affairs
Bush presided during a period of great political change abroad. Between 1989 and 1992, the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were replaced by representative governments, a divided Germany was reunited, and the Soviet Union broke apart. An activist president in foreign affairs, Bush in late 1989 sent U.S. troops to oust Panama's dictator, General Manuel Noriega, who was tried in the United States on drug trafficking charges and sentenced to prison. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Bush led an international effort to counter the aggression. An alliance headed by the United States, and approved by the United Nations, forced the Iraqis’ swift withdrawal in 1991.
In 1992, Bush signed the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. The treaty established the world's largest free trade zone.
Defeat in 1992: Last Measures
But Bush’s successes in foreign affairs were offset by an economic recession at home, which became a decisive issue in the 1992 election campaign. Bush's Democratic opponent was Governor William (Bill) Clinton of Arkansas. The entry of a strong independent candidate, H. Ross Perot, a Texas businessman, made it a three-way race. No candidate received a majority of the popular vote, but Clinton won overwhelmingly, with 370 Electoral votes to Bush's 168.
Bush's last months in office were busy ones. In December 1992, he dispatched U.S. Marines to Somalia, to ensure that relief supplies reached its starving people, caught up in civil war. In January 1993, he signed the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START II, the most extensive disarmament treaty yet, with Russian president Boris Yeltsin. He also authorized new air strikes against Iraq for its violations of United Nations agreements.
William A. DeGregorio
Author, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents
Updated by James E. Churchill, Jr.
Executive Editor, The Americana Annual