Bush, George Herbert Walker (1924– )

41st president of the USA 1989–93, a Republican. He was vice-president 1981–89 and director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 1976–81. The Bush presidency marked a turning point in world affairs, as the collapse of the USSR ended the Cold War and heralded a ‘new world Order’ dominated by the USA as the only global superpower. Active in foreign affairs, Bush sent US troops to depose his former ally, Gen Manuel Noriega of Panama, and, in the 1991 Gulf War, to remove Iraq from Kuwait. These raised his public standing, but domestic economic problems led to defeat in the 1992 presidential elections by the Democrat Bill Clinton. His eldest son, George W Bush, became president in 2001, and another son, Jeb (John Ellis) Bush (1953– ), governor of Florida in 1999.

In November 1996 the $42 million George Bush Presidential Library and Museum opened on the campus of Texas A&M University at College Station, Texas.

Born in Milton, Massachusetts, Bush grew up in Connecticut, where his father, Prescott Bush, was a US senator. He graduated from Yale University in 1948 and moved to Texas to build up an oil-drilling company. He became active in the Republican Party in Houston in 1959 and, after losing in a bid for the US Senate in 1964, he was elected in 1966 to the House of Representatives from a safely Republican Texas district. He remained in Congress until 1970, when he again lost a bid for the Senate. He was appointed US ambassador to the United Nations 1971–73 and Republican national chair 1973–74 by President Richard Nixon, and special envoy to China 1974–75 under President Gerald Ford. He initially contested for the Republicans' presidential nomination in 1980, before becoming the running-mate of Ronald Reagan. As vice-president during President Reagan's administrations (1981–89), he travelled widely and was responsible for overseeing government reform and programmes to combat drug smuggling. He easily defeated his Democrat challenger, Michael Dukakis, in the November 1988 presidential election. During Bush's time as director of the CIA (1976–77), General Noriega of Panama was on its payroll, and Panama was later used as a channel for the secret supply of arms to Iran and the Nicaraguan Contra guerrillas. As president, in December 1989 Bush sent US troops to Panama to topple Noriega, who had been indicted in the USA on drug-trafficking charges. Facing economic recession, he reneged on his election pledge of ‘no new taxes’, but did cut capital-gains tax to benefit the very rich. During the Bush presidency, the USSR collapsed and the Cold War was declared officially over, and in 1990 Bush proclaimed a ‘new world order’. The USA led an international military coalition against Iraq, after its annexation of Kuwait in August 1990, and ousted Iraqi forces from Kuwait in January 1991. Despite this success, the signing of the long-awaited Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) in July 1991, and Bush's unprecedented unilateral reduction in US nuclear weapons two months later, his popularity at home began to wane as criticism of his handling of domestic affairs mounted, and he lost the November 1992 presidential election to Democrat Bill Clinton. Prior to handing over to his successor on 20 January 1993, Bush initiated ‘Operation Restore Hope’ in Somalia, in which US Marines were drafted in as part of a multinational effort to deliver aid to famine-stricken areas, and signed the START II treaty with Russia, which bound both countries to cut long-range nuclear weapons by two-thirds by the year 2003. He also supported the more controversial bombing of strategic targets in Iraq after alleged infringements of the UN-imposed ‘no-fly zone’.