Just a few months after wife Barbara passed away, former president George H.W. Bush, 94, has died. He had been in poor health in recent years. I believe at the time of his death he was the longest lived of all U.S. presidents, although Jimmy Carter was born the same year, 1924, but he was a few months younger.
Bush was also the second president to be the father of another president, only it was questionable whether the son actually won the presidency at all in 2000 and 2004.
Back to GHWB's marriage to Barbara: It often happens with married couples like the Bushes when one spouse dies, and then the surviving spouse deteriorates and dies shortly thereafter. But even before Barbara passed away, George I was in precarious health. He was confined to a wheelchair in his last years.
Of course, the conspiracy theorists loved him, and he was considered the patriarch of the Bush Crime Family. His father, Prescott Bush, was another person who was considered shady. And of course, George I had to go around and father six kids (one dying in childhood) with Barbara, including George W., who had connections in Florida--namely brother Jeb then governor--and on the USSC to steal a presidency for him. As for the older Bush, George I, he spent seemingly his entire life in D.C. although nominally from Texas but a longtime resident of Kennebunkport, Maine, near the home of one-time singer Jane Morgan--memorably insinuated to be perhaps a little more than a good friend of GHWB in an infamous article in Spy magazine years ago by Joe Conason. Another woman rumored to be just a little more than a good friend of GWHB was Jennifer Fitzgerald, a UK-born woman who was a longtime aide of his. She is still alive last I heard, and she is way up there in years, probably in her late eighties now. Whatever the truth of those relationships and perhaps others, none of the rumors ever really stuck to him. Barbara was there through it all--or almost through it all. They were married something like 72 or 73 years before she died in April. That is longer than a lot of people live during a lifetime.
Bush was a representative from Texas, UN ambassador under Nixon, then headed the Republican National Committee. After that stint, he became the head of the CIA in the 1970s before running for president in 1980. He lost to Ronald Reagan, of course, but Reagan offered him the VP slot, which he took. He became VP during Reagan's two terms before winning the presidency in 1988. He got it through one of the sleaziest campaigns in history thanks to the sleazy Lee Atwater. However, his presidency, other than his signing of the ADA, a significant achievement, wasn't all that notable, and his presidency is typically lumped in with Reagan's.
Bush ran against Bill Clinton in 1992, with a third-party challenge from Ross Perot, in what was a unique instance of all three of the major candidates for president being left-handed. Since I am also left-handed, I thought I'd make a note of it.
After the defeat for re-election, Bush gradually withdrew from public life. He was still parachuting out of airplanes well into his eighties, but in the end, he got too old and too frail to do that.
From this obituary:
Bush famously disagreed with Reagan when he ran against him in the Republican primary of 1980. Bush branded Reagan's supply-side faith that government could slash tax rates without losing revenue as "voodoo economic policy."
History would prove that assessment right. Reagan later had to reverse some of his tax cuts in the face of mounting deficits. But by the time Bush ran to succeed Reagan, he knew what it took to win the confidence of conservative Republicans.
"Read my lips," Bush pledged at the 1988 GOP convention. "No new taxes."
I also don't want to forget about the circumstances of Reagan's election in 1980, and the rumors of how much George I was involved in the infamous "October Surprise." There were rumors George I was heavily involved in it, and not just William Casey and more peripheral figures. There is no doubt in my mind the "October Surprise" happened because Reagan basked in the glow of the hostages being released on the day he was inaugurated despite the fact Carter was the one who worked day and night for their release. The whole damned election stunk to high heaven.
The New York Times:
As the elder Mr. Bush watched troubles envelop the eight-year presidency of his son, however, what had been a source of pride became a cause of distress, friends said. The contrast between the two President Bushes — 41 and 43, as they came to call each other — served to burnish the father’s reputation in later years. As the younger Mr. Bush’s popularity fell, the elder Mr. Bush’s public standing rose. Many Americans came to appreciate the restrained, seasoned leadership the 41st president had displayed; in an opinion poll in 2012, 59 percent expressed approval. Democrats, including President Barack Obama, praised the father as a way of rebuking the son.
It was a subject Mr. Bush avoided discussing in public but one he finally addressed in conversations with Jon Meacham, his biographer, in a book published in 2015. Mr. Bush was quoted as saying that his son’s administration had been harmed by a “hard line” atmosphere that pushed an aggressive and ultimately self-destructive use of force around the world, and he placed the blame for that on men who had long been part of his own life and who became key figures in his son’s orbit — Dick Cheney, his son’s vice president, and Donald H. Rumsfeld, his son’s secretary of defense, with whom the elder Mr. Bush had feuded.
Edit: I took a look at his senior yearbook from Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, 1942 edition. He was known as "Pop" or "Poppy" even then. He was the classic overachiever common in high schools all over the country, both public and private. His extracurriculars are too numerous to mention, but they are included on page 39. The name of the yearbook is Pot Pourri.
By way of contrast, his son, George II, also had extracurricular activities listed in his yearbook of 1964, but they were more sports-oriented than his father's.
Phillips Academy, commonly known as "Andover," went co-ed in 1973.
