George H. W. Bush: Address to Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis

About the Author

George Herbert Walker Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, on June 12, 1924, and grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, in a rich, privileged family. His father, Prescott Bush, was a partner in a prominent investment banking firm and later served from 1952 to 1963 as a Republican U.S. senator from Connecticut. After graduating from the Phillips Academy on his birthday in 1942, Bush enlisted that same day in the U.S. Navy. He became the youngest pilot in that service. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1944 when his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire during a bombing mission in the western Pacific. He married Barbara Pierce in January 1945, enrolled at Yale University, and earned a degree in economics in 1948.

After graduation, Bush moved to Texas, where he established the Zapata Petroleum Company. By the 1960s his company and its affiliates were involved in oil production in many parts of the world, including the Persian Gulf. He entered Republican politics in Texas during the early 1960s and won election in 1966 to the U.S. House of Representatives. After two terms, he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970, but he lost to Democrat Lloyd Bentsen. Following his defeat, Bush was appointed to several major positions, including U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1971 to 1972, chair of the Republican National Committee (1972–1974), U.S. representative to the People's Republic of China (1974–1975), and director of the Central Intelligence Agency (1976–1977). In 1980 Bush campaigned unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for president. Ronald Reagan asked Bush to join the ticket as his vice presidential running mate, and he served two terms in that office (1981–1989). In 1988 he won the Republican nomination for president and then handily defeated his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, in November.

Bush's most significant achievements as president were in foreign affairs. During his first year in the White House, the cold war ended as the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe collapsed when popular revolutions drove Communist regimes from power. As the Berlin Wall tumbled on November 9, 1989, Bush avoided any triumphant declarations and instead established a cooperative relationship with the Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, that reshaped international relations. The new U.S.–Soviet harmony contributed to concerted international opposition to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Bush forged a broad international coalition that waged the Persian Gulf War in January to February 1991 to liberate Kuwait.

Bush had a much less successful record in domestic affairs. He signed the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Clean Air Act, but economic troubles persisted throughout his presidency. In 1991 a recession erased the gains in the public approval polls that he had made during the Persian Gulf War. Many conservative Republicans doubted that he shared their convictions, especially after he agreed to tax increases in 1990 to close the federal budget deficit. Liberals and moderates complained that he had no grand goals that he hoped to achieve as president. In a three-way contest for the presidency in 1992 that included independent candidate Ross Perot, Bush lost the election to the Democratic nominee, Bill Clinton. After leaving the presidency, Bush retired from politics. In 2001 he became the second former president—John Adams was the first—to see his son (George W. Bush) inaugurated as president.