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Time in Office: January 1989 to January 1993
Terms: One
Birthday: June 12, 1924
Birth Place: Milton, Massachusetts
Notes:
~ A school leader at Phillips Academy
~ Parachuted out of his burning plane during World War II
~ Flew 58 combat missions during World War II
~ Graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale in 2 and a half years instead of 4
~ A millionaire by the age of 42
~ Two terms as US Vice President (under Reagan)
~ Was acting President for 8 hours during a Reagan surgery
~ One son was US President, another is Governor of Florida
~ Director of the CIA
~ Awarded the Medal of Freedom in 2011
The 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush was born in 1924 in the town of Milton, Massachusetts. Soon after George’s birth, the family moved to Greenwich, Connecticut where he attended the Greenwich Country Day School and Phillips Academy – Andover, Massachusetts. George was a well-rounded student – playing both basketball and baseball – along with being president of his senior class and a active member of the school’s newspaper.
George was accepted to Yale but when he graduated from Phillips Academy in 1942 he instead entered the Navy and World War II. Commissioned in 1943 as an Ensign and aviator in the US Naval Reserve in Chorpus Christi, Texas, Bush began his Naval career 3 days before his 19th birthday.
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Flying missions off the aircraft carrier San Jacinto, Bush had to once abandon his burning aircraft and spend 4 hours on the sea in a lifeboat waiting for rescue. Bush took part in missions in the Bonin Islands and the Phillipines.
Reassigned to the naval base in Norfolk, Virginia and then to a naval air station in Michigan, Ltjg (junior grade) Bush was honorably discharged September 1945.
Earlier in 1945 George Bush had married Barbara Pierce and had finally begun his time at Yale. He was captain of the baseball team and was elected president of his fraternity. He graduated in 1948 and moved his family to West Texas to take a job as a sales clerk at an oil company where his father was on the board of directors.
Bush started his own oil company in 1951. He moved company operations from Midland, Texas to Houston, and by the time Bush began to pursue his political ambitions in 1966, he was the company’s chairman and a millionaire. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1966, was appointed by Nixon as Ambassador to the United Nations in 1971, and by President Ford as Chinese envoy. In 1976 Ford appointed Bush Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Deciding to run for President in the 1980 election, George’s unsuccessful campaign took him some 250,000 miles to over 850 political events. Feeling discouraged, he sold his home in Houston and bought his Grandfather’s estate in Kennebunkport, Maine. He was soon selected for the Vice Presidential spot by Ronald Reagan – the Republican party’s eventual winner. After serving two terms as Vice President, George H. W. Bush was elected President in the 1988 US election – taking office January 1989.
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Bush was busy during his Presidency dealing with political upheaval in Panama, the Soviet Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the NAFTA agreement, civil war in Somalia, and the Gulf War. He was a frequent traveler. International trips for the President were enhanced by his receipt of the new Boeing 747s – which technological advances enabled him to function as if he were at the White House while traveling. Bush was defeated in the Presidential Election of 1992 by Bill Clinton.
Presidential Travel
1989
~Canada ~Japan ~People’s Republic of China ~Korea
~Italy ~Vatican City ~Belgium(2x) ~Federal Republic of Germany
~United Kindgom ~Poland ~Hungary ~France(2x) ~ The Netherlands
~Costa Rica ~Malta
1990
~Columbia ~Canada ~United Kingdom ~Finland ~Czechoslovakia
~Germany ~France ~Saudi Arabis ~Egypt ~Switzerland ~Mexico
~Brazil ~Uraguay ~Argentina ~Chile ~Venezuela
1991
~Canada(2x) ~France(2x) ~United Kingdom(2x) ~Greece ~Turkey
~USSR ~Spain ~Italy ~Vatican City ~The Netherlands
1992
~Australia ~Singapore ~Korea ~Japan ~Panama ~Brazil
~Poland ~Germany ~Finland ~Saudi Arabia ~Somalia ~Russia
~France
++ 2011 hourly costs to US taxpayers for Presidential travel on Air Force One?
Bush and his wife live in Houston and at their estate in Maine. George holds his own fishing tournament at Islamorada in the Florida Keys.
In November 1997 the George Bush Presidential Library opened on the Texas A&M campus – College Station, Texas. Bush continues to make public appearances and in 2009 was with his son, then President George W. Bush, at the commissioning of the aircraft supercarrier bearing his name.
Former: President Ronald W. Reagan
Next : Bill Clinton