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War pilot, UN ambbadador, congressman, CIA director, vice president and president: George HW Bush was almost everything, but he went into history as a that president with a mandate to which the popularity of the Gulf War was attributed was not enough to survive the economic downturn.
Bush's father, as he was popularly known after the election of his son George W. Bush in 2000, will be remembered as a moderate Republican who knew how to earn respect from both parties alike. He has only been in power for four years. .
The fragile national economy put an end to a presidency defined by foreign policy: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, the invasion of Panama, the Gulf War, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war.
In 1991, he signed with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachov, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to limit the number of nuclear missiles.
However, it is his leadership in the Gulf War (1990-1991), reaching the exit of Iraq from Kuwait with a minimum of American casualties, making him the most popular president of the country at that time , with 89% approval.
George HW Bush and his wife Barbara during the campaign in the Senate, in the image of June 6, 1964 – Photo: Ed Kolenovsky Bush organized a military coalition of more than 30 countries against the invasion of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in Kuwait in August 1990 and obtained the liberation of the small oil country with five weeks of & # 39; air offensive and 100 hours of land combat.
The invasion of Panama in December 1989, with the capture of dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega, imposed by the American justice system for drug trafficking, is another of his major operations abroad.
The popularity he gained from Americans with his foreign policy victories was undermined by the economic recession that forced him to break his great election promise not to raise taxes.
The famous phrase "Read my lips, there will be no new taxes", emblematic of his acceptance speech as a Republican candidate in 1988, continued later during the 1992 re-election campaign, when its opponents cited it as an example. broken promises.
In addition, his refusal to increase unemployment badistance for fear of widening the deficit has earned him to be accused of lack of empathy with regard to people most affected by the economic crisis.
Because this idea brought its privileged origins to a wealthy family from New England, the son of Prescott Bush, a great Wall Street banker who later became a federal senator.
Thus, despite the unprecedented popularity of its military and diplomatic triumphs, Bush lost to Arkansas's Democratic governor, Bill Clinton, the 1992 election, unable to survive social discontent due to the economic crisis and intensifying violence in poor neighborhoods of urban centers.
Eight years later, his eldest son, George W. Bush, will succeed Clinton to the White House, a path he has tried to follow during the fruitless elections of 2016, his second son and former governor from Florida (1999-2007). Jeb Bush, who had to withdraw very early Republican primaries face a weak popular support.
Although they followed in their footsteps in politics, none of their children followed their broad trajectory: Congressman, Ambbadador to the UN, President of the Republican National Committee, Head of the Contact Office with China , Director of the CIA, Vice President of Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) and President (1989-1993).
George Herbert Walker Bush (Milton, Mbadachusetts, 1924) showed early leadership: he was president of his clbad, captain of Handball team and member of exclusive badociations during his years at the elite boarding school. from the Phillips Academy.
At age 18, entry deferred to Yale University – where he would graduate as an economist years later – would be the youngest pilot to date in the Navy and would fight in World War II.
In 1944, his plane was hit by a Japanese fire. He then pursues to his target, a radio station, and bombs it successfully before the parachute jump, before being rescued by an American submarine.
A year later, he married Barbara Pierce, the lover of his life, whom he met at a Christmas ball and with whom he has been married for 73 years, until he 39 to his death almost eight months ago.
The couple had six children – George, Robin, Jeb, Neil, Marvin and Dorothy – but suffered the tragedy of the death of their first daughter, Robin, with leukemia just before her fourth birthday.
George HW Bush, who was suffering from a form of Parkinson's that prevented him from walking, died today at the age of 94 after being hospitalized several times for respiratory problems and a cervical fracture.
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