George Herbert Walker Bush led the U.S. to a swift and decisive victory in the first Persian Gulf War and presided over the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union and unification of Germany, before a painful recession cost him a second term as president. 
 
 He died on Friday at age 94. His wife of more than 70 years, Barbara, died at the age of 92 earlier this year. 
 
 Mr. Bush was the last American president to serve in World War II, a fight that helped shape his life and the lives of many in his generation. He went on to build a sterling resume—businessman, member of Congress, envoy to the United Nations and China, head of the Central Intelligence Agency—before becoming Republican Ronald Reagan’s vice president in 1980 and then succeeding him in the White House in the election in 1988. 
 
 He lost his bid for re-election to Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992, after a campaign in which he was hampered by two years of disappointing economic performance and an insurrection among his own party’s conservatives over a decision to raise taxes. The loss was a bitter personal disappointment, but one he handled with the kind of grace that allowed him to become friends with Mr. Clinton in later life. 
 
 In subsequent years, historians have been far kinder regarding the Bush presidency than were voters at the time. Mr. Bush also won some degree of vindication when his eldest son, George W. Bush, won the White House in 2000, making Mr. Bush the only American since John Adams to be both a president and father of a president. 
 
 George H.W. Bush was born June 12, 1924, in Milton, Mass. His father, Prescott Bush, was a successful Wall Street executive and, later, a U.S. senator from Connecticut. 
 
 The son appeared set to follow his father’s steps from elite prep school to Yale and on to a career in the financial industry when World War II broke out. The younger Mr. Bush joined the Navy and, when sworn in on his 18th birthday, became its youngest pilot. 
 
 He flew 58 missions in the Pacific, piloting an Avenger torpedo bomber—with his girlfriend Barbara’s name painted on its side—from an aircraft carrier. He was shot down and was rescued by a submarine, a rescue captured in what became a famous bit of grainy film footage. Two other crewmen died; Mr. Bush was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. 
 
 Photos: The Life of President George H.W. Bush The 41st president served from 1989 to 1993 and was the father of a president and a former Florida governor. Mr. Bush, arriving from a day trip to Columbia, S.C., on Feb. 15, 1989, waved to the White House balcony where first lady Barbara Bush was waiting for him. Charles Tasnadi/Associated Press 1 of 20 • • • • • 1 of 20 Show Caption Mr. Bush, arriving from a day trip to Columbia, S.C., on Feb. 15, 1989, waved to the White House balcony where first lady Barbara Bush was waiting for him. Charles Tasnadi/Associated Press 
 
 Upon returning from the war, he married that girlfriend, the former Barbara Pierce, and finished his education at Yale, but eschewed the path to Wall Street that his family ties offered. Instead, with the help of a dose of family money, he moved to Midland, Texas, where he became a businessman in the oil-field supply, exploration and production businesses. Later, he co-founded Zapata Petroleum, which pioneered offshore oil-drilling platforms. 
 
 The Bush family eventually moved to Houston, where he began his political career as chairman of the Harris County Republican Party. After an unsuccessful run for a Senate seat, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966 and served two terms. 
 
 He then lost another race for a U.S. Senate seat, a defeat that might well have ended his political career. But he was rescued by President Richard Nixon, who named him ambassador to the United Nations. A series of other top appointments followed, including chairman of the Republican National Committee, envoy to China and director of the CIA. 
 
 That string of jobs made Mr. Bush a sufficiently prominent figure in the Republican Party, and he decided to seek the presidency in 1980. For a time he was the leading contender, particularly after scoring a surprise win in the Iowa caucuses. 
 
 He had long embraced his father’s brand of moderate Republican politics, and labeled the tax-cut plans of his main conservative foe, Mr. Reagan, as “voodoo economics.” 
 
 But a conservative wave was sweeping the GOP, and it carried Mr. Reagan to the nomination. At a dramatic convention in Detroit, Mr. Reagan flirted with asking a former president, Gerald Ford, to serve as his running mate, before deciding that wouldn’t be a workable plan. At the last minute, he asked Mr. Bush to run with him. 
 
 It was a potentially uncomfortable fit, but Mr. Bush was unswerving in his loyalty to Mr. Reagan. He embodied what former Secretary of State George Shultz called in a memoir “the loyal lieutenant role,” intimately involved in the councils of power and serving as a confidential adviser to the president. 
 
 He also left few traces of his own influence. When the Iran-Contra scandal rocked the Reagan administration in 1986, Mr. Bush escaped censure by claiming he had been “out of the loop” when decisions were made to trade arms for hostages. He attended so many state funerals that some joked his motto was “You die, I fly.” 
 
 Mr. Bush’s shining moment as vice president came in the aftermath of the 1981 assassination attempt on Mr. Reagan, when the president lay near death in the hospital and the nation seemed leaderless. While Secretary of State Al Haig memorably declared himself “in charge,” Mr. Bush slid into place, easing the crisis atmosphere without seeming to arrogate power to himself. 
 
 He ran to succeed Mr. Reagan, won the nomination and announced to the 1988 Republican convention that he envisioned a “kinder and gentler nation.” That was a rhetorical signal of at least a slight shift to the center after the Reagan years. 
 
 But, in an effort to deflect skepticism among some conservatives, Mr. Bush also declared, “Read my lips: No new taxes,” a fateful promise that came back to haunt and eventually help undo his presidency. 
 
 As the economy and the nation’s fiscal condition deteriorated, Mr. Bush abandoned the no-tax-hike pledge and signed a tax-raising measure. The decision evoked anger and a sense of betrayal among conservatives and led to a primary challenge from the right’s firebrand Pat Buchanan. Mr. Bush also was hurt by a weak base in Washington; he was only the second American president to serve a full term without party control in either chamber of Congress. 
 
 Earlier Former first lady Barbara Bush has died at the age of 92. She was the wife of 41st president George H.W. Bush, mother of 43rd president, George W. Bush, and 2016 candidate Jeb Bush. During and after her time in the White House she championed the cause of improving literacy rates among Americans. Photo: Reuters 
 
 Mr. Bush was far more in his element on international affairs. After Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Mr. Bush—aided by his close associates, Brent Scowcroft as national security adviser and James Baker as secretary of state—patiently wove a diplomatic and military web that trapped the Iraqi leader and led to a lightning war that successfully drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. 
 
 When the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, the Bush administration delicately handled the immediate potentially explosive political fallout among old adversaries and, through patient diplomacy, helped pave the way for a largely peaceful series of revolutions in Eastern Europe that culminated in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. 
 
 Mr. Bush proved himself willing to use American military might elsewhere. He first took military action in 1989, when he ordered the removal of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. 
 
 After success in the 100-hour Persian Gulf War, the greatest U.S. military victory since World War II, Mr. Bush seemed the captain of an American juggernaut. His approval rating approached 90%. He and advisers began talking about a “new world order” of international equilibrium. 
 
 But the American electorate turned fickle in the face of high unemployment and a sluggish economy, and Mr. Buchanan mounted a primary challenge to his re-election in 1992. He never fully recovered and lost the election to Mr. Clinton. 
 
 Mr. Bush inspired generations of Americans to public service, President Trump said in a statement early Saturday. “Along with his full life of service to country, we will remember President Bush for his devotion to family—especially the love of his life, Barbara.” 
 
 In retirement, Mr. Bush undertook a few diplomatic missions and celebrated his birthday into his mid-80s with a parachute jump. He developed postpresidential friendships with former foes, including Bob Dole, a fellow World War II veteran. And he built a strong bond with Bill Clinton, which began when the two former presidents worked together to raise money for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and continued as they occasionally joined forces on other projects. 
 
 While his son George W. Bush was elected president and managed to win the second term that had eluded him, Mr. Bush stayed largely in the background. Later, Mr. Bush again stayed largely in the background while his wife, Barbara, gave interviews supporting son Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign. 
 
 Mr. Bush found a way, though, to signal his unhappiness with the man who vanquished his son in the 2016 election, Donald Trump. He stayed away from his party’s 2016 convention. 
 
 When Barbara Bush died, Mr. Bush’s office described the former president as heartbroken but strong and stoic. Of her passing, Mr. Bush said: “We have faith she is in heaven, and we know life will go on—as she would have it. So cross the Bushes off your worry list.” 
 
 Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com ||||| “It is my considered judgment that you should now resign. I expect in your lonely, embattled position this would seem to you as an act of disloyalty from one you have supported and helped in so many ways. My own view is that I would now ill serve a president, whose massive accomplishments I will always respect and whose family I love, if I did not now give you my judgment.” August 1974, speaking to President Richard Nixon shortly before he resigned, when Bush was Republican national chairman. 
 
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 “And my opponent won’t rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push again. And I’ll say to them: Read my lips. No new taxes.” 18 August, 1988, during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. 
 
 George HW Bush, former US president, dies aged 94 Read more 
 
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 “We know what works: Freedom works. We know what’s right: Freedom is right. We know how to secure a more just and prosperous life for man on Earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state.” 20 January, 1989, during his inaugural address. 
 
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 “Look to the very heart of Europe, to Berlin, and you will see a great truth shining brighter with each passing day: The quest for freedom is stronger than steel, more permanent than concrete.” November 1989, as the Berlin Wall was crumbling. 
 
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 “I do not like broccoli, and I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli.” 22 March, 1990. 
 
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 “Five months ago, Saddam Hussein started this cruel war against Kuwait. Tonight, the battle has been joined. ... Our goal is not the conquest of Iraq. It is the liberation of Kuwait.” 17 January, 1991, when the first Gulf War began. 
 
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 “The fact that he is black, a minority, has nothing to do with this. He is the best qualified.” July 1991, on announcing he had selected federal appeals court judge Clarence Thomas for the US supreme court. 
 
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 “I plan to put something back into society, and not at the head table, not always in the glamour, certainly not with a lot of news attention.” January 1993, days before leaving office. 
 
 George HW Bush obituary Read more 
 
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 “To those who say we no longer need a CIA, I say you’re nuts. To those who want to dismantle CIA or put it under some other department ... you’re nuts, too. And to those who feel the right to know takes precedence over legitimate classification of documents or over protecting our most precious asset, our people, the same to you. You’re nuts, and so’s the horse you came in on.” 17 September, 1997, at ceremony marking the 50th birthday of the CIA. 
 
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 “Though I might be tempted to utter a few words of encouragement to anyone who is considering my boy, I will heed the immortal words of Dana Carvey: ‘Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent.’” Early 2000, citing a line from the Saturday Night Live comedian while attending a nonpartisan event as his son sought the GOP nomination. 
 
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 “I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life.” 11 June, 2004, at the funeral for former President Ronald Reagan. 
 
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 “Who would have thought that I would be working with Bill Clinton, of all people? ... It’s been an eye-opening and enjoyable experience for me to work with him on something truly apolitical.” 25 October, 2005, discussing his work with a former rival on tsunami and hurricane relief. ||||| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former President George H.W. Bush was hailed at his state funeral on Wednesday as a warrior-statesman of uncommon personal kindness who went from being a hero of American conflicts to representing a bygone era of civility in politics. 
 
 Amid an unusual bipartisan spirit at the service at the Washington National Cathedral, both Republican and Democratic politicians honored a president who called for a “kinder, gentler” nation. 
 
 Bush, the 41st U.S. president, died last week in Texas aged 94. He occupied the White House from 1989 to 1993, navigating the collapse of the Soviet Union and expelling former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s forces from oil-rich Kuwait. 
 
 “George H.W. Bush was America’s last great soldier-statesman,” Jon Meacham, a presidential biographer, said in a eulogy. “He stood in the breach in the Cold War against totalitarianism. He stood in the breach in Washington against unthinking partisanship,” he said. 
 
 At a ceremony full of pomp but also peppered with laughter, the capital’s current political feuds were briefly set aside in honor of the late president, a naval aviator who survived being shot down by Japanese forces over the Pacific Ocean in World War Two, and a former head of the CIA during the Cold War. 
 
 A patrician figure, Bush was voted out of office in part for failing to connect with ordinary Americans during an economic recession. 
 
 But he has been remembered as representing an earlier era of civility in American politics, that image burnished in recent years by the divisiveness and anger in the United States that accompanied the rise of President Donald Trump. 
 
 Former President George W. Bush said his father “valued character over pedigree, and he was no cynic. He’d look for the good in each person, and he usually found it.” 
 
 “The best father a son or daughter could ever have,” the former president said in his eulogy, his voice cracking with emotion as he spoke near his father’s flag-draped coffin. 
 
 Related Coverage Day of mourning in Kosovo for Bush, seen as hero for 1992 letter 
 
 TEARS AND MEMORIES 
 
 Taking his seat at the cathedral, Trump shook hands with his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, who he has often sharply criticized. 
 
 Democratic former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 election opponent, and her husband former President Bill Clinton shared the front pew with Trump, Obama, and their spouses. 
 
 Trump, like Bush a Republican, infuriated the late president by attacking his sons, George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, a rival in the 2016 Republican primary campaign. 
 
 Trump sat mostly motionless next to first lady Melania Trump throughout much of the service. 
 
 He had tweeted earlier that he was “Looking forward to being with the Bush family. This is not a funeral, this is a day of celebration for a great man who has led a long and distinguished life. He will be missed!” 
 
 Bush did not endorse Trump in the 2016 presidential election. He did not publicly say who he voted for but a source told CNN at the time that he had voted for Hillary Clinton. 
 
 Bush, who was ailing in recent years, did send Trump a letter in January 2017 saying he would not be able to attend his inauguration because of health concerns, but wishing him the best. 
 
 All surviving former U.S. presidents were at the cathedral. During one of the eulogies, Bill Clinton wiped away tears and former first lady Michelle Obama leaned over to pat him on the arm. 
 
 The flag-draped casket of former President George H.W. Bush arrives carried by a military honor guard during a State Funeral at the National Cathedral, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018, in Washington. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS 
 
 ‘RESOLUTE AND BRAVE’ 
 
 Canadian former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney lauded Bush’s role in handling the end of the Cold War and helping the delicate reunification of Germany. 
 
 Bush put together a U.S.-led international coalition that ousted invading Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991 and was president when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. 
 
 “When George Bush was president of the United States of America, every single head of government in the world knew that they were dealing with a gentleman, a genuine leader, one who was distinguished, resolute and brave,” he said. 
 
 The guest list included Britain’s Prince Charles and leaders from Germany, Jordan, Australia and Poland, along with a host of former world leaders, such as former British Prime Minister John Major, who was in office during Bush’s term. 
 
 Trump closed the federal government on Wednesday to mark a day of mourning for Bush, and several U.S. financial exchanges were closed. 
 
 During his presidency, Bush was dogged by domestic problems, including a sluggish economy, and he faced criticism for not doing enough to stem the tens of thousands of deaths from the AIDS virus ravaging America. 
 
 When he ran for re-election in 1992, he was pilloried by Democrats and many Republicans for violating a famous 1988 campaign promise: “Read my lips, no new taxes.” His opponent Bill Clinton coasted to victory. 
 
 An ad from the 1988 campaign also came back to haunt Bush and tarnish his reputation as a fair player. 
 
 A political group close to the Bush campaign was accused of racism after releasing an ad about African-American prisoner Willie Horton who raped a white woman after being released on furlough. The ad suggested that Bush’s Democratic presidential opponent Michael Dukakis had been weak on crime while governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 Slideshow (24 Images) 
 
 Bush is to be buried on Thursday at his Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas. 
 
 Before Wednesday’s service, his body lay in state since Monday evening in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington. 
 
 Thousands of people filed past to pay their respects, some getting a chance to see Sully, a service dog who was Bush’s friendly companion. Sully became an internet sensation after being photographed lying next to his late master’s coffin.
– With George HW Bush dead at 94, coverage of the life of the 41st president is plentiful. Here are some early highlights: The broad strokes: For a thorough obituary and assessment, start with the Washington Post. Its story notes that while Bush served just one term as president, it was a consequential one. "The Berlin Wall fell; the Soviet Union ceased to exist; the communist bloc in Eastern Europe broke up; the Cold War ended." And Bush's "firm, restrained diplomatic sense helped assure the harmony and peace with which these world-shaking events played out, one after the other." Great detail: In its obituary, the Wall Street Journal notes that Bush flew 58 missions in the Pacific as a Navy pilot in WWII, all with the name of his girlfriend—Barbara—on the side of the plane. He once got shot down, with this video capturing the rescue. Bush is also the only American besides John Adams to be both president and the father of a president. Read his lips: The Guardian recounts some of his Bush's famous quotes, including his "read my lips" pledge to not raise taxes. He also dissed broccoli.