The 41st president on the United States, Bush served from 1989 to 1993, with the successful campaign to drive Saddam Hussein from Kuwait his most significant accomplishment. Bush, the 41st President, whose steady hand and foreign policy vision led the nation through a period of sweeping global change, has died at the age of 94. Family spokesman Jim McGrath says Bush died shortly after 10 p.m. Friday, about eight months after the death of his wife, Barbara Bush. Spokesman Jim McGrath confirmed his passing on Twitter with a statement from his son, former president George W. Bush, that read:

"Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro, and I are saddened to announce that after 94 remarkable years, our dear Dad has died. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for.”

US President Donald Trump hailed his “sound judgement, common sense and unflappable leadership” in a statement posted on Twitter on Saturday. Hide Caption 47 of 47

The first sitting vice president to be elected to the presidency since 1836, Bush was also only the second person in US history to see his own son follow in his presidential footsteps when George W. Bush was elected in 2000. His term as president saw him as a “pragmatic caretaker,” with no unified long-term theme, but he led the country during the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany; the overthrow, with the help of U.S. troops, of the Manuel Noriega regime in Panama; the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War; and the first Gulf War against Iraq in defense of Kuwait. The elder Mr. Bush told Time magazine in 2003 that whether to go to war is a lonely call for any commander in chief: “It is the toughest decision a president has to make, to send the sons and daughters of Americans into harm’s way.”

The Gulf War was not the end of Mr. Bush’s foreign policy legacy. The conservative wing of his party would not forgive him for breaking an ill-advised and cocky pledge: “Read my lips: No new taxes.” What cost him among voters at large, however, was his inability to express a connection to and engagement with the struggles of ordinary Americans or a strategy for turning the economy around. WWII hero became Texas oil prospector

Born in Massachusetts on June 12, 1924, George H. W. Bush was the son of wealthy Wall Street banker and future Connecticut Sen. Prescott Bush and Dorothy Bush. But Mr. Bush said his father had also insisted that privilege carried a responsibility to “put something back in, do something, help others.”

His own time to serve came on his 18th birthday, when he enlisted in the Navy; within a year, he received his wings and became one of the youngest pilots in the service. After returning from the Pacific, Bush attended Yale University, where he was a noted athlete and then went west with his new wife, Barbara Pierce, to set himself up as an early Texas oil prospector. Bush, the 41st president of the United States and the father of the 43rd, was a steadfast force on the international stage for decades, from his stint as an envoy to Beijing to his eight years as vice president and his one term as commander in chief from 1989 to 1993. The former president said no, and that he was ready to go and be with Barbara and Robin, who died of leukemia as a child. The executive appointments that followed gave him the reputation of the person with “the best resume in Washington.” He was U.S ambassador to the United Nations; chairman of the Republican National Committee; chief U.S. liaison officer to the People’s Republic of China; and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. “There were always doubts at the beginning whether he (Bush) was up to these jobs,” New York Times columnist Scotty Reston opined in 1979, reflecting on this flurry of presidential appointments, “but applause for his record at the end.”

In 1980, Mr. Bush lost his first bid for the Republican presidential nomination to former California Governor Ronald Reagan, but accepted a spot on the GOP national ticket and served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He entered and left the presidency with about a 50 percent approval rating; it spiked to 90 percent after Operation Desert Storm, then fell to about 30 percent by the middle of 1992. On his final day, Bush was asked, according to a source, whether he wanted to go to the hospital. The inauguration of the younger Bush was a triumphant and moving occasion for members of one of the nation’s most prominent political families.
Former U.S. President George H. W. Bush dies of Parkinsonism at the age of 94, at about 10:10 p.m. CST.