While I have had George H.W. Bush listed on my Hail to the Chief page for a while, in truth neither of the two entries would satisfy a purist like myself. One was a collection of letters, which was a useful supplement, and the other was a memoir by George W. reflecting on his father – and I didn’t even review that one, just shared quotes from it. So, George H.W. Bush!
This is an unusual entry for this project because this is the first book concerning a president I actively remember: while I was alive during Reagan’s second term, my first president was George HW, and I remember being taken to my grandparents’ house to watch either the debates or the election night results in 1992. When I read a couple of titles listed to him last year, I made no pretense at objectivity.
George HW Bush is a straightforward biography of the man, who became a Navy pilot during World War 2 and returned to civilian life to play ball at Yale, pitch woo to the future Barbara Bush, and then get involved in the oil business. He got involved in politics, and public life became his vocation after the oil secured his financial health. A lifelong Republican, he pitched to the Goldwater crowd early on but quickly realized he was deeply uncomfortable vying for election by espousing beliefs that were not his: he tacked back toward the center and there he remained, becoming increasingly active in Republican party action. When Watergate began unfolding, he had the unenviable position of being the new RNC chair, forced to confront a man he admired. While he and Reagan were adversaries at first – Bush dismissed Reagan’s novel attempt at balancing the budget while increasing defense spending and cutting taxes as ‘voodoo economics’ – they quickly became working partners. Naftali suspects Bush may have been more culpable in re: Iran-Contra than Reagan, in part because Reagan’s memory was fading in his second term and he was reliant on his diary to remember policy decisions and actions. This is just an interpretation, though. (At any rate, I am completely unbothered by selling guns to fight commies – it’s just that whole ‘Congress said specifically not to do this’ thing that gets in the way.)
To be honest, reading this book was a bit like reading a long Wikipedia entry: I already had the measure of the man, especially gleaned from his letters, and I mostly read this for completions sake. I plan on reading Meacham’s far larger treatment of Poppy in the future, but it’s eight hundred pages and I have been unwittingly seduced by Caro’s four-volume work on LBJ.
