Statement by the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, on the passing of his father this evening at the age 94.
Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush dies at age 94
Former President George Bush, a war hero, father of a president and founder of the modern Texas Republican Party who presided over momentous global changes, died Friday at 94.
Bush died just after 10 p.m. Funeral arrangements will be announced at a later time, spokesman Jim McGrath said.
“George H. W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for,” former President George W. Bush said in a written statement. “The entire Bush family is deeply grateful for 41’s life and love, for the compassion of those who have cared and prayed for Dad, and for the condolences of our friends and fellow citizens.”
His health already fragile, the heartbreak of losing his first lady and wife of 73 years hit hard. Barbara Bush died on April 17 at age 92. He was hospitalized a day after the funeral with a serious blood infection but recovered.
As the nation’s 41st commander in chief, Bush presided during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the turning back of an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, with a deftness honed as a diplomat and CIA chief.
But he was ousted after one term, his popularity sapped after an extended recession and anger over the breaking of his “no new taxes” pledge — a turning point that continues to reverberate in Washington budget fights.
For more than two decades after that, he was a senior statesman, forming a friendship with the Democrat who defeated him, Bill Clinton, and seeing his family firmly cemented as one of the nation’s political dynasties.
As Barbara Bush told friends: “He may not be able to keep a job but he’s certainly not boring,” Susan Garrett Baker, wife of Bush secretary of state James Baker, recalled at the former first lady’s funeral.
He was frail at the wedding of granddaughter Barbara Bush on Oct. 7, held at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Bush was the son of a two-term U.S. senator from Connecticut. He would become only the second president, after John Adams, whose son followed him to the White House. George W. Bush of Dallas, a two-term Texas governor, became the nation’s 43rd chief executive eight years after his father’s defeat. A younger son, Jeb Bush, served as governor of Florida and ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination, an also-ran swept away by the candidacy of Donald Trump.
